Market Leadership Archives

Market Leadership

20 Quotes on Category Building to Sharpen your Messaging Strategy

The concept of category building enables organizations to differentiate themselves and redefine market landscapes, while opening creative and thoughtful conversations internally. Startup founders, business executives, and marketing gurus face an important question at some point in their careers: Are you trying to define (and own) a new or existing market category? The answer to this question will inevitably transform the way you communicate with external and internal stakeholders. To dive deeper into the purpose of

Guy Murrel April 18, 2023

Market Leadership

Want to Lead your Industry? Start with a Strategic Narrative Workshop

As a CEO or marketing leader, will you shake up and clarify your corporate messaging by elevating it to a higher level? Many executives are faced with this opportunity, and there can be several approaches to help achieve your goal. However, sometimes it takes an outside perspective to rid yourself of any internal challenges that can get in the way. As strategic narrative experts, we believe in taking a different approach to corporate messaging that

Guy Murrel March 23, 2023

Market Leadership

B2B Social Media Marketing: 10 Quotes to Use as Guiding Principles

As marketing professionals, we all use social media interchangeably throughout our day. It’s how we stay engaged, have conversations and create connections. The tricky part is promoting these concepts to our B2B customers. Marketers need to try and tell a story from a strategic narrative point of view. If there is one thing I have learned, B2B social media marketing gains attention when storytelling is at the forefront. B2B marketing on social platforms is a

Adele Barbles June 1, 2022

Market Leadership

Catapult PR Helps SOFTWAREcolorado Expand Social Media and PR Program as In-kind Sponsor

Catapult PR Helps SOFTWAREcolorado Expand Social Media and PR Program as In-kind Sponsor SOFTWAREcolorado and Catapult aim to increase awareness of local technology innovation among the Colorado software community BOULDER, Colo., November 10, 2021 — Catapult PR-IR (www.catapultpr-ir.com), a public relations agency for software delivery and B2B tech companies, today announced it has received an In-kind Sponsorship by SOFTWAREcolorado (http://softwarecolorado.com/) to help further the organization’s local Colorado presence and awareness. As an In-kind Sponsor, Catapult

Christin Jeffers November 10, 2021

Market Leadership

Catapult PR Selected by Chili Piper as Public Relations Agency of Record

Tech-focused PR firm partners with Chili Piper to help drive industry awareness and adoption of its inbound revenue acceleration solutions BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Catapult PR-IR, a narrative-driven public relations agency for B2B tech companies, today announced it has been selected by Chili Piper (https://www.chilipiper.com/) as its public relations agency of record. As Chili Piper’s public relations partner, Catapult will execute a strategic program aimed to build and strengthen its market positioning as the leader in

Christin Jeffers November 11, 2020

Market Leadership

Catapult PR Celebrates 21 Years of Narrative-driven PR Strategies

Boulder-based PR firm continues to offer industry-leading strategic PR and narrative services to organizations in DevOps, Agile, Cloud, Security and Tech BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Catapult PR-IR (www.catapultpr-ir.com), a narrative-driven public relations agency for B2B tech companies, today announced its 21-year anniversary as a leading high tech B2B PR firm. Catapult PR helps its clients become industry leaders with a narrative-driven communications strategy including, social and content marketing, media and analyst relations, and Strategic Narrative Marketing

Christin Jeffers September 9, 2020

Market Leadership

Three Reasons You Need a Strategic Narrative Messaging Assessment

It can be hard to get out of your own head. In business, we are all so close to our company messaging that we sometimes miss the flaws or opportunities for a better narrative. At Catapult, we’ve talked to dozens of CEOs who are unsatisfied with their company narrative but unsure how to go about improving it. When you’re busy running a business or leading teams, you tend to be inwardly focused on your products

