The New Rules of Marketing & PR E-Book

David Meerman Scott

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 851

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The updated ninth edition of the pioneering guide to generating attention for your idea or business, jam-packed with new AI techniques and fresh stories of success

As the ways we communicate continue to evolve, keeping pace with the latest technology—including generative artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT—can seem an almost impossible task. How can you keep your product or service from getting lost in the digital clutter? The ninth edition of The New Rules of Marketing and PR offers everything you need to speak directly to your audience, make a strong personal connection, and generate attention for your business.

An international bestseller with half a million copies sold in twenty-nine languages, this revolutionary guide gives you a proven, step-by-step plan for deploying the power of social media, AI, and content to maintain your competitive advantage and get your ideas seen and heard by the right people at the right time. You'll discover the latest approaches for highly effective public relations, marketing, and customer communications—all at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising!

The latest edition of The New Rules of Marketing and PR has been completely revised to present highly effective strategies and tactics to help you get found by your buyers. The most important and comprehensive update to this international bestseller yet shows you details about the pros and cons of using generative AI, the most significant development in modern marketing and public relations since the first edition of this book was published back in 2007. The definitive guide on the future of marketing used as a primary resource in thousands of companies and hundreds of university courses, this must-have resource will help you:

• Incorporate the new rules that will keep you ahead of the digital marketing curve
• Make your marketing and public relations real-time by incorporating techniques like newsjacking to generate instant attention exactly when your audience is eager to hear from you
• Gain valuable insights through compelling case studies and real-world examples, showing you how to use the latest AI tools without losing the personal touch in your communications

The ninth edition of The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Content Marketing, Podcasting, Social Media, AI, Live Video, and Newsjacking to Reach Buyers Directly is the ideal resource for entrepreneurs, business owners, marketers, PR professionals, and managers in organizations of all types and sizes.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

The New Rules

Life with the New Rules

What's New

Writing Like on a Blog, but in a Book

Showcasing Success

I: How the Web Has Changed the Rules of Marketing and PR

1 The Old Rules of Marketing and PR Are Ineffective in an Online World

Advertising: A Money Pit of Wasted Resources

One-Way Interruption Marketing Is Yesterday's Message

The Old Rules of Marketing

PR Used to Be Exclusively About the Media

PR and Third-Party Ink

Yes, the Media Are Still Important

Press Releases and the Journalistic Black Hole

The Old Rules of PR

Learn to Ignore the Old Rules

2 The New Rules of Marketing and PR

The Most Important Communications Revolution in Human History

Open for Business

The End of Mass Marketing

Tell Me Something I Don't Know, Please

KOREAZ Social Media Channels Deliver Digital Public Diplomacy as Entertainment

The End of Mass PR

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

The Convergence of Marketing and PR on the Web

3 Reaching Your Buyers Directly

The Right Marketing in a Wired World

Let the World Know About Your Expertise

Develop Information Your Buyers Want to Consume

Big Birge Plumbing Company Grows Business in a Competitive Market

Buyer Personas: The Basics

Think Like a Publisher

Know the Goals and Let Content Drive Action

Real-Time