The New Rules of Marketing and PR - Meerman is Dearman for Beginners

David Meerman Scott’s book, “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” is a good beginner’s “how to” guide to navigating through the digital media marketing and public relations arena. In his book, Scott describes how the Web has essentially fused marketing and public relations roles into one. With emerging media tools made available on the Web, not only can a marketer or Public Relations person more effectively and efficiently reach its buyers, but can now do it on a much smaller budget.



Old vs. New Rules of Marketing and PR:

Marketing (advertising/branding) has traditionally been product centered, one-way and had to appeal to a mass audience. This is exemplified by the all too familiar television commercial or highway billboard. Marketers’ creed was based on how creative (or annoying, “apply directly to the forehead” commercials come to mind) they could get with advertising a product in a means to keep the viewer from muting, changing the channel or simply ignoring it during commercial breaks. The Web has created a detour to this one-size-fits-all market strategy and allows for buyer-need based and niche advertising. Instead of the traditional shotgun approach to advertising, companies can now specifically target people who actually want to be targeted. Scott outlines “the old rules of marketing” as:

-Marketing simply meant advertising (and branding).
-Advertising needed to appeal to the masses.
-Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message
-Advertising was one-way: company-to-consumer.
-Advertising was exclusively about selling products.
-Advertising was based on campaigns that had a limited life.
-Creativity was deemed the most important component of advertising
-It was more important for the ad agency to win advertising awards than for the client to win new customers.
-Advertising and PR were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement criteria.

Similarly, Public Relations have gone from being a media centered industry to a direct-to-buyer centered industry by way of blogs, online news releases, social networks etc. Instead of pitching news releases or updates to a select few within the press, new means of Web dissemination allow direct communication with its interested buyers. Here is Scott’s list of “the old rules of PR” which are now obsolete:

-The only way to get ink was through the media.
-Companies communicated to journalists via press releases.
-Nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors.
-Companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write a press release.
-Jargon was okay because the journalists all understood it.
-You weren’t supposed to send a release unless it included quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysts, and experts.
-The only way buyers would learn about the press release’s content was if the media wrote a story about it.
-The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through “clip book,” which noted each time the media deigned to pick up a company’s release
-PR and marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement techniques.

Scott makes note of the great barriers to entry into advertising that the Web has flattened as well. Companies or startups no longer need massive marketing budgets to reach its intended audience. It can now target micro-markets at a fraction of the cost and time that conventional big-budget advertisers did. Meerman is careful to disclaim, however, that mainstream media should not totally be ignored:

A positive story in Rolling Stone propels a rock band to fame. An article in the Wall street Journal brands a company as a player.

A mainstream media outlet that may write about your innovative online marketing strategy will only help to legitimize your company.
In explaining the new rules of marketing and PR, Scott gives great case studies of individuals and companies who have successfully utilized new media tools to market their products. If you are completely new to online marketing, or are a more interactive and visual learner, his references to real world stories are a great help. Here are Scott’s new rules to marketing and PR:

-Marketing is more than just advertising.
-PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience.
-You are what you publish.
-People want authenticity, not spin.
-People want participation, not propaganda.
-Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.
-Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.
-PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.
-Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business.
-The Internet has made public relations pubic again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.
-Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content.
-Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in a form they appreciate.
-On the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

These new rules, Scott argues, requires a new way of thinking about how a company or organization interacts with its pubic. Web media tools have made it possible to achieve an authentic and personal connection between a brand and its consumer in never before seen ways.


Buyer Personas

Throughout the book, Scott mentions that the key to a successful Web marketing and PR strategy lies in a site’s content. But how does one go about creating great content for his/her company or organization? What is great content? Great content is what a user of a particular site says it is. And, of course, the only way to find out what users want is by simply asking them (via surveys, interviews, focus groups etc). Scott advises that by breaking the users into distinct profiles or buyer personas, content creation can become a whole lot easier. Scott defines buyer personas as:

…a representative of a type of buyer that you have identified as having a specific interest in your organization or product or having a market problem that your product or service solves.

Considering the perspective of the user can immensely transform a site from the all too common “brochure” site to one that can actually answer the questions and concerns a user may have. The net effect is a humanizing and trust building Web experience by the user with your brand. Here is a short video in which Scott describes buyer personas in the context of a business to business model:



Towards the latter parts of his book, Scott gives short descriptions of the different kinds of online media tools (blogs, podcasts, video-sharing, Vlogging, Vodcasting etc) and how a marketer/PR person can apply them to their particular strategies. All in all, Scott’s use of concise descriptions and bullet points make for not only an easy read, but a great reference book as well. A definite must have for anyone who is new to the online marketing and PR industry.