ABI Named to B2B Magazine’s Top Agency List

ABI Marketing Public Relations is proud to announce that it was named to B2B Magazine’s list of top agencies in 2011.

Inclusion on this list emphasizes ABI’s ongoing commitment to helping business-to-business companies increase market share through strategic marketing public relations. This focus has allowed the firm to help clients grow business worldwide.

I choose my words carefully, and I never repeat myself

By Shariq Sharif

“My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say, because I choose my words carefully, and I never repeat myself”. Yes, the film “Inside Man” begins in medias res with Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) narrating the above statement. For my own ironic amusement, I sometimes rewind the scene and force Mr. Russell to contradict himself over and over again.

Before you judge my sense of humor, take a quick look at today’s social media landscape and how riddled with repetition it is. Blogs, tweets, and even Facebook updates are often guilty of recycling ideas without the benefits of added insight.

Consider this: Shane Warne, a former cricket star, raged about his dissatisfaction with British Airways on twitter. His five tweets about the rude and arrogant behavior of staff and poor sitting arrangements was re-tweeted more than 60 times on Twitter by his followers. The tweets became hot news for journalists and received extensive online coverage through generating a cloud of negative perception for British Airways. Oops! This was enough to dent British Airways’ reputation.

What’s a dented behemoth like British Airways to do?

Enter “Reputation Management.” Reputation management includes optimization of key words associated with a brand, product or company. Additionally, it not only keeps real time tracking of online news and comments, but also responds to the negativity through appropriate public relations strategy. It fights fire with fire—forcing social media zombies to stop and think about what they’re thoughtlessly reposting.

To amend Mr. Russell’s aphorism: “I choose my words carefully because I know they’ll be repeated—and when they are, I want them to force people to think.”
Shariq Sharif is an Account Executive in the London office of ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +44 (0) 207 014 3523 or ssharif@abipr.com

ABI’s B-to-B Social Media Week Panel

By Justin Helmley

ABI recently hosted  a panel discussion as part of Social Media Week, concerning the importance of social media for B-to-B marketing, with our own Amy Epstein as the moderator.  The event covered hot topics in B-to-B like how to choose the appropriate social media platform for your company, how to generate leads through social media, and what social media can offer in building your SEO presence.

The panelist were:

• Dale Durrett, Director, Eastern Region Marketing Solutions, LinkedIn
• Brian Nizinsky, Manager, Online Marketing at Eastman Kodak Company
• Keith Trivitt, Associate Director of Public Relations at Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
• Jessica Tuquero, Manager, Communications at International Trademark Association

Here are some of the highlights from the discussion:

How do you determine which social media platform to use for your company’s campaign?

Jessica Tuquero, explained that “the voice you choose is more important than the channel you choose.”  Regardless of whether you tweet it or post a video to YouTube, you have to make sure to have a clear voice that will foster genuine dialogue.

Dale Durrett, agreed that the actual challenge is the dialogue: “The challenge is not really choosing the platform; it’s how you label yourself.”

What role does social media plays in crisis communication plans?

According to Brian Nizinsky, “Right now, crisis communications IS social media.  It’s number one.”  As he explained, as soon as any word is spoken, posted, or tweeted, it becomes instant PR.

What role should senior executives play in your company’s social media presence?

“In order to help executives understand what this all means, we have to understand it first,” Keith Trivitt reminded us.  Frankly, print may still be the best way to reach many CEOs.  So, if your executive is one of roughly half who are concerned with social media’s ever-increasing role in the work place, relax.  It’s important not to push them to open a Twitter account or become your Facebook friend, especially if they aren’t prepared to use them actively.

The panelists touched on many issues that B-to-B companies have to overcome when using social media. It’s clearly not a one-shoe fits all approach. But they all agreed that when a B-to-B company finds the appropriate social media outlets to connect with their customers, it is an invaluable tool.

Justin Helmley is an intern in the New York office at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at 212-529-4500 x217 or JHelmley@abipr.com.

Are you showing your true colors? Injecting the human factor in b-to-b online presence

By Susan Russo

If you take a look at the b-to-b social media space today, you’ll see a polarization of success.  There are a select group of business and staff pages with vibrant communities, full of engaged members that openly share their identity, background and opinions with one another.  On the other hand, you’ll find a sea of dead pages comprised of logos, faceless avatars and unanswered comments.  The key to social media success is clear.  Successful businesses and staff stay ahead of the curve by connecting with their audience through their personality (See packaging diva).

If you’re hesitant to show your personality online, remember: It’s not really about you- it’s about your target audience….and if they’re human, they’re going to be interested in connecting with   a real person (see automated customer service).

Fortunately, social media affords us the opportunity to connect with real people in unprecedented volumes.  Don’t be shy- take the opportunity. Here are five very manageable steps to get you started:

1. Take it beyond text : The most basic way to humanize your presence online is with photos.  Start out by swapping that infamous twitter egg with a picture of yourself.  Then, remember to keep it fresh.  Have you attended an industry event recently or met with an industry leader?  Show what you’ve been up to lately by posting a photo.  After a while, your audience will begin to feel connected to you.