Christin Jeffers April 23, 2020

Market Leadership

Align Your Company with a Category-focused Strategic Narrative

A building is only as strong as its foundation. The same is true for relationships, education and business. One of the core foundational components of any successful business is organizational alignment. Organizations founded upon and aligned around a set of core values and a clear vision tend to lead industries. From our experience as a PR firm in the tech industry, alignment can be achieved through a strategic narrative that defines a new or existing

Christin Jeffers April 10, 2020

Market Leadership

How to Achieve Narrative Authenticity in 2020 and Beyond

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” – Aristotle What separates an ordinary business from a market driver that propels an industry forward? It’s not just about the company’s products and/or services and it goes beyond being ‘cool’ or ‘edgy.’ You have to look a little closer and see what is woven into the fabric of these organizations. Simply put, these companies are all about narrative authenticity. They stay true to who they are

Christin Jeffers February 4, 2020

Market Leadership

PR Predictions for 2020: The Great “PR” Revival

Over the summer, my family and I spent a long weekend at a cabin in the Colorado mountains. Having two young children, a campfire and S’mores were an essential part of our plans. The kids asked about 100 times when we were going to have S’mores – and on our final night, we made it happen. To my husband’s surprise, a chocolate ad promoting S’mores popped up in his Instagram feed the next day! This

Christin Jeffers December 9, 2019

Market Leadership

Top Marketing Tips for a Strong 2020 from Forbes

A solid plan and fresh ideas are great ways to kick off a new year in business. Marketers have a lot to consider as they enter 2020. What are the marketing goals and are they aligned with the overall business strategy? What is the budget? What worked and what didn’t work in 2019? Forbes Communication Council shared tips from 15 marketing thought leaders – including Catapult’s chief narrative officer and principal, Guy Murrel – on how to

Christin Jeffers December 6, 2019

Market Leadership

Another DevOps Enterprise Summit in the Books

As DevOps Enterprise Summit 2019 comes to a close, the Catapult team heads home after three days of immersive learning and networking in Las Vegas. If you’re not already familiar with the DevOps Enterprise Summit – it is the premier industry conference for business and technology leaders to learn how to develop and deploy software faster and win in the marketplace. The Catapult team provided PR and social media support for the event for the

Megan Boudreau November 1, 2019

Market Leadership

Gift Guide for the PR Professional in Your Life

It’s that time of year again, a magical time when no one knows what to get each other for the holidays – but have no fear. Here to help you out is a list of great gift ideas for the PR person in your life. Even if you forget to get someone a gift, a couple of simple last minute ideas are here to save the day. In the PR world, we usually use this

Megan Scharf December 19, 2018

Market Leadership

The DevOps Industry Narrative Journey

Narrative leads every industry forward. For the software industry, two major movements — driven by narrative — has led to the rise of Agile, and more recently, DevOps, from concept to mainstream practice. From the Agile Manifesto (Feb., 2001) and Marc Andreessen’s famed 2011 WSJ column “Why Software is Eating the World,” to the much used motto “Building Better Software Faster,” narrative stories have helped lead both practitioners and vendors alike to collective benefit. Last

Guy Murrel November 14, 2018

Market Leadership

Catapult Adds Zype to B2B High Tech Client Roster

We are pleased to announce that Catapult has been retained by Zype, a video content and distribution company out of New York, for PR and Strategic Narrative Marketing services. Through our Narrative Practice service offering, we will help position Zype as a market category owner in the rapidly growing direct-to-consumer streaming video market. Zype CEO, Ed Laczynski, shared his thoughts on this new partnership: “We’re excited to position Zype as an industry leader with Catapult’s narrative

Christin Jeffers August 30, 2018

Top Quotes on PR and Narrative from Catapult

In a previous blog, I shared some tips on what I learned from my first couple of weeks in the PR industry. One thing I learned after joining the Catapult team is that, “Tips from co-workers are the best… if a co-worker gives you any information on how to make your time more productive or to make others in the office happier, take it. Many of my co-workers at Catapult have helped me with this.” Shouldn’t

