Frank Strong
Host of The B2B Marketing and PR podcast
Frank Strong is the founder and president of Sword and the Script Media, LLC, a veteran-owned business focused on PR, content marketing and social media for the B2B market space. His agency grew out of a PR and marketing blog Strong started more than 15 years ago.
Frank Strong has hosted 150 Episodes.
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Episode 152: The growing problem of "no comment" and how it lets others shape public opinion
June 16th, 2026 | 6 mins 15 secs
brand, branding, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, corporate reputation, media relations, pr, reputation
The public increasingly distrusts sources who decline to comment on news stories when asked; this allows someone else to frame the coverage
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Episode 151: A seed to fix the growing public relations problem for AI companies
June 9th, 2026 | 11 mins
ai, ai's pr problem, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, crisis communications, media relations, pr
Public sentiment sours on AI as companies reap the consequences of alarmist messaging on jobs, energy costs and failed initiatives; the fix doesn’t start with a messaging exercise – it starts with a listening tour
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Episode 150: Does AI visibility provide PR with third-party validation?
June 2nd, 2026 | 4 mins 35 secs
brand, branding, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, corporate reputation, media relations, pr, reputation
Voice interfaces are normalizing AI as an arbiter of truth in everyday conversations, and introducing a human behavioral change with significant implications for credibility and third-party validation
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Episode 149: Should PR accept an interview with a publication that has a small audience?
May 26th, 2026 | 3 mins 57 secs
b2b events, b2b marketing, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, event marketing, events, media relations, pr
“The AI systems will remember when you said nothing.” and “The editors will remember when you said no.”
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Episode 148: How long does it take for B2B tech to close a deal – from first touch to deal-closed?
May 19th, 2026 | 4 mins 46 secs
b2b marketing, b2b sales, buyers journey, demand generation, generative ai, marketing strategy, sales, sales-marketing alignment, ux/cx
The average B2B tech buyers required 62.4 touches on average, across of 3.5 different marketing channels – from first touch to deal-closed
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Episode 147: The delay between gated content download and consumption
May 8th, 2026 | 9 mins 7 secs
b2b marketing, b2b sales, buyers journey, demand generation, gated content, generative ai, marketing strategy, sales, sales-marketing alignment
Registrations for gated content dipped in 2025; prospects and customers download and read a week later
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Episode 146: What journalists say about PR follow-up pitches
May 5th, 2026 | 9 mins 36 secs
communications, corp comm, corporate communications, media relations, pr, pr pitch, pr pitching, pr pitching tips
Surveys of reporters consistently show that a majority say one follow-up, a few days later, is okay, but being too aggressive will get you blacklisted
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Episode 145: Survey of reporters: 9 in 10 journalists say they delete these PR pitches
April 28th, 2026 | 11 mins 8 secs
communications, corp comm, corporate communications, media relations, pitching tips, pr, pr pitches
It takes time to build familiarity and prove your relevance to journalists; no response to PR pitches isn’t the same thing as “not interested,” it’s more like a “not right now.”
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Episode 144: The economic outlook for marketing from the latest CMO survey
April 21st, 2026 | 17 mins 16 secs
chief marketing officer, cmo, marketing budgets, marketing department, marketing economics, marketing leaders, marketing organization, marketing spend, marketing spending
Marketing doubled down on customer marketing as economic optimism fluctuates; businesses see more value in marketing, as the functions influence and responsibilities grow
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Episode 143: Signal AI acquires Memo for readership data [PR tech sum no. 64]
April 14th, 2026 | 7 mins 45 secs
communications, corpcomm, corporate communications, media monitoring, meltwater, muck rack, onclusive, pr, pr software, pr technology, pr tools, public relations, signal ai
Muck Rack rolls out new AI features; Onclusive sews its acquisitions together; plus PR tech briefs and new vendor survey data
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Episode 142: AI-generated content performs poorly in organic search [study]
April 7th, 2026 | 7 mins 45 secs
b2b marketing, demand generation, generative ai, marketing strategy, organic search, search marketing, seo, ux/cx
An experiment using generative AI to produce a whopping 2,000 articles and evaluating the results over 16 months found that all that AI content generated a measly 1,062 clicks
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Episode 141: 10 things PR teams need from clients to do good work
March 24th, 2026 | 8 mins 53 secs
b2b events, b2b marketing, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, event marketing, events, media relations, pr
Good client management skills are essential; however, even the best PR professional in the world is only going to be as good as the client’s collaboration
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Episode 140: 5 takes on Gartner’s new optimism for public relations in the age of artificial intelligence
March 17th, 2026 | 11 mins 59 secs
brand, branding, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, corporate reputation, financial analysts, media relations, pr, reputation
Analyst firm sees generative AI replacing traditional search, believes PR is the best function to help businesses navigate LLMs; predicts earned media budgets will double
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Episode 139: There’s little tolerance for mistakes in business, which is also a mistake
March 10th, 2026 | 3 mins 25 secs
brand journalism, content marketing, earned media, earned media attribution, media relations, pr attribution, pr strategy, pr surveys
The next time a team or individual contributor fails spectacularly, put your criticism aside and instead ask them this question: What did we learn from this business mistake?
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Episode 138: Cliff notes to 3 different “State of PR” survey reports
March 3rd, 2026 | 10 mins 10 secs
b2b events, b2b marketing, communications, corp comm, corporate communications, event marketing, events, media relations, pr
Easy cliff notes for busy PR professionals from the State of PR Report by Meltwater, State of AI in PR by Muck Rack, and the State of Digital PR by BuzzStream
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Episode 137: The end of self-aggrandizing listicles in search and AI
February 24th, 2026 | 3 mins 36 secs
b2b marketing, b2b sales, buyers journey, demand generation, generative ai, marketing strategy, sales, sales-marketing alignment, ux/cx
Listicles promoting “the top” or “best of” with your own product at the top are getting crushed in search, which shows that cheap tricks are a waste of time, budget and trust