2. Engage: Social media (even within the b-to-b space) can be compared to a cocktail party.  Avoid being a wallflower by actively making new contacts.  Increase your Twitter presence by proactively following others- you’ll likely get a “follow back”.  Once you’ve got an audience, keep their attention by talking about things they care about.  Re-tweet or link useful, industry- relevant articles to your audience.  An occasional post outside of business will add some personality too.

3. Don’t be afraid to share your opinion: If you’re sharing interesting content, be prepared to receive and respond to comments on your page.  Opinions and interaction drive successful businesses- don’t be afraid of them.  Honest dialogue will position you as a thought-leader and a resource to your audiences.

4. Organize or attend meet ups: After you’ve spent a bit of time online, you’ll come to ‘know’ the key industry players online.  Keep an eye out for meet-ups through tweets, blogs and sites like http://social-media.meetup.com.  If you don’t find an event covering a topic you are interested in, be a leader and create one.  (A post on ABI’s social media event is coming soon on Trendspeak.)

Susan Russo is an Account Executive at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at 212-529-2635 and srusso@abipr.com.

Trade Show Confidential: Enhancing Your Booth

By Nicole Zampino

Trade shows are a powerful opportunity to build awareness for your brand and generate new business opportunities in a short amount of time. The trick is taking full advantage of this platform to get the most out of your investment.

Here are a few ways to do just that:

Show off your brand in your booth design. Think about the core attributes that define your brand. Perhaps it’s innovation, sustainability, convenience or something as simple as color. Make those the leading design elements of your booth so attendees visually connect you to those attributes.

Tell a powerful story through messaging. Clear, concise messaging is essential to capture the attention of attendees. Emphasize innovations with the word “new” and highlight key business benefits of your products or technologies instead of the technical features. You can highlight the latter once the attendee is engaged by understanding how working with you will improve their bottom line or get to market faster.

Develop a compelling giveaway. This shouldn’t be gimmicky. Think about what customers and prospects would find valuable – perhaps it’s a white paper on an important industry trend or a copy of a recent market research study. Promote the giveaway in all pre-show marketing activities so attendees know it’s available.

Prep your sales team. The effectiveness of your team can make or break your success at a trade show. Schedule staff in advance to avoid overcrowding and review key booth etiquette (i.e. no cell phones!) to ensure you create an inviting experience for visitors.

What have you done to enhance the success of your last trade show? We’ve love to hear about it!

Nicole Zampino is the Director of Client Services at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +1 212-529-2234 and nzampino@abipr.com.

When Cultures Clash

By Tim Colbert

A jaded former colleague Who Shall Not Be Named at a PR firm Which Shall Not Be Named once offered this witty riposte at the end of a particularly brutal conference call: “This job would be great if we could just get rid of the clients.”

Fear not, David Sedaris, fear not.

Well, that guy was not long for that firm and with good reason. He didn’t want to conform (perhaps too strong a word) or alter his MO given who the clients were, what level of risk they were comfortable with, and how the effects of their idiosyncratic culture –in this case a non-profit led by an extremely strong-willed individual who really “got PR” (natch)–  played itself out.

This all came to mind due to a Sunday NY Times “Corner Office” with Michael Lebowitz, founder and C.E.O. of Big Spaceship.

One of his primary takeaways is that hiring the right people to create the right kind of culture is extremely important. Well, OK, no surprises up that sleeve. But it begs the larger question for all of us in the customer-service/consulting arena: No matter how excellent your culture is, what if it doesn’t match up with that of a particular client? This goes beyond such nebulous issues of “chemistry” and “fit” but to the heart of how we work with clients.

It has probably puzzled PR practitioners since the days of Bernays, but I would offer three possible solutions when cultures clash:

1. Bring in your Empathizers – Those that can feel your pain and share your joy should be first in line to mitigate culture clash issues. They are more willing to see the purely human side of one-on-one interactions.
2. Bring in your Sociologists-in-Training -Empathy not enough? How about your in-house analyzers. Dissecting and figuring out how to work in a vastly different environment might actually be fun for this bunch, akin to analyzing alien cultures.
3. Bring in your Managers -i-dotters and t-crossers step right up. If the focus is on results and adhering to timetables then they may find culture-clash situations manageable.

It’s difficult enough for firms big and small to get their own cultures aligned. (Fave moment from the Times: interviewee admits to being comfortable with “some amount of chaos”).So, forget about getting the client’s culture to conform to your own.  But trying your best to work with it is within your control.

In this human comedy we call life, it seems to me we should welcome and relish the challenge of meeting new kinds of people who work in ways we’re unaccustomed to. They just might have something to teach us if we’re open to.

Tim Colbert is a Director at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +1 212-529-4811 and tcolbert@abipr.com.

Pull-Through Marketing Alive and Well at B-to-B Packaging Companies

By Erica Helton

A recent PR Week article highlights two packaging companies that are employing pull-through marketing techniques to reach brand owners at consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and consumers.  Sealed Air and Tetra Pak have recently expanded their marketing and public relations strategies to target consumers in an effort to raise brand awareness and position their packaging technologies as innovative.

