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Dear <<First Name>>:
You can’t buy it -- but it’s still valuable. You can’t use it to buy things either -- but in some ways functions as a form of currency.
What is it? Trust.
More than driving buying decisions, a new study finds that people are two times more likely to support, defend, advocate, and remain loyal to companies they trust.
And that’s the top story in this edition of the Monthly Scripts. As it is towards the end of the month, curate 10 of the top articles I recommend reading and present those here for your consideration.
Yours in marketing and communications,
Frank Strong
P.S. I contributed to a recorded session of panelists on media relations this week. The session is part of a virtual summit being hosted by Agility PR Solution on August 22, 2019. It will be free with registration. >>> Details: https://earnedmediamastery.com/
Links to This Month’s Top 10 Reads
Every month I read hundreds of articles about marketing and public relations. At the end of the month, I use my Force-sensitivity, some data-crunching tools, and human intuition to surface the top 10. Here are the must-reads for this month.
Marketing
1) New Edelman report finds only 1/3 of consumers trust most of the brands they buy (Bulldog Reporter) People two times more likely to support, defend, advocate, and remain loyal to companies they trust.
2) 7 Strategies to Drive Business Growth Through Digital Experience Innovation (Adweek) “Modernize the role of marketing around total CX.”
3) B2B Buyers Prefer Using Web Search to Research Vendors (Marketing Charts) “Some 88% of the more than 200 B2B leaders surveyed said that web search is the channel they use most to consume information and research vendor solutions.”
4) 3 Insights Marketing and Creative Leaders Need to Build Successful In-House Agencies (Marketing News by the American Marketing Association) “Bringing creative in-house may promise greater efficiency, but organizations can’t just bolt on a creative team and expect miracles. In order to reap those benefits, creative and marketing teams must develop a strategic relationship.” [Disclosure: Client]
Public Relations
5) PR industry grows slightly in 2018, but rates still down from 2015 (Bulldog Reporter) "...larger independent firms are competing for acquisitions with holding companies, private equity firms, accounting firms, major ad and digital firms."
6) Is Earned Media More Credible than Advertising? (Institute of Public Relations) "Overall, people find blogs written by an independent blogger as credible."
7) Study: 40% Of Execs Don’t Think PR Delivers Good Value (Holmes Report) "Luckily, the ones that do understand it, tend to value it too."
8) The Art of Persuasion Hasn’t Changed in 2,000 Years (Harvard Business Review) “More than 2,000 years ago Aristotle outlined a formula on how to master the art of persuasion in his work Rhetoric. Many great communicators have used it throughout the ages to deliver some of the most influential speeches, presentations, and share their ideas with the world.”
9) Survey: How journalists find their news, use social media and work with PR teams in 2019 (Muck Rack) “73% of journalists are OK with receiving a follow up to a pitch they didn’t initially respond to. Only 12% would prefer to not receive any type of follow up.”
10) The Similarities Between PR Pros and Musicians (O’Dwyer’s)
Training, listening and cognitive dissonance, oh, my!
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Recent Posts from Sword and the Script
The Sword and the Script blog and this newsletter are two separate subscriptions: Subscribe to the blog here to received thoughtful weekly posts. Here are the most recent you might have missed:
a) The Benefit of Calculated in Risk in Public Relations. Business leaders understand risk and reward, and so perhaps presenting feedback – from messaging to measurement – in such framing can go a long way towards improving improve PR.
b) The Willingness in Marketing to Try Something New; Off Script No. 41: Drew Hawkins of North Highland Consulting. Continuously learning, networking and a willingness to simply try new things – those are three imperatives for marketers today. That’s according to Drew Hawkins a marketing manager for North Highland, a consulting firm.
c) These Cliff Notes to 19 Email Marketing Studies will Give You a Quick but Thorough View of Current Email Marketing Benchmarks and Statistics. This post reviews 18 marketing studies to produce current email marketing statistics such as average open rates (16.74%-21.09%) and CTRs (2.61% and 7.43%).
d) What Do You Get When You Cross Media Trends with Customer Support and Investor Relations?. PR Tech Summary of notes from Business Wire, Meltwater, Onclusive, Cision, TrendKite
Contributions and Mentions from Around the Web
Here are some of the third-party sites we’ve been fortunate to contribute to over the last month or so.
Local to the Atlanta area?
Sword and the Script Media organizes The Alpharetta Business Networking Club a monthly meetup that’s part business and part social. There are 2,700 members of this group in the high-technology corridor just north of Atlanta.
About Us
Sword and the Script Media, LLC is a certified veteran-owned public relations agency immersed in the business-to-business (B2B) marketplace. We focus on building consistent, sustainable and process-driven programs for PR, content marketing and social media. A defining difference comes down to our approach – that marketing ought to have utility. This is because marketing that helps, sells better than marketing that hypes.
About Us | Leadership | Services
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Questions, comments or suggestions? Send ‘em. I’d love to hear from you.
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Frank Strong, MA, MBA
Founder & President
Sword and the Script Media, LLC
www.swordandthescript.com
PR | Content Marketing | Social Media
frank@swordandthescript.com
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