Dear  <<First Name>>:

If every company is a media company, there are three paths to audience development: a) build one b) buy one or c) a combination of both. 

There are two good examples of this recently: 

First, the martech vendor HubSpot, which has already built an impressive audience, went out and bought another one. 

Second, one of the best known venture funds is redoubling it’s efforts to build an audience. 

In modern marketing and PR, it’s all about the audience. 

Check out those two examples in the top story section in this edition of the Monthly Scripts.    

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

1. Building an audience. “One of Silicon Valley's most formidable venture capital firms is doubling down on content, putting some tech media outlets on edge....Some tech journalists were immediately skeptical." (Axios)  

2. Buying an audience. HubSpot to acquire The Hustle, a media company that produces a newsletter, podcast, and premium research content. (HubSpot) 

Leadership and the CMO

3. CMO growth plans. Upsell, cross-sell, enter a new market with an existing product and enter a new market with a new product. (Marketing Charts)  

Marketing

4. What are you doing? “Since the events of 2020, more than 4 in 10 marketers are having to justify expenses that were never questioned before.” (Marketing Charts) 

5. Selling less to sell more. “Most companies expect a coin-operated marketing department. You put coins in, you get more coins out. But if you do that with your content, you’re going to lose your audience … fast” (Mark Schaefer)

6. Listen more; talk less. Nonprofits often lead "with a pitch about the greatness of their organization" but can raise more money by "asking specific questions." (The New York Times) 

B2B Marketing

7. Turn up the creative. The "inability to see creativity as a major profit multiplier could mean B2B brands are sacrificing their chance at long-term, sustainable growth." (Marketing Week) 

8. Influence the buying decision. “...nearly 90% of business decision-makers say that middle management provides key inputs into the decision-making -- from providing recommendations on vendors to testing demo products -- but only 33% of B2B marketers in our study assumed this was the case.” (AdAge) 

9. Sales and marketing alignment. “B2B salespeople are much more likely than B2B marketers to say that their company's sales and marketing teams cooperate effectively.” (MarketingProfs)

Public Relations

10. Social media for media relations. “Start building the relationship before you need it. Like, share and comment on their posts.” (Entrepreneur)

12. Solid PR newsletters. 9 must-subscribe newsletters for PR pros in 2021 (Muck Rack) 

Crisis Comms

13. A blindside you could see coming. 90-year-old AT&T user pays for Wall Street Journal ad to tell CEO his internet sucks (Vice)

14. Responding to negative reviews. Your response to business reviews might count as much as the review itself (Sword and the Script) 

Content Marketing

15. Google says. The same content in different formats is not duplicate content (Search Engine Journal) 

16. Media distrust. The annual Edelman Trust Barometer found business is trusted more than government, media and NGOs; this presents an opportunity to build trust through content. (Sword and the Script) 

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Email Marketing 

17. Email best practices. “Friday was found to be the best day for #email engagement, seeing a top open rate of 18.9%, a joint-top click-to-open rate of 14.5% (alongside Wednesday), and a top click-through rate (CTR) of 2.7%. ” (Marketing Charts) 

Experience: UX & CX

18. Same team. Debunking bad design memes: “design vs. UX” infamous pictures (Medium)

Advertising

19. Washing machines pitching ads. IoT might take advertising further down an odd path. (Twitter / thread) 

Social Media

20. Second to market. “In news that will surprise absolutely no one, Facebook is reportedly now in the process of developing its own Clubhouse clone.” (Social Media Today) 

Marketing & PR Technology

21. PR tech summary. Isentia brings AI to broadcast monitoring; Propel adds social media monitoring; Muck Rack partners with nonprofits for journalists (Sword and the Script) 

Measurement  & Analytics

22. Measuring creative. How a creative team built an executive scorecard to demonstrate their value to the c-suite. (Martech Zone) [disclosure: client]

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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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