Lo and behold the return of the Bateman Buzz Meter, our ranking of recent newsworthy events based on PR and Social Media effectiveness. As always, please comment on any current news headlines or PR stunts you think are worthy of the Buzz Meter.

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This is the first in an ongoing series of Q&As with marketing executives and senior management at Bateman Group client companies. The series aims to spotlight the critical issues senior marketers are grappling with and offer practical advice about PR’s role within the broader marketing mix.

The following interview was conducted with Carlos Carvajal when he was vice president of Marketing at Baynote, a leading provider of software solutions for personalizing the online customer experience. Currently, Carlos is vice president of Product Management at Baynote.

Q: What do you view as the most important element of a successful B2B marketing program?

Having the right team in place is first and foremost critical to the success of any marketing organization. Beyond this, there are really three core pillars to running a successful B2B marketing program.

First, marketing needs to be in alignment with the overall corporate strategy which should guide all tactics and campaigns. This sounds simple but all too often is overlooked. Staying true to your strategy often means a slow and steady approach. But in my experience, this approach always wins the race.

Second, a marketing program cannot be successful in this day and age without a strong customer reference program. It’s become increasingly difficult for marketers to differentiate their messages from the competition. This means the real differentiation is best coming through a third party that’s viewed as credible to your target audience. Customers are the most credible source in the eyes of their peers, with industry analysts and media also playing an important role.

Finally, the third requirement is compelling content. There are too many cases where marketing content simply regurgitates a company’s positioning and product messages. Content needs to be useful. It needs to make people feel like you are trying to help them, instead of selling them because people are so desensitized to traditional marketing messages.

Q: In what ways has social media changed the way you approach marketing?

Social media has changed the dynamics of marketing in many different ways but from my vantage point at Baynote the most profound changes are around how we communicate thought leadership and interact with customers. For example, a successful corporate blog allows companies to show thought leadership in a way that conditions people to look for them on a regular basis. This phenomenon didn’t exist with traditional websites because the content wasn’t dynamic and marketers couldn’t truly engage their audience in a two-way conversation.

The important rule with social media is that slow and steady wins the race. You really have to invest and stick with it. It takes time to build a loyal following, but once you have established one it will truly pay dividends.

Q: PR is under a lot of pressure to improve the way it measures business outcomes yet it often lacks access to the KPIs used by marketing, such as data on lead flow, revenue growth and company valuation. What KPIs are you currently held accountable for at Baynote and which of these would you like to see better integrated into PR measurement?

Marketing lives to service sales. Our overarching performance metric for marketing is marketing sourced revenue. We also look at different marketing functions and those that mattered most. From an awareness standpoint, we look at traffic and bounce rates. Is there a steady uptake in traffic? This is far more important than the number of impressions.

With lead generation we look at two things: marketing sourced pipeline and marketing qualified leads. Finally, with product marketing, who’s main job is to enable sales to close leads, we track the opportunity to close ratio.

In terms of the measurement opportunity for PR, I’d like to see a system that tracks the effectiveness of the PR assets the sales team uses, like media coverage and blogs. Through better understanding what specific articles or blog posts played an active role in the different phases of the sales nurturing process, PR could play a more focused role in tangibly driving revenues.

Q: What technology company do you admire most for their marketing effectiveness and why?

It’s hard to pick just one. I really admire Apple for their brand which they’ve built around their relentless focus on staying true to their vision and core competency. Google has done the same thing. Everything with the Google brand and service offering is about simplicity and speed.

I also think Marketo and Hubspot have done an exceptional job establishing thought leadership around the problems they are solving for their customers. They both excel at content marketing.

Q: What piece of advice do you have for PR teams on how they can work more effectively with senior-level marketers?

First, I think it’s important that we look for better ways to share ideas beyond email. This is not limited to PR/Marketing. Businesses simply need more effective collaboration systems that foster better ideas and encourage ways to track progress. At Baynote, we have been experimenting with Box.net to improve collaboration and communication around critical marketing projects and campaigns.

Because marketing is so busy, PR can also help by creating “cookie cutter” emails around company news or competitive moves that can be easily shared with the entire company. This concept of helping senior marketers communicate big wins internally is really simple, and equally as important.

We’ve all consumed the horror stories from journalists recounting tales of PR folks sending off base pitches, cc’ing journalists on inappropriate emails, or getting irate when an editor won’t take a briefing. The wind blows two ways, however, so we’ve cobbled together some stories from across the agency of some less-than-savory encounters with the media. Believe it or not, there were many stories to tell, so this is a two part series. Read on, and feel free to share your own anecdotes!

