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2024 B2B Media Trends Leaders Need Today

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With the emergence of ChatGPT, the world is waking up to changes in content. While these disruptions aren’t always visible to the average reader, top PR agencies have been aware of these changes for quite some time; well before AI-generated content. These changes are impacting all media, including tier one media outlets. These changes aren’t all bad – in fact, for PR savvy B2B companies, leveraging these opportunities can be game-changing. Whether you’re a challenger brand, an emerging industry or Pre-IPO, from CleanTech to HealthTech to Cannabis and AI companies, these are the 2024 B2B media trends leaders need today.

 

2024 B2B Media Trend #1: Thought Leadership, Not Just for CEOs

While CEOs will always play an important role in B2B brand reputation, today’s B2B companies can leverage other brilliant C-Suite leaders to expand their horizons and speak directly to their customer base. Let’s say you’re a SaaS platform for accountants – why not take advantage of thought leadership opportunities for your CFO? Your CEO probably has insights your customers and potential customers would really appreciate, and the signal you’re sending to them is “we get you.”

There’s no reason your C-Suite leaders need even to write their own content, ghost writers do the heavy lifting. In fact, from a brand reputation and thought leadership standpoint, having a ghostwriter is the most optimum choice. Top PR agencies have excellent writers in their ranks and you can take full advantage of their decades of discipline by leveraging that talent to do the heavy lifting of creating content calendars and ideas, not to mention eagle-eye editing.

While owned content remains extremely important, third-party thought leadership opportunities abound today. Never have there been so many opportunities for the C-Suite to make their mark. Today’s ambitious leaders are contributing to Forbes, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, and even industry verticals regularly. And that’s relevant because according to eMarketer, content marketing is the #2 channel driving revenues for B2B companies.

 

2024 B2B Media Trend #2: Give Me The Data

As advertising revenues decrease for top publications, there have been huge swaths of layoffs for journalists. Today’s freelance journalist doesn’t have the weight of the publication behind them in the same way and that means gathering marketplace, consumer, or trending data is harder than ever.

B2B companies can double down on earned media by commissioning credible research or leveraging their own data to provide insights to journalists on trending business stories. And remember, even the top business publications are chasing stories that are of broader interest to the public. Data is the hero of B2B PR – use it.

Not only will using data give you a burst of earned media coverage, but your customers will appreciate it, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. A well-structured survey will be useful throughout the year and position your company as the top of your industry immediately. Reports like this are also an excellent way to build out your database of potential customers.

Is commissioning credible data expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? Only if you enjoy seeing your company in media outlets like Fortune, Inc., and Bloomberg. Even the Wall Street Journal uses third-party data, and there’s nothing like a quote from your leadership that solidifies a point of view with hard data.

While we’re at it, make PR decisions based on data, too. Modern PR firms have access to data that extends beyond reach and impressions. Identify target KPIs with your PR agency and demand they keep track of those KPIs quarterly. Your stakeholders, like B2B investors, will love this data and allow you to create credibility. Avaans Media uses a combination of social listening and AI to project trends and report on KPIs.

 

2024 B2B Media Trend #3: The Purpose Matters

As 2024 is an election year, there will be ever more eyes on how businesses impact culture. B2B companies can help their customers and themselves by articulating purpose beyond making money. Purpose-driven PR isn’t just for consumer brands anymore. This is especially true for Pre-IPO B2B companies.

Numerous B2B brands have leveraged purpose to distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Purpose-driven companies make more money, have more engaged employees, more loyal customers, and are better at innovation and transformational change.” Purpose is your secret weapon to productivity and PR because purpose gives you another connection to make to timely news stories, especially trending stories like climate and the changing labor force.

If all that isn’t reason enough, because so many B2B leaders shrug off purpose-driven initiatives, it’s a great way to create a competitive advantage, even and especially when there is uncertainty.

