TREW Marketing has been selected as a finalist in BtoB Magazine’s Annual list of Top Agencies in the small agency category for the second year in a row. We were included in the Top Agency Special Report for achievements in the following marketing programs:

• Strategic media outreach leading to publicity in top national outlets, including seven features in top-tier outlets and six contributed feature articles
• Co-marketing campaign driving 320% lead growth for an embedded wireless product manufacturer
• Lead-nurturing email campaign resulting in 45.9% open rate and 17.3% click-through rate
• Full-Service integrated marketing program, results including:
  • 32% YoY growth for total web visits
  • 46% YoY growth for organic search web visits
  • 41% YoY growth for search advertising click-throughs with a flat YoY budget
  • More than 2X the industry average open rate for email marketing, at 33%
  • More than 2X the industry average click through rate for email marketing, at 23%
  • 43% increase of monthly average web leads after the website redesign, totaling a 14% YoY lead growth
  • 2,018 news release postings on media sites

In addition to the successful marketing programs for our clients, TREW Marketing’s business growth is highlighted in the following 2012 achievements:

• 50% YOY revenue growth from 2011 to 2012
• 44% YoY increase in project accounts
• 30% increase in specialized technical marketing team
• 56% increase in site web traffic to trewmarketing.com
• 82% increase in social media reach
• Two published webcasts, one white paper, and 40 blog posts published on trewmarketing.com
• Inaugural launch of TREW News, our quarterly E-newsletter, which increased leads by 169% within the first week
• Certification in the HubSpot all-in-one inbound marketing software platform

To compile the list of Top Agencies, BtoB Magazine surveyed agencies in its database through an online form in four categories (small, midsize, large, and interactive). The finalists in each category were selected based on percentage of total business that is B2B, revenue growth, client wins, and innovative work.

TREW is honored to be included in the BtoB Top Agency report, and is already off to an impressive start to 2013. In addition to the BtoB feature, TREW was recently covered by The Austin Business Journal for our marketing partnership with Silex Technology America.

You can read about the rest of TREW’s award-winning marketing programs on our awards page, or read our most recent news releases on why clients choose to work with us.

Silex Technology Selects TREW Marketing for Branding and Marketing Strategy

Crank Software Selects TREW Marketing for Embedded Industry Outreach

Agency Chosen for Collaborative Approach in Marketing to Technical Audiences

AUSTIN, Texas – December 4, 2012 – Crank Software Inc. of Ottawa, Canada announced today it has selected Austin-based TREW Marketing to lead its company awareness and lead generation campaigns. Crank Software chose TREW Marketing for their experience in developing integrated marketing programs that target embedded design engineers. The partnership entails brand and product-level messaging and positioning, PR, content development, partner co-marketing management, search engine optimization and advertising, social media and email marketing.

Crank Software specializes in embedded user interface (UI) solutions that enable R&D teams to more quickly develop rich UIs for resource-constrained embedded devices like in in-car graphical displays and animated GPS systems. Their product, Crank Storyboard™ Suite, manages the entire UI lifecycle, bridging the gap between UI design and embedded systems by streamlining the development process from months to minutes, helping their customers get products to market faster, with higher return on investment (ROI), and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

 “Crank Software has proven how collaboration during product development results in higher quality at a lower cost, and they sought to find similar advantages in their marketing efforts,” said Wendy Covey, Principal and Co-Founder of TREW Marketing. “The marketing programs TREW developed for Crank fully leverage both companies’ unique expertise, and will grow demand for Crank’s graphical user interface solutions.”

The new partnership includes the following marketing programs:

• Marketing communications strategy and integrated activity plans
• Marketing collateral and content development – case studies, webcasts
• Product launch media relations
• Search engine optimization and advertising programs
• Social media strategy and execution
• Database marketing with quarterly e-newsletters and email nurturing
• Partner co-marketing campaign and activity plan

 “TREW’s marketing expertise and knowledge of the embedded space make them a trusted advisor to help us drive awareness and demand, as we continue to grow our business and market share,” said Jason Clarke, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Crank Software. “They have a proven track record developing and executing strategic marketing plans that focus on results and we’re excited to have them as an extension of our team.”