Bill Bourdon: Follow through is a key requirement of any successful PR program, or business for that matter. This includes following up with team members to ensure accountability on everyone’s respective roles, following up with clients on their deliverables, and also following up with media around pitches, client interviews, etc. The latter obviously involves a good deal of tact. For example, bombarding a reporter after a client interview via phone, email, IM and Twitter is a surefire recipe to agitate them and potentially get blacklisted. However, tactfully following up with a reporter a week after an interview with a client about a major launch to determine the status of the story and offer further assistance is a necessary part of what we do.

This is why I was shocked to receive a three-paragraph rant back from a certain editor in chief at a certain knowledge management trade publication upon following up with him very tactfully after arranging interviews with a client and one of their customers. Both my client and their customer had taken a lot of time to prepare for the interview and naturally wanted to know if the story was still planned. After politely following up more than a week after the interviews had passed, I received an ALL CAPS diatribe back from the editor threatening to blacklist me and my agency, and inform my client of my incompetence. Little did he know that little email temper tantrum put him on my own blacklist and I’ve never communicated with him ever since.

Elissa Ehrlich:  A former mobile client had us put out a globally generated press release about an analyst report that named their company as having top share of the CDMA handset market worldwide. A mobile trade publication called us to verify the numbers and asked us to speak to the analyst. When we went back to the client, well, it turns out that the report was not yet issued so they didn’t want to speak to any media about the story. We had to go back to the publication and tell them not to publish the story yet, even though we put out a release about it. The editor of the publication called me, yelled at me and said never in all her time has she ever experience such a travesty of PR (really? never anything worse than that?!). Moral of the story – don’t put out a press release about an analyst report without first checking that it has been published!

Amy Ziari: When good news turns to just plain awkward and sad: An editor from one of the largest national dallies called to say that YES, she would take me up on my offer to do an exclusive story on my client. Cue Amy trying but probably failing to contain her excitement! The high was very short-lived though when she then burst into tears, mumbling something about having a family member recently die, and then immediately hanging up on me. To this day, I can’t believe she still did the story.

Tyler Perry:  We were launching a client out of stealth mode. PR was obviously a major component of it, and the debut was happening at an RFID tradeshow in Vegas in a coordinated sales, marketing and biz dev effort.  Leading up to the launch, we lined up myriad pre-briefings, including one with the venerable Don Clark from WSJ. All were completely in agreement with the embargo, and we were very careful to make sure that each journalist got something “unique” for his/her story – a customer reference, an analyst, supporting product detail and images, etc.

So imagine my surprise when I received an angry call from my client a two weeks before the launch- the blog from a major IT trade had written an article on the company! I quickly scrambled to read it and discovered that the journalist had written a piece with language that looked eerily familiar…from my pitch. We had corresponded about the launch, and after he agreed to the embargo we sent him some additional information. He passed on a briefing as he didn’t feel it was right for his column, but obviously changed his mind. Fortunately we hadn’t sent him anything particularly damaging to the launch, but it did make for an awesome weekend of trying to hunt him down and request that he take the story down. He refused.  The launch went incredibly well, but I have never worked with this journalist again.

I am sure there are many more stories to tell…stay tuned for our second installment, but post some of your craziest scenarios in the comments below!

As the year comes to a close and we reflect back, there’s no denying 2011 has been an incredible year for Bateman Group. The surge we experienced in the fourth quarter; however, has truly been unprecedented. Today, we publicly announced our selection as agency of record by three exceptional companies. These recent additions to our client roster include:

Qualys — Based in Redwood Shores, Calif., Qualys is the leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) IT security risk and compliance management solutions. Qualys solutions are deployed in a matter of hours anywhere in the world, providing customers an immediate and continuous view of their security and compliance postures.

Antenna Software — Based in Jersey City, N.J., Antenna provides mobile business solutions that enable enterprises to build, deploy and manage applications, websites and content across myriad devices for employees, customers and partners.

Sociable Labs — Based in San Mateo, Calif., Sociable Labs provides on-site social commerce solutions for online retailers to maximize social sharing, referral traffic and conversions.

We’ve worked hard over the years to maintain a client roster notable for its diversity — particularly in terms of geography and market position. These recent wins only enhance this by adding an early-stage startup and two fast-growing market leaders that hail from Redwood City all the way to Jersey City. At the same time, Qualys, Antenna and Sociable Labs will strengthen our sector knowledge in IT security, mobility and social commerce markets, respectively. Today we took another big step in our journey to national prominence.

A warm welcome to all three!

The Future of Media Round Up features the top articles and blogs curated by Bateman Group on issues and events related to the convergence of technology, media and communications.

Here’s our take on the most disruptive news, commentary and insights about PR and media from the months of November and December 2011. Please share links to other must-read articles in the comments below if you think we missed anything.

