About Breakthru

About the Principal | Frequently Asked Questions

In today's less-forgiving markets, customers, prospects, and the media they often turn to for information are all being deluged with product and company "news." It takes innovative, aggressive approaches to lift your company above the static. Public relations today goes beyond "media relations" to a rounded series of events and communications targeted at key influencers in the client's target markets. 

High Tech Marketing
Breakthru Communications provides strategic marketing and public relations counsel to entrepreneurial companies in high tech markets such as renewable energy, industrial networking, internet infrastructure and application software, communications, and semiconductors.  Using strategies perfected by Regis McKenna, one of the original practitioners of this public relations subset, Breakthru offers the powerful combination of professionals with experience both in corporate marketing and in product development and design. The ability to "speak" both engineering and marketing languages translates into effective technical and marketing documents that complement each other and contribute to the enhancement of the corporate message and objectives.

General Practice
The same passion that goes into our high tech marketing programs goes into serving our general client base.  General practice sectors include financial services, health and wellness, legal practices, non-profit associations, and spa service providers.  A representative sample of clients includes:  Arte de la Mano; CanSurvival; Madeleine's Place Event Center, Roger C. Nagel, CPA, LLC; SIFF Investment Services; Spa Boom; and The Day Spa at Serenity Gardens.

Pro Bono
Each year, Breakthru provides in-kind or pro bono services to selected non-profit organizations, including Corrales MainStreet, the Haven House annual Run for Shelter Fundraiser, New Mexico Spa Association, and the WIPP New Mexico Forum. 

About the Principal
Barbara Kline is an experienced public relations professional with PR experience on three continents.  She has been a participant in the development of most of the major new markets created by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.  She excels in strategic PR and marketing and in translating her clients’ messages to relate to the emotional and intellectual environment of the target audience – that is, prospect, customer, investor, employee, or other important stakeholder. 
As principal of Breakthru Communications since 1989, she has specialized in strategic planning for corporate and product launches.  In recent years, Barbara has focused on developing business strategies and launch programs for young companies in the enterprise, networking, wireless, and financial services markets.  She has led Breakthru in branching out to support young companies and organizations in the health care industry, and has consulted for several small service organizations involved in executive training and human resources.  She was a content consultant and presentation coach for companies aspiring to present to San Francisco Bay Area Venture Capitalists at the 1:1 Visibility Conferences in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and has also served an advisor for the Technology Venture Corp’s Equity Venture Capital Symposium and as an instructor for CCET.

In her capacity as a Public Relations professional, she also served in senior management at Regis McKenna, Inc., and Hill & Knowlton.  She was also co-founder and editor of “NewsFaces,” a media tracking publication.  She was VP of Global Marketing for BWise, Inc., a Dutch company focusing on business information and process management software, and she introduced the function of Product Marketing in Europe for Intel Corp.’s Development Systems Operation.  She reads French, Italian, and Spanish at a business level. 

She has been traveling to Asia for more than 20 years and was on the team that introduced NTT’s first ISP program in the US.  She has been a technical and business consultant to several PR firms in Japan, and has introduced several Japanese companies into North America.

Over the years, Barbara has managed numerous accounts in a variety of high-tech markets including:  Intel, Marvell, Redpine Signals, and Cadence in the semiconductor and CAD/CAM markets; Novell, Digital Link and Hughes LAN Systems in the networking market; and GarrettCom in the industrial networking market.  She was a co-planner for a S3/Compaq/Microsoft alliance launch that captured significant business attention including coverage on local NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliates, as well as all major business publications.

She has also worked with three network industry trade associations, including launching trade association conferences for NetWorld and SNIA, and she led the PR team that planned and executed the publicity effort for the breakthrough Women in Technology International (WITI) conference that led to its hockey-stick growth.  One of the programs she drove was the introduction of the group’s prestigious WITI Hall of Fame Awards for little-recognized female contributors to science and computing.

