In March 2013, Arketi released the findings from its sixth annual Technology CMO Roundtable in The Outlook for Business-to-Business Technology Marketing in 2013.  The white paper combined opinions and insight from more than 50 high-tech PR and marketing executives who participated in the Roundtable, held in the fall of 2012.

The Roundtable consisted of executives from leading technology companies in the Southeast and examined the rapidly evolving BtoB marketing landscape. With an optimistic outlook on the 2013 business environment, five consistent themes emerged from the Roundtable discussions.

Arketi Principal Mike Neumeier, APR was recently interviewed by BtoB magazine’s Christopher Hosford for the article, “For tech marketers, video is tops; advertising, a nonstarter,” in which he overviewed the five major trends.

Most notably, video is leading the content movement for tech marketers. Ninety percent of Arketi Roundtable participants said they will invest more into their video marketing efforts this year compared with last year.

To read the full BtoB magazine article, visit http://ow.ly/ljSgC.

I watch it every morning while I get ready for work, and have now for nearly 20 years. But recently, Kelly (my wife) and I have noticed the amount of actual news on the show takes up about 10-12 minutes. So if you sleep in past 7:15 you just miss it. All you get is, well, mostly reality trash TV that Jerry Springer might not even air. Ok, maybe it’s not that bad, but some mornings it seems like it. Oh, and don’t even get me started on their “panel of TODAY’s Professionals” – it’s a joke.

Now, some data sent out by Harvard Business Review show that Kelly and I are not crazy! Quoting a recent study by Pew Research Center, 31 percent of adults in the U.S. say “they’ve stopped using at least one news outlet because it no longer provides enough information.” The majority of us, 61 percent, feel that news stories are less complete now than in the past.

“According to a recent study, 61 percent of U.S. adults feel that news stories are less complete now than in the past.”

I don’t buy this “news organizations have cut staffs and reduced coverage as a way to save money” line. While it’s true they have cut costs and people, the cost of producing news has drastically decreased and access to information is endless. In addition, if the network news executives really feel we need FOUR hours of the Today Show, don’t you think they could give us at least 30 minutes of real, insightful news? Lauer and crew used to do this…I just think they would remember how, insist on tackling real news and not assume it’s best to just dumb things down and talk about Lindsay Lohan (you knew that was coming).

Having said this, I feel better. But still unfulfilled, apparently like most Americans.

The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the leading industry association dedicated to educating, promoting, influencing and uniting the technology industry in Georgia, teamed with Arketi to launch an innovative app-like website to showcase the findings of its annual State of the Industry Report. The video below, created by Arketi, showcases the functionality of the website we built for the report. Stepping way beyond its paper-based and web-based predecessors, the 2013 State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia Report has been met with rave reviews and is being pointed to as an innovative use of the MODX Revolution content management platform.

The report contains information on the current state of Georgia’s technology industry as well as results from the TAG Technology Decision-Makers Survey primary research study. In addition, TAG’s “Where Georgia Leads” maps are presented, providing an interactive view of the state’s foremost technology fields and the companies moving these industries.

KUDOS to Arketi’s design and development team for a KILLER site and video that easily communicates the “cool factor” of the new site.

Recently, Arketi and clients earned 13 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) awards at the 2012 PRSA|GA Phoenix Awards Celebration. Given annually, the PRSA|GA Phoenix Awards recognize excellence in Georgia’s PR community. Upon reflection, we’ve distilled seven learnings from our entries that may be of interest to BtoB marketers. The following are the first three findings, and check back later this week for the remaining four findings:

Media Relations Business to Business Technology for Arketi’s media relations program to drive awareness of Cbeyond as a leading provider of cloud and network services to small and mid-sized businesses. The campaign earned 325 media hits, reached nearly 18 million, and generated a cost of per contact of $0.0034 on media placements.

What we learned: Old-school PR still works. While digital media has commanded a large amount of mindshare recently, traditional public relations activities including media relations remain integral in building trust, generating brand awareness and ultimately, increasing leads.

Marketing Business to Business Technology for Arketi’s integrated marketing and PR campaign for Intradiem, the leading intraday management solution for the world’s 10 million call center agents. The Productivity Plus campaign contributed to Intradiem growing annual contract value by 30 percent and earning 169 media placements reaching 8.5 million readers. Arketi also won the Phoenix for Integrated Communications Business to Business for this campaign.

