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Engage PR is a full-service public relations and
communications company with a strong track record of promoting our clients
to market success. For more information, please visit www.engagepr.com.
Here we
showcase how Engage PR's unique and creative
public relations campaigns have elevated our clients and their products in
the eyes of investors, the industry, and the media.
Building
Momentum for Swan Labs
Swan Labs
develops network appliances that enable Global 2000 companies to maximize
their Wide Area Network (WAN) investment by simultaneously optimizing WAN
performance and accelerating enterprise applications. Engage PR began
working with Swan Labs in July 2004 to help launch the company, founded
earlier this year.
The Goal
While enterprises can currently choose from several WAN optimization
solutions, they still face significant challenges when it comes to
implementing mission critical applications over the WAN. Swan Labs is
taking a new approach to this market with Enterprise Application Shaping
(EAS), a new technology that combines the best aspects of WAN optimization
and application acceleration. As a new vendor -and the only vendor
in a new market space- Swan Labs lacked name and
technology recognition. Thus Engage PR's primary
objective was to launch Swan Labs to the trade press, financial press, and
analyst communities as a company that is enabling enterprises to solve an
existing problem in a new, more comprehensive way.
The Approach
EPR used multiple tactics to launch Swan Labs, highlighting the market
opportunity, private funding from pedigree investors, a serial entrepreneur
CEO, and a board chairman who is recognized as an industry visionary and
who has taken previous startups to successful acquisitions.
Engage PR combined the following components to maximize interest in Swan
Labs:
- Defined the size and the
scope of the Enterprise Application Shaping market and explored the
limitations of existing approaches
- Promoted Swan Labs'
Series A funding of $15 million from investors NorWest
Ventures, DCM - Doll Capital Management, and Benhamou
Global Ventures
- Leveraged networking
industry luminary Eric Benhamou, Swan Labs'
board chairman and investor, for business press opportunities
surrounding the company's launch and funding news
- Highlighted third-time
CEO Andrew Foss and his expertise in the enterprise WAN market to
secure CEO profiles in key trade and business press publications
The Results
EPR conducted Swan Labs' company launch in August 2004. Through aggressive
outreach to key targets and consistent messaging from Swan, the launch
produced the following results:
- Visibility for Swan Labs
and its EAS technology, achieved by briefing 13 key reporters and
three industry analysts
- Coverage in 31
publications, including The Wall Street Journal and San Jose
Mercury News, and a Q&A in Red Herring
The Take Away
Combining multiple angles to publicize a news event can heighten interest
in a new company. Engage PR applies creative approaches to promote all of
its clients successfully.
Establishing
Experts, One Creative Column at a Time
Inkra Networks is the leading provider of virtualized
network infrastructure designed to manage and minimize operations costs for
service provider, government, and enterprise organizations. Engage PR began
working with Inkra in August 2001 and helped
launch the company's first product in April 2002.
In late 2003, as the media began to explore what technologies would
constitute the "New Data Center," Engage PR and Inkra recognized the need to educate the media and Inkra's potential customers and partners on the
benefits of virtualization and the convergence of the data center -a term used to define bringing the storage, server, and
network layers of the data center together to work as one entity. Engage PR
and Inkra developed a PR program to position the
company as the experts in this new and perplexing market.
As a part of the program, Engage PR secured Inkra's
participation in Network World's Data Center Technology Tour in fall
of 2003. Throughout the tour, Inkra received many
inquiries from attendees -primarily enterprise IT
decision makers- about the convergence of the
data center.
These questions reflected continued confusion surrounding the New Data Center
model and the technologies making convergence possible.
Engage PR and Inkra found that although Network
World covered New
Data Center
topics such as server, storage, and networking virtualization, it provided
no single column to address the convergence of all three technologies. Nor
did the publication have a forum where data center experts could answer
readers' questions and provide tips on deploying next-generation data
center architectures.
Realizing an opportunity for Inkra to fill an
information void, Engage PR leveraged its relationships with Network
World editors to propose a weekly column that would guide readers through
the New Data Center
by answering their questions. The editors were interested, and Engage PR
worked for several months to secure the article and determine final
parameters and logistics. The agency placed Dave Roberts, CTO and
co-founder of Inkra, as the "networking
expert" on the column's panel of data center experts.
Roberts and the other experts now offer advice to IT managers through the
"Data Center Doctors" column, which began running on November 1,
2004. The column provides real-world insight to help readers gain clarity
on the many questions that surround data center convergence.
By identifying an area of technology that was confusing readers and
suggesting a creative way of alleviating this confusion, Engage PR was able
to secure Inkra a weekly column in a top-tier
publication. The "Data Center Doctors" column allows Inkra to highlight its expertise in data center
virtualization in ways that provide tangible value for prospective
customers.
Engage
PR Wins PRSA “Best
in Show” Honor for Best Editorial/Op-Ed Column
Airespace is a leading developer of
enterprise-class Wireless LAN (WLAN) networking platforms. Engage PR began
working with Airespace in May 2003, right after
the company's initial product launch.
As a part of its strategy to differentiate Airespace
in the crowded WLAN market, Engage PR conceptualized, pitched, and secured
a weekly column authored by Airespace's technical
founders in Network World, a highly respected tech publication.
Called "Wireless Wizards," this Q&A column positioned Airespace's founders as WLAN technology experts with a
long-history of RF expertise. Readers sent in weekly questions on WLAN
technology, deployment issues, or standards, and one of the three founders
would respond, based on his particular domain expertise.
"Wireless Wizards" quickly became one of the publication's
hottest columns, with more than 1,200 readers per week signing onto the Web
site to read it. As the exclusive contributors to this column for nine
months, the Airespace co-founders gained industry-wide
recognition.
The success of the column prompted Engage PR to submit it to the Public
Relations Society of America (PRSA) for a regional Compass Award in the
"Best Editorial/Op-Ed Column of the Year" category. PRSA
evaluated each submission for its strength in the following areas: specific
PR objective, tools/techniques used, audience reached, budget, documented
results, and success measurement. Based on these criteria, PRSA presented
Engage PR with the "Best in Show" award for "Best Editorial/Op-Ed
Column" of the year.
Through its creativity and media relationships, EPR was able to develop and
secure an award-winning column that highlighted its client's expertise and
provided high-impact visibility in a crowded technology market.
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