2024 B2B Media Trend #4: Re-Thinking Social Media for B2B Companies

For the past two decades, Twitter was the town hall that gathered VC, potential customers, and media. PR-savvy CEOs took a personal interest in Twitter and knew how to leverage it. What’s more – media outlets LOVED going to Twitter to find sources, take a pulse, and find perspectives. But today, Twitter (X) is a red hot mess. The platform is unstable; the future is uncertain; the bots and trolls have taken over, and media outlets have jumped ship because of reduced credibility. There has been an onslaught of Twitter replacements, from Meta’s Threads to Jack Dorsey’s Blue Sky. But neither of them have quite reached the levels of Twitter (yet). But LinkedIn is a trusted standby and more and more professionals, including journalists, are finding refuge there.

LinkedIn has so many ways to improve a B2B brand, but one of our favorites is the LinkedIn newsletter. Leverage this this with premium content gets delivered right to the inboxes of your subscribers. Inboxes that your newsletter doesn’t have access to. LinkedIn is also experimenting with AI-generated content that allows thought leaders to contribute.

2024 B2B Media Trend #5: Use Your PR for Recruitment and Sales

Media coverage provides proof to investors, clients, and the public. But it also provides social proof in recruiting and sales.

From a recruiting standpoint, when your brand is an industry leader, PR helps you attract the best talent. This is especially important for hypergrowth companies who need top talent to take them to the next level or emerging industries that need to establish broader credibility. Your media coverage tells a candidate as much about you as your recruiter does. Plus, ambitious employees like to imagine that there is room for them to be included in media coverage.

PR takes a lot of heat for not being trackable. We disagree, PR is trackable, when your PR is aligned with your business strategies. But nowhere is that more clear than how PR increases revenue. PR helps your current customers stay confident in their choice, reduces friction for new customers, and stimulates potential revenue by allowing you to share solutions that potential customers didn’t even know could be solved.

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How B-Corps PR Makes a Difference

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B-corps are uniquely positioned to be storytellers. But how does PR for B-Corps differ?

Is purpose all it takes to thrive?

 

You started your company to make a difference in the world. You know it, your team knows it, and your loyalty and customers know and believe in your product and your mission. So, how do you expand your reach? How can others find you in an increasingly crowded B-corp marketplace?How do successful B-corps PR make a difference in the brands of tomorrow?

This is an issue no matter what industry you’re in; the audience for your product or service may be larger than ever, and there may be more ways to reach them, but there are also more competitors out there looking to connect with that same audience. This is where a focused and strategic public relations campaign can help.

Expanding your awareness beyond traditional marketing campaigns is especially vital for companies who aren’t focused solely on profits and want to make a positive impact on the world. Becoming a certified B-Corporation isn’t easy, as it requires meeting exacting standards regarding accountability, transparency, and social and environmental impact. After going through the rigorous certification process to obtain B-Corporation status, it’s deeply discouraging if you can’t get your message out to those who want to hear it.

Should B-Corps Leverage PR Over Other Channels?

So, what are your options if you’re a B-Corporation looking to expand your reach? You could try the traditional tools: TV advertising, ads on social media, content marketing, direct mail, and so on. But these tools require significant resources that not all companies have, and worse still, there are signs that they are increasingly ineffective. One study showed that 86 percent of people skip or ignore TV advertisements, 44 percent of direct mail is never opened, and 91 percent of email users end up unsubscribing from company email lists they had previously opted into. These tools may work if you have the resources for a large, prolonged campaign, but they’re not feasible for many organizations.

A better approach for B-Corporations is to let other brands tell their story for them through a strategic public relations campaign. This may seem a bit counterintuitive; after all, you’re giving up control of your message when you use PR instead of more direct marketing or advertising tools. But for many people and businesses, getting a story from a brand they trust is more impactful than when companies try to engage them directly.

Is there any research that proves this theory? In fact, there’s quite a bit of it. A study from the Content Marketing Institute showed that 80 percent of business decision makers and 70 percent of customers prefer to get information on a company from articles rather than ads.

