5 Comments for The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition

• 1. Brad Shorr  |  October 24th, 2010 at 2:33 am

  Review by Brad Shorr for The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
  Rating:
  More than anything, The New Rules of Marketing & PR ties things together. The book provides an easy to understand yet comprehensive view of the new online marketplace–a landscape that can appear quite bewildering, even to marketing specialists. With so many options at our fingertips (literally), where do we start? Blogs? Podcasts? Public relations? SEO? Paid search? Viral marketing? The list goes on. To make matters worse, technology is changing and new tools are developing almost every day.

  In the early chapters, David takes a high altitude look at online marketing options, showing us how they developed, why they’re important, how they work, and why they work. In later “Action Plan” chapters, he jumps into the trenches and shows us how to actually use the tools and implement programs. Throughout, he uses detailed case studies to illustrate not only the programs but the amazing results they can achieve.

  But it isn’t just the latest and greatest technologies that are crucially important. Public relations, for example, has been around since Gutenberg but for the first time is practical for a small company. Traditional PR was cost-prohibitive and dependent on unreachable key media contacts. But in the new world–

  “…your primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions of people with Internet connections and access to search engines and RSS readers.” (Chapter 5)

  Today, public relations may be the single most underutilized tool in the marketing arsenal.

  Another “old” technology David brings us up to speed on is the corporate Web site. In fact, the three most important points I got out of The New Rules of Marketing & PR have enormous implications on traditional Web development.

  Those key points are–

  1. The most important New Rule is CONTENT. Design is important. Technology is important. But without extraordinary content, you’re doomed.

  2. Interruption marketing (think spam and pop-up ads) has given way to consumer-driven marketing. Yippee! “The Web is different. Instead of one-way interruption, Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it.” (Chapter 1)

  3. The starting point for any New Rule program is to create customer personas. If you’re going to have extraordinary content that motivates buyers to take action, you’d better know your customers inside-out.

  David explains how these three principles should influence not only your corporate Web site, but every other online program you undertake.

  Thankfully, David is understandable as well as instructive. One reason I’ve enjoyed his blog for over a year is his conversational, entertaining writing style. He makes learning easy (which is harder to do than you might think). Anyway, his book is just like his blog–illuminating and fun.

  The New Rules of Marketing & PR presents the most complete picture of any book I’ve read. For the marketing specialist, it will fill in the gaps. For the generalist, it will open up a whole new world.

• 2. Jill Konrath  |  October 24th, 2010 at 2:34 am

  Review by Jill Konrath for The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
  Rating:
  By embracing the strategies in this book , you will totally transform your business. David Meerman Scott shows you a multitude of ways to propel your company to a thought leadership position in your market and drive sales – all without a huge budget.

  From my perspective, the best thing about this book is that everyone can gain value from it. There are so many places you can start applying these new rules of marketing and PR. For example, I’m an experienced blogger, considered an expert in my field and already have a strong online presence. Yet I’m immediately going to start applying the lessons in Chapter 14: How to Use News Releases to Reach Buyers Directly.

  Here’s what else I like about this book:

  1. The author includes numerous examples from a variety of businesses in different industries & sizes that have all used these strategies for success.

  2. The book shows you multiple venues to reach your buyers directly. This circumvents the high costs of mainstream media enabling firms who are running bootstrap operations to compete with the big boys.

  3. The “how to” guidelines on leveraging news releases in a web-based world are excellent. You’ll learn how to create news on a regular basis, capitalize on various distribution services, focus on key words/phrases in your writing that are used by your buyers, and incorporate social media tags.

  4. The insights on optimizing a website’s online media room for search engines is another easy-to-implement technique with high payback.

  In summary, I guarantee you that your investment in this book will be paid back many times.

  ~ Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies

• 3. Janice King  |  October 24th, 2010 at 3:12 am

  Review by Janice King for The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
  Rating:
  If you are a marketing or PR professional who pays attention to new trends, you likely know much of the information in this book. Some sections may be useful for your executives to read when you are having trouble justifying investments in blogging and other new media activity. You may also find some useful ideas or techniques in the many examples presented here.