Consumer desire for convenient, innovative packaging is no secret among b-to-b companies in this space, but the shift in communications represents the changing media and business landscape.  The advent of social media, for example, has empowered consumers to praise or complain about the new packaging for their favorite products, necessitating that the companies behind these innovative technologies listen to their feedback and make changes accordingly.

As the article points out, “Indeed, with consumers having more access to information about the makeup of the products they use, b-to-b companies are relying more on the influence of their customer’s customer to help improve business relationships.”

At ABI, we deal with this scenario daily – helping our clients reach end-users in order to shorten the sales cycle and generate pull-through for their materials and technologies.  Consider a couple of strategies for a more customer’s-customer facing marketing approach:

1.       Focus on the benefits to end-users – Manufacturing companies often tout the technical aspects of their products, but let’s face it – few end-users care that a product is manufactured through blow molding.  Rather, they care that the product is durable.  The first step to connecting with your customer’s customer is identifying the product attributes that are most important to them.

2.       Equip your sales force with tools to demonstrate end-user understanding – Closing the loop between marketing and sales is critical for b-to-b companies in particular.  When the sales force can articulate the benefits your product provides to end-users, they can often build relationships with higher-level specifiers, moving the conversation from cost to value.  Article reprints focusing on consumer insights, for example, can aid your sales people in demonstrating their understanding of customer’s customer.

The concept of pull-through marketing is not new, but the evolving landscape of b-to-b communications gives us a fresh perspective.  Take a page from the Sealed Air and Tetra Pak playbooks this year as you continue your marketing efforts.

Erica Helton is an Account Manager at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +1 212-529-2632 and ehelton@abipr.com.

B2B Lead Generation in 2011

by Amy Epstein

I recently responded to a LinkedIn question asking about the most important B2B sales lead generation tools for 2011.  As B2B decision makers (as well as consumers) increasingly seek answers and ideas using search engines, the most important way to reach prospective customers is by contributing valuable, non-promotional, credible content to online portals like trade publications and industry-focused discussion boards.

Don’t get me wrong – SEO is essential. A company’s website and corporate blog should maintain high rankings to be found. But as important are all the other sites that appear in search results. The convincing information is the credible content that surrounds what is put forth in the voice of the corporate brand.

This content can take the form of thought leadership pieces contributed to online industry trade publications, blog posts on topics about which you or other executives are knowledgeable, or even speaking at events where the media is present to write, tweet, or otherwise circulate what you’re saying.

In short, it’s about putting good content out there so the people you want as customers can not only find your company, but also be convinced of your leadership in the marketplace.

Amy Epstein is Managing Director, Americas at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +1 212-529-4757 and aepstein@abipr.com.

Google’s Top Secret Formula

By Jen Sprance

The algorithm used by Google in its organic search engine rankings is similar to the top secret formula for Coca Cola – everyone wants to know its ingredients due to the large potential payoff but so far no one has been able to master it.

In terms of Google’s algorithm, the benefit of cracking the code is securing a prime position in relevant searches, leading to greater web traffic, more online visibility, awareness building and of course – in the b2b space – sales leads. Research also indicates that search engine users click more frequently on organic search results than sponsored links – further causing the top natural rankings to be the Holy Grail of search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Marketers and public relations professionals across industries have spent countless hours and dollars tweaking meta data, creating H tags, building inbound links, generating online publicity and optimizing web content in order to move up the search page and beat out the competition.   And a number of articles and search engine optimization agencies are available to provide guidance.

Could it be that the answer all along was simply money?

European antitrust investigators are currently investigating the power that Google is wielding over the search space.  Specifically, part of their queries surrounds whether advertisers get preference in rankings on Google’s organic search pages, which are advertised as being uninfluenced by advertising.  On Google’s website, it says “Advertising with Google won’t have any effect on your site’s presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results.”

Although investigations are just beginning, it will be interesting to see how they pan out and how the results shape the future of the search industry.

Jen Sprance is Managing Director, EMEA at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +44 (0)20 7014 3503 and jsprance@abipr.com.

Back to the Social Media Basics

By Elliot Schimel

As Chris Brogan pointed out recently, when it comes to your company’s online presence it’s easy to jump on too many social media platforms. He recommends finding two or three social media platforms that are most relevant to your audience and build a strong presence there.

But before you start building out your social media presence or conduct a blogger relations campaign, you should take a step back and review whether you have been appropriately updating your website.

• Have you recently added thought leadership?
• Are your press releases and media placements up to date?
• Have you included recent job openings at your company?

It is easy to forget that one of the goals in growing your online presence is to drive traffic back to your website.

Of course, you shouldn’t abandon your current social media accounts in lieu of updating your website. But before you add new platforms or an online campaign, make sure that your new service offerings and company news are updated and don’t get lost in the shuffle.

In 2011, we are working with our clients to develop creative online strategies including new initiatives that haven’t been explored in their industries. It is exciting to be developing these innovative campaigns.  But before you launch into unchartered territory, make sure your basics are covered.

Elliot Schimel is a Senior Account Manager at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach him at +1 212-529-2583 and eschimel@abipr.com.