2021’s booming stock market and affordable financing led to a historic year for mergers and acquisitions. In total, last year we saw over 62,000 global deals, up 24% year-over-year. The technology sector alone had a deal value of $293.2 billion.
This M&A surge isn’t over yet. Reuters recently reported that “global dealmaking is set to maintain its scorching pace [in 2022],” and PwC expects tech M&A to “propel” in the new year.
The dizzying rate of corporate transactions is putting pressure and an abundance of work on tech marketing and PR teams in three key areas:
Corporate Communications
Every time an organization acquires an entity, a corporate comms strategy goes into motion - including messaging, FAQs, press releases, PPC, social media and much more. While critically important, these announcements siphon resources. For example, they can pull your PR team away from thought leadership and storytelling, and into M&A block and tackling.
Not to mention, the sensitive and confidential nature of deal making can often force corp comms professionals to pull together a bevy of announcement materials overnight. And in the event that there’s a leak and a reporter threatens to scoop your news - the game escalates.
Internal Communications
Speaking of leak risks - marketers and their HR counterparts must align closely to message an M&A to the employees of both organizations. These two sets of internal communications are rarely identical, and require collaboration between both companies. And in today’s tough talent market, the need to instill confidence and excitement in employee bases in the face of uncertainty is paramount.
Brand Integration
Once an M&A transaction is complete and the world knows your news - the hard work begins to integrate two brands. Marketers can spend an entire year post-acquisition focusing on branding, SEO strategy, new product marketing, merging social media channels, sunsetting the acquired brand’s digital assets, and so much more.
Corporations that expect to do a high volume of acquisitions in the new year should give marketing executives fair warning now. The lifts required to make announcements and then merge brands is heavy, and marketing departments need to align annual strategic plans and resourcing appropriately.
Alloy specializes in mid-market B2B tech brands, many of which are active acquirers of other technology vendors.