Is PR More Effective for B-Corps?

Why is it that so many people seem to prefer reading about a company in an article rather than seeing an ad from the company directly? For one thing, advertisements can be very pushy, and they have a way of inserting themselves when you’re trying to do something else. If a businessperson or customer comes across an engaging article about a company, however, they can choose to read it when and how they want, on their own terms.

The other reason people prefer to read about a company in articles is trust. Savvy decision-makers and cynical consumers are often skeptical of the messages they receive through advertisements, social media posts, and other types of marketing with a more direct approach. They know that they’re being marketed to, and they’re suspicious that the message and information they’re receiving may be untrue or misleading.

On the other hand, if they get that same information from an outlet that they already know and trust, they’re more likely to be receptive to the message and believe it. This is particularly true for the Millennial generation; research shows that Millennials are 247 percent more likely to be influenced by blogs and social media sites than are older generations. Similarly, 96 percent of B2B buyers are looking to read more content from industry thought leaders, and 93 percent of B2B buyers begin their buying process with an online search. If you can get articles in well-known, respected publications, you’ll rank highly in online search results — and there’s an eager group of businesses who are waiting to hear from you.

This isn’t to say that PR can’t function in conjunction with other tools to help your business grow. In fact, that’s exactly how PR should work. By getting information about your company into relevant and respected publications, consumers and other businesses can learn more about what you do. From there, you can direct them from the articles to your business’ website, social media pages, and other venues where you can engage them more directly.

 

How To Use B-Corp PR with Other Channels

That’s exactly what we do at Avaans Media. We are experts at harnessing traditional PR tools as well as newer marketing strategies, to help purpose-driven brands find success in the marketplace. No matter what you do or what your goals are, we will help you grow and thrive by crafting a strategy uniquely tailored to your strengths.

Here’s one example of how we can use PR to help your business. Our client was looking to break into the consumer packaged goods industry with a range of hemp-based products. Despite the differences between hemp and marijuana, many consumers were unfamiliar with these kinds of products or had negative views of them. We knew we needed purpose-driven campaigns.

To help our client reach their goals, we took a multi-pronged approach that increased their brand awareness and shaped their public image in a positive direction. We celebrated purpose throughout our campaigns, from health and wellness to global sustainability.  We leveraged our media contacts to generate more than 200 articles about the company over three years, averaging five articles per month. These articles generated more than 10 billion earned media impressions over those three years, with an estimated value of over $5 million dollars. By the time the client was ready for their initial public offering, the company’s share price had risen by more than 300 percent, and much of that increase can be attributed to our campaign.

 

Contact Us To Get Started

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How B2B Service Companies Stay Competitive in Uncertain Times

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B2B services are high-stakes. Whether you’re a SaaS company, or provide other enterprise services like Recruiting, CleanTech, or HealthTech, the competition is stiff, and the TAM, while it might be valuable, isn’t likely huge. And with today’s high levels of uncertainty, for B2B companies, it’s more important than ever to make the decision-making process easier than ever, secure additional investment or prepare for IPO. So how do winning B2B service companies stay competitive during times of uncertainty?

 

Thought Leadership for B2B Competitive Advantage

B2B CEOs have a bird’s-eye view of their industry and marketplace trends – they have to, so they know how to steer the company. This often includes insights that are valuable to your target buyer. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to use executive visibility to increase brand awareness. Yes, your CEO can and should champion your company, but they can gain the trust of insiders and analysts by contributing to the conversation within your industry.

There have never been more media opportunities for CEOs with distinct points of view. The opportunities are endless, from podcasts to opinion pieces and contributed insights. Take the time to create a topic calendar, and remember that podcasts often book months in advance, and contributed content usually has an editorial process that can take three weeks or more.

If your Google search “Who is [executive name]” doesn’t return pages worth of positive, reputation-building content, now is the time to remedy that. Executive visibility is critical in B2B services.

