PLEASANTON, CA  – June 29, 2010 -  Trainer Communications, a full-service public relations, integrated marketing and social media agency servicing the enterprise and consumer technology sectors, today announced that the San Francisco Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA-SF) has honored the agency with the Northern California Silver Anvil Award for “Best Integrated Consumer Product or Service Campaign.”

Trainer’s winning Zazzle campaign, comprised of strategic top-tier business publication and holiday gift guide placements, and national consumer broadcast segments, resulted in billions of impressions worldwide. The Silver Anvil awards emcee Tom Vacar, an award-winning journalist for Channel 2 Fox News, made note that Trainer had earned the distinction of being the only company in the past 25 years to receive a perfect score by the judges. Trainer CEO Susan Thomas, along with several Trainer team members, attended the gala event held in San Francisco, Calif. on the evening of June 17, 2010.

Trainer, a previous Silver Anvil award winner, was selected based on PRSA’s comprehensive evaluation system that stringently assesses overall campaign objectives, strategy, tactics, execution and results. The core elements of the Zazzle campaign included:

* Expert-driven strategies on news releases and key media targets
* Tactical use of state-of-the-art PR management tools
* Award-winning Metrics Matter™ best practice methodologies

“More than just our PR agency, Trainer Communications is a strategic partner whom we collaborate with on a regular basis to help build our business. Trainer consistently executes creative campaigns, delivers stellar results based on its Metrics Matter approach, and almost always exceeds expectations. We offer our congratulations on Trainer’s perfect-score award win and look forward to teaming with Trainer on additional award-winning work in the years to come,” said Michael Karns, marketing director for Zazzle.

In addition to this PRSA Silver Anvil, Trainer is being honored this week at a gala event hosted by the Bulldog Awards in New York City for “Agency of the Year.” Trainer will also receive the 2010 Bulldog Award for “Best Campaign Under $100,000,” saluting Trainer’s PR innovation for its highly successful “Data Robotics Goes Pro” campaign. These three awards add to a growing list of national acclaim for Trainer which, among other accolades, has also won the 2008 Bulldog Award for “PR Innovation of the Year” for its Metrics Matter methodology, the 2009 Sabre Award for “Best Agency to Work For,” and the 2009 MarCom Gold Award for “Excellence in Publicity Campaign.”

“While these awards validate our PR and marketing prowess, what’s really important is the value our campaigns create for our clients to help drive their business. We are honored to represent clients like Zazzle that encourage us to perform at elite levels all of the time,” said Susan Thomas, CEO, Trainer Communications. “While we strive for perfection in all that we do, we are truly humbled to receive the first-ever perfect score in the 25-year history of this prestigious award.”

About Trainer Communications
Trainer Communications is the premier provider of integrated marketing and high-tech public relations services. Specializing in technology, the agency offers deep domain expertise across data infrastructure, information security, optical and wireless communications, enterprise software, networking, and consumer industries. Trainer represents emerging and high-growth technology companies that lack the market recognition and visibility needed to meet business objectives and is the only agency that guarantees quantifiable results with its Metrics Matter™ methodology. Established in 1995, Trainer has represented more than 200 companies, including one-third that resulted in a positive liquidity event. Notable successes include Brocade, Cloudscape, CrossWorlds, Data Domain, G-Log, Itronix, Oblix, Sygate, Trigo, Versata, and WhereNet. Based in Silicon Valley with nationwide coverage, the agency has received numerous awards, including the 2010 Bulldog Award for Best Small Agency of the Year and Best PR Campaign Under $100K, the 2009 and 2008 MarCom Gold Award for Best Publicity Campaign, the 2009 Iron Sabre Award for Best Agency to Work For, two 2009 National Videographer Awards, the 2008 Bulldog Award for PR Innovation of the Year, and the 2008 Iron Sabre Certificate of Excellence for Product of the Year. For more information, visit www.trainercomm.com.

