JPR Communications: August 2011

Achieving PR and business development goals in a market as dynamic as technology requires a focused, specialized agency. JPR Communications is the connection to editors and analysts who cover and influence the trends, issues and buying decisions. In addition to media and industry relations, JPR offers strategic counsel and in-house writers for all technical and marketing communications needs. JPR clients report that 80 percent or more of their sales leads come from PR efforts, and to date, agency clients have been acquired for more than $4 billion total. JPR represents data storage companies from hardware to software to services, from the consumer to the small business to the enterprise market, from emerging to established technologies, from the data center to the tiny memory chip. Their expertise encompasses related technologies such as data management, information security, backup/restore, and networking. In addition the agency represents clients in the managed services space and vendors who sell solely to IT channel companies. For more information please see www.jprcom.com.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

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.

Monday, August 22, 2011

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.