Megan Scharf August 22, 2018

Market Leadership

Collaboration: the Ultimate Win/Win for Everyone

Think about it. What is it about certain people or environments that make you enjoy your work more? You probably feel empowered, that there is an open exchange of ideas, and encouragement to express your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Whether it’s personal or in the business world, it is clear. The more collaboration, the greater the trust, learning, growth and innovation. According to Wikipedia, collaboration is “the process of two or more people or organizations

Terri Douglas August 15, 2018

Market Leadership

Strategic Narrative and Category Building are Front and Center for CEOs

Messaging and positioning are more than just marketing’s priorities These last few years I’ve seen Catapult go in and help organizations create strategic narrative messaging and execute PR efforts that lead markets and create new categories. In that time, I’ve noticed some patterns in the way that organizations 1) realize they need help with telling their story, 2) reach out to third parties to gain an outside perspective and, 3) involve executive leadership to implement

Laura Balboni July 23, 2018

Market Leadership

Anchor Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy with a Strategic Narrative

Your content is only as good as your B2B content marketing strategy. Evidence supports this theory in the Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report. According to the report, 91 percent of respondents use content marketing. However, similar to previous years’ reports, it’s the organizations with documented content marketing strategies who report higher levels of content marketing success. Yet, only 37 percent of respondents have a documented strategy. A top reason

Christin Jeffers July 16, 2018

Market Leadership

Narrative + PR = Category Winner

It’s harder than ever to stand out — with most companies saying the same thing as competitors. It’s even harder to seize the top spot within your given category. Despite all the digital automation and intelligence available to marketers, effective public relations still provides the most credible path to winning the market positioning battle, especially for startups and B2B tech firms. Don’t get me wrong… Growth hacking is great. As is paid digital marketing that

Guy Murrel June 27, 2018

Market Leadership

Why You Shouldn’t Leave it up to the Industry Analysts to Define and Claim Your Market Category

If you are in the tech space, you are familiar with all the industry research firms who tout their worth and value when it comes to defining who your company is and where you fit within their various market categories. Companies pay a LOT of money to get on analysts’ radar screens and utilize their advice and services. There’s nothing really wrong with this approach. There is definitely certain value you get out of paid

Terri Douglas May 24, 2018

Market Leadership

Five Reasons why Category Building is Marketing Gold

True market leaders own, define and/or lead market categories. Think about the Apple’s, Netflix’s and Airbnb’s of the world. They disrupted competitive and dynamic markets, intentionally created new and innovative categories in markets where technology was forcing change – and the results have been extremely prosperous. Marketers should be REALLY excited about this because it’s not easy to stand out in crowded digital platforms – and it’s getting harder to bring new people in. Consumers

Christin Jeffers May 17, 2018

Market Leadership

Women-in-Tech Narrative Aims to Empower and Inspire

This article is reposted from Business 2 Community. Read the original posting here: https://www.business2community.com/leadership/women-in-tech-narrative-aims-to-empower-and-inspire-02052220 An industry narrative presents a great opportunity for organizations of all types to stand for something higher than “what they do.” Crafting a narrative that aims to inspire industry change is the stuff that sets true market leaders apart and determines business winners and category champions. Sometimes it’s hard to grasp how a strategic narrative – not traditional messaging or storytelling – can

Guy Murrel April 30, 2018

Market Leadership

Narrative Spotlight: A Strategic Narrative Can Sweeten Social Media and Drive Real Change

In many respects, the social media narrative is souring as its worst qualities have come to light. Anyone who follows the news has seen countless stories about data breaches, election meddling, its addictive nature and even its impact on mental health – and studies back these claims. For instance, social media is now reportedly linked to depression in teens. A study completed by the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK revealed that Instagram,

Christin Jeffers April 24, 2018

Market Leadership

Dear CMO, What’s Makes a Tasty Marketing Recipe?