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The start of January marked my second anniversary at Trainer Communications. On that day, I tweeted:

I meant it, too. There’s a lot of great things that go on at Trainer Communications. Aside from working with an excellent bunch of PR, communications and marketing pros, Trainer’s commitment to Metrics Matter™ (the agreement made between Trainer and clients on the amount of press coverage that will be achieved for each initiative) and entrepreneurial spirit fosters the perfect environment for me — one where results are key and creativity and initiative are rewarded.

Prior to coming to Trainer, I had been the managing editor of a Central Valley (CA) newspaper and founder and general manager of a communications and advertising consultancy that produced a weekly cable network television show covering sports and recreation activities. During the 26 episodes, I leaned to do everything it took to produce a weekly show, which included but by no means was limited to — securing sponsors, filming, editing, voice over, production, coordination with the cable company for scheduling and technical matters, and receiving praises with humility and scorn with professionalism. Need to produce a weekly cable television show? Let’s talk.

One of the things I wanted to carry into my PR and communications work for clients and Trainer was my ability to produce video — something I am glad to say I’ve had a chance to do. Through the course of my Trainer career, I’ve produce videos for former clients, current clients and Trainer, some of which you can check out here:

Solidifying my satisfaction over the past two years at Trainer were two key events, 1.) Helping our firm to win a national Videographer’s Award of Distinction for production of a Web 2.0 news video, and, 2.) Being named as one of the leads of Trainer’s Video Practice in our 2009 yearend release. Check it out:

I am looking forward to another year with Trainer (and many more after that), to building the video practice and to continuing to help lead client accounts successfully. Next up: RSA Conference 2010, here we come!

Tisa Penny (left), Shannon Magill and Susan Thomas with the PR News and MarCom Gold awards, earned for outstanding communications, PR and marketing efforts in support of the Mt. Diablo Region YMCA fund raising efforts.

There’s nothing like an award to rally the troops, build morale and validate the value of your organization’s services. At my day job, Trainer Communications, we value awards our clients win as well as those we earn. They not only instill a sense of organizational pride, they also validate fine work done and best efforts put forth.

Recently, the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals, PR News and the Videographer Awards recognized Trainer for its outstanding work in communications, public relations, marketing and video.

For its pro bono work done on behalf of the Mt. Diablo Region YMCA’s new facilities fund raising efforts, the Association awarded Trainer its International MarCom Gold award and PR News awarded it an honorable mention. For its outstanding work in video production, the Videographer Awards presented Trainer with the prestigious “Clapboard” for corporate video and Web 2.0 news video production for its work done for former client G-Log and current client Bear Valley Resort. The MarCom and PR News awards were earned by the outstanding trio of Trainer founder and CEO Susan Thomas, Account Coordinator Shannon Magill and Account Coordinator Tisa Penny. The Clapboards were earned by the Trainer video duo of VP Ross Perich and myself.

G Log Corporate Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bear Valley Resort Web 2.0 News Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyone who’s ever brought a client in front of Mike Rothman for a briefing knows two things: 1.) Prepare the client to tell the truth; 2.) Prepare the client to hear the truth. Although a lot of times clients don’t realize it at first, the toughest briefings — which may leave them rattled — often end up being the most productive as they not only provide (pardon me) “insight,” but also a good indication regarding the true level of resonance that their messages are having. Prior to going to eIQ, when Rothman was still taking briefings, I had an opportunity to bring a couple clients in front of him, while the clients didn’t necessarily exit walking on sunshine, they were forced to reconsider at least a couple bullet points and then recraft them to be more aligned with reality as opposed to hype (which paid off in subsequent briefings). My hope is that Rothman will again take vendor briefings and continue to provide the same sharp-witted insight as he has in the past — the truth, as harsh as it may sometimes be, does everyone a favor.

