One more breakthrough for the analyst relations community: a feature in PR Week.
Craig McGuire's article, Reaching a different type of influencer, explains how the practice of analyst relations has evolved a great deal over the past few years. It includes a nice comment from Susan:
The traditional model for analyst relations (AR) gave tech vendors a tool to influence industry analysts who develop paid reports for sale through independent research and consulting firms.
Today, with so much more noise in the market and such a need for reliable, independent validation, AR is now as likely to engage earlier and leverage analysts to build brand as much as to build buzz. AR's appeal has also spread beyond b-to-b tech into such verticals as pharmaceuticals, entertain- ment, hospitality, professional services, consumer goods, and more.
AR pros must continually adapt to navigate an evolving ecosystem of influencers as online, digital communities rise and relationships overlap, says Susan Galer, MD of Burson-Marsteller's technology practice. "Along with the evolving, multifaceted roles analysts now assume, we're finding that more pragmatic, metric-based industry analyst relations programs are very much the norm," she says. "For example, the reality is most organizations have a defined scope of sometimes-limited resources for industry analyst relations."
To counter, Burson developed an ROI-based methodology that allows clients to allocate AR efforts based upon proven scope of influence that will help achieve specific business objectives. Such services and strategies can only proliferate.
hits!
4 comments:
Glad to see the industry understands that it is a best practice for analyst relations to be a part of most public relations campaigns. The goal of any AR campaign should be to share a company’s strategic vision, and the step-by-step process a company is taking to deliver on that vision, with objective, unpaid analysts. This knowledge is what provides a credible industry analyst with the knowledge to accurately comment on a product or solution and help build buzz: word of mouth, media punditry, short listing, references, etc. But defining the parameters of AR is of equal importance and you’ve blurred those lines. Building a brand by engaging in pay-for-play activities is not AR- - it’s marketing.
Folks: quick comment on the format and layout of this blog. It used to be great, but since you changed it recently, it's become too cluttered and difficult to navigate. There are too many long posts (you can re-format some of them into continuation sheets). This is why the level of comments is drying up. I suggest you revert to the previous style.
Happy New Year!
how is this a good thing?
i mean AR and PR have coexisted for what? 10years? more? and there's only now a decent write-up in PR Week?
Hi ARpro, Thanks for bring this to the community’s attention. Collaboration between AR and PR is critical for both groups’ success.
Carter Lusher, Strategist, SageCircle
BTW, I linked to this post at Reading List for January 24, 2008
Post a Comment