ThinkInk was founded over a decade ago to fill a void in the business communications marketplace: the lack of B2B agencies with industry specialization and expertise beyond PR.
Today, we are recognized for our industry-specific communications that bring together brand, marketing, PR, and sales strategies to deliver the results our clients need.
With business and technology at the heart of everything we do, we serve high-growth companies and the technologies that drive them across the airline, loyalty, payments, retail, and travel technology sectors.
As communications strategists and specialists, we help companies in these sectors educate and influence current customers and future buyers, shape preference for their technologies and services, and build stronger relationships with their customers.
Headquartered in Miami, we have teams across North America, Europe, and Australia, and serve clients all over the globe.
We’ve built solid relationships for our clients with media and conference organizers covering the airline, loyalty, payments, and travel technology sectors. But companies choose ThinkInk not only for our relationships; they also benefit from our focus on B2B communications.
Our team members have B2B marketing, technology, and industry backgrounds, with experience in disciplines covering digital marketing, content strategy, conference management, business development, product marketing, PR, and media relations.
Unlike traditional PR agencies, we take a holistic view of each client’s business to determine what are the best communications formats and strategies needed at different stages of their business maturity.
But we don’t try to be all things to every prospective client. Because we specialize in just a handful of industries and focus on business outcomes, we’re able to achieve results that general market agencies struggle to deliver.
From PR and media relations, to conferences and events, through to social media marketing, SEO, lead generation, sales enablement, and everything in between, we control the buyer experience to drive measurable results and top-line business growth.
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Eight years. That’s how long we’ve been working with our longest-standing customer. Unlike the traditional PR agency model of churning through clients, we choose long-term engagements over single projects or events.
Because of our model, we’re able to take the time needed to understand how our clients operate, what business challenges they face, and fully invest ourselves in their success.
We serve as strategists and problem solvers and integrate ourselves into their product, marketing and sales teams to become their communications partner.
Above all, our goal is to become each client’s trusted advisor who provides insight, best practices, counsel, and expertise in different areas that can impact their business.
Their technologies include ancillary revenue and merchandising software, passenger communications and disruption management, loyalty and redemption solutions, as well as travel ecommerce and payment platforms.
In addition to media, we have long-standing relationships with industry associations and conference organizers whose focus is on the evolution of the above areas, and their impact travel companies’ operations and ability to grow revenues.
We frequently work together to shape agendas, develop speaking sessions and workshops, secure thought leadership opportunities, and support our clients’ visibility at key industry events.
Industries
We’re well known for our work and expertise across the PR landscape, because we know what our network of journalists are looking for and when.
Not too long ago, there was a famous political phrase emanating from the White House. I’m not talking about President Trump’s “build the wall,” rallying cry, or President Obama’s frequent use of the term “optics,” or even his first term, “beer summit.” Remember that?
Nope, I’m talking about Cold Warrior-turned-Peacenik Ronald Reagan and his favorite Russian proverb, “trust, but verify.” Or, for our Russian readers: Doveryai, no proveryai. In the second half of the 1980s, trust, but verify became something of a new Reagan doctrine – a phrase he quoted so often its usage would annoy Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union. Later, President Clinton would use the phrase too. Today, a quick googling confirms “trust, but verify” is alive and well; it’s used as shorthand in situations well beyond politics.
Trust, but verify. What?
But what does the phrase mean? And what does it mean for B2B marketers in a pandemic-inspired remote work culture? Definitionally, “trust, but verify” means pretty much what it says: to trust someone on good faith. But to verify that trust (through actions) independent of that trust. While the verify part of the sentence seems as healthy as ever – marketing campaigns, social media metrics, Google page rankings, agency ROI, and click-through rates are as easy to track as before Covid-19 – what about trust?
Like many businesses, establishing (or re-establishing) trust is proving a little more complicated. That’s because the ways we trust largely through tangible personal and physical connections have been severely disrupted. Traditional handshakes and in-person onboarding? Gone. Ditto large in-person PR pitches, trade shows and launch events. Even the social cues of a friendly smile or a well-timed laugh are lost in translation. Virtual everything became the pandemic’s first vaccine. It seems increasingly likely that at least some form of work-from-home and, by extension, network and lead generation from home-or wherever-will become the new normal, too.
According to a survey from Enterprise Technology Research, the number of workers permanently working from home is expected to double this year. A recent Gartner CFO survey also found that 74% of companies plan to permanently shift their employees from in-person to remote work once the pandemic ends.
As B2B marketers, how do we grow when attracting, retaining and engaging customers is harder than ever, and we haven’t focused on building trust and loyalty, at least in a traditional sense?
I know our agency isn’t alone in this concern. As if proving the point: data from the Content Marketing Institute reveals that 81% of survey respondents have building trust as a goal in their content marketing strategy this year, up from 66% just two years prior.
Employing olive branch diplomacy with clients
One possible solution is to flip Reagan’s proverb on its head. Instead of “trust, but verify,” why not “verify, but trust.” That means a re-doubled effort to meet our clients where they are. Not in a physical space, per se, but the virtual one, while keeping in mind quality content tailored with pandemic-appropriate messaging. You could call it a form of olive branch diplomacy as clients verify we’re meeting them where they are, building trust one successful campaign after another.
We launched ThinkInk to fill a significant marketplace void: the lack of specialization across the PR agency landscape, and no communication partners driven by top-line business growth.
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