Click to Tweet: New from @TrewMarketing: @Cranksoftware Selects TREW Marketing for Embedded Industry Outreach http://ow.ly/feA6c

About Crank Software

Crank Software is an innovator in embedded user interface (UI) solutions that bridges the gap between UI design and embedded systems to deliver a competitive advantage by streamlining the development lifecycle so their customers can get their products to market faster, with higher ROI, and lower total cost of ownership. Today, time is wasted in the development lifecycle because the design goes back and forth between UI designers, user experience designers, and embedded systems engineers. The Crank Storyboard Suite enables stakeholders to work in parallel. Storyboard manages the entire UI lifecycle—from UI design to simulation to being optimized for the device.

About TREW Marketing

TREW Marketing, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a full-service B2B marketing firm uniquely serving leading engineering and scientific companies that target technical markets. TREW uses decades of specialized experience to create custom marketing programs that help customers efficiently and effectively achieve their business and sales goals. With goals and objectives defined, TREW then takes an integrated approach using a wide array of marketing services, including brand identity, positioning and messaging; website strategy and design; content development and publishing; search marketing; public relations and social media strategy and execution.

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Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) awarded TREW Marketing its second MarCom Award. The international competition honors excellence and recognizes creative achievements by marketing and communication professionals.  With more than 6,000 entries from around the world, the 2012 MarCom Awards were given to organizations including Bloomberg, Fidelity Investments, Lockheed Martin, NASA, SunAmerica, Weber Shandwick, and TREW Marketing.

TREW Marketing won its Gold MarCom Award for organizing a press tour for ADLINK Technology, an Asia-based global provider of trusted testing and measurement products, to launch a new family of products with industry-leading devices for high-bandwidth applications.

Based on feedback from the competition judges, TREW Marketing stood out for our resourceful and creative approach to media outreach. This was a result of our in-depth journalist research and targeted outreach to deliver news hooks and story ideas most relevant to outlets’ audiences. The TREW project team – consisting of PR and content specialists as well as an engineering product marketing manager – also played a strategic role in guiding the messaging and delivery of news materials and product demonstrations.

With extensive outreach across the industry, the results of our award-winning strategic press tour met set objectives for interviews with top-tier editors and coverage, including feature articles with highly respected technical outlets. Additionally, numerous follow-on coverage opportunities were secured as leading industry reporters became aware of the leadership and technical expertise of the client through this effort.

We congratulate ADLINK for their superior engineering efforts that led to this exciting outreach opportunity. Both ADLINK and the TREW teams worked very hard over many weeks on this effort, and we are thrilled to share in this recognition for a job well done.

Contact us today to learn more about TREW Marketing services.

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5 Core Steps in the PR Marathon

Looking for additional insight? Check out our guide: Smart Marketing for Engineers

Exhibiting at an industry trade show can be a great investment for companies of all sizes. It provides an opportunity to showcase your products and enables you to meet in-person with customers, partners, analysts, suppliers and contacts from the industry media. Whether you plan to reach out to media contacts in advance to try to set up interviews, or try to catch their attention on the show floor, keep in mind the following do’s and don’ts of trade show media relations:

1. Do Provide News and Eye-Candy…

Editors and reporters who attend trade shows are primarily there so they can report on the “news” from the show. This is why it is important to offer them an opportunity to learn something new about your company, products, customers, or industry. If you don’t have something newsworthy for the event, give the media an opportunity to learn about your 6-month product roadmap, sharing appropriate details in order to pique their interest.

• Offer something visual. Many editors will appreciate if you can offer them a visual demonstration of your product or give them a chance to video a Q&A conversation with one of your executives or customers. This allows the media to share with their non-attending readers.

For example, demonstrate the way your new product works in one of your customer’s applications. This will help your booth stand out to the press who are looking to share fun stories and highlights about the show with their readers.

For example, here is a picture of the car that one of TREW’s clients had in their NIWeek booth, running the new test software they announced at the show.

