Unconscious Branding – Is This The Future of Marketing?

I recently had the opportunity to hear Leslie Zane, an award-winning Fortune 500 brand consultant, give a presentation. The event was a virtual conference hosted by the American Marketing Association on January 23, 2025. Her presentation, “The Future of Marketing,” shared several interesting insights based on her book, The Power of Insight. My key takeaway is that branding plays a much bigger role in the buyer’s journey than previously considered. A concept I’ll refer to as unconscious branding should be incorporated with greater focus as part of your overall marketing and analyst relations strategy.

Leslie’s theme was that many buyer decisions are based on subconscious rather than conscious thinking. This concept is enlightening and has major implications for marketing strategies. Marketers must rethink how they approach the buyer’s journey and decision-making process. Here are a few concepts that came to mind as I processed the findings of her presentation.

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Looking To Ignite Industry Analyst Engagement? Here Are 3 Tips

Industry analysts, such as those at Gartner or IDC, can significantly impact your brand’s reputation and market visibility. This is particularly the case for enterprise software or technology companies. Ideally, your goal should be to build relationships with the analysts who regularly speak with your customers and prospects. This way messaging and product positioning will be regularly communicated with greater alignment and accuracy. Issues can be resolved faster with open communications and can be achieved with industry analyst engagement.

Industry analysts not only shape market perceptions, but they can also help software companies by providing insights on product strategy and competitive positioning. Igniting industry analyst engagement requires a deliberate, consistent approach. Here are three strategies I have found effective in strengthening these critical relationships.

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Understanding Industry Analyst Relations: Definition, History, and Impact

Industry analyst relations (AR) is a specialized practice that involves engaging with influential industry analysts. Analysts can provide insights, research, and opinions that shape perceptions of technology vendors in specific markets. These analysts influence buyer decisions and validate the credibility of technology solutions.

This article explains the concept of AR, its evolution, and five key benefits it offers to organizations – provided the relationship is managed appropriately. Not all analyst relations programs are successful in achieving each of these benefits. This shortfall can be based on several factors that I’ll explore deeper in a future article. View this article as a starting point with key objectives that should be factored as part of your initial analyst relations program and strategy.

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It’s Time to Break Down the Data Silos of Marketing!

New research suggests that Marketing organizations need to do a better job at breaking down the internal “silos” that separate functions and data. One of the reasons why this issue has emerged is that people like to keep a tight control their slice of the data “pie.” I thought it might be helpful to share some suggestions on what can be done to overcome this challenge to help unlock greater efficiency and performance with how Marketing teams operate – a win-win for all!

Data silos can be found in many places. Within a digital campaign, it might include contact information, such as name, title, employer, email address, and phone number. Event sponsorships might include a list of attendees; website visitors represent another source of contact information.

Over time, it can be difficult to keep track of all this information while ensuring the data is accessible and current. Further, with the changing data privacy laws and the fact that these records include Personally Identifiable Information (PII), it is now increasingly critical to know exactly where all this data resides.

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3 Ways PR Can Boost Event ROI

Technology has come a long way to mainstreaming remote working. Yet, despite all of these advances, it is still important to meet with people in person at events and conferences. As important relationships are best maintained in this way, events should be part of your marketing mix. The challenge is that can often be difficult to quantify or justify the Return on Investment (ROI) of this activity. And, picking the right events to attend can sometimes be difficult. Combining Public Relations activities with your Marketing and Event program is a great way to increase overall marketing effectiveness and ROI.

Read this article to see how the role of PR and marketing is now merging, “The Future of Public Relations.”

The Role of PR at an Event

Given the large investment of attending an event, including sponsorship fees, booth design, graphics, labor set up (paying union wages), travel, and lodging, anything that can be done to amplify the benefits and reap future dividends will go a long way to justifying attendance.  

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Have We Lost Trust in Communications?

Regardless of your political orientation, I think we can all agree that anytime popular opinion can be manipulated by spreading false news is a bad thing. With a new election set to occur next year in the US, there is a concern (rightly so) about the possibility of foreign actors or others exerting influence on the outcome. Similarly, trust over personal data held by corporations is now at an all-time low. Have we forever lost trust in communications? Can it be regained? What can marketers or communications pros do to help reverse this trend?

The Research Findings are In

The Institute for Public Relations recently conducted a survey addressing this concern. The study, “The 2019 IPR Disinformation in Society Report,” was based on a poll conducted March 19-24, 2019 by 2,200 Americans. The research sought to identify the level of trust the American public has in collecting information from various data sources as well as the parties that are responsible for combatting disinformation.

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How PR has Changed the Advertising Model

If the worlds of PR and marketing are set to further converge over the next five years, we should start to see evidence that this shift has begun (see related article). The viral sensation surrounding the recent Game of Thrones Starbucks coffee cup incident is a great data point that validates this transformation.

What struck me was what an amazing PR and awareness opportunity this became from a blurred, barely visible image shown for a split second on a television show. The way brands get promoted and recognized today certainly has changed!

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The Future of Public Relations

I just read a Global Communications Report published by the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism. The findings were very interesting. One of the figures that really caught my attention was that 87% of PR professionals believe the term “Public Relations” will no longer accurately describe the work they will do in 2022 – nor may it even exist as a separate discipline!

As a Public Relations practitioner, these findings caught my attention enough to read the rest of the report. If this big of a change is on the horizon, then it is probably a good idea to understand the best road to take. Advance planning will help to navigate this potentially significant transformation.

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5 Reasons to Build a Social Media Audience

It doesn’t matter if you are a social media expert or novice – we are all impressed when you hear about the amazing number of followers some brands and celebrities achieve on social media channels. Did you know that Selena Gomez had 139 million people following her on Instagram at the end of 2018? How did she do that? You might wonder how it is even possible to achieve this level of engagement. Your next question might be, “Who cares?” Does it even matter?

Yes, it does matter.

Likes and followers are a very quantifiable metric that provides insights into your brand’s popularity. Beyond simply being an emotional boost, having a large following translates into a stronger brand, greater awareness and more revenue opportunities.

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What is the Best Analyst Relations Strategy?

Analyst Relations is a term used to describe the practice of working with industry analysts to help with marketing awareness and sales acceleration programs. The best strategy depends upon your objective. Many analyst firms exist today. Gartner, IDC, and Forrester are three of the more well-known firms, however, many others exist. In terms of revenues, IHS Markit leads the pack with almost $4B and 13,000 employees. Gartner follows closely behind with $3.3B and 15,000 employees (source).

One can trace the origins of this industry to when technology solutions became difficult to understand and compare. In other words, when the technology purchase process became complex, which began back in the 1980s. Since that time, there has been quite a bit of specialization and fragmentation of the IT, technology, and software markets. As new technologies continue to be introduced (cloud, AI, machine learning, etc.), systems and platform interoperability have only further added to the complexity!

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