"LP&P understands that PR is not about noise generation. It's about relationships, integrity, creativity and timing, which enables us to deliver on-message results. Our long-term credibility with media and analysts enables us to stand out from other agencies and secure continued coverage for clients."
Bill McLaughlin,
Executive Vice President
Lois Paul & Partners

Case Studies

Curl, Inc
"Complementing Traditional Public Relations with Social Media".

The Challenge:

In February 2007, Curl, Inc. (www.curl.com) approached Lois Paul & Partners (LP&P) to help the company re-launch into the North America market as a viable provider of Rich Internet Application (RIA) development software. In 1998, Curl was founded on the basis of research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  The company’s first product was released in 2002 and was specifically designed for complex Web interfaces. In 2004, Curl was acquired by Japanese-based Sumisho Computer Systems, which focused the company primarily in the Asian market in reaction to demand for richer application interfaces in that region. In just a few short years, Curl built a client base of 300 industry leading enterprises, showcasing the company’s superior technology.

With its success in Asia and the growth of RIA development in North America, Curl realized an opportunity to re-launch into that market.  While there was a huge market opportunity, there were two primary challenges. First, Microsoft and Adobe already staked out a leadership position in the market, creating difficulty for smaller, little-known companies to make inroads. Second, Curl’s success depends – to a large extent – on building a community of developers interested in learning the Curl language and platform. The Curl platform offers unique capabilities that make it especially attractive to large organizations, and so, offered the company the ability to differentiate itself from those large, established players. With this, Curl charged LP&P with the large task of quickly establishing the company as the provider for building enterprise-class RIAs.

The LP&P Difference:

In order to help Curl achieve its aggressive marketing goals, LP&P developed a two-pronged public relations program – a top-down approach of traditional media and analyst relations complemented by a bottoms-up approach with social media that would target the software developer community.  Building awareness and adoption of the Curl platform within this audience would be key to Curl’s success in the North America market.  

LP&P and Curl determined the highly anticipated industry Web 2.0 Expo event taking place in April 2007 would be the perfect venue to kick off the company’s public re-launch. However, it was first necessary to condition the market and build buzz leading into the event by reaching the “core” technology influencers. LP&P secured pre-briefings with various top-tier media and analysts that cover RIA and application development such as Jeffrey Hammond of Forrester Research and Ryan Stewart, considered to be the RIA industry guru and blogger for ZDNet.

While kicking off traditional media and analyst relations efforts, LP&P simultaneously helped Curl establish its social media foundation. This would enable Curl to begin building support within the critical developer community. The following were LP&P’s primary initiatives of the social media program:

  • Developed and maintained a Curl page on del.icio.us, a social bookmarking Web service for storing, sharing, and discovering Web content. This page would include relevant articles on Curl and the RIA industry in general, and would act as a resource for media, analysts, and bloggers covering the market, as well as developers using del.icio.us to discover information and knowledge.
  • Created accounts on Flickr and Photobucket to post Curl images such as screenshots, logos, and photos for traditional media as well as bloggers to download in real-time and use for their articles and blog posts.
  • Leveraged Real Simple Syndication (RSS) on the Curl Website to go beyond simple press release feeds that included content aggregation.
  • Updated the previously developed Curl page on Wikipedia, a free, open content online encyclopedia created through the collaborative effort of a community of users.
  • Monitored the blogosphere for key community forums in real-time to engage relevant developers.

 

After pre-briefing various media and analysts, Curl officially re-launched in North America on April 15, 2007 at the Web 2.0 Expo. After the event, LP&P continued building on its traditional media and analyst relations approach while expanding its social media efforts. This included assisting Curl in developing the next key component to ensuring the company’s long-term success – a company blog. With this, LP&P provided strategic counsel to Curl on how to structure the blog and build it as an industry resource. Additionally, LP&P fed Curl’s team of bloggers with relevant articles and blog posts focused on RIA. Curl could then engage directly with that reporter or blogger by posting a comment on his/her post and linking back to the Curl-developed blog post that discussed that particular article. The goal of this was to build awareness for the Curl blog and establish the company as experts in the industry, and thus, a viable player in the RIA industry.

The Results:

The Curl re-launch in North America was a huge success for the company, and it continues to build momentum. Some of the results of the public relations program from March through December 2007 include the following:

  • Secured 55 briefings with all key RIA industry analysts, as well as top-tier media such as CIO, eWeek, InformationWeek, Network Computing, NetworkWorld, and ZDNet.
  • Garnered 105 pieces of media and blog coverage, including a positive product review of Curl’s RIA platform in InfoWorld that drove traffic to and created product downloads from the Curl Website.
  • Increased visibility of Curl and its superior technology, which resulted in the company being honored with a 2008 InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award for Best Rich Internet Application platform. Additionally, the company was included in Ziff Davis Enterprise Editorial Director Michael Vizard’s list of “10 Technologies and 20 Vendors You Should Know for 2008.”
  • Established the Curl blog as a source for the industry, with ZDNet blogger Ryan Stewart penning a blog post about it and linking directly to it.
  • Multiple Curl-focused articles have been organically posted to Digg.com, a community-based social news Website.
  • Curl is increasingly mentioned in the media such as InformationWeek alongside Microsoft and Adobe as key player in the RIA market, and more importantly for the company, as the superior provider for enterprises.
  • LP&P uncovered in its blog monitor service a job posting for a developer position where experience in with RIA technologies such as Curl was a required skill set.
  • The Curl PR program has even proven to help the company generate sales leads, with one company citing Curl’s coverage by influential RIA industry bloggers.