But Don’t Expect All Media Contacts to Be Available for Meetings.

For highly anticipated trade shows, the media contacts are often outnumbered by hundreds of exhibitors. Simply due to time limitations, media contacts can’t meet with each exhibiting company. To maximize your time, qualify the list of media to those that will be most inclined to meet with your company.

2. Do Look for Informal At-show Opportunities to Build Rapport…

• Be aware of media badges. All attendees are given some type of identification to wear, and the media contacts typically have “media” written on their ID badge or nametag. As you attend sessions, keynotes, and even meals, keep an eye out for people with media identification. Take these chances to casually introduce yourself and company.
• Spark a friendly, casual conversation. Ask how their day is going, local happy hours, etc. Building relationships with the media is no different than building a relationship with anyone else – it takes time and intentional conversation to build rapport.

But Don’t Bombard– Exchange Business Cards with Added Details on Back.

When introducing yourself, don’t dive right in to an elevator pitch about your company during an informal, unexpected meeting with a media contact. They may not be covering the type of content you have. That said, it’s never bad to offer one of your business cards. Add a brief note on the back with what your company specializes in and why you think they might be interested in following up with you later. Even better, jot down brief points of supporting customer testimonials and/or upcoming news, that may interest them. This way you give them something enticing to revisit as they review business cards they collected at the show.

3. Do Make Spokespeople Readily Available and Prepared for Media Interviews…

• Be on time and flexible. Media personnel are typically booked with back-to-back meetings, and often, when one meeting runs late a domino effect occurs for the rest. Be sure that 1-2 dedicated company spokespeople have flexible schedules, so they can easily reschedule if needed. Furthermore, be willing to meet during informal time slots, such as coffee breaks or meals, as this may the only time you can get with that media contact.
• Exchange cell phone numbers. If you have set up at-show meetings in advance, be sure to exchange cell phone numbers, so they can call or text you if their schedules change, and you can do the same if your spokespeople has a time conflict.
• Rehearse sound bites and interview techniques. Be sure your company spokespeople are well-prepared for media interviews. They should be equipped to handle questions concerning the product, company, competitive landscape, pricing, and customer base. Have them do several mock interviews prior to the show, practicing their sound bites, holding a microphone, and standing in front of the camera.

And Don’t Forget to Take Notes for Follow Up.

As you meet with the press, take notes during the interview about what types of questions they ask. You may notice some journalists are more interested in customer applications, some probe for technical details, and others are inclined to learn about your corporate structure or partners, etc. Be sure that you are explicit about areas where you or your spokesperson will follow up with more detail, if needed.

After the meeting, it’s ideal to send the media contact a brief email with useful post-interview resources or requested documentation. This helps ensure your key messages are included in the write-up. It is also appropriate to send a social media “thank you” from your company.

4. DO Have Fun!

While trade shows can be busy and exhausting, they should also be a fun experience for your company reps. Enjoy the time to let your work shine and celebrate once it’s all over by putting your feet up and reading through the media coverage that you are hopefully able to secure as a result!

Need help with your media relations or trade show planning efforts? TREW Marketing can help! Contact us today to get started.

Looking for additional insight? Check out our guide: Smart Marketing for Engineers

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How Strategic PR Efforts Boosted One IT Company’s Feature News Coverage by 125%

As businesses continue to tighten budgets and work to do more with less, decision makers increasingly rely on third-party commentary from a variety of external sources to help them determine which products and services stand out amongst the rest. Often, topics that are discussed on blogs and in social media circles are born on trade and business news media websites and in journals. Given the growing stakes around such media coverage, having a strategically-minded and intentional public relations (PR) program is an increasingly important part of most B2B company’s marketing and communications programs, as it helps to:

• increase awareness
• strengthen consideration
• position against competitors
• build credibility through expert opinions and exposure to real-world customer experiences

However, running an effective PR program requires much preparation, research, perseverance and determination – much like running a marathon. Whether you are just crossing the initial starting line, or working to strengthen your existing PR program, here are the 5 key foundational steps that must be taken as part of successfully enduring the marathon of PR:

