Stand-Alone Profiles Increase Visibility for New CEO
Learn how PAN promoted KANA's new CEO, touting his vision for the company and establishing this take-charge executive as a thought leader.

Promotion of Scholarship Contest is Win-Win
See how PAN helped Burns & Levinson with a corporate philanthropy effort.

Kentucky Derby Roundtable a Winner
Discover how PAN came up with a creative idea to promote this social search company at the Running of the Roses.

Maximizing Press Coverage for a Major Trade Show
See how PAN secured top-tier media coverage at Incisive Media's Search Engine Strategies Show in New York.

Branding a 100-year-old Company
Learn how PAN skillfully uses a firm’s data to elevate their brand and media exposure.

The Long Tail: Why You Should Consider Reaching Niche & Local Audiences
by Mark Nardone, Executive Vice President

Many savvy marketers today are looking beyond the traditional behemoth business targets. As online retailers like Netflix and Rhapsody have escaped the physical constraints of brick and mortar stores, they’ve generated nearly as much revenue from “outside of mainstream products” as from mega-hits.

In physical stores, retailers stock what they anticipate to be hits, because they have limited shelf space. But online retailers can offer an endless array of products—whether its Indie films, out-of-print books, or obscure music. These niches are what is referred to as “the Long Tail.” Nurturing this untapped market has proven extremely lucrative for some. As Chris Anderson recently reported in Wired Magazine, more than half of Amazon’s book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles.

For businesses looking to reach the long tail, PR is a very efficient tool. Businesses can carve out a niche for themselves, gaining remarkable traction through key regional markets. In major markets across the country, there are pockets of journals and media outlets specific to your target audience. Any good PR agency should have the reach into these local markets to get your message in front of these decision makers and influencers.

For example, a software firm looking to gain entrée in the SMB space can gain significant traction through a localization angle—hitting the second-tier business journals and developing alliances in those regions to convey their value proposition. This involves gaining an in-depth understanding of your ideal prospects, crafting the right message to differentiate the business, and choosing key focal points in local markets.

This doesn’t mean abandoning national promotion. PR agencies should have the ability to support national “umbrella” messages to reinforce the national brand, but also narrowcast—reaching out to niche audiences. For example, a luxury car manufacturer can augment its national PR efforts with targeted value propositions to attract customers at the local level. Whether you’re gaining coverage in local media outlets, or participating in well targeted industry events, the more one-on-one communication you have, the better your return on your marketing and PR dollars.

These localization efforts should be aligned with the overall business strategy. If, for example, we analyze the results of a marketing campaign and realize a strong trend in lead generation among businesses with a specific demographic, we can adapt PR campaigns to market to this sweet spot. Likewise, if a new product has been particularly well received in certain areas of the country, your PR team should be agile enough to respond quickly to this trend with engaging communications to these target segments.

Working with PAN:

Chordiant Software, Inc.
Cupertino, CA

Chris Hall, Vice President of Marketing

What can you expect from your first 90 days as a PAN client?

Chris Hall, vice president of marketing for Chordiant Software, Inc., shares his experience working with PAN.

Why did you choose PAN as your PR agency?
Software organizations like Chordiant are extremely dynamic, and our needs are always changing. PAN had the agility to adapt to whatever we needed. The firm offers extensive marketing resources well beyond PR, and we’ve used these to supplement our own marketing team. For example, when we suddenly needed to conduct more field activity events, PAN coordinated these activities. More importantly, the firm helped establish a roadmap to reach all levels of analysts and press. PAN brought in their internal resource for media coaching and skills to ensure the entire team was conveying the right message. We turned this into a program for our sales reps to bring polish to their communication with customers.

What were you looking for PAN to accomplish?
When I was challenged to rebrand our organization, I knew PAN was the team to help us get there. We wanted a sincere brand, not just change for the sake of change. Account Manager Erica Burns worked closely with our executive team, our top sales reps, and our ad agency on the development of a relevant and catchy brand identity. Once we had defined our new identity, PAN was instrumental in launching it and getting us promotion with top members of the analyst and press community.