Leveraging PR as Content

Getting the interview or coverage is great, but you can make that coverage work for you when you leverage your PR. Activating your PR coverage makes it more valuable to you and is a great way to support the journalist. And just like a lot of content, you can re-use your PR for a long time. There’s no shame in sharing it repeatedly on social media. Just use your content judgment about context, platform, and frequency.

 

Owned Content For Trust That Supercharges B2B Services

B2B service companies can stay competitive by leveraging PR; from case studies to reports and statistics, B2B companies make waves and even national news with trends and statistics. General business and industry journalists share something: their love for data. Put together notable data points that you can share in your owned content and use it as a jumping-off point for topical pitches all year long.

While B2B media coverage often depends on long lead times, creating your own content is not. Use owned content to share your own narrative and improve your company’s LinkedIn presence. While we’re at it, consider launching a blog on Medium or LinkedIn. Despite what people say, you can repurpose content on these platforms and they are great inbound links and another way to get your message out to the targeted audience.

 

Be More Than Press Releases

There’s more to PR than press releases. Don’t get me wrong – press releases have a role in the content eco-system, but they aren’t useful for securing media.

For quality B2B coverage, your storytelling must include at least two of these three elements:

  • Timeliness/trending news tie-in
  • Clear audience impact/relevance/newsworthiness
  • Statistics and data which add context or change long-held assumptions

Emerging industry media coverage has an advantage regarding newsworthiness, but be careful not to fall into the lazy PR trap of describing everything as “innovative.” Emerging industries really need to craft compelling stories, and brands that differentiate set the agenda. Look at Marc Benioff at SalesForce. Over the years, SalesForce has set a lot of agendas, from employee culture to event marketing with Dreamforce. Benioff knew that great B2B storytelling spanned an array of topics, and headlines drove trust, and investor confidence, and attracted top talent – he knew not every piece of coverage had to look like a sales piece in order to be effective.

For quality media coverage, you must be ready and able to share who your customers are and how they benefit. Your case studies are critical – while no journalist will write an article based on your case studies, ensuring your spokespersons can articulate the case studies in a brand-consistent, media savvy way will make news coverage even more beneficial.

 

Times of economic uncertainty can be times for groundbreaking growth for B2B companies. Whether your company is pre-IPO or you are raising venture capital, PR is your partner and you can leverage it during times of uncertainty to keep growing when others are flailing.

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Content Marketing for PR

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Content marketing involves sharing any material online, such as videos, infographics, and social media posts, that don’t directly promote a brand but create awareness and enhance visibility regarding the products and services of a company, also known as owned content.

Using content marketing for PR is a modern way of owning your reputation and it is an important strategy to attract and engage a targeted audience by making a brand seem more relevant through articles, blogs, podcasts, videos, and other media. Content marketing ensures that a company establishes its expertise and credibility while also promoting awareness about the brand so that when a potential consumer wants to buy a specific service or product, that particular company is at the forefront of their mind.

Owned content is a key strategy for fast-growing brands. No matter how small or large scaled a company is, or whether a consumer brand or a B2B company, keeping its content marketing game updated and effective is the key to attracting and engaging more customers for their business. In this beginner’s guide, you will learn how to create a compelling and successful content marketing strategy for your brand to reach your targeted audience and boost your sales.

What Do You Mean by Content Marketing?

Content marketing focuses on boosting trust in companies’ relationships with their followers. By distributing various content creatively, content marketing ensures that a company attracts more customers, retains the existing ones, and builds loyalty and trust among its audience so that a brand can appear authoritative and influential.

So what exactly is content marketing? It produces and distributes valuable and relevant content like articles, blogs, social media posts, emails, newsletters, videos, and other media forms to attract existing and new customers.

When a company has mastered its game of content marketing, there’s no stopping it from generating profits from positive customer actions.

Content marketing is composed of two elements. First is content creation; pieces of written, spoken, or visually described materials that are engaging and convey a company’s goals to the right people. The second is content distribution. This part of content marketing concerns sharing strategic content through websites, emails, and social media.

