Star VanderHaar, account director or Arketi Group (http://www.arketi.com), a high-tech BtoB PR and digital marketing firm, shares strategies on effective media relations so you don’t miss a media opportunity at your next tradeshow event.

Tradeshow media opportunity strategies:

1. Make a plan
2. Identify your top publications, bloggers and analysts
3. Reach out early
4. Be prepared

For more tips on media opportunities at your next tradeshow, visit http://arketi.com/blog/archives/512.

Share your pre-tradeshow media opportunity strategies in the comment box below.

A recent discussion of Arketians (that’s what we call folks that work at Arketi Group) brought up the discussion regarding what is a drip campaign versus a lead nurturing campaign. Turns out, our clients often use these terms interchangeably… it got me thinking, “Are they really the same thing?”

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Drip Marketing… Drip Marketing is a communication strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. These messages often take the form of email marketing, although other media can also be used.

Here’s the definition of Lead Nurturing according to an analyst with Forester Research… Lead nurturing is a process by which leads are tracked and developed into sales-qualified leads.

Same thing? Not exactly, although they are highly interrelated. To me, drip campaigns have been around long before the Internet or marketing automation solutions.  In the old days (circa early 1990s), one would drip a target database with letter campaigns, postcard campaigns, newsletter, and other vehicles. The idea was to stay in front of the prospective customer on a regular basis with some type of information. Today, we most often drip with e-mail marketing.

With the advent of marketing automation solutions, this process became much more sophisticated. While one could use a marketing automation solution to execute a basic drip campaign, they are typically used for much more sophisticated lead nurturing campaigns that have a very sophisticated workflow process based on prospect behavior and demographics. Lead nurturing takes a simple drip campaign and uses data and logic to provide a much more sophisticated decision process about what to send (“drip”) to each person based on their specific needs and place in the sales cycle.

And, while one could claim this is just a drip campaign by another name… it sure is a much more effective and sophisticated one that will deliver better tailored information to the prospect and a much higher conversion rate. Now, that’s a difference you can believe in.

Completing our series of posts on 10 PR and Marketing Tips for BtoB Tech Companies, we conclude with our three final key learnings from our client work in 2010. To view the first 7 PR and marketing tips in this series, visit our March 10 post and March 17 post where we uncovered some key learnings which may be of interest to our fellow BtoB marketers.

Case Eight

Feature Writing was where Arketi won with a bylined article on behalf of Cbeyond designed to guide small businesses through the current rocky economic conditions. The byline ran in Corp!, Michigan’s largest business magazine, as well as the “Entrepreneurs” section of Corp!’s website and Corp!’s home page. Following the article’s success, Corp! offered a quarterly online column to Cbeyond.

What we learned: Look to consumer magazines like Cosmo and Glamour for byline article inspiration. Take that “Five Tips for Landing a New Year’s Kiss” article and turn it into “Five Tips to Accelerate Business Growth in the New Year.” Inspiration is everywhere!

Case Nine

The Internal Video category was where Arketi won for our contribution to Cbeyond’s roll-out of new product packaging strategy to its employees. Arketi worked with Cbeyond’s communications team to script, shoot and produce a six-minute video, which has led to a notable increase in positive customer referrals.

What we learned: Scripting always pays off. Very rarely are folks able to “wing it” in front of the camera. Scripted videos actually result in a more natural look – and make post-production faster and easier.

Case Ten

Winner in the category Event Lasting Seven or Fewer Days was the event Arketi created with Ryla to elevate awareness for Ryla’s work on the 2010 Census and subsequent personnel needs. Aided by media coverage in key outlets including USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WXIA-TV, WAGA-TV, WGCL-TV and The Associated Press, Ryla successfully filled its positions from a pool of nearly 2,000 event attendees.

What we learned: There is no such thing as too much planning for an event. And briefing the media early in the process on their access to the event and its players will only help to ensure stellar media coverage.

That concludes our 10 tips. We love to hear what you’ve learned from your 2010 PR and digital marketing campaigns. Leave us a comment so we can learn from you!

Annette Davis, senior account executive at Arketi Group (http://www.arketi.com), a high-tech B2B PR and digital marketing firm, shares four tips to drive both brand awareness and lead generation through a successful speakers bureau.