What do you attribute this success to?
The team brought tremendous depth of experience in our industry and in IT as a whole. Mark Nardone provided executive leadership to guide the team at the account and senior level. In addition, Erica’s keen understanding of each analyst and how our message would play with them was extremely important to our strategy. She knew the impacts that our brand would have on the BPM and CRM markets.

I’ve been impressed with our account team, from my Senior Account Manager Jennifer Meyer, who knows everyone in the industry, to the senior associates, associates, and junior associate, who bring terrific energy and creativity. The team really gels. I know that they work on other accounts, but when I’m on my weekly calls with them, it feels like nothing else exists in their life but Chordiant.

A member of the PAN team also participates in my weekly calls with our European PR firm to add guidance. They’re extremely open to sharing byline and pitch ideas with our European team. This fosters great teamwork that has helped us to strengthen our worldwide PR activities.

What was the most important coverage you’ve gained as a result of PAN’s efforts?
All of the coverage we have secured thus far has culminated in greater brand awareness. We’ve gained tremendous traction in the press and analyst community and in fact, the Wall Street Journal is speaking with our new CEO in a couple of weeks. The turnaround has been terrific and our executive team could not be more pleased with the progress we have made to date.

What are your plans for the next 90 days?
The PAN team is gearing up to support several product launches. In addition, they’re reaching out to help us get closer to our customer base. Our customers have been very protected from speaking with the press. We have nearly a dozen byline opportunities prior to our press tour, and the team will be strategizing on the best approach to generate PR with our customers.

PAN Takes Home 7 Bell Ringer Awards
At the annual Bell Ringer award dinner on Tuesday, June 6, PAN came home a winner with seven awards, including three in the "Best High-Tech Campaign of the Year" category for our work with clients: Identify, Systinet and PubSub. Read more.

Life at PAN: Our Employees Make Us Shine
In this issue, we introduce you to two newly promoted Account Managers: Carrie Schuller and Ed Hadley.

Featured Employee: Carrie Schuller
Current Role: Account Manager
With PAN Since: 2000
Education: Dickinson College
Resides in: Lynnfield, MA

Featured Employee: Ed Hadley
Current Role: Account Manager
With PAN Since: 2003
Education: Providence College
Resides in: Brighton, MA

Ed: I stumbled upon PR in college when I interned for the mayor of my hometown one summer. When he found out that I was a good writer, he had me writing press releases, speeches, op-ed pieces for the local newspaper, etc. It was such an exciting experience that I pursued a PR career head on after that.

Continue reading about Carrie and Ed.

PAN Out & About
On June 12, PAN sponsored The Capital Network's (TCN) Summer Mixer at Flat Top Johnnie's in Cambridge. We mingled with about 100 entrepreneurs of emerging companies and venture capitalitsts.

On August 8-10, PAN will exhibit at the Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose which promises to be an exciting show with the CEO of Google as a keynote! PAN will be on the exhibit floor in Booth #831! Stop by and say hello!

PAN Summer Advantages
With the nice weather upon us, PAN once again has instituted a special summer benefit for our employees! Starting the Friday before Labor Day, we began to observe our summer hour schedule that runs through the Friday before Labor Day, September 1. During this time, PAN closes on Fridays at 1 p.m. (However, for our clients, we are always available via cell phones).

Also, to get everyone in a festive weekend mood, each Thursday afternoon at 5 pm, the PAN Pub opens serving ice-cold beverages and snacks. Ask any PAN employee and they will tell you they look forward to the 5 pm page on Thursdays, letting them know the PAN Pub is open!

PAN After 5 -- Red Sox Spring Outing
On Friday, May 12, PAN headed to Fenway for our annual spring outing where from our seats in the left field grandstand (under the overhang so we kept dry), we watched the Red Sox duke it out with the Texas Rangers. Despite the rain that forced the game to be called in the 6th inning, we had a PANtastic time!