Different companies have different content marketing strategies. Some famous companies like Spotify, Airbnb, Slack, and Wendy’s have social media teams that plan strategically to promote their content to customers and interact with them. Other organizations, like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, LinkedIn, etc., use B2B white papers for marketing purposes.

New industry and technology trends also influence content marketing plans. But as long as a company knows its core messages and ideas and how to create material that people will receive positively, it can adapt and evolve its marketing strategies accordingly.

In short, here are some ways in which successful content marketing can help a company or business;

  • Improves your reputation in a consistent manner.
  • Increases brand visibility and allows the company message to reach the right audience.
  • Promotes a brand organically and naturally.
  • Attracts potential new customers and engages existing customers.
  • Increase conversions and boost revenues,
  • Establishes a company as an industry leader.

What Are the Benefits of Content Marketing for PR?

PR is the management of your reputation, and owned content is your calling card. Consistent and high-quality content marketing is essential for companies to connect with their audience and to develop trust and reliability in their relationship.

Future Market Insights expects the US’s content creation market to grow with a CAGR of approximately 11.9%. Content creation and distribution have now become a top priority of the marketing department of every company and business, as there are many reasons why a consistent and engaging content marketing strategy can enhance the growth and success of a business.

Creates a Positive User Experience

Successful content marketing ensures that new and existing customers are satisfied with the ideas and messages promoted by a company. If they find your content engaging, unique, positive, and beneficial for them, they will come back for more as your customers will start trusting your brand and find it reliable and authentic. This approach is again helpful to the company as it retains the old customers and approaches new customers with a positive brand impression.

Helps Brands Gain Popularity on Social Media

According to the Pew Research Center, around seven in ten people in America use social media to engage with news, share information and connect, and for entertainment purposes. Creating trendy content on social media will not only garner more brand awareness but also help increase conversions and promote the products and services of a company in a natural way.

Content Marketing Creates Trust Within the Audience

When a company answers a complaint or query presented by its customers, they create value and change the public’s perception of the brand. Best content marketing strategies ensure that the relevant content shows up at the right time and place, thus interacting positively with the customers who will realize that your company’s advice and recommendations are reliable and accurate.

Content Marketing Improves Conversions

Using blogs, videos, or newsletters to bring in traffic, including a CTA, which can guide the audience regarding their actions, are examples of different content marketing plans. When your audience receives the correct answer to their question, their positive response will influence your conversions. When people view your content, it is more likely that they will purchase a product or service from your website, thus generating better leads for a company’s sales team.

Content Marketing and SEO

The consistency and high quality of content marketing also ensure better search engine optimization for your company’s websites. Suppose your content is helping your business gain more brand awareness and build trust with its audience. In that case, the content will rank higher on search engine results, thus positioning the company as authoritative and reliable from the public’s viewpoint.

What Are the Different Kinds of Content Marketing?

Content marketing sometimes uses outbound and inbound marketing strategies to present their content to the target audience.

Inbound marketing feels more organic and natural as the content creates a narrative or tells a story that is relevant and engaging to the audience. Outbound marketing is less effective in creating a positive user experience than the audience usually likes a link that interrupts their content.

So what are the different types of content marketing?

 

1. Social Media Owned Media

Everyone should know the importance of the power of social media, especially when technology has become cheaper than ever and accessing news is faster and easier. Social media is essential in content marketing because it allows companies to reach a greater audience in less time and provides multiple opportunities to present content in various ways, like live streams, stories, photos, and videos. Many businesses invest lots of money to promote their brands through content creation on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

2. Website Content Marketing

Website content marketing refers to the content you publish via web pages. Website content marketing is one of the best content marketing strategies as it can create a strong brand presence online, thus allowing it to rank higher in search engine results. This approach enhances brand visibility, ensuring that your company’s website and content pop up in the right places and in front of the right audience, thus generating better leads and conversions.