Required Reading:

Redefining Public Relations in the Age of Social Media, The New York Times – From Nov.21 to Dec. 2, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) sought submissions from public relations professionals, academics, and students and the public to help redefine what “public relations” means. The role of public relations has been significantly transformed by the Internet and social media. PR is no longer about solely managing the message. It has evolved to focus on facilitating the conversation between entities and their audiences. This why PRSA’s “Public Relations Defined” effort is calling for a “modern definition for the new era of public relations.” The last time PRSA updated its definition was in 1982. Interested folks can visit prdefinition.prsa.org to share their definitions.

Social Media Help Bosses Tell Their Story, Financial Times – More than three-quarters of the leaders of the 100 biggest US corporations do not have a Facebook page and only two CEOs use Twitter. But among twenty-something entrepreneurs running online companies, 100 percent are fully involved in the scene. The pros and cons aside, a strong reason to use social media is that can be the ideal platform for disclosing compelling stories that aren’t readily accessible to the public. “More practitioners in business should be out there describing their experiences and giving their opinions. It might help correct some of the misinformation promulgated by anti-capitalists, and the general skepticism about wealth creators expressed by much of the media.”

Occupy Movement Pushes CSR to the Tipping Point, CSRHub – The Occupy Movement is forcing banks to examine whether current  Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts like philanthropy are enough. Facing the movement’s disastrous effects on client and employee loyalty as well as recruitment, financial firms are being pushed to seriously reconsider going beyond old-school deeds to show true leadership in “doing well by doing the right thing.”

Public Relations Won’t Fix Penn State’s Crisis, PRSAY (PRSA) – The multilayered Penn state crisis has raised a lot of questions and challenges around the university’s reputation. From a PR standpoint, “one thing public relations professionals cannot help people understand, and should never have to, are an organization’s moral and legal failings.”  PRSA’s own Keith Trivitt and Arthur Yann give their PR perspectives on the crisis and make the distinction that the crisis is a management issue and not a public relations issue.

Charlie Miller’s Punishment by Apple Tests a Complex Relationship, Huffington Post – Earlier in November, white hat hacker Charlie Miller’s relationship with Apple was damaged when the company said he violated the terms of his agreement after disguising an app to reveal a security flaw in Apple’s App Store. This incident reflects the tension in the partnership between companies and their security experts. Should flaws be disclosed privately to developers or publically? Bruce Schneier, a security expert, thinks that “if researchers don’t go public, things don’t get fixed…Companies don’t see it as a security problem; they see it as a PR problem. And if there’s no PR problem, it’ll never be a priority.”

Follow @BatemanGroupPR for more opinions on breaking news and issues.

To say that 2011 was a big year for the media, technology and PR industries would be a huge understatement. We saw LinkedIn’s IPO, the firing of Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, the firing of Carol Bartz from Yahoo!, the launch of Google+, the unfortunate passing of Steve Jobs and much, much more.

Here are some predictions from several Bateman Group staffers, including yours truly, on the biggest trends and events we believe will unfold in the coming year.

Tyler Perry, Vice President

The Continuation of Page-Driven Journalism — Media properties are fighting for eyeballs, so we will continue to see ridiculous headlines and extensive coverage of the same five brands.

A Backlash on Daily Deals/Group Buying — Many brands are using this as a marketing tactic, but the increasing deal fatigue will make this less of an effective strategy. The incentive must be attached with other value.

More Companies “Doing Well by Doing Good” — Using the digital medium or gaming techniques to help people live better and help solve some of the global issues we are facing, but paralyzed to solve from a government leadership standpoint.

The Mobilization of Business Will Change the World of Journalism — It has already shifted the game with advertising, marketing, e-commerce and collaboration. Now that people are consuming more and more content on smartphones and tablets, will journalism shrink its content accordingly?

 

Lisa Melsted, Vice President

Corporate social media responsibilities will continue to fall on PR…but not forever — Social media responsibilities are increasingly being placed on PR firms and outside teams.  As companies try to figure out what their roles should be regarding social media and struggle with internal bandwidth for implementing these programs, those responsibilities will increasingly fall to their PR teams. This trend will likely be short lived however.  Much like the website building capabilities that fell onto PR and advertising firms with the advent of corporate websites in the late 90s and early 2000s, these responsibilities will likely be pulled back in-house over the next 3-5 years as more people build up expertise in social media and the responsibilities for corporate blogging, Tweeting, etc., become full-time jobs (much like website management). PR and ad firms will lead the way for now and should take advantage of this climate for the time being, but should not count on these programs (and revenue from them) to be within the purview of the outside firms forever.

Siri Will Disrupt the Way We Communicate — Apple’s voice recognition/search technology will begin with a slow build and then skyrocket and totally change the way we interact with our phones once again.

 

Rod McLeod, Senior Associate

TechCrunch takes a status hit, becomes a better publication — TechCrunch and ValleyWag were probably the first two tech blogs that I read when I began working in the tech industry. I always found TechCrunch offered a pretty high level of quality and kept me up to date with trends I found interesting. And after a month of reading ValleyWag, I lost interest after I read a few too many articles that were written in poor taste.