1. Define Goals and Objectives

What do you hope PR will do for you? By when? Are you trying to generate more awareness of your company over the coming 12 – 24 months? Is there a new product launching later this year? Are you trying to promote the expertise of your executive team over time? The intentions that you have for your PR program shape the goals you set, help you prioritize the program activities and enable you to evaluate the program’s success in the end. Once you have established your goals, you can define specific measurable objectives to achieve, such as:

• Securing a certain amount of feature articles about a new product
• Increasing the number of times your company is mentioned in the industry media per quarter
• Securing a specific number of interviews with your company’s executives and the media

A PR program typically has 3-5 goals, with related metrics, to be met over a specific period of time.

2. Identify the Target Audience

Once goals and objectives are established, it is equally important to identify the target audience for your PR efforts. To determine this, ask: who are your customers and prospects influenced by? For example, if you’re a B2B security software vendor, your customers might be the IT professionals of worldwide enterprises, and you’ll find that they are often influenced by bloggers and journalists that write for IT technology trade publications. If you are a service provider in the automotive R&D space, your target audience likely seeks out experts in automotive design and test outlets. To increase the likelihood that your PR efforts will reach the eyes and ears of your target customers, you must be sure that you know who they are and where they are reading information to guide their purchase decisions.

If you’re not sure, ask your customers. Also, look at where your competitors, partners and other companies in your space are advertising. Read up on magazines’ websites about their readership, topics they cover, and which reporters best match with your company’s expertise. Through this, you’ll be able to build your list of prospective media contacts to target.

3. Create Relevant Content and “Hooks”

Reporters are constantly looking for news and stories to fill their online and print space – product news; application examples; new ways of saving money, time, or improving quality and processes. As an expert in your field, you are in an ideal position to be a source of information for them. So before you contact your target media, create content that explains the essence of what you are trying to promote – whether that’s a product, technology, trend, application, or customer success. It is vital that you’re able to readily provide new and engaging content that helps to explain the value of what you are working to sell.  Content can come in many forms, but the types of content that are most helpful for reporters include:

• press releases
• customer case studies
• corporate blog posts
• FAQs
• company and product fact sheets
• white papers
• videos
• infographics

A key to success with PR is not just having the content, but presenting it in a way that piques the reporter’s interest. This is called the “hook” – you cast your line out (i.e., your content and idea) and hopefully the reporter bites and gets interested. The best way to come up with good hooks is to read what that reporter has done in the past. What do they seem to be interested in? What are their hooks that grab their reader in the first paragraph of their stories? By studying the hooks they use in their headlines and stories, you can start to hone in on an effective hook for your story, such as reducing costs; speeding time to market; reducing risk; etc.

The more you can turn your content and idea into a relevant, attention-grabbing hook that the reporter can easily turn into a story, the better chance you’ll have of ultimately catching that fish, e.g., media coverage.

4. Reach Out and Build Relationships with the Media

When you are ready to make contact with the media, craft an email “pitch” that will serve as the first correspondence where you introduce yourself and throw out your hook. Here are a few tips to help your pitch stand out:

• Read through the publication (online and/or in print) and customize your pitch to their style. Is their content focused on breaking news? A certain industry? New products? Case studies?
• Summarize your company “elevator pitch” into 1-2 succinct sentences, emphasizing what you do differently from competitors
• Present your hook and offer an opportunity to speak with an executive or representative of your company about it
• Provide updated contact information in case the media person wants to contact you ASAP

After you send your email, give the person at least 48 hours to respond before you send a follow up email.  It’s ok to follow up with a phone call after 48 hours as well, but proceed here with caution, as media contacts receive dozens of pitches every day and they don’t typically have time to answer or respond to phone calls from every company that is vying for their attention. Keep in mind that they certainly will respond to you if/when the story is right for them.  If they do not respond at first, try again with another pitch angle in a few weeks or months (depending on the timeliness of your hook).