3. Blogging in Owned Media

Blog content marketing uses blogs to engage potential customers by sharing a creative and relevant narrative that can achieve customer trust and loyalty. Blogs are regularly updated web pages on a website that contains content written in a conversational or informal style. Blogs can also include inbound or outbound links and social share buttons that can further contribute to promoting a website.

4. Digital Marketing / Infographic Content Marketing

Infographics are content that presents information or data through visual representations like charts or diagrams. Infographics display this information in a format that is easy to understand and uses short statements and words, clear images, and simple context to communicate a company’s message clearly and effectively. Infographics are a great form of content marketing to tone down a complex, research-intensive, or educational topic so that more audience members can understand it.

5. Podcasts as Content Marketing Strategy

Podcasts are digital audio files available as series, episodes, or installments so subscribers can listen to each audio when the host releases it.

The number of podcast listeners worldwide is increasing yearly, so many companies and businesses are now sharing their podcasts to share a topic of their choice with their desired audience. With the right creativity and content marketing strategies, podcasts can help brands communicate their expertise and thought leadership regarding a specific topic.

6. Paid Ad Promotion

Paid ad content allows companies to reach a broad audience and place themselves on social media, banners, loading pages, and sponsored content where they want to be seen by their customers. Another method of content marketing is a paid ad promotion, in which specific content is created and distributed for the advertising and advertisement of a brand. This method uses PPC ads, paid social content marketing campaigns, and sponsored placement of these ads.

7. Video Content Marketing

Videos are also important content to raise a brand’s profile online. Companies usually post videos on YouTube or social media platforms, but companies can also publish in the form of courses, webinars, or live videos.

Video content marketing helps companies boost conversions as audiences find videos more reliable and authentic. It means that if a company promotes its products and services through a tutorial and promotional videos, they allow its audience to learn more about its brand in depth.

What Are Some Impressive Examples of Content Marketing?

1. Alo

Alo is a luxury activewear brand that uses social media marketing strategies to generate sales and revenue for its products. When you look at their Instagram account, not only will you see the different Yoga products that the brand presents, but you will also notice that the brand tries to resonate with its audience by letting them know that they can not only wear their clothes in a gym studio but also while going for a walk in the park. They use top models like Gigi Hadid or Kendall Jenner to showcase their clothes while staying genuine and authentic by creating awareness about physical activeness and a Yoga community online.

2. Taco Bell

Taco Bell also uses clever social media content marketing strategies to target teenagers and adults aged 18 to 34. Their best content marketing approach is to reply with witty remarks and comebacks in response to customers’ feedback, especially on Twitter.

Taco Bell uses fun and engaging, and sometimes bold ideas to capture the attention of its new and existing customers. In this way, people are encouraged to try out their products and then leave feedback on their social media platforms, thus generating more visibility for the brand.

3. Spotify

Spotify uses data generated by millions of listeners on their apps to create their annual “wrapped” content marketing campaigns. It is a brilliant idea to use in-depth analysis of the songs and music that shape the lives of their consumers and then create a playlist for them that displays the most played songs of the year. This strategy is fun and engaging for Spotify’s users and gives artists a statistical examination of their year’s top songs.

Conclusion

Creating clever and unique content marketing campaigns can take time and effort, even for experienced digital marketers. However, with practice and creativity, any company can achieve successful content marketing and reach its targeted audience through different digital media channels.

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5 Remarkable Competitive Advantages of PR

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Investing in PR is a commitment, so before you get started, it’s important to be clear on the competitive advantages of PR. Clarity around these advantages can ultimately help you enhance your overall PR outcomes.

