Resonance, the PR, AR and inbound marketing consultancy, has appointed Sarah Waddington, former CIPR president and managing director of Astute.Work, as a non-executive director to its board.

Resonance is a London-based PR consultancy founded in 2011 with a global footprint of partner consultancies. Resonance is committed to delivering measurable outcomes that align with business, sales and marketing objectives, rather than siloed and often intangible brand awareness.

Claire Williamson, managing director of Resonance, says, “Having Sarah’s insight and guidance is invaluable to Resonance as it continues to grow. Her depth and breadth of knowledge is integral to helping us achieve our goals of shifting the gears on the B2B technology industry and providing data-driven, high impact programmes.”

The B2B buying journey has changed. Buyers now have all the information they desire at their fingertips – search engines, social media, analyst reports, media and other digital channels. This has made it easy for buyers to independently research solutions to their problems, rather than waiting for sales teams to contact them and share insights.

Where once PR’s value was considered top of the funnel awareness and reputation management, the digital era places our industry at the heart of sales and business growth. In a data-driven world, the way the industry measures and reports value needs a serious rethink.

Tom Fry, co-managing director and director of data analytics, says, “We work in technology PR yet most tech PR agencies are stuck in the dark ages with how they report success and I’m not talking about AVEs. Basic outputs of PR – reputation, engagement and reach – are not being tracked or reported upon, and the most important metric, ROI, is being lost in the noise. A radical new approach in the PR industry is desperately needed. We intend to deliver on that.”

Waddington adds, “During my time as CIPR president, I worked to position public relations as a strategic discipline for businesses through the #PRPays campaign. Too often, PR is seen as a tactical offering and this is partly due to the fact that we are not joining the dots between investment and results.