What we learned: Integration is everything. When building awareness and educating the target market around a new product offering, a successful communications campaign combines proven BtoB PR and marketing initiatives.

Direct Mail/Direct Response for Arketi’s success in driving booth traffic and generating leads at the Black Hat conference for Stonesoft, a provider of integrated network security and business continuity solutions that simplify complex network security environments. The zombie-themed campaign resulted in a 20 percent increase in landing page views.

What we learned: What’s dead is new again. Even in the BtoB technology space, there is a time and place for high creativity. Standing out from the crowd and finding a relevant tie-in to pop culture can draw the attention you’re looking for.

Recently, Arketi hosted a Lunch & Learn session with a small group of PR and marketing executives from Atlanta-based technology companies. Our guest speakers were from GigaOM — one of the most credible and insightful voices at the intersection of business and technology.

During the invitation-only luncheon, we heard from Allison Parker, director of corporate communications for GigaOM, Neil Schuster, business development consultant for GigaOM Research, and Jack Brown, vice president of sales at GigaOM.

They shared with attendees the latest news from the GigaOM family. We hope you know GigaOM, but in case you do not, here’s the rundown.

Since 2006, GigaOM (www.gigaom.com) has grown into the leading independent voice on emerging technologies and the disruption of media. The GigaOM news network’s online audience of 5.5 million monthly unique readers relies on its definitive coverage of cloud, mobile, clean-tech, consumer web and media. GigaOM Events bring together the people innovating, shaping and defining the ongoing evolution of the technology industry. GigaOM Pro offers the highest quality research and analysis of emerging technology markets and the companies making a difference in those sectors.

Allison, Neil and Jack shared with the group how technology companies can tap into the editorial, events and research opportunities offered by GigaOM. We are going to share some of our learning from this session with you, our blog readers, over the next week or so.

Let’s start with editorial. Allison was nice enough to share with us 10 tips for PR people looking to get some GigaOM ink. Here they are:

1) Read our site and understand how we cover the business of technology. Look at our editorial team bios and click through to see your target reporter’s latest tweets, latest stories and a list of the topics they cover. Really get to know their style.

2) Bring us a market opportunity. We don’t do product reviews or consumer-focused stories. We care about how an emerging technology will upend an industry or how old technology is being used in a new way to create an entirely new market.

3) GigaOM is one of few sites that really cares about the “geeked out technology” part of your story. We want to know about the disruptive part of the technology and how it’s disrupting a market.

4) Check to see if we’ve covered your company before and then pitch that reporter. If not, send your pitch to news@gigaom.com and it will get routed to the right person.

5) Stick to email, not the phone. We all use cell phones and don’t have a general office land line. If a reporter wants to follow up, he/she call you for more information.

6) If you have news, send it all in one email rather than sending a teaser. We’re a lot less likely to respond to a teaser and more likely to respond to the whole story.

7) Write shorter pitches, and send them only once. If you *must* resend, reply to the original email so we have it all in one thread.

8) Please don’t send us schwag.

9) Play fair with us on embargoes and exclusives and we will play fair with you. Be honest with us.

10) Last, but definitely not least… be interesting! If you don’t believe your pitch has legs, then neither will we.

We hope this information from Allison helps you earn some ink for your technology company. Next blog post will cover how to navigate GigaOM Events.

Immediately after returning to my office from a weekly business development meeting, I was met with the latest Harvard Business Review Daily Stat. I was shocked, but hey research does not lie. Being one of the extreme extroverts in the office I was sad, but then after doing some thinking was happy.

Daniel Pink in his Why extroverts fail, introverts flounder and you probably succeed column in The Washington Post covers some interesting research that shows people who are neither extremely introverted nor extremely extroverted are really good at sales. This opens up a new way of thinking about sales and who in our organization does what. For years – no decades – I have heard, “You’re an extrovert; sales is natural for you.” 

Now I know that is not true…in fact, the research shows most of us are good at sales. This proves that everyone in your organization is in sales!

Have a read for yourself:

Ambiverts Sell Better than Extroverts
The top-performing salespeople in a study at a software company were the “ambiverts,” those who were neither very extroverted nor extremely introverted, writes Daniel H. Pink. These people earned average hourly revenues of $155, beating extroverts by 24%. The salespeople who did the best of all, earning an average of $208 per hour, had scores squarely in the middle of a psychological scale that measures introversion and extroversion. The vast majority of people are ambiverts, which means the vast majority of people can learn to sell, Pink says.

Source: Why extroverts fail, introverts flounder and you probably succeed

Last week, Michael Brenner (@BrennerMichael) listed Arketi as one of the top 50 B2B marketing influencers on Twitter.

According to Brenner, a number of factors were used to compile the list including “Twitter followers, profiles that included “B2B marketing,” the focus of their tweets including the hashtag #B2BMarketing, as well as a variety of social scoring tools using the keyword.”

Other key influencers making the list include:

• @BtoBmagazine
• @MarketingSherpa
• @B2BLeadBlog
• @MarketingProfs
• @Forrester
• @Gartner_Inc

You can read the full article here, and be sure to add these influential B2B marketing companies and individuals to your must-follow list. To keep up with our latest updates, follow @arketi on Twitter.

Marketing and Sales, no matter how good, cannot make a buyer buy – especially in a BtoB environment, where purchasing decisions are often made by committee, impulse buys are rare, and emotions (though not irrelevant) are secondary to rational considerations.

In today’s information-rich world, buyers are in control of the sales process – so understanding what makes them tick is essential. However, as BtoB marketers, it seems we’ve lost sight of this critical point. It’s understandable. In recent years, we’ve been bombarded with the mandate to drive ever more leads through email marketing, overwhelmed by the social media du jour, and enthralled by the promise of marketing automation.

Simply put, we took our eyes off the ball. We know effective marketing starts and ends with the buyer. We always knew it – we just forgot it temporarily. It’s time to reorient ourselves, and our organizations. It’s time to embrace buyer-driven marketing. It’s time to stop selling and start listening.

This is a way of thinking that places buyers at the center of all marketing priorities. Understanding what buyers care about, how they make their decisions, and how they want to receive information, makes marketing about them, not about us.

This isn’t about doing more – or even about doing less. It’s about doing what matters. And since most of us are being asked to stretch our resources ever further, focusing on what’s important is more important than ever. If a program, strategy or tactic does not clearly impact the buying decision, then it’s not relevant, and not deserving of execution.

Going forward, that’s got to be our yardstick: will the buyer care? And the way we’ll know that is not by emailing more, tweeting more, or lead-nurturing more. It’s by asking questions, observing behavior, measuring results – and listening to what buyers are telling us.

It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to mean some adjustment. But it’s going to be rewarding. And we’re excited to join you on the journey. Visit www.arketi.com/stopselling to learn more and join the conversation.

This is the first post in a series about Arketi’s participation in Make A Difference Day 2012.

Arketi Group recently participated in 11Alive’s Random Acts of Kindness, showing even small businesses can make a big difference in the community.

11Alive chose Chesney Elementary as the recipient of Arketi’s $500 school supply donation. At random, 13 teachers were selected to receive $25 to $100 gift cards or pre-assembled school supply gift bags. Arketi purchased the gift cards and school supplies from The School Box, and the company kicked in an extra $100 donation.

Following the gift bag giveaway, Arketi’s Mike Neumeier, Micky Long, Jamie Cwalinski and Ashley Biondich put in hard work making and bagging popcorn for the school’s annual Fall Festival held later that evening.

Check out the 11Alive segment here: http://www.11alive.com/news/article/264169/40/Random-Acts-of-Kindness–Teacher-Week

To view additional photos from Arketi’s community service activities, visit Arketi’s Pinterest page.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Technology Section is hosting The HyperConnections Summit and Arketi is a presenting sponsor of this national event. The two-day communications conference will be held Sept. 27-28, 2012 in Atlanta.

Top-level executives from companies including Bloomberg, Fiserv, Mashable and Sprint are scheduled to present. Attendees will engage in discussions with leading high-tech PR practitioners and media during the two-day Summit, which will explore how the digital environment is impacting tech PR and marketing.

Home to more than 19,000 technology companies that produced an economic impact of $113.1 billion in sales last year, Georgia is a leading technology hub, and The HyperConnections Summit is only one of many national high-tech conferences and tradeshows the state is hosting this year.

The event will be held at the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center at 250 14th Street N.E., Atlanta, GA, 30318. For more information and to register, visit http://www.prsa.org/Conferences/HyperConnections/.