I am glad to see Alan Shimel continues to go strong on his blog, now AShimmy, when he announced he had left Still Secure I was left to wonder if he’d continue to post his thoughts and opinions on the tech industry, to my delight he continues to go strong. Many of my It security marketing and PR plans start off with a trip to Alan’s blog to find out what he’s saying about “it,” to understand how he’s breaking “it” down or to find out if I am really planning around something “new” (note to security PR pros: when Dan Kaplan at SC says publicly that Alan’s blog is one of the sites he looks at for potential ideas, checking it out on a regular basis isn’t a bad idea).

Alin posted an interesting link to an I.B.M. Cloud commercial aired during Monday night’s NFL game. I don’t disagree with him that taking the Cloud into the pop culture main stream may signal the demise of it’s media sexiness, however, my observations were on the quality of the commercial itself and what a valuable learning tool it was for those of us pitching technology full time. Watch the commercial:

I.B.M. does a nice job of quickly defining what the Cloud is from a technology perspective and then goes heavily into what the business and consumer benefits it offers are. This format is a good lesson for anyone pitching a technology story — go light on tech and heavy on practical benefit. A lot of times it’s hard to get client’s to understand that a lot of the writers you speak with, unless they’re techy bloggers, don’t have time to become engineers, what they write about are the practical benefits a technology provides over its really cool code.

Reading Brad Stone’s piece in the New York Times on new eTailer Glyde.com got me thinking, what’s the return policy? If I buy a used — often very cheap –  game at Game Stop I can return it within seven days for a full refund and it won’t cost me $2.50 (see Glyde.com return policy). New DVD’s are so cheap to buy at stores like Walmart and to rent at RedBox in the supermarket it doesn’t seem to make any sense to buy something used on an online venue. It will be interesting to see where this company heads and what the future holds for this Web site, surely the profitability plan can’t be based around consumers selling used games and DVD’s to one another, there has to me more coming in the future.

Happy Halloween from a few of the hard-working, fun-loving gang at Trainer Communications. You won’t find a better bunch of PR and marketing practitioners completely devoted to client satisfaction but also sure to have, at least, a little fun every day.

Posted by Joe Franscella

Media designed to be made available quickly and easily over the Internet to anyone with a Web browser and Internet connection is typically referred to as “Social Media.” Commonly used social media types include videos, blogs, photos, PodCasts and remarks made on social media publishing communities, blog reply fields and platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and WordPress.

Well-known and heavily-patronized social media publishing sites and platforms and modern Internet search engine functionality has made it possible for individuals and businesses to interact on topics of mutual interest through social media at breakneck speeds and on a massive scale.

Social media interactions are so popular and easy that businesses recognize that with it, they can enhance brand recognition, win new customers and manage existing customer relationships. Well-known technology suppliers such as EMC are taking the power of social media so seriously that they are actively recruiting manager-level employees to fill full-time positions in the practice.

It seems as if new ways to penetrate customer bases via social media interactions spring up daily. Change takes place at such a rapid pace that many newcomers end up throwing in the towel before they even get started. Statements such as, “We haven’t yet seen the value of social media,” are often defense mechanisms that really mean, “I haven’t got a clue.”

To compensate for a lack of understanding on how to best utilize social media for customer interactions, organizations are increasingly relying upon their marketing, communications and PR agencies to integrate social media communications elements into their marketing strategies. Unfortunately, many agencies are as clueless as their clients.

CMOs, marketing VPs and directors that need to rely upon an agency to establish social media interactions can quickly cull through the morass of service providers and determine which actually provide “expertise” by checking them against a set of “expert” criteria.

