JPR Communications Hits $4 Billion in Total Client Acquisitions Following Successful PR Campaigns for Storage Technology Vendors

JPR Communications, a proactive and strategic public relations firm specializing in launching startups and establishing data storage/cloud computing brands worldwide, announced today the company has reach a milestone of $4 billion in client acquisitioins.

Western Digital's recently announced acquisition of JPR client Arkeia Software was preceded by IBM's acquisition of Texas Memory Systems, Intel's purchase of NEVEX Virtual Technologies, and EMC's acquisition of XtremeIO, equating to $1 billion in acquisitions in 2012 alone.

Strategic communications counseling plays a key role in positioning companies for growth and/or acquisition, and working with experienced agency specialists is a critical component. Companies that have been acquired while represented  by JPR have benefited from increased valuation and visibility in business and trade publications and from being established as leaders in their markets. They have also experienced significant revenue growth. Obviously,they have also captured the attention of large companies looking to add disruptive technologies to their offerings.

"Four billion dollars in total acquisitions is a major milestone and a source of pride, since it indicates we are positioning our clients for success and profit," said agency principal Judy Smith. "Whether it's a new company with a groundbreaking product, or a company that's dominating a market another vendor wants to enter, we believe effective PR makes a world of difference when making a short list of acquisition candidates."

Major vendors look at startups like NEVEX and XtremIO to bring promising, disruptive technologies under their own roofs, while established companies like Arkeia and Texas Memory Systems are frequently purchased for assets like their executive and engineering teams, a large customer base, strength in channel sales, and industry reputation.

Other notable JPR client acquisitions prior to 2012 included IO Turbine, acquired by Fusion-io; Ocarina Networks, acquired by Dell; Spinnaker Networks, acquired by NetApp; and numerous other companies in the data storage market acquired by EMC. A full list can be viewed at http://jprcom.com/results.html.

See what editors, analysts and client executives are saying about JPR at: http://jprcom.com/testimonials.html

User at 35,000 feet gives new meaning to “Cloud Storage”

Here's a cool email from a TwinStrata user who used his time on an airplane wisely:

From start to finish, and using your VM instance on my laptop, I had 400 GB provisioned in the Amazon S3 cloud (using the license information your team provided) within 35 minutes…and that was with no previous experience or knowledge.

Sure, he could have watched an in-flight movie, but setting up CloudArray was a lot faster, and much less annoying.

Customer content is king

Earlier this year, TechValidate surveyed 126 leading B2B sales/marketing professionals about marketing content. While editorial coverage was not included (shame on them), the findings are otherwise very interesting to PR and marcomm departments.

As examples of marketing content, TV mentions

• Analyst Reports and Opinions issued on the companies' product, strategy, and competitive differentiation
• Industry and Market Research showcasing trends in the marketplace
• Named Customer Testimonials – case studies, videos, and quotes from customers

For all the results in chart form, see this page. However in this particular chart, below, it's apparent that customer testimonials, case studies, and user stories are considered most effective. (94 percent said content sourced from existing customers is either "very effective" or "extremely" effective.)


















What's also interesting is that third-party analyst content comes in much lower, with only about 50 percent calling it very or extremely effective. Analyst content also had the most votes for "not effective," which tracks with research surveys JPR has produced for clients in the past. (Perhaps analyst firms need to do a better job marketing themselves and communicating their value to tech vendors.)

Finally, far fewer people surveyed said content written in-house was very or extremely effective - which of course begs the question, why isn't in-house content doing better for you? Is it too "salesy," lacking credibility? Is it too generic, missing the opportunity to target a vertical market? Does it lack detail or depth, therefore failing to answer your prospective customer's questions and sending them to other resources? Is it poorly or hastily produced, not engaging, stale or hackneyed...in other words, is it just bad?

When generating your own marketing content (or outsourcing this chore to a PR/marketing firm), all of the elements above - customer feedback, third-party analyst opinion, industry trend stories - can be incorporated in your materials. It may require more creativity or access than you currently have, and it might require more talent and money to produce, but there's simply no reason your marketing content can't work better.

Twitter drives 30% more news release views than Facebook

MediaBistro.com reports on a study showing news releases on Twitter get more views than on Facebook.

"Research: Twitter Drives More Traffic to Press Releases Than Facebook"

And, since the same study showed multimedia gets more attention than text, here's their infographic:

Slidecast: Nevex Cacheworks Accelerates Applications

Many thanks to Inside HPC's Rich Brueckner for this slide show on Nevex CacheWorks and how it approaches the storage I/O bottleneck issue. CacheWorks accelerates the performance of critical business applications running on physical servers and VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines.

For the slide show click here.

Avere menaces NetApp with accelerators

The (UK) Register's Chris Mellor recently caught up with Ron Bianchini, CEO of Avere Systems, about some of the ways Avere customers are getting more value out of their NetApp filers. The two installations are quite different, one dealing with seismic data and the other a school district suffering from "boot storm." In both cases, Avere eased the IO and capacity burden on the filers.

Okay, we admit: we're just being kind.

"Basically, Bianchini is saying, Avere FXT accelerators can be used to avoid NetApp or EMC upgrades costing thousands of dollars more, tens of thousands of dollars more, and even, in the extreme, hundreds of thousands of dollars more."

For the complete article click here.

Survey says paid search best for lead-gen

BtoB magazine posted a brief piece on a survey of lead-gen professionals, and 35.9% said pay-per-click campaigns are most effective, followed by online ad campaigns (17.9%), opt-in email campaigns (11.3%), trade shows (7.7%), direct mail (6.5%) and cold calling (5.9%).

Media coverage that gets your phones ringing was not considered a lead-gen tool, perhaps because the survey comes from Advertise.com, the "premier platform for Keyword PPC, Display, Email, and Remarketing campaigns." Still, for marcomm pros developing lead gen ideas, the survey may have value.

For the article click here. For Advertising.com's announcement click here.

CIO vs. CFO: Making the Case for Tech Spending

Kim Ann Zimmermann has an informative article on BusinessNewsDaily about IT budget decisions shifting to finance leaders.

CFOs now approve 26 percent of IT investments, compared to 5 percent approved by CIOs, a study finds. More than 40 percent of IT teams report directly to the CFO, while 33 percent report to the CEO.

According to the article, IT managers often have trouble putting their budget requests into terms that are persuasive to value-conscious CEOs and CFOs.

The question to ask is how tech product PR and marketing can help make it less of a tough sell.

See the article here.