Thu, 2018-12-06 09:57
Sam
Notes from the Field, Nov. 29, 2018
Five weeks and 61 meetings... we learned much on our now-concluded road trip. In short, clients and agencies need to talk more. From agencies we heard questions such as, "What if the client doesn't know what their story is?", and, "They won't let us talk about that."
Want to upgrade to a subscription that includes SWMS news, research and consulting? Send e-mail to Christy for details.
Highwire SAE Ben Wolfson writes: "I recently attended a media panel with three of the top enterprise tech reporters in the Bay Area. Business Insider's Becky Peterson, Bloomberg's Nico Grant and CNBC's Ari Levy shared what moves the needle for them."
TechCrunch still covers funding rounds the old-fashioned way — with lots of full-fledged articles each day, each with their own style. No digests like Fortune’s and CNBC’s. Nothing half-hearted. Coverage ranges from seed round through Series E and F.
Is the Forbes Technology Council worth the money? We hear that a lot from PR pros looking to place contributed content. In our view the answer is ‘yes’, though there’s actually something bigger going on, which we’ll get to in a sec.
There’s CES — monstrous, unconquerable CES — and then there are the events within the event. Pepcom and Showstoppers and CES Unveiled. The floor tours during the show. They’re all designed to bring CES into focus for exhibitors and journalists. 
What does an editor do when her staff is so good and the brand is so well-known? Wired.com editor Andrea Valdez faces that challenge every day. In short, Andrea serves as editorial conductor, baton in hand. She listens and modifies day by day.
Bloomberg last month fielded a survey designed to help it decide what to do with Businessweek, a brand it bought from McGraw-Hill in 2009. Coincidentally, the questions asked in the survey can reveal much about business journalism in general, and about how PR pros can build more effective Tier 1 pitches.
It’s time to address the big bad B word: Budget. Oh, and that O word, too: Overservice. Budgets are one of the most important aspects of any client/agency relationship: they help set the basis for the scope, and without the dollars, an agency can’t operate.
