With over 12 years of communications experience working in both agency and in-house, Mike is thrilled to return to the agency world. In his role, Mike is collaborating with a passionate team who actively develop comprehensive marketing strategies and initiatives for our clients.
Learn more about how Mike crafts marketing and communication strategies that drive our clients’ business objectives forward and how his creative approach to PR and communication is simply ace.
How did you hear about SalientMG and why did you decide to join the firm?
I first heard about SalientMG through a recruiter. As I went through the interview process, I was very impressed by how smart and strategic everyone on the team was about integrated marketing. Joining a team where I feel surrounded by people I’m excited to work with every day is the most important aspect of enjoying work. Having a great bench of clients across a variety of industries was a big plus too.
Describe your role and what you’re most looking forward to in your position.
I manage our client engagements’ PR and communications including analyst relations, thought leadership and brand strategy. A big part of this work is helping our clients build sustainable, strategic communications programs that further enable their sales and business goals. I’m most looking forward to helping our clients build their reputation in their respective industries and allowing them to highlight their internal expertise.
Given your role, what is your personal philosophy about the purpose and power of content marketing in growing or moving a brand forward?
Content marketing and communications are the cornerstone of building a strategic marketing program. They establish a company’s authority on critical topics and should educate their customers and prospects on how to best solve the related business problems the client’s solutions solve. Ideally, these should reach beyond just their specific niche to demonstrate that they understand the more significant business challenges their customers face, billing them as a true strategic partner and not just another vendor.
What’s one tip you would share on how organizations can weave PR into their overall marketing strategy?
PR and communications efforts, just like all other marketing efforts, should track back to your business goals: are you trying to drive sales for a specific vertical? Do you need more clarification about your industry or solution set that you can educate the market on? Are you looking to impress new investors? By mapping your PR program to your business goals, you maximize impact.
As I mentioned before, content and PR should always be in lockstep. The last thing you want is for someone to read an interview with one of your executives, get excited, and then go to your website and see completely different messaging. PR and content should feed off of and inform each other to drive a consistent brand voice across all of your channels.
What is the best piece of advice someone gave you and how has it impacted your personal and/or professional direction?
I have two favorites. The first is from my dad, who once told me to always make sure that if you bring your manager a problem, always have a solution. It doesn’t always have to be the right solution, but it’s essential to show you’ve thought through the issue and are not just dumping another issue they have to deal with on their desk. I’ve always found this a great reminder to take a step back and think things through whenever a problem arises and think strategically about what can be done to solve it before bringing it to anyone else.
This feeds into my second piece of advice from Brad Giles, SVP of Marketing for Ingenico – always play the tape to the end. The crux of this advice is to always game plan how things will go from people’s anticipated reactions to a potential next step in a process. Having a great idea is one thing, but unless you can formulate a plan of attack and understand its potential impact from every angle, you leave yourself open to criticism and potential backlash.
SalientMG specializes in helping growth-stage technology companies. Real tech talk here–how would you describe your everyday technological prowess?
I’m a self-proclaimed tech nerd. I love it all. Growing up, I was super into consumer tech and closely followed major launches. As I got into my career, I became obsessed with cybersecurity and fintech/payments. I enjoy them because they’re two of the most fast-paced and innovation-forward industries and because of the nuanced differences in different product sets and companies.
What is one thing your colleagues don’t know about you (yet)?
I’m a pretty open person! One thing most people don’t know about me is that I grew up playing tournament tennis and ended up playing through college. While it was just a division three program, I still enjoyed the competition and the opportunity to extend my career. These days, I get my competitive fix from playing pickleball, both in tournaments and with friends.
