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Dear <<First Name>>:
Humans are programmed to get along. This is because we evolved to be highly dependent on each other.
In the era of hunters and gatherers, we couldn’t survive without each other. Conflict meant you’d be tossed from the tribe. And that was effectively a death sentence.
So we naturally seek to build consensus. In marketing that’s a path to sameness. Sameness in marketing is a failure. We need customers and prospects to see that we are different.
The B2B Institute at LinkedIn put it this way:
Marketers like to ask, “What is everyone else doing?”
But a better question is:
“What is nobody doing?”
That leads us to the featured story in this edition of the Monthly Scripts (see archive).
Yours in marketing and communications,
Frank Strong
PS: If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward it to someone you know that would benefit from it and encourage them to subscribe.
The Must-Read Articles
Every month I peruse hundreds of articles about marketing and public relations. Near the month’s end, I analyze those metrics with technology and human judgment to find the most important stories.
Featured
1. Branding is cool again. “Brand building is the single greatest marketing investment companies can make to gain a competitive edge in B2B.” (LinkedIn B2B Institute)
Marketing
2. Attribution is a brand killer. Marketers who over-index on grabbing the quick dollar versus investing in building their brand are doing themselves a disservice. (Media Post)
3. Entertainingly scary. John Oliver on privacy, tracking and data brokers. (Last Week Tonight)
B2B Marketing
4. Content consumption. “B2B buyers consume 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a salesperson when making a purchase decision, although 3 in 10 consume more than 5 pieces of content.” (Marketing Charts)
5. Customer marketing. “The average B2B organization gets 77% of its revenue from existing customers, but only 42% of B2B marketers employ demand marketing channels for the enrichment phase of the customer lifecycle.” (Toolbox)
6. Publish your pricing. A McKinsey survey found 68% of customers want prices published online without negotiation. B2B software companies are resistant to publishing pricing online. (Sword and the Script)
Psychology
7. Pre-conceived memories. ‘Causal perceptions or expectations that tell us in what order things happen’ even when that's NOT the order.” (PysPost)
Sales and Business Development
8. Investing in sales enablement. “84% of sales leaders expect a 20% investment increase on average over 2021 levels.” (Sales & Marketing Management)
9. Buyers need sales help. “experiences of self-service buying are largely undifferentiated, customers struggle to see...differences among suppliers...without [sales] intervention...customers who prefer rep-free buying, experience 23% higher buyer’s remorse.” (CMSWire)
10. Sales support. “BDRs that feel supported spend 12% more time contacting prospects.” (Jiminny)
Public Relations
11. Sharable stories. Journalists say stories that are connected to trends, use images, content surprises, and are relevant are the most shareable. (Marketing Charts)
12. Social PR. 60% of journalists consult a company’s social media in their reporting – if they look at your company’s handle, what will they see? (Sword and the Script)
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Creativity
13. Creative + data. “Creative work begins where numbers end but must never lose touch with the data.” (Martech)
14. Start little fires. "When it comes to securing investment for B2B marketing, it makes sense to “hold hands with the business” to push creativity through." (Marketing Week)
Advertising
15. Advertising impact. “I stopped advertising everywhere and nothing happened.” (The Anti Startup)
Media
16. Echochamber. NYT says "relying too much on Twitter is 'especially harmful to our journalism when our feeds become echo chambers.'" (Axios)
17. Paywalls coming down. “Quartz is dropping its paywall – back to where it started with most content free.” (Poynter)
SEO
18. State of Search in 2021. “There were significantly fewer newly ranking URLs in the top 100 results versus 2020.” (Semrush)
19. Engagement not a ranking factor. “Google's John Mueller said again that Google Search does not use ‘engagement’ as a factor for ranking or other purposes in Google Search.” (SEO Roundtable)
Marketing & PR Technology
20. Web scraping to stay. “Scraping publicly accessible data is legal, according to a U.S. appeals court ruling.” (TechCrunch)
22. State of tech in PR. “The PR job of has never been more challenging. Tech can help, but it is not always easy to know where to invest.” (Flack’s Revenge)
23. PR tech startups get funded. Propel raises $4.5 million seed round while Vetted is acquired by ITK Information Services (Sword and the Script)
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Frank Strong, MA, MBA
Founder & President
Sword and the Script Media, LLC
www.swordandthescript.com
PR | Content Marketing | Social Media
LinkedIn | Twitter
(202) 352-5920 | frank@swordandthescript.com
* Sword and the Script Media, LLC is a verified veteran-owned business.
> Named among the 100 most influential tech PR professionals in 2021 by Propel PRM
>> Named among the top 100 PR measurement influencers in 2021 by Commetric
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