Must read marketing and comms articles for April [Monthly Marcom]

The "Monthly Scripts" newsletter has moved from MailChimp to Substack and rebranded as the "Monthly Marcom"

This newsletter has officially made the switch from MailChimp to Substack (this help article was useful). If you were previously an opt-in subscriber, I’ve moved your subscription over and you’ll still get one email a month.

I’ve also changed the name from the “Monthly Scripts” to the “Monthly Marcom.” Why? The previous name was a play on words given the name of my site and company is Sword and the Script -- and medicine which makes us better but often requires a prescription.

I’ve opted to change the name to something that better describes what goes into the newsletter -- mainly marketing and comms. Perhaps it might help with search too, given Substack gets indexed.

The change was very easy. In Substack, I get a chance to experiment with a new tool and see if it’s useful for clients as well.

The only drawback I’ve seen so far: You cannot personalize emails on Substack. I wish I could say, “Dear First Name,” in every email.

Let me know your thoughts!

That leads us to the featured story in this edition of the Monthly Marcom.

This monthly email newsletter is different from the weekly blog.
Sign up to get weekly blog posts here or catch the audio version on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Leadership, CMOs and CCOs

• 71% of CEOs grade their CMO an “A” or “B” overall

• 63% of CMOs are feeling increased pressure from the CFO

• The top skills in demand for marketers

Marketing

• A 'human in the loop' is essential for AI in marketing

• 10 statistics that drive home why business needs to refocus on trust

• Is generative AI helping you make better content? Eh.

• 54% of American consumers don’t pay attention to brands they buy

B2B Marketing

• Struggling? Forrester says everyone is in the same boat

• Soon, bots will be selling to bots

• Buyers are more reliant on trust signals

• More and more, emotions are showing up in B2B procurement

Sales & Business Development

• Why B2B sales is so hard in 2025

• 97M sales emails shows weak customer response to ‘pain points’

• Reputation matters in software sales

Public Relations

• Not just seen, but believed: trust is the new mandate for comms

Content Marketing

• Twitter tops the list for content distribution

This monthly email newsletter is different from the weekly blog.
Sign up to get weekly blog posts here or catch the audio version on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Email Marketing

• Buyers are getting 100 emails a day

• Email open rate benchmarks - by industry

Creativity / Design

• Why AI can’t replace creative intent in marketing

Advertising and paid media

• A testing primer for B2B paid social creative optimization

• B2B ad budgets are growing, but so is ad waste

• Personalized ads creep people out

SEO & SEM

• Study: trust is a prerequisite for organic and paid search

• Google has officially added AI overviews to search

Social Media

• YouTube sends a lot of traffic to LinkedIn

• Engagement time on Facebook, Instagram declines

• Is BlueSky worth the effort?

• Threads continues to grow

AI

• Agentic: What are AI agents?

• More but not most of the public (35%) see AI as negative, says Pew

Marcom technology & AI

• Will chatbots be the primary interface for PR software?

• 12 overlooked content marketing tools and features

This monthly email newsletter is different from the weekly blog.
Sign up to get weekly blog posts here or catch the audio version on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Sword and the Script Media, LLC is a boutique B2B tech PR and marketing consultancy. About Us | Services | Speaking

Do you have questions, comments or suggestions? Reply to this message.

Yours in marketing and communications,
Frank

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Frank Strong, MA, MBA
Founder & President
Sword and the Script Media, LLC
PR | Marketing | Social Media
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* Sword and the Script Media, LLC is a verified veteran-owned business.

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