Midnight Oil Writing

Marketing & Business Content & Strategy

Customer References: Your Sales Force is Your Recruiting Team

Getting customer references is sometimes the biggest challenge faced by B2B marketers.  It can be tedious and labor-intensive, but it is also strategic and often of vital importance.

Over the course of nearly 20 years I’ve worked with a wide range of companies to develop customer references.  From start-ups to blue chip firms, all B2B companies struggle with having enough of the right customer references.

I recently shared some of my thoughts about working with the sales force on customer references as a guest blogger on Pixability’s blog.  Pixability is a really cool, local start-up focused on helping organizations tell their stories using video.

I’d love to hear how you work with your sales team to cultivate customer references.

- Kelley

@kelleylynnk

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Two Bering Sea Crab Fishing Captains, Three Nights in Boston and Gloucester and One Trip to the ER

I’d heard consumer PR is different from B2B PR.  Now I know “Hollywood” PR is very different from technology PR. 

Through a perfect storm (sorry, had to) of coincidences and personal contacts, a friend, Jamie Marshall of Gloucester, asked me to donate some PR services to a fundraiser in Gloucester.  Jamie and the apparently indefatigable Kristin Michel pulled together a sell-out fundraiser for the Gloucester Little League.  Community fundraisers aren’t always a sell-out, but they are when you get guest stars from Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch! (more…)

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The Art of Storytelling

Last week we wrote about public relations transitioning into storytelling.   Storytelling as a career/industry is on the rise, but is the art of storytelling coming through, or getting lost.  (more…)

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Public Relations Transitioning into Storytelling

Public relations is going through a massive transition.  The reasons are many, and frankly, I’m not going to delve into them here.  As the public relations industry, and its practitioners, evolve, they are starting to use different terms to describe what they do and who they are.  (more…)

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Should Ideas be Free?

Most public relations, marketing and advertising professionals have been there; pitching a great client prospect, only to realize you’ve revealed too much too soon.  And then maybe the next new business pitch results in you holding back too much.

Where’s the balance? (more…)

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Abandon Media Relations; Adopt Influencer Relations

Traditional media relations is dead.  Traditional media relations is really a vanity project.  It’s all about getting that big media hit to frame and put up on the wall (the client’s wall and/or the agency’s wall).  After all, if [insert publication name] wrote about your product, service or company, you must be delivering value. (more…)

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