The B2B Marketing and PR podcast
Sword and the Script Media on audio
About the show
This podcast covers B2B marketing, PR, communications and social media. We look at studies and data to find what's working and what isn't to help you stay ahead of the competition.
Episodes
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Episode 111: 12 ways to extend the investment marketing makes in webinars
August 15th, 2025 | 14 mins 1 sec
chief marketing officer, cmo, marketing leadership, marketing team, marketing turnover
Webinar organizers in marketing tend to be focused on logistics and immediate marketing goals and simply don’t have the bandwidth to think about anything else. Yet if marketing gets the content and PR functions involved, these groups can help drive far better results – before, during and after – a webinar.
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Episode 110: Hiding pricing info may leave B2B tech companies off the short list
August 12th, 2025 | 6 mins 3 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, event marketing, gated content, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Generative AI provides succinct product comparisons for B2B buyers, including pricing; vendors who choose to omit pricing information risk never even being considered for the short list
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Episode 109: 9 Little Stories from a One Time Public Relations Gig with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
August 8th, 2025 | 13 mins 27 secs
ai, artificial intelligence, b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, generative ai, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Given my focus on B2B marketing and PR, I usually get a double-take from clients if I disclose that I once did PR for the circus during its tour in Washington, DC. But there should be no mistake the circus is a business and it was also all at once, one of the most challenging and fun PR assignments I’ve ever had.
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Episode 108: Human experience is one thing AI cannot accurately provide to marketing or comms
August 5th, 2025 | 5 mins 19 secs
ai, artificial intelligence, b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, generative ai, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
AI cannot understand the human experience of delight, awe, fear, elation, confusion or frustration in any meaningful way
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Episode 107: Sheer Passion in Marketing Goes a Long Way
August 1st, 2025 | 2 mins 34 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Marketing is about passion. Passion is infectious. Passion is compelling. Passion sells. You can teach someone digital skills, but you can’t teach passion.
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Episode 106: Generative AI is changing behavior -- that's what marketing and comms need to observe
July 29th, 2025 | 5 mins 54 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Even if there’s a bubble that pops, generative AI is changing behavior, and that’s what strategic marketing and communications people need to observe
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Episode 105: Thought Leadership Actually Requires Thought and Leadership
July 25th, 2025 | 2 mins 46 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, communications, content marketing, content strategy, corporate communicaitons, event marketing, gated content, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media, pr, public relations
“Companies also have to invest their own time. I know so many top practitioners who have to create something out of whole cloth because a company won’t make experts available. It’s like asking someone to come in and write a thought-leadership piece and then have no thoughts to offer.”
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Episode 104: 40+ B2B marketing and PR statistics marking the half way point in 2025
July 22nd, 2025 | 12 mins 26 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, communications, content marketing, content strategy, corporate communicaitons, event marketing, gated content, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media, pr, public relations
What’s going well: CMOs, marketing budgets, alignment with sales; What could be improved: Trust, conversions, and customer retention
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Episode 103: Marketing to be measured rather than marketing to pursuade
July 14th, 2025 | 2 mins 47 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Marketing risks spending its budget in a way that’s measurable for the business rather than persuasive for customers
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Episode 102: Practical ways for B2B marketing to get more value out of its investment in tradeshows and conferences
July 11th, 2025 | 8 mins 8 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, event marketing, gated content, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
For all the wonderful capabilities in digital marketing and social media, there’s still something very special and tangible about connecting in person. However, events come with one big caveat: they are very expensive. This makes it really important to get the most out of these events — and there is a lot you can do before, during and after the show to better leverage your existing investments in conferences and trade shows.
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Episode 101: Reducing marketing employee turnover can improve marketing performance
July 8th, 2025 | 9 mins 8 secs
chief marketing officer, cmo, marketing leadership, marketing team, marketing turnover
Rigorous study shows marketing turnover has a high cost and lasting impact; demonstrates the importance of continuously investing in the marketing team
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Episode 100: The B2B marketing playbook must shift from tricks to education
July 1st, 2025 | 4 mins 44 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, gated content, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Instead of trading information for contact information that’s passed on to a BDR, marketing in B2B tech organizations must center on education and helpfulness
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Episode 99: Marketers without authority to get stuff done leads to marketing without accountability
June 27th, 2025 | 6 mins 4 secs
b2b marketing, chief marketing officer, cmo, content marketing, content strategy, gated content, marketing, marketing leadership, marketing teams, owned media
Marketing needs to accept accountability, but it also needs the authority to execute. Marketing can’t have it both ways – and the business can’t either.
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Episode 98: Very useful benchmarks for guiding how gated content is best used B2B marketing
June 24th, 2025 | 5 mins 13 secs
b2b marketing, content marketing, content strategy, gated content, owned media
Downloading content is just early engagement for a long sales process; 66% of prospects who download content aren’t ready to buy for another year
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Episode 97: Are Embargoes and Exclusives Still Useful in Media Relations?
June 20th, 2025 | 7 mins 28 secs
communications, corporate communications, earned media, embargoes, exclusives, marcom, marketing communications, media relations, pitching tips, pr, press releases, public relations
52% of PR pros say embargoes are still useful but one in five disagrees; 64% of comms pros still find value in offering reporters exclusives.
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Episode 96: Chatbots increasingly becoming the interface for PR software [PR tech summary no. 62]
June 17th, 2025 | 10 mins 2 secs
commstech, communications software, pr software, pr tech, pr technology, public relations software
Meltwater rolls out chatbot interface; Public Relay hires Brendon O’Donovan; roundup of PR software briefs; new surveys of journalists