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Catapult is a high-tech B2B public relations and Strategic Narrative Marketing agency based in Boulder, Colorado. Below is our recent interview with Terri Douglas, Co-founder and Principal at Catapult PR-IR:
Q: Terri, tell us a about Catapult and what makes you different than other PR firms?
A: We’ve been helping tech companies build awareness, establish thought leadership and develop positioning and messaging for 19 years. We offer a mix of strategy, industry knowledge and execution designed to achieve lofty PR goals. However, it is our narrative work that makes us different from a typical PR agency. We created Strategic Narrative Marketing, a new high-level approach to company positioning and messaging, to help companies change their thinking by focusing on their vision for the industry rather than typical inward company messaging. Through this approach, we help companies not only gain thought leadership but become market drivers by owning and leading market categories.
Q: What are the biggest challenges in the PR industry right now and what are you doing to overcome them?
A: Like many industries, PR has reached a point where it needs to evolve for businesses to continue seeing its value. Over the years, we’ve watched the pool of journalists, the influencers who are instrumental in helping companies build awareness, shrink as the digital age exploded and everyone became self-publishing machines. It’s easier than ever for companies to share online, but it’s increasingly difficult to stand out. While PR still plays an essential role in market positioning and awareness, we recognized that the industry needs a fresh approach to make an impact in this changing industry landscape.
We also realized that winning companies are category leaders. These are the companies valued the highest when acquired or at IPO, and this is what led us to the Strategic Narrative Marketing approach. It is through Strategic Narrative Marketing that we see an opportunity to overcome today’s PR challenges. Strategic Narrative Marketing elevates the strategic role of PR that is increasingly tactical and digitized. It is an opportunity we’ve embraced, and we already see the benefits, as it is the C-suite – namely the CEO – that understands the need for an industry category to stand out and is most often the champion of Strategic Narrative Marketing.
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Q: What does a Strategic Narrative Marketing client typically look like?
A: A typical Strategic Narrative Marketing client is a high-tech firm wanting to stand out or own a space/category in their market. These companies often struggle to effectively tell their story because their vision for the industry lacks clarity or is inward focused (‘this is what we do’ instead of ‘this is what the industry needs’). Most often these companies struggle to achieve differentiation from the competition in crowded markets. They vary in size from start-up to Fortune 50, but they all have one thing in common – they need new or improved positioning and messaging that will help them stand out and become recognized as industry leaders. Most often this is cultivated in the form of an industry category or framework.
Q: How do companies benefit from your Strategic Narrative Marketing services?
A: Companies that leverage our Strategic Narrative Marketing services receive four key benefits. First, it helps the company think differently, at a much higher-level, about how it positions itself in the market to move into a leadership role. Next is differentiation. A strategic narrative focuses on redefining existing categories or creating new ones – and the result is messaging that is 100 percent unique. Third, Strategic Narrative Marketing helps companies achieve organizational alignment. A Strategic Narrative connects all aspects of the business because it allows teams to rally around a shared vision or goal – extending the value far beyond marketing. Last, Strategic Narrative Marketing is the path to becoming a market driver through category ownership. Strategic Narratives provide the connected, industry-level themes that empower marketers to lead the category champion charge that ultimately increases the overall value of the organization.
Q: Can you share some information about your Narrative Practice service offering?
A: We launched our new ‘Narrative Practice’ service offering in June. Through our Narrative Practice, we now offer messaging assessments, discovery workshops, narrative and messaging development, and PR, social and content campaigns to launch and evangelize new market categories. We developed these services around the Strategic Narrative Marketing framework, which we describe in our book, A Practical Guide to Strategic Narrative Marketing.
Recommended: Q: Where do you see Catapult heading in the future?
A: We hope to see Strategic Narrative Marketing continue to establish new category leaders who not only contribute something meaningful to the vision and future of their industries but see the bottom line benefits – like increased valuation. We also see an opportunity to spread Strategic Narrative Marketing beyond tech and into other industries that are facing crowded markets, disruption and the need for a better vision for success. We see this approach benefitting the PR industry as a whole, by demonstrating to our fellow PR professionals the opportunity to be involved in company positioning and messaging on a much more strategic level, that ultimately connects with and provides value to the CEO.
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