There is no one correct way to make my favorite dish of all time – macaroni and cheese. With a plethora of options — from cheese selection to noodle type, in addition to different cooking methods involving butter, eggs or cream — the beautiful thing about making “mac and cheese” is that no matter what ingredients you use, the combination of pasta and cheese usually tastes good no matter what (though there are still ways

Jeremy Douglas April 19, 2018

Market Leadership

Time for CEOs to do Some Spring Cleaning

And Strategic Narrative Marketing is Blooming. . . Ahhh, Springtime. The grass is starting to turn green, the birds are chirping, and tulips and daffodils are popping up through the dirt to greet the sun. You’re probably even thinking about golf, vacations and scheduling a few outings with your friends and family. That’s the familiar narrative we are all accustomed to when we think about Spring. Now, apply that to what your company does each

Terri Douglas March 28, 2018

Market Leadership

Narrative Spotlight: How Apple Dominated the Resolution Conversation with Retina Display

Catapult has recently been shining the spotlight on companies that understand how to lead the market by creating industry narratives and vision. These are companies that have hit the narrative mark. This means their communications follow the principles of Strategic Narrative Marketing. We started with a post on Patagonia, outdoor adventure retailer, and its move over the last couple of years to take a political stance and align the company around advocacy for public lands.

Laura Balboni February 22, 2018

Market Leadership

Narrative Spotlight: Mavenlink

The narrative movement is gaining traction among industry leaders. An industry narrative is higher-level than storytelling and that alone forces companies to think differently. By participating in this movement, companies have the opportunity to offer a unique voice and contribute to the overall betterment of the industry. What we’re talking about rises above products and services. It is the essence of who a company is and its vision for the industry. Many companies that have

Christin Jeffers February 14, 2018

Market Leadership

Selfless Marketing is a Thing (Let me Explain …)

Believe it or not, a company’s messaging does not have to be self-centered. Stay with me for a moment and let me explain what I mean. I know, I know the very word “marketing” means promoting and selling. So how can marketing be selfless? Isn’t the purpose of marketing always to increase the bottom line? Shouldn’t a B2B company focus on advertising and promoting its solutions? Sure, those activities matter and good marketing will end

Laura Balboni January 29, 2018

Market Leadership

How an Industry Narrative Prevents Your Content from Becoming Spam

Content marketing standards might be at an all-time low. Many business-to-business companies are outsourcing content creation, often to “jack-of-all-trades”-content farms who do not have a deep understanding of the businesses they are writing about. Also, we are seeing automated content and the use of robots or AI for content creation grow in popularity. Heck, even journalism organizations like the Associated Press are using robots to write stories, so why not? But is all of this

Laura Balboni November 2, 2017

Market Leadership

TechDay LA Recap

For a boutique PR firm like Catapult, the tradeshow/conference circuit is a bit off the beaten path. We work with clients all over the country, and we’ve been fortunate enough that the reputation we’ve developed throughout the tech industry often leads to referral-based client relationships. When we decided to attend TechDay LA, we recognized it as a great opportunity to push our boundaries, engage with a whole new sector of the industry, and continue to

Charles Trowbridge September 21, 2017

Market Leadership

50 Quotes on “Narrative” that Change the Way we look at Storytelling

While a picture may be worth a thousand words, the narrative itself is priceless. As PR and marketing pros, we strive to develop (and nurture) a strategic narrative that will help our clients leapfrog their competition and win in the marketplace. While this is not an easy feat, taking the time and making the effort to create a powerful narrative (at the industry level) helps establish thought leadership and the opportunity to “influence the influencers.”

Jeremy Douglas July 18, 2017

Market Leadership

Takeaways from DevOps Enterprise Summit London 2017

DevOps Enterprise Summit London 2017 (DOES17) is a wrap! We (Catapult PR) were proud to partner with IT Revolution to help make the second year of the London conference come to life. DOES17 took place in the amazing Queen Elizabeth II Centre in the heart of London from June 5-6, 2017. Nearly 700 software delivery practitioners, business leaders and DevOps luminaries from around the world joined us for two jam-packed days of programmatic learning featuring

Olivia Heel June 15, 2017

Market Leadership

How a CrowdChat Can Bring Your Industry (and Narrative) Together

In the world of PR and marketing, it’s always crucial to keep a pulse on the latest and greatest tools and technologies. Why? These present new and innovative ways to help bring your client’s or your company’s messages and strategies to market. If you’re a Twitter person, like me, perhaps you’ve stumbled onto an application called CrowdChat – a social chat platform where a crowd creates the content through engaging conversations and a gamified experience.