  1. Enhance Credibility

    A trusted brand will increase sales and revenue, but there’s an additional reason to use the competitive advantages of PR: the bank of trust and credibility. Building trust and credibility has it’s own brand value advantages, the third-party validation from credible media outlets positively affects capital raises, increased sales, and future IPOs. But there’s more, if you get caught up in bad news, have a product recall, or other upsetting news, the trust you’ve established with customers, investors, and journalists will serve you well as you respond to bad news. Depending on the news, PR could also save you legal fees, re-branding fees, or lost sales. Credibility and trust build up over time, and if given the opportunity, trust is a lot like reinvested dividends, they grow exponentially over the years, so it’s never too early to make deposits in the trust bank.

  2. Cost-Effective Marketing

    Paid ads require copywriters, videographers or photographers, a team of editors for content, and that’s before you ever purchase the space or pay the ad and marketing agency for their creative ideas and campaign planning. PR agencies specialize in creating opportunities that come at little to no cost, like creating buzz, word of mouth, or owned content. Product placements or executive quotes, interviews or public speaking opportunities, awards, these have little to no additional cost, and yet they lend 3x more credibility than an advertisement. So what’s the competitive advantage? Let your competitors spin their wheels on the ever-changing price of digital ads or the unknown impact of a print ad and instead invest in sticky earned media, with a predictable budget, that delivers awareness AND credibility.

  3. Increased Loyalty

    What would you pay to have 50% or more of your customers or clients be completely loyal to your brand, no matter how much your competition targets them? Competitive advantage PR campaigns that appeal directly to customer values or purpose have an enormous impact on customer loyalty and earned media. Purpose-driven programs also have the added competitive advantage of potentially appealing to a segment of journalists too. Well-considered PR campaigns will have the added competitive advantage of giving you more opportunities to communicate with your customers and give your employees more opportunities to humble-brag about the socially aware company they work for. And when the recruiting market is tight, giving your employees pride in their work saves on recruiting and turn-over costs.

  4. Playing with the Big Boys

    If you’re not already a household name, then one of the competitive advantages of PR is the statement that you’ve arrived. When media outlets start covering your products, you’ve entered into a rarified realm because less than 2% of all companies EVER receive media exposure, and we bestow those that do with more credibility. Simply appearing in an article with a household name elevates your company. At Avaans Media, our clients are hyper-growth companies or those in emerging industries, or developing purpose-driven campaigns – what all our clients have in common is when they come to us, they are in the mix, but not well known to key stakeholders, but when they leave us, they have measurable outcomes including capital investment, mergers and acquisitions, and IPOs.

  5. Leverage Your Other Initiatives

    One additional competitive advantage of PR is having them at the table when planning internal or external initiatives. PR experts can help you develop those plans with media reactions in mind. If you DON’T want press on something, PR experts will know how to enhance that outcome and will help you prepare if it hits the press. On the other hand, PR experts can advise how to leverage marketing initiatives for additional coverage. We’ve helped our clients identify many ways their investments in branding, partnerships, and even advertising can pay 3X more dividends through earned media.

 

PR is the choice of brands with big plans and that’s because the competitive advantages of PR can’t be beaten. Regardless of your strategic business goals, talk to the Avaans Media PR experts about them so we can advise you on the best ways to make those goals a reality faster.

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What Makes a Great Tech Story Today

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Tech PR needs to be reinvented. Telling a great tech story today differs from what it used to be.

For the past 15 years, tech has been leading much of the conversation, so with a few press releases and a TED Talk, an upcoming and coming CEO could set the agenda. Zuck set the “let’s make an interconnected world” agenda. Steve Jobs set the “intuitive design” conversation. And while there is plenty more innovation headed our way – tech itself is no longer the story.

Emerging tech companies need to connect to the conversations their community is having or going to have in an enormous way. Why?

Today’s reporters need stories that capture the moment, not navel-gaze into the future. 90% of tech writers are curious about backend technology, but won’t write about it. Most outlets only have one tech reporter, that poor person receives over 500 pitches per day and an uncomfortable number of them are still using buzz words like “innovative”, “disruptive”, and the worst of them all, “unique.” These words now cause journalists to glaze over because they’re so overused and increasingly unbelievable. The question comes down to “WHY?”