Once you have identified an agency that can provide expert strategic leadership within traditional marketing arenas, you can then judge its ability to provide expert social media execution by evaluating  it against these seven-criteria:

1. Agency employees participate in social community interactions through the use of various social media formats
2. Agency employees have established, regularly used accounts on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube
3. Agency employees have established, regularly updated blogs
4. Agency employees have been recognized as active social media participants by recognized social media icons
5. The agency utilizes social media as a way to market its service offerings
6. The agency has secured tangible metrics as a result of its social media activities on behalf of clients or itself
7. The agency can demonstrate thorough knowledge and understanding how to raise search engine rankings through the use of keywords, meta tags and other SEO techniques

There really is no room for a missing check box when it comes to your evaluation. Just like college students must demonstrate that they have fulfilled all the requirements of a degree prior to having a diploma granted, an agency must also fill all requirements prior to earning “expert” status.

The last thing any good general wants to do is go to war with untrained soldiers. Could you imagine devising a clever strategy and then deploying soldiers on the battlefield who don’t know the difference between a muzzle and a breach? The results would be disastrous. Imagine you are a CMO, marketing VP or director and you decide to execute on a social media strategy with untrained soldiers, how well do you think it would go?

Before you choose an agency or consultant to to lead your company into the social media battlefield, make sure its soldiers are well trained in the art of interacting through the medium. How do you know if your firm’s soldiers are prepared? For starters, find out if they are engaged on a regular basis.

As a marketing and PR practitioner, I make it my responsibility to be involved beyond what my employer and clients expect. I blog, I Facebook, I Twitter, I YouTube, I Digg etc…etc…I am so passionate about the practice that I am proud to say David Pogue of the New York Times included me in his book:

In my next blog post, I am going to present a checklist of criteria CMOs, VPs and directors can use to determine the social media expertise level of an agency. Talk soon.

Posted by Joe Franscella

About nine months ago, I had a phone conversation with Bob McMillen of IDG to better understand what he looks for in a news story. During the course of the call, the topic came up of just how many Information Security vendors there are. I don’t have an exact figure, but I came up with around 900 in the greater Silicon Valley area alone. If you use the InformationWeek description of what a startup is — as spelled out in StartUp City — many of the 900 could be considered as part of this category. Getting attention within a field of 900-plus is a daunting task to say the least. It has, and can, be done, but it does takes strategy and planning.

In May 2008, my firm, Trainer Communications, launched a promising startup, Rohati Systems (Click here for the Rohati Systems Case Study). Within the first 30 days of the launch, the company (with syndication included) had been featured over 50 times in leading IT and business publications in a combination of written features, videos and PodCasts. There were no clever gimmicks or slick PR tactics involved. This level of recognition was earned because Trainer’s Security Practice delivered — and I emphasize delivered over created — compelling news to the right journalists at the right time. We relied on experience and expertise to determine what was compelling, why it was news and then did due diligence to determine which reporters would be most interested.

If you are an information security startup struggling over how to deliver compelling news about your company or product to the trades, business and blogger communities, don’t waste your time thinking up clever tricks and gimmicks, just ask yourself the same questions a seasoned PR executive would ask a client when developing news:

1. Do you provide a solution to a problem that has been identified as a trend?
2. Is your company run by a known, proven management team and are they available to be spokespersons?
3. Is your company run by former executives of a powerhouse vendor?
4. Are your executives available for an in-person tour?
5. Do you have a recognized evangelist, pundit or analyst in your corner?
6. Do you have customers willing to serve as references?
7. Are you providing first-of-a-kind or disruptive technology?
8. Will you identify who your competitors are and openly discuss differentiators?
9. Do you have funding? Note for security companies: $20m is a lot…..
10. Do you have investors (VCs) known for backing winners?

Your answers to these questions will reveal the tangible assets your company has available to go out to the media with. Obviously, more “yeses” equal a greater number of assets and, to quote an old saying, “The more the merrier!” More often than not though, a startup will have a mix of yes and no responses, regardless of the scorecard, knowing what you have and don’t have will allow you to develop a PR strategy based on what’s real as opposed to just conceptual. And as any successful PR practitioner will tell you, what’s real Trumps the conceptual any day of the week.