Jeremy Douglas May 4, 2017

Market Leadership

The (Only) Three Questions to Ask Your PR Firm

After being in the PR business for more than 30 years, it’s been an interesting ride to see how it’s evolved, morphed and changed. Yet, while PR has been around for a while, it still is a mystery for many CEOs, CMOs and marketing folks. Oftentimes, they don’t understand what kind of results they should expect and, if they are hiring a PR firm, how they operate. We often get asked the standard questions when

Terri Douglas May 1, 2017

Market Leadership

Strategically Targeting Analysts as Key Influencers: AR is a Two-Way Street

Analyst relations (AR) and public relations are usually closely paired within the marketing functions of today’s businesses. At Catapult, we run AR programs for most of our clients, in addition to PR. This makes sense because in some ways, analysts function like journalists—although more technical, specialized and usually with prior firsthand industry experience. Analysts formally report on the movements they see within particular markets. They evaluate and review vendors, provide recommendations and forecast future growth

Laura Balboni April 26, 2017

Market Leadership

Raise Your Brand Volume with Execution-as-a-Strategy

One of the best ways to beat your competition is to out execute them. This is especially true when it comes to PR and marketing. All too often companies get bogged down when it comes to PR cadence and frequency. Activities are done in fits and starts. Then, long lags in time occur as the company goes “quiet.” Meanwhile, the leaders in the market seem to be communication machines – frequently and consistently posting social

Guy Murrel April 21, 2017

Market Leadership

Social Media Marketing World: The Future of Social Marketing

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend Social Media Marketing World 2017 (SMMW) in sunny San Diego. Coming into the conference as an intermediate member of the social media world, I was excited to learn a lot. And, boy, did I learn! The conference covered just about every corner of social media marketing, including tracks specifically dedicated to blogging, vlogging, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, analytics and more. With more than 100 sessions lead

Olivia Heel April 13, 2017

Market Leadership

Drive Content Marketing Success with an Industry Narrative

Content marketing costs 62 percent less than outbound marketing, but generates more than three times as many leads (Content Marketing Institute). Marketers recognize the value of leveraging good content and most companies today use some form of content marketing. We see evidence of this on social media, blogs and other online content distribution sources. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of material that companies are constantly pushing out has reached spam-like levels. Without the right content strategy,

Guy Murrel February 10, 2017

Market Leadership

Strategic Narrative Marketing from Launch to Adoption | Part 12

Strategic Narrative Marketing (SNM) is a new approach to company positioning and messaging. If you’ve been tracking along with our blog series, you probably have a decent grasp on what it’s all about (newcomers – start with Part 1). You’ve learned how to truly think and act like a leader in your industry and perhaps you are considering developing and launching a market category or framework for your organization. Recently, the series covered how to

Guy Murrel February 1, 2017

Market Leadership

Your Strategic Narrative | Part 9

If strategic narrative you’ve followed along with our Strategic Narrative Marketing blog series, you’ve learned about this new industry approach that was developed by Catapult PR to help companies lead markets, stand apart from their competitors, and have something meaningful to say in crowded content spaces. Recently we transitioned from the “what” to the “how.” We covered the basics of conducting a discovery session to unwrap a Strategic Narrative and explained how that will lead