Prior to her work in public relations, Barbara was a product manager with Intel Corp.’s Development Systems Operation in Santa Clara, Calif., and created the position of DSO Marketing Manager at the company’s European headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.  She began her career as a software engineer and developed operating systems for a variety of data entry devices, as well as contributing to the development of Intel’s first and second generation of in-circuit emulators.

Barbara’s public service includes seven years of board service for the Corrales Main Street Program, a local affiliate of a national program for business development and historic preservation in rural America, where she was fundraising chair for two years and treasurer for two years.  Barbara is also a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), sits on the board of the Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence and is a member of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP). She is an alumna of the Leadership Sandoval County and Leadership Albuquerque programs, a former board member of the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce (RRRCC), and she was a delegate to the First China-US Meeting on Development of Women in 2007. 

Barbara has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Cincinnati, advanced degrees in behavioral studies.  She has traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia and has lived in Belgium and the Netherlands.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What should I expect from a PR program?
A. A good public relations program is more than just a media relations program. To be effective, companies must address their varying publics (current and potential customers, investors, current and potential employees, regulators, and others) through an integrated series of programs designed to create awareness and interest. Because each of these publics, and the media who inform them, have their own agendas, a good public relations program makes sure that the client is addressing the concerns and interests of the audiences rather than simply talking about what the client might think is important.

In today’s crowded markets, it takes strong awareness of the needs of the audience coupled with a creative and innovative program to rise above the noise.


Q. What makes Breakthru Communications unique?
A. Breakthru Communications uses creative and account services people who have had experience in both the corporate and technical sides of companies. With a strong entrepreneurial background and excellent strategic credentials, Breakthru Communications is uniquely prepared to assist entrepreneurs and young organizations in creating the positioning and structuring of both corporate and product messages. We become involved with our clients and care about them, and are flexible in designing a program that makes sense for the growth stage in which the client finds itself. Therefore, with young clients, we work with them and their budgets to design strategies that will build strong foundations on which to grow increased awareness and interest among target audiences as the company grows.


Q. When was Breakthru Communications founded?
A. Breakthru Communications was founded in 1989 under the name Barbara Kline Marketing and Public Relations. The name was changed to Breakthru Communications in 1995.


Q. How do you measure success?
A. Each client has different goals and objectives, and Breakthru Communications offers a wide variety of services. When we create a plan or a project description, we work with the client to determine the criteria that will mean success. Breakthru Communications reports against objectives and offers a review at the end of each assignment.


Q. Who does your writing?
A. Breakthru Communications writers are all subject matter experts with years of experience in communicating using the written word. Breakthru has exacting standards for writing, and uses a proven interview process to assure positive results.


Q. What are your reporting processes?
A. Breakthru Communications works with the client to structure a reporting process to meet expectations and budget. The preparation of elaborate reports is expensive, and can be beyond the means of young organizations that are watching their expenditures. Because we are in contact with our clients almost daily, we structure appropriate communications ranging from daily verbal reports and monthly status reports for smaller budgets to the formal contact reports and weekly updates designed to be distributed to different levels of the organization and the board as the company grows.

Q. What is Breakthru Communications’ area of specialization?
A. Breakthru works with all sizes of companies on marketing projects and campaigns, however, we specialize in working with emerging companies with small budgets.  Our belief is that many promising companies wait until too late to begin a marketing campaign because they think it will be too expensive.  We work within budgetary constraints to provide positioning and visibility that supports the company’s sales efforts.  We specialize in giving companies the kind of image that gives them the look and feel – and public presence -- of a company many times their size, affording them easier access to their suspects and prospects than would otherwise be possible.

Q. Are you an advertising agency as well as a marketing and public relations agency?
A.  In today’s markets, a mix of marketing tools makes the most sense.  Therefore, we offer advertising, direct mail, email campaigns, social networking, and ad word campaigns in addition to traditional public relations efforts.  We do not consider ourselves an advertising agency per se because it is not our main focus, and our clients tend not to have, at least initially, the budget for major advertising visibility.  Instead, we blend tactical advertising campaigns within broader marketing programs.

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