 

So if Tech Itself is No Longer the Story…What Is?

Technology companies need to tell stories about how they’re connecting to the stories consumers are watching. Great tech stories often start with core values and it isn’t just consumers who want to know more about how you’re solving the world’s actual problems, it’s investors too – 88% of institutional investors are evaluating ESG (environmental, social, governance) with the same scrutiny they give operations and finance.

Let’s look at what people are searching for on Google:

emerging tech trends

2023 Emerging Tech Trends

How to Tell a Tech Story today

2021 Emerging Topics

Look how emerging tech doesn’t even register compared to climate change and racism. There are far more reporters covering these emerging trends than the tech itself. Tying your tech story into the zeitgeist, that’s where tech companies become indelible.

Here at Avaans, we write a lot about purpose, what it is and why it’s important to fast-growing companies. Even though we are a boutique firm, we have guiding principles as well.

That’s because not only does a clear purpose give the company and the brand extra internal fortitude, but it allows consumers to connect with your storytelling on a deeper level.

Regardless of stage of growth, having purpose is the path to longevity and a connected customer base. It’s also a great launching pad for purpose-driven PR.

Digging deep to find these stories may take some time and candor about corporate culture – but these are the stories that stick. These are the stories that create memorable brands. You can’t start telling this story too early.

 

What Makes a Great Tech Story Today?

Every story needs to be:
Relevant
Inevitable
Believable
Simple

As you look at these components, you may think about how your technology fits into these buckets; resist that urge for a moment.

The first two are the lowest hanging fruit, the last two can take years. Take, for example, Salesforce. When they wanted to grow, they made a simple but audacious claim: the end of software. Establishing relevance and the inevitability of tomorrow’s cloud-based world were the simple parts. Notice how they made that claim about the user, the client, not themselves, and it was simple. The stories about how this changes business and the world are immeasurable. But, Caryn Marooney who worked with Salesforce during those early days says “it still took us years to establish true believability,”.

Set your expectations accordingly. Expect to get two to three of those messages across in the early stages. As you grow, as you show more credibility, and as trust between your company and the media increases, “Believeable” will come. Trust isn’t something manufactured in a boardroom, trust is earned.

Today, Salesforce continues to tell stories relevant to their customers and the media that aren’t about technology. Salesforce recently claimed that the “Salesforce economy will create 9.3 million jobs and $1.6 trillion in new business revenues.” The white paper is chock full of bite-sized data that an entire story can be built around the new economy, what this means in today’s labor shortage, the threads are endless and the study gives legs to talking points that can last a year.

 

The Case for Tech Storytelling Over Trade Shows

Let’s be clear – we’re big fans of tech tradeshows and conferences. Many a product has gotten media from its standout strategies at CES for example. But the coverage around CES, like any tradeshow, is diluted and noisy. Reporters at conferences are looking for clickable headlines: they want big dollars, ticker symbols, known brands.  At tech trade shows you need to stand out with remarkable, word-of-mouth activations, to give extra lift to your story – or you’ll probably share the story with 1 or 2 competitors. Sure, a trade show can give you a lift, and it can be an excellent place to connect with the media – but you simply can not rely on a trade show to do all the heavy lifting. We so often see companies make a trade show their launch or the key message for an inordinate amount of time. The fact is, trade shows give a temporary boost, but great tech storytelling goes on for decades. 

Here’s more good news: the more simple your key message, the longer your tech storytelling will last. Counter-intuitively, simple messages last longer and provide more room for interpretation.

 

A colleague of mine once asked “Why does everyone want to go viral (with their content), I want to go cancer with my content, I want it to last a long time and fight to stay,” Tech storytelling is the same, tapping into current media trends and the mindset of the customer. Core values, Purpose, a solid mission, and knowing your next 3 steps will ensure your tech story starts out great. 

If you’re looking for a tech PR agency that goes the distance with you to find the great tech stories of today and tomorrow, then drop us a note, we’d love to dig deep with you too.

 

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