5. Measure Results and Reassess Goals and Objectives

Take time to monitor your PR efforts, the amount of time spent on them, and the number of pieces of coverage or media interviews that you are able to secure in the end.  Often PR program measurements track company media coverage, competitors’ media coverage, as well as tracking the number of media interviews or engagements.  Here is a sample of how we track company vs. competitor coverage at TREW:

As your company focus shifts, you offer new products, or build deeper relationships with journalists, you’ll be able to set new goals for your PR program.

PR = Pacing Required

PR programs certainly require persistence, patience and time in order to generate frequent media coverage placements and strong media relationships. Be sure to pace yourself by setting realistic goals that can be increased to match your growing resources and capabilities over time. With the pacing and focus of a marathon runner combined with each of the strategic steps described above, you are ready to implement a successful PR program and secure media coverage to help your company and its products and services stand out, one mile-marker at a time!

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We have some great news to share at TREW Marketing. We have been selected as the marketing agency of choice by Markus Tarin, President and CEO of MoviMED of Irvine, California, a leading supplier of integration services for the machine vision market. Our primary focus will be the launch of the first-ever analog frame grabber module for National Instruments CompactRIO platform. The MoviMED AF-1501 analog frame grabber module was previewed at NIWeek and will be formally announced later this fall.

“The AF-1501 analog frame grabber module for NI CompactRIO is the first of many new machine vision products to come from MoviMED” said Tarin. “TREW Marketing was a natural choice to serve as our marketing partner in this launch given their deep experience and relationships in the machine vision space and with National Instruments.”

TREW Marketing will provide a range of marketing services, from initial product launch strategy and goal-setting with partner National Instruments, to content development, media relations, and e-marketing management.

“We are honored and excited to work with MoviMED on their launch of this first-ever machine vision module for the highly successful NI CompactRIO platform,” said Rebecca Geier, principal and co-founder of TREW Marketing in Austin, Texas. “With our long-standing knowledge and relationships in the test, machine vision, robotics and industrial control markets, we look forward to applying our broad set of marketing services to this important launch for MoviMED.”

For more information about the MoviMED AF-1501 analog frame grabber module for NI CompactRIO, contact Markus Tarin at m.tarin@movimed.com.

For more information about TREW Marketing, contact Rebecca Geier at rebecca.geier@trewmarketing.com.

Read TREW Marketing’s past blog post, Top 9 List To Increase Your Product Launch Coverage here.

PR seems so simple – you have a cool new product so you write a press release, send it to the editor or reporter covering your space, and the coverage starts pouring in, right? Unfortunately – or fortunately for readers who expect quality content that is vetted by experts – that is not how it works.

But it is also not magic – there are some simple yet important things you can do to increase coverage for your products and company. Here are our TREW 10 best practices to follow to increase your coverage, not in any particular order:

1. Focus

2. Speak in English

3. Tie it to industry news or trends

4. What about the web?

5. Don’t skimp on photography

6. Follow-up and make it compelling

7. Do whatever it takes

8. Deliver content suited to coverage type

9. Stay engaged

1. Focus

• I know all 27 features of your new product are really , really important, but I’m sorry to say, the rest of the world doesn’t have time to learn about all 27
• you have to be able to sell your product in a news release headline or 30 minute editor meeting, so you have to decide what you will lead with – what is the most compelling, new, differentiated feature that will be most interesting to the market?
• once you decide what this it, make it your headline
• another way to think about this that I often ask clients is, if you could write the headline for your story in the top magazine you want coverage in, what would it be?
• remember, headlines are usually around 8 words or less!

2. Speak in English

• don’t assume the editors who receive your product news understand all your company and/or industry acronyms or will think you’re smarter by using language that is incomprehensible to the average engineer outside of your company
• keep the language simple and fluff-free, explaining what your product does, who (specifically) will want it, why it is unique, and how it will be used (application examples)

3. Tie it to industry news or trends

• editors are in the news and education business – in the technical fields, they are charged with covering breaking technology and innovation news and helping readers understand how it may impact them in their jobs
• having examples of products or services that relate to a new trend or technology will be very interesting for editors
• ask yourself if  your product is related to a new OS, a new chipset, and new approach?
• if you can tie your new product into the larger market trends, it can really help set your product apart from the crowd of hundreds and even thousands of news releases they receive

