The Innovator's Mic

Looking for remote content marketing ideas? March partner Owen Mack of Cobrandit Video joins Hacks and Flacks to discuss the different ways you can create professional-quality videos from home. We cover the tools, tips, and strategies you’ll need to improve the visual and audio quality of your online meetings, turn PowerPoint presentations into engaging video, repurpose existing video assets, and start producing your own live streams.

For more virtual marketing ideas and tips, check out recent pieces from the March team:

• Maintaining Agency Life & Business in These Strange Times
• How to Launch a Low-Budget Corporate Podcast in Under a Week

Wellness tech is a hot trend, and consumers today are trying more apps that promise to help them live longer, look great, and feel better, too. But is all of this technology and innovation actually making us healthier and making our lives better?

March's recent consumer survey - part of the Year of Smart Living - examined the impact of technology on health and wellness, and the role of marketers and brands that want to convince consumers that they’re making the right choices.

To learn more, we talked with one of the exciting brands in the wellness space: FitGenie. They are an Atlanta-based startup that offers nutrition planning combined with meal delivery. On today's show, founders Obi Anachebe and Keith Osayande discuss what's important to consumers in the wellness tech space and how they built an app that makes a positive difference to users.

How do misunderstandings happen? What actually went wrong when someone didn’t pick up on your message, or even worse, interpreted your words in a way that was completely different than you intended? It happens to people, of course, and these days it’s happening to a lot of brands, too, who find themselves facing consequences as a result.

A new bestseller from Malcolm Gladwell tackles the challenges of communication. His book is called “Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know,” and it was the selection for the latest installment Overbooked, the March book club.

In this episode, Marchers Kelsey Johnson and Molly Masi recap the major themes from ‘Talking to Strangers’ and talk about issues of trust and transparency in marketing and communications. EVP Jodi Petrie also joins to answer an important question: how can brands earn trust from consumers who are increasingly skeptical?

Overbooked continues in 2020: Every quarter, we’ll select a book with a technology innovation theme to read together, and we’ll be announcing our next selection soon. If you have any ideas or recommendations on great books to read, tweet us @MarchComms.

Brands today are trying to reach buyers and influence audiences all around the world. When the time comes to run an international PR campaign in Europe, APAC, or elsewhere, where should a brand turn?

At March, global PR has been in our DNA since the very beginning, which is also why we're a longstanding member of ION, a global network of more than 40 agencies in countries around the world. It was launched by Octopus Group, a UK-based agency, and on this episode, Octopus Group co-founder Pete Hendrick covers the formation of ION, its role in helping brands reach global scale, and the market-by-market differences brands encounter when running international PR campaigns in Europe.

As the old saying goes, you are judged by the company you keep. That's true for many businesses today, including PR agencies. Those companies are being asked, sometimes by their own employees, to distance themselves from problematic people or organizations. March founders Martin Jones and Cheryl Gale discuss this issue through the lens of PR agencies. Should agencies move on from a client if their employees aren't comfortable with it? And how much of a say should employees have in the work the agency takes on?

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In October 2019, March supported our client Affectiva at their third Emotion AI summit, which explored a human-centric approach to AI with leaders from across the industry. In this episode, we talk with Affectiva Events Manager Ashleen Bershad and March Account Supervisor Hailey Melamut to discuss the ins and outs of corporate event planning. They share tips on how to stay on-schedule and on-budget, maximize your event ROI with content, and talk about the pivotal role PR and comms agency can play in supporting a client event.

A new bestseller from philanthropist and entrepreneur Melinda Gates tackles issues of gender equality and women's empowermnet. Her book "The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World," proposes that if you want to lift an entire society - all genders - you need to invest in women.

On this episode of Hacks and Flacks, Account Supervisor Kylle Sullivan and Senior Account Executive Bill Moody recap the major themes from the book and also discuss the issue of gender equality through the lens of the tech and PR industries.

We also hear from Cheryl Gale, co-founder and president of March, on the unique paradox facing many women in PR: despite the fact that women make up between 60 to 80 percent of the PR workforce, only 20 percent of the senior leadership positions at PR agencies are held by women. 

Overbooked continues in Q4: Every quarter, we’ll select a book with a technology innovation theme to read together, and we’ll be announcing our next selection soon. If you have any ideas or recommendations on great books to read, tweet us @MarchComms.

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Link building - the practice of securing backlinks to your website from other sites that have more authority - is a classic SEO practice. But it's typically a practice reserved for digital marketers or content managers. What do PR professionals need to know about it, and should they be more involved?

After all, when done well, the practice of link building mirrors the day-to-day of many PR pros. It involves research, outreach, and relationship building. And, backlinks from news sites offer some of the best SEO value on the web. 

In this episode, Ashton Meisner of Directive Consulting, a search engine marketing agency, explains why PR professionals are the right people for the job when it comes to securing quality backlinks from reputable websites, and offers gives tips on how to apply a little bit of SEO strategy to your media outreach.

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Going to a trade show? Putting on your first corporate event? Well, then you must have a well-thought content strategy already planned out... right? If the answer is no, this podcast is for you. We talk to content marketing expert Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer at The Content Advisory, to get his tips on how to plan and execute on an effective content strategy for events.

As he explains, most companies don't leverage their events for the ongoing content that they can provide. He's got advice on how to create great material before, during and after a show, including some lessons learned from putting on the Content Marketing Institute's annual Content Marketing World show.  

• 69% of B2B companies plan to increase their budget for in-person events this year https://welcome.bizzabo.com/b2b-tech-trends-2019  
• 76% of B2B marketers think events are their most successful top-of-the-funnel demand gen tactic. http://view.ceros.com/g3-communications/dg093-surv/p/1
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Summertime is the season for beach trips and blockbusters. It's also one of the busiest times of the marketing year for GasBuddy, the leading provider of real-time gas prices on mobile and the web. On this week's Hacks and Flacks we ask GasBuddy CMO Mike DiLorenzo how his team leverages seasonality in their marketing strategy. He also talks data-driven PR and marketing, and the benefit of having a clearly defined "brand villian" to position your company against in the minds of consumers.

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• Google Podcast
• Overcast