  However, the author’s arguments are hindered by his assumption that corporate marketing and PR staff are dinosaurs stuck in the practice of indiscriminate push advertising and media pitches. Scott spends too much time touting press releases as the best way to reach blog readers, a concept that ignores the true potential of blogs and related media for communicating in a deeper and more engaging way with potential customers. He also ignores the very real legal and market constraints that control much of corporate communications in his longing for businesses to adapt the free-for-all communications style of the independent blogging world. It is an unfair judgment to criticize corporate communicators for not living up to this unrealistic expectation.

• 4. M. Ward  |  October 24th, 2010 at 3:46 am

  Review by M. Ward for The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
  Rating:
  Get rich, be successful, blog, podcast, blah… I feel like it is 1999 all over again.

  My issues with this book are:

  1. It is very light on critical analysis of when these technologies are of value. Face it — hundreds of thousand of businesses should not have blogs or employ most of these technologies.

  2. There is almost no information on the return on investment of these technologies versus other marketing media or tactics. Having a media / PR person spend 10 hours developing a sketch media plan, buying ads in a circular, building an email list, etc. could be 1,000 times more beneficial than spending the hundreds of hours that costs to implement most of these tactics well.

  3. The goals for using each technology should be crystal clear and realistic and the hype in this book does not reflect that.

  4. Rising above the noise on the Internet is really, really hard. This book gives you no information on how to do that beyond the age old adage of “know your buyer.”

  I started to write – it’s ironic that there is a chapter on “how to develop thoughtful content” and then I had a realization that the author is actually a good marketer. This book isn’t about imparting knowledge and being useful to businesses and organizations. It’s about selling books. The author is very aware of his buyer – it is somebody who is rightfully in awe of the Internet and its viral potential, heard Dell figured out how to make $3 million on twitter (their ad budget is $1.5 billion per year), and doesn’t know what their first step should be. Unfortunately, this book isn’t a good place to start. That person would be better served by learning about these technologies on wikipedia, reading the ClickZ website (an actually useful resources for online marketing) and asking themselves the critical questions about how these new tools could realistically improve their marketing effort.

  More critical analysis of when these technologies should be used is needed, not this drivel.
  

• 5. Suzanne Del Rossi  |  October 24th, 2010 at 3:57 am

  Review by Suzanne Del Rossi for The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
  Rating:
  David’s book integrates what he has learned as a corporate marketing strategist, and now teaches as a business speaker and seminar leader, into a practioner’s guide for Marketing and PR in today’s dynamic and competitive business conditions.

  He emphasizes that while the most advanced technology cannot replace a fundamental and sound marketing plan and execution, the new age of web and wireless communication demands that marketing and PR people know and understand the latest tools and techniques.

  The new rules of Marketing and PR, David points out, are especially beneficial for small businesses and organization, in that marketing staffs can now more easily select, focus, and reach their target markets in a more cost effective manner. Traditional mass media marketing and public relations activities have given way to a more advanced electronic and information technology based methods.

  Throughout David’s book, he introduces and explains by real case scenarios how the new marketing and PR tools can most effectively be used. Examples of the new techniques are detailed throughout his book and include:

  * Social media
  
  * Blogs
  
  * Video/Audio Enhancements
  
  * Podcasts
  
  * Online PR & News Releases
  
  * Internet & Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  David continually recommends and reinforces his central theme of leveraging online media and use of current technology to successfully achieve your marketing objectives–here are some examples:

  Social Media & Target Marketing
  
  Through social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Wikipedia) and blogging, one can reach target markets and drive them via links to your website. People and see and share content and ideas, plus make recommendations to others on specific products and services.

  Video & Audio Content
  
  Advancements in video technology, especially small, powerful, and inexpensive video cameras, allow a marketing/PR person to be their own videographer and greatly enhance the content and features on a website. Target market customers can see and hear the best attributes and amenities of places they want to visit as they conduct their decision making process.

  Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
  
  This highly significant and powerful tool drives target customers to your website. Through ensuring and words and phrases on your website, blog, or other web links can be found by search engines, which brings already interested customers to your website and to your sales and marketing staff to be contacted, qualified, and potentially closed for a sale. Search engine advertising is another tool by which a marketer purchases words and phrases that appear prominently on a pay-per-click basis, whenever customers click the link to your website.

  I’m a little rusty on how to use social media in my marketing efforts as Vacation Rental Manager for the Village of Nashaquisset on Nantucket; I am confident David’s recommendations will help immensely.

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