I was as intrigued by Claire Caine Miller’s New York Times piece, Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley, as Michael Arrington and Todd Defren were. Like anyone who read it, I agreed with some of it and I disagreed with some of it. I also agreed and disagreed with various ideas that it spawned within the blogosphere.

The first idea I disagree with came from Arrington. The TechCrunch guru wrote that PR, basically, is  “smile and dial and pray…” The media relations portion of tech PR, good tech PR, is about a lot more than just smile, dial and pray though. Strategic practitioners know that you’re not going to get any influential or valuable coverage by just sticking a junior level person in a cubicle with a phone, Cision account and Bible. In order to get into publications that matter, you need to understand the technology your pitching, understand the motivation and beat of the journalist and deliver a compelling angle that will appeal to his editors and readers. Maybe I read Arrington wrong, but to me the word “pray” implied that media relations relies more on hope than on skill – it doesn’t, it’s all about expertise. If it were about hope, there would be plenty more tech companies getting written about on TechCrunch (“Please God, let Arrington pick up when I call and then agree to cover my client,”  I don’t think that’s a winning pitch). I do agree, however, that there is a lot of dial involved. Eighty percent of my best media relations work results from phone calls, but those phone calls only pay because I know who I am calling, why I am calling and how to present something useful.

I agree strongly with Defren’s “good PR #7″

Good PR doesn’t need to know Larry Ellison or Kevin Rose or anyone in particular in the media, either.  Even though such relationships can come in handy, good PR almost always “gets ink” because a good story has been well-told to the right people.

In 1999, I worked at a hot San Francisco PR firm called Phase II Strategies, ran by the husband and wife team of  Bill and Chris Boehlke. We had a pitch-man on staff, John (I can’t remember his last name), he was always landing hits on AP that would invariably get syndicated across all the major dailies. At the company’s annual party, he made an impact statement, he said he’d never placed a story based of a personal relationship or because he took a journalist out for drink – he secured ink because he delivered compelling news to the right journalist at the right time.

Before closing with Arthur C.  Page’s Seven Principals of Good PR, I will end with one final thought. Good PR is about more than just media relations, it’s about managing the relationships with the various audiences responsible for your clients’ success. As an agency, even if all you are contracted to do is execute on media strategy, you should always keep in mind that you are doing more than just scoring ink, you are helping to manage relationships on behalf or your client through a very public avenue.

Page’s Principals:

• Tell the truth. Let the public know what’s happening and provide an accurate picture of the company’s character, ideals and practices.
• Prove it with action. Public perception of an organization is determined 90 percent by what it does and 10 percent by what it says.
• Listen to the customer. To serve the company well, understand what the public wants and needs. Keep top decision makers and other employees informed about public reaction to company products, policies and practices.
• Manage for tomorrow. Anticipate public reaction and eliminate practices that create difficulties. Generate goodwill.
• Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it. Corporate relations is a management function. No corporate strategy should be implemented without considering its impact on the public. The public relations professional is a policymaker capable of handling a wide range of corporate communications activities.
• Realize a company’s true character is expressed by its people. The strongest opinions — good or bad — about a company are shaped by the words and deeds of its employees. As a result, every employee — active or retired — is involved with public relations. It is the responsibility of corporate communications to support each employee’s capability and desire to be an honest, knowledgeable ambassador to customers, friends, shareowners and public officials.
• Remain calm, patient and good-humored. Lay the groundwork for public relations miracles with consistent and reasoned attention to information and contacts. This may be difficult with today’s contentious 24-hour news cycles and endless number of watchdog organizations. But when a crisis arises, remember, cool heads communicate best.

Whenever I am tasked with video responsibilities at my firm, I always make a beeline to YouTube to do dearches and gather inspiration. Today I was searching for some comedy fodder related to technology reporting and I came across this old David Pogue video. Listen to the lyrics closely, it really is well done and demonstrates the power of communicating through the YouTube platform. With over 400,000 visits, it is also a clear demonstration of how powerful this medium is for tech related search.