Christin Jeffers January 6, 2017

Market Leadership

Crafting Your Strategic Narrative Statement | Part 8

To continue our ongoing series on “Strategic Narrative Development: Elements of Success,” we’ll take a look this week at actually creating a strategic narrative statement. Last week, we discussed the elements most important to conducting a workshop and developing a category: gathering the right people, thinking at an industry level, using the workshop for discovery and not to answer questions, and to hold an extensive discussion that allows the team to consider all its options

Guy Murrel December 20, 2016

Market Leadership

The New Standard for Quality Content

My son, a kindergartner, is learning how to read and write. He tends to rush through his assignments so he can move on to more important things, like recess. His teacher, on the other hand, is a big proponent of “quality work.” She encourages him to take his time. My husband and I (also supporters of quality work), make him slow down when we practice with him outside of school but, he doesn’t quite get

Christin Jeffers December 16, 2016

Market Leadership

Five Ways to Get More Value from your PR Firm

After you’ve selected a PR firm to help your organization define and share a strategic narrative with the world, you need to make sure you get the most value for every PR dollar spent. The success of a PR initiative is not completely dependent on the agency, however. While a good agency knows how to work around unique quirks or challenges a client brings to the table, there are a number of decisions and actions

Laura Balboni December 9, 2016

Market Leadership

Strategic Narrative Development: Elements of Success |Part 7

In our previous Strategic Narrative Marketing Series post, we discussed the value of conducting a discovery workshop to uncover raw, honest insights into your company’s view and vision for the industry. Without having any experience, these discovery sessions can be difficult to conduct and it’s easy to fall off course. We highly recommend looking into an expert third party to conduct the workshop for you. But, if you are determined to go at it alone,

Guy Murrel December 8, 2016

Market Leadership

Differentiating Yourself From the Crowd Without Fake News

The more we look around the current tech landscape, the more we see examples of just how important a strategic narrative is in differentiating yourself from the crowd. Take, for instance, the latest controversy surrounding Facebook and its “fake news” problem. Facebook has long positioned itself as a data collection company masquerading as a social networking organization. However, with its move into live broadcasting and, apparently, news curation, it’s clear that the company has moved

Charles Trowbridge December 2, 2016

Market Leadership

Three Reasons to Adopt a Social Media Strategy

At Catapult PR, we offer a wide variety of services to our B2B tech clients. From analyst and media relations to content development, to capturing speaking and award opportunities there isn’t much we can’t do. While programs such as these are pretty painless in terms of getting clients on board, there is one initiative that is often a struggle: social media. Perhaps it’s because of how new social media is in terms of being a

Olivia Heel November 29, 2016

Market Leadership

The DevOps Enterprise Summit San Francisco Was Everything We Hoped For and More!

We (Catapult PR) just returned from an action-packed three days at the 2016 DevOps Enterprise Summit San Francisco (DOES16) where 1,300 DevOps luminaries, business leaders and practitioners united to unpack current DevOps trends and predictions, share success stories and collaborate for the betterment of Dev and Ops practices at large, complex organizations. The conference featured a jam-packed schedule including speakers from some of the world’s biggest brands, such as Target, Verizon and Disney, who shared

Terri Douglas November 17, 2016

Market Leadership

Unwrap Your Company’s Strategic Narrative | Part 6

If you’ve been following along with our Strategic Narrative Marketing blog series, you’ve learned how your organization has a unique opportunity to be heard in the face of today’s oversaturated content and digital marketing channels. You’ve learned how a Strategic Narrative can help elevate your organization above the competition with a higher-level, strategic approach to positioning and messaging. You’ve also learned some of the key building blocks of a Strategic Narrative – including tenets to

Guy Murrel November 15, 2016

Market Leadership

The Rules of Engagement: PR Edition

rule of en·gage·ment noun “A directive issued by a military authority specifying the circumstances and limitations under which forces will engage in combat with the enemy.” The [PR] rules of engagement (ROE) are standing orders to public relations firms (and individual PR professionals) that define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which the use of pitching, writing or socializing may be applied. These rules provide authorization for and/or limits on, among other things, the

Jeremy Douglas November 10, 2016

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