4. What about the web?

• if you do all the work to write your press release, and you identify the key editors to pitch it to, and they actually open the email and read it, you have made it past a big barrier to coverage
• the next thing an editor will do is go to your website to read more about the product, look at demos of it, see what other customers are saying about it, and search for more technical information to complement your news release
• if your website is not up-to-date with additional information about the product, you may have just lost your chances for coverage
• on the other hand, if you have compelling, complementary information that further helps them understand the product and its unique uses, this can increase your chances of coverage

5. Don’t skimp on photography

• people, even engineers, like looking at pictures, and magazine publishers and editors, especially in the technical space, are eager to get good photography that makes turning the pages of their publication appealing to their readers
• help editors make their book look great – give them high quality product and application photography and greatly increase your chances of getting covered in the book
• if you have a product announcement that represents continuous improvement, vs. groundbreaking new innovation, and therefore is not as newsworthy, but you have great photography, you greatly increase your chances of that evolutionary product being covered

6. Follow-up and make it compelling

• emailing a news release to an editor and/or mailing them the hard copy and photography is not enough, you have to followup with a phone call
• however, when you call, don’t start with, “did you get my news release?” – this is the worst question you could ask an editor, who gets hundreds if not thousands a month
• rather, introduce yourself and your company, and then say your headline, “We announced a new product this week that is the first of its kind for XYZ” and offer to answer any additional questions they may have on your product, or the related trends he may ask about
• offer to re-send them the news release and digital photography so they don’t have to spend time trying to re-find it

7. Do whatever it takes

• an editor is constantly on deadline while also being inundated with new information, so making their job as easy as possible is key to getting their attention
• if you sent the editor your news release, but in your followup call they said they didn’t get it, immediately offer to resend it by whatever means they prefer
• if they want you to overnight it, then overnight it
• if they want the photography burned on a DVD, then burn it on a DVD
• if they tell you how they prefer to receive materials, make note of it so they don’t have to tell you again

8. Deliver content suited to coverage type

• there are different types of product coverage – clips and features
• product clips are usually printed toward the back of the book and include a short write-up and (sometimes) a photo – for this type of coverage, you want to keep your entire release under 500 words, and even shorter if possible – the more you prioritize the most important aspects of the new product and cut out the rest, the better chance you have of the editor using your release verbatim
• product feature stories are editor-written, usually closer to the front of the book, are given more space (maybe 1/3, 1/2 or even sometimes a full page), and may include multiple larger photos or images – you would target this coverage for more significant product launches, and your release may be longer, with whole paragraphs attributed to key features of the new product; in these, you may also want a quote, or even a few short case study write-ups, from customers who are using your new product successfully in their application, and you may also include a technical white paper describing more in-depth details about the benefits of the product or how it is used to accompany your release
• for product feature stories, you almost always will need to schedule a conference call with the editor, and ideally you would meet them in person so you can do an actual demonstration of the new product in action

9. Stay engaged

• if the only time an editor hears from you is when you think you have big news, your coverage results are likely going to decrease greatly over time
• on the other hand, if you work to build a long-term relationship with key editors in your space, it can become a win-win for you and the editor
• editors have deadlines every single day for articles they need to write and topics they need to cover for their readers; the more trusted contacts they have to give them sound advice and opinions on technology, trends, standards, products, etc, the more successful they can be; if you can become a go-to person for them, by the law of numbers, you will be aware and available for more opportunities to be covered
• editors are human, and appreciate feedback; if you like what you read from them, tell them; if you read something interesting that you think they’d like to see, send it to them
• take a long-term relationship approach and it will not only pay dividends for your coverage over time – assuming your products are coverage-worthy – but it will be more meaningful and you will be more successful promoting your company

We love helping companies with product launches – message development, press tour preparation, product demos, materials development, and helping ensure they get a return on all the R&D investment by getting the word out effectively and efficiently to the target audiences.

To learn more about these tips, and other important best practices such as how to take advantage of PR for search or preparing for a press tour or editor presentation, post your comment here.