I’m sure everyone has been keeping track of the recent CrunchFund debacle and the exodus of top brass like Michael Arrington, Paul Carr, MG Siegler and now Sarah Lacy, but I think that this will usher in a new era at TechCrunch. I never worked with any of the previous editors, but I’ve certainly heard stories of the rage of Michael Arrington from other PR colleagues (see the comment section on a previous Bateman Banter post for yourself), as well as first-hand stories from friends who work at top-tier startups. However, I have worked with a few of the younger writers in TechCrunch’s stable, and I only have positive things to say about them.

I think that TechCrunch will begin to take a more journalistic approach in 2012 and beyond. I’m talking embargos, no more blackmail or “revenge” and FULL disclosure – yes, I said the “D” word. While this won’t reverse the site’s horrid redesign, it will improve the quality of an already highly-regarded publication, and also make it easier to develop and foster real relationships with TechCrunch writers.

 

Amy Ziari, Senior Associate

Competition will increase over “Celebrity” reporters — Jolie O’Dell goes to VentureBeat. Josh Constine and Sarah Perez to TechCrunch. Robert McMillan to WIRED. Ashlee Vance (an author of one of my favorite books about Silicon Valley) to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Blogs and news outlets are in a feverish race to add reporters that come with their own loyal audience – and personal panache – into their fold. Expect to see more of this in 2012 as competition heats up among the top technology, business and venture news outlets to acquire the same “celebrity” writing talent. It’s not just about the words anymore.

Bill Bourdon, Senior Vice President

Creating a Google+ Business Strategy Will Not Be a Top Priority — Google recently launched Google+ brand pages, which generated a good amount of fanfare and positive reviews in true Google fashion. But here’s the rub: investing time and resources in Google+ will not be a big priority for businesses in 2012.  At least it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t matter if Google+ is better or even if the SEO value of Google+ brand pages is superior to Facebook. It ultimately boils down to market share, and Google was just too late to the consumer social media game to engage a critical mass of users, let alone the early adopters. I don’t think Google+ will be shut down next year – there’s too much at stake. But the service will definitely need to reinvent itself to become viable. Robert Scoble and others are predicting Google will extend its social software to enterprises that can use it to network and collaborate internally, akin to Yammer and Salesforce Chatter. Seems like a reasonable move to capitalize on their investment to me.

 

Elissa Ehrlich, Director

As Social Media Matures and Shakes Off Some of the Hype, PR Will Get Back to Basics — With the explosion of web content and social media engagement, PR has been increasingly viewed as the more valuable and strategic marketing function when compared to advertising. Indeed, PR is owning more and more the content companies push out to their audiences. Why? I feel its because we’re already engaged in a conversation with these constituencies and can communicate more authentically than our friends on the advertising side. The PR industry has been forced to reinvent itself in recent years and I think we’re almost done with the transformation. I do know this - PR pros are once again in high demand. We can’t find people fast enough and we’re turning down great new business leads due to lack of staff!  This is proof that the approach that many agencies are taking is working, and companies are finding value in the work that we do.

Social Media Fatigue Sets In – Already, it’s the same people on your Facebook news stream posting mundane updates, and no one cares all that much about Google+.  While social media will continue to be important for many brands, perhaps in 2012, we’ll get back to the basics and return our attention to securing quality media coverage in highly credibly publications, establishing our clients as true thought leaders in their industry sectors, and other “old fashioned” PR programs like placing keynote speaking engagements and pursuing awards.

Fred Bateman, CEO and Founder

Facebook will be bigger than Google — Facebook will go public and eclipse Google in market capitalization — perhaps permanently

Silicon Valley Will Be the Next Madison Avenue — Just as technology talent is finding its way to New York City, the reverse will also happen.  As Facebook and Twitter start generating more revenue, advertising and marketing talent will start heading West to cash in.

Cloud Computing Will Continue to Reinvigorate the Software Market — Business applications and data are moving to the cloud at a rapid pace and it’s not going to stop there. The day will come when companies outsource not only their software, but network infrastructure as well. The main beneficiaries will be the SaaS companies with the foresight and agility to go where the market is heading, not where it is today. Just as we’ve seen Salesforce, SuccessFactors, Qualys, Zuora, Taleo, NetSuite, Box and Workday grow into successful companies seemingly overnight, I predict there will be others to emerge to join this group, benefiting all of us who make our living from the tech sector, either directly or indirectly.

Consumerization of IT Will Continue to Impact All Corners of Technology — Soon, it will be standard across the software industry for all vendors, regardless of sector, to offer freemium or very low-end products as a point of entry for individuals or small businesses, including mobility, security and virtualization.