Marketing and PR pros already had a long list of duties, but the pandemic gave us all a new one: corporate therapists. 

That’s according to the top story in this edition of the Monthly Scripts which follows below. 

You may notice I’m experimenting with the format again. Let me know what you think?

Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!

Yours in marketing and communications,
Frank Strong

PS: Looking for an agency partner with the content chops to build a sound strategy and execute? Give our services a try.

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

Chief therapy officer? CMOs are taking on the role of a corporate therapist during the pandemic (Digiday) 

Leadership and the CMO

Remote work here to stay. “Remote work will be here to stay post-pandemic...according to recent research from McKinsey & Company.” (MarketingProfs) 

Leaders:  born or made? “...only under duress that these unique leadership qualities surface in a sink or swim fashion.” (LinkedIn Pulse)  

Marketing

Storytelling works. “...facts told through stories are 20 times easier to recall, making great brand storytelling an essential part of your strategy.” (Managing Editor) 

Seven touches to buy. “Marketers need an average of seven contacts (or touches, impressions, or interactions) to turn a prospective buyer into an actual buyer.” (Octopost) 

Marketing is for your audience. "...re-invest in getting to know your audiences" and other digital marketing advice for 2021 (Garrett Public Relations) 

A dollar out of fifteen cents? “Clients now expect a $20 million budget to deliver like a $40 million one.” (MediaPost) 

Desktop reference. Key dates for the 2021 marketing calendar. (Linqia / Twitter) 

Predicting marketing. 30 predictions for marketing in the New Year (Sword and the Script)

B2B Marketing

B2B has a privacy problem. “B2B businesses are more likely to keep third-party ad tracking secret from customers” than B2C. (MediaPost)

Top marketing goals for 2021: personalization, performance, and segmentation. (MarketingProfs / Altimeter Group) 

Irrational. “B2B marketing and sales...is just another hotbed of turbulent emotion.” (Demand Gen Report) 

Top new skills. Tech skills for collaborating and presenting were among the top new skills B2B marketers picked up during the pandemic. (MarketingCharts)

Public Relations

PR says content tops pitching. “Respondents selected content creation as the single most important PR task (41%) and media outreach as the second most important (27%).” (Cision) 

Journalists ignoring more pitches. “31% of journalists say they are less likely to respond to pitches than they were during the same time last year.” (Muck Rack)

Predicting PR. 10 PR professionals describe the top challenges they faced in 2020 and make predictions (Muck Rack) 

M&A comms. 3 tips for running comms for an M&A (Sword and the Script) [Guest Post] 

Sum total. A list of PR and marketing statistics summarizing 2020. (Sword and the Script) 

Content Marketing

Business blogs are sexy. Study says corporate blogging is cool again. (Arik Hanson)

Sweet content spot. “The content strategy sweet spot is finding the overlap between your own goals and the goals of your target audience.” (Search Engine Land) 

Predicting content marketing. 100 predictions for content marketing. (CMI) 

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Advertising

Surveillance capitalism. "Consumers are angry, regulators have jumped in and some in the mainstream media have called us surveillance capitalists." (Ad Exchanger) 

Sold out. “CBS has sold about 75%-80% of its Super Bowl LV ad inventory...” (Marketing Dive) 

Creativity

Creative power. “I still firmly believe that creativity is the single most important determination of advertising effectiveness. But I wish I had a more substantial, scientific basis for that belief.” (The Ad Contrarian)

Creative review. 16 statistics summarizing the year in creative (inMotionNow) [client] 

Media

News trends. One chart shows TikTok and masks were among the top trends the news in 2020 (Axios)

Buying an audience. Former AdAge editor buys Brooklyn Magazine. (Twitter) 

SEO & SEM

Why? What the year looked like in search. "In a year that tested everyone around the world, ‘why’ was searched more than ever." (Think with Google) 

Keyword cannibals. “Keyword cannibalization happens when you cannibalize your own visibility by having multiple pages on your website targeting the same keyword. ” (Method and Metric) 

Social Media

No reply. Twitter drops threaded replies after two-year “experiment.” (Social Media Today) 

Predicting social. 25 predictions for social media (Social Media Today)

Marketing & PR Technology

Integration. Buyers want marketing technology “that consolidates multiple tools into a single platform” (Marketing Charts) 

Surprise. PR tech company Meltwater quietly went public. (Meltwater / YouTube) 

Predicting pitching success. PR tech company aims to predict if a reporter will like your pitch. (Sword and the Script)  

Year-End

Top 10 posts. Here are the most-read posts on Sword and the Script for 2020 (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
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