1) Know your targets
2) Timing is key
3) Make your speaker pitch sing
4) Leave them wanting more

On Friday the Associated Press tweeted, ”Language evolves. Today we change AP style from e-mail to email, no hyphen. Our editors will announce it at #ACES2011 today.”

This addition to the AP Stylebook (the grammar, definitions, usage cases and rules bible for journalist and PR folks) comes on the heals of last years announcement to make “website” a single word.

It’s a good thing that AP is starting to catch up with the technology community. Too bad they did not follow the lead of  another great (but very old now) technology style guide Wired Style: Principals of English Usage in the Digital Age (published 1996). It’s a fun read if you can get your hands on one.

To read about the 42 new social media guidelines announced last summer visit: http://mashable.com/2010/06/02/ap-social-media-guidelines/.

Do you ever feel the stretch between January and Memorial Day (all the way in May) is too long? We do too and think you should consider knighting your own company day! Arketians use Arketi Day to catch up on a few Zzz’s, knock out a few items on their weekend to-do list, while others schedule appointments or head out of town. Whatever they choose, Arketians return to the office refreshed and ready to tackle everything from goliath multilingual campaigns to tiny last-minute requests.

With that, we leave you this photo. Enjoy the view from the other side of things every once in a while.

Here’s the continuation of our 10 PR and Marketing Tips for BtoB Tech Companies part two post during which we examine some of our 2010 work in an effort to uncover key learnings.

Case Four

In a campaign to position The Network as a GRC thought leader, we generated 71 positive stories totaling more than 3 million impressions, the campaign generated 12 qualified leads resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

What we learned: Don’t let media hits sit on your shelf. Inserting them into the sales cycle through your website, in sales presentations, via social media and even in reprints, can help generate and close deals.

Case Five

Arketi’s webinar “Is Your Online Presence Winning Customers?” for Cbeyond, a small business communications and IT services provider, was created as a thought leader through online program. The webinar attracted 583 registrants and 259 attendees. In addition to furthering Cbeyond’s positioning, the webcast drove nearly 40 add-on sales.

What we learned: Focus webinars on topics of interest to your market, such as how they can increase their sales and grow their business. Webinars about your company, your products, or the problems your solutions solve – while often popular with the sales force – are less likely to appeal to prospects.

Case Six

Focusing on Technical Writing, Arketi’s business article “Holistic CIO Lessons on Enterprise Reinvention” for management consulting firm Brand Velocity developed story opportunities beyond expectation. Arketi secured both a review of the CEO’s new book and a bylined article in CIO Magazine, which reaches 140,000 CIOs, IT directors and board members. In addition, the publication has tapped Brand Velocity for an ongoing article series to run in 2011, and the byline has generated webinars and speaking opportunities.

What we learned: Just because the byline is published does not mean its shelf-life is over. Seek every possible opportunity to repurpose and extend the use of that killer content.

Case Seven

Through an integrated communications program for Ryla, we aimed at promoting the company’s growth and corporate culture to prospective investors and job candidates. To supplement its aggressive media relations outreach, Arketi successfully executed an event to showcase Ryla before targeted industry analysts.

What we learned: Partnering with analysts at their own events to reach potential customers can be a powerful marketing tactic for BtoB technology companies. But don’t feel like you’re tied to their sponsorship options: get creative, approach them with new ideas and make every effort to separate yourself from other sponsors.

Leave us a comment so we can learn from you! Stay tuned for the final three tips for PR and marketing professionals working with BtoB companies to be published next Thursday.

This article was posted with the permission from our friend Allan Maurer at Tech Journal South.

Georgia and Nevada tied for the top spot for the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity in 2010, according to a report by The Kauffman Foundation. Both came in at a .51 percent rank, meaning 510 people per 100,000 created businesses each month during the year in the two states.

We have noted in numerous stories that the Atlanta entrepreneurial ecosystem has ramped up noticeably over the last year, with startup focused groups and events popping up almost monthly.

Tennessee’s high .41 rank and Florida’s at .40, both first tier performances topping North Carolina’s .35, were a bit surprising, although Tennessee, like Georgia, has seen increasing private and public efforts to boost entrepreneurial activity.

Southeast ranks

In the Southeast, North Carolina weighed in at .35 percent, putting in the second highest tier of entrepreneurial activity. South Carolina posted .23 percent, Florida .40, Virginia and Maryland at .24, Tennessee at a high .41 and Kentucky at .29. See: Entrepreneurial Activity by State.

The Kauffman Foundation report, however, points out that “While the economy and its high unemployment rates may have pressed more individuals into business ownership, most of them are going it alone, rather than starting companies that employ others.”

Nationally, according to the “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity,” a leading indicator of new business creation in the United States, 0.34 percent of American adults created a business per month in 2010, or 565,000 new businesses, a rate that remained consistent with 2009 and represents the highest level of entrepreneurship over the past decade and a half.

In contrast, however, the quarterly employer firm rate has dropped from 0.13 percent in 2007 to 0.10 percent in 2010.

Too many founders go it alone

“Since it began, the recession has triggered annual declines in the rate of employer enterprise births,” said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.

“Far too many founders are choosing jobless entrepreneurship, preferring to remain self-employed or to avoid assuming the economic responsibility of hiring employees. This trend, if it continues, could have both short- and long-term impacts on economic growth and job creation.”

Capturing new business owners in their first month of significant business activity, the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activityprovides the earliest documentation of new-business development across the country.

The percentage of the adult, non-business-owner population that starts a business each month is measured using data from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS), conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Demographic breakdowns

In addition to this overall rate of entrepreneurial activity, the Kauffman Index presents separate estimates for specific demographic groups, states and select metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). It provides the only national measure of business creation by specific demographic groups.

activity increase between 2009 and 2010. The Latino business-creation rate rose from 0.46 percent in 2009 to 0.56 percent in 2010, the highest rate over the 15 years of Index data. The Asian entrepreneurial activity rate increased from 0.31 percent in 2009 to 0.37 percent in 2010, also the highest rate in the past decade and a half. Both African-Americans and non-Latino whites, on the other hand, experienced declines in entrepreneurial activity rates.

Entrepreneurship growth was highest among 35- to 44-year-olds, rising from 0.35 in 2008 to 0.40 in 2009. The oldest age group in the study (55-64 years) also experienced a large increase in business-creation rates from 2008 to 2009, contributing to a two-year upward trend to 0.40.

Among states, Nevada and Georgia had the highest entrepreneurial activity rates, with 510 per 100,000 adults creating businesses each month. Rounding out the top five highest rates were California (470 per 100,000 adults), Louisiana (460 per 100,000 adults) and Colorado, with 450 businesses started per 100,000 adults.

The five states with the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity were West Virginia (170 per 100,000 adults), Pennsylvania (180 per 100,000 adults), Wisconsin (180 per 100,000 adults), South Dakota (190 per 100,000 adults) and Indiana (190 per 100,000 adults).

“Regional patterns have a significant effect on entrepreneurial activity rates,” said Robert W. Fairlie, the studys author and director of the masters program in applied economics and finance at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “From 2009 to 2010, entrepreneurial activity rates increased in the West, further widening the gap between the West and other regions. Rates in the South remained steady, but declined in the Northeast and Midwest.”

Other key findings for 2010 include:

• The immigrant rate of entrepreneurial activity increased substantially – from 0.51 percent in 2009 to 0.62 percent in 2010 – and declined slightly for the native-born. This increase expanded the large positive gap that already existed between immigrant and native-born entrepreneurial activity rates.
• A growing immigrant population and rising entrepreneurship rate contributed to a rise in the share of new entrepreneurs that are immigrant, from 13.4 percent in 1996 to 29.5 percent in 2010.
• Entrepreneurial activity increased slightly for men and decreased slightly for women. For men, the entrepreneurial activity rate increased from 0.43 percent in 2009 to 0.44 percent in 2010. The female entrepreneurship rate decreased from 0.25 percent to 0.24 percent.
• The African-American entrepreneurial activity rate decreased from 0.27 percent in 2009 to 0.24 percent in 2010. The white entrepreneurial activity rate decreased from 0.33 percent to 0.31 percent.
• The entrepreneurship index was highest among the least-educated group, moving from 0.49 percent in 2009 to 0.59 percent in 2010, suggesting an increased number of people entering entrepreneurship out of necessity. The largest decrease in entrepreneurial activity occurred for high school graduates.
• Among the United States fifteen largest metropolitan statistical areas, Los Angeles had the highest entrepreneurial rate (0.62 percent) in 2010. Philadelphia had the lowest rate (0.15 percent)

Trend Data

Demographic Data

Like a stick of butter in a Paula Deen recipe, the email newsletter has become the mainstay of every BtoB marketer’s arsenal, the “of course” ingredient in the marketing mix. But as the novelty of getting a newsletter in one’s inbox has worn off, and their numbers have multiplied, so too have open rates and clickthroughs declined.

Much of this can of course be remedied by making the newsletter more relevant, targeted and just plain interesting. Savvy marketers are focused on doing just that. But in parallel to content and segmentation efforts, can newsletter design be tweaked to yield better results?

Recent research from online usability guru Jakob Nielsen provides some useful tips; most of them, as he says, confirm established best practices, but a few were new to me. Mr. Nielsen says he has identified some 199 design guidelines for email newsletters, and made them available in a handsome 586-page report, yours for $497.

Fortunately for those with leaner budgets, he also provides some highlights for free, and of those, I think the following are especially worth taking note of. I encourage you to read the entire article for additional insight.

More clutter to break through. Research respondents reported an average of 300% more unread email in their inboxes that they had 4 years ago. Thus breaking through is more important than ever, which means:

• writing subject lines that speak directly and compellingly to user pain or benefit
• making sure the preview pane view shows enough “leg” to entice the recipient to view the full email
• placing high-value content at the top of the email

Think more about mobile. Many people report using their mobile device to kill time when waiting for a meeting, or a plane etc. So your newsletter, which they didn’t have time to look at in the office, is increasingly likely to be read on a mobile device; which means:

• Appearance on the small screen should be a key design driver (people rated the ease of reading newsletters on their mobile devices a miserable 3.3 on a 1–7 scale)
• And again, the most important content – from the user’s, not the marketer’s point of view – should be at the top.

Video is not vital. Users don’t expect – or want – video as a main component of a newsletter. Aside from the fact that video can’t reliably be embedded in an email, most newsletter readers are too hurried to want to watch a video. This means:

• Keep video a secondary medium and don’t use it as your key content
• Describe the video in words, and
• Pick a preview image that communicates the video’s nature instead of simply showing the first frame.
• Also, state the video’s duration.

Newsletters have long lives. Bear in mind the people may read your newsletter weeks, months or even years after it was written. A specific offer or time-related announcement may be long past, but the newsletter can still help grow and sustain your brand.

The good news is 50% of users said that email newsletters influenced their BtoB purchases, but the influence was only occasional, when the timing happened to be right. Often, the newsletter served to grow or retain a vendor’s reputation or to maintain a relationship during dry spells when users lacked the budgets needed to actively conduct business.

At the end of 2010, we revisited our client work and campaigns assessing what we learned from each. After spending some time reflecting on the year, we uncovered 10 tips which may be of interest to our fellow BtoB marketers. This post, followed by 2 additional posts, will discuss several PR and marketing tips. Here they are…

Case One

With The Network, a provider of ethics and compliance solutions to nearly half of the Fortune 500, we positioned GRC as a thought leader among target media. The campaign secured 33 feature articles – exceeding the objective by 1,100 percent – including placements in Investor’s Business Daily, Forbes, Mashable and Compliance Week.

What we learned: Mining a company’s data for newsworthy information can often result in rich thought leadership content that can feed an aggressive media relations effort.

Case Two

Through our media relations initiatives to promote GMT Corporation as a thought leader in workforce management and performance optimization solutions, Arketi secured 130 placements and generated more than 8 million impressions. This included features in 1to1 Magazine, Call Centre Helper, Credit Union Journal and Contact Professional.

What we learned: The news release is not dead! News flow is important and news releases are key sources of content, especially for the trade media. Augment this with a few great bylined articles and a handful of case studies and you’re on your way to securing some great coverage.

Case Three

In an aggressive media relations campaign highlighting Ryla, a provider of customer contact services for Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, we developed positive economic impact and positioned its CEO as a thought leader. Through outreach and events, Arketi secured 74 stories, reaching nearly 16 million people through outlets including USA Today, MSN Money, and BusinessWeek.com.

What we learned: If you can talk jobs and job-creation with credibility, do it and do it often. Take it a step further and also talk about what you are doing to retain employees, especially if you’re in an industry known for high employee turn-over.

Leave us a comment so we can learn from you! Check back next Thursday for our next post in this series of tips for PR and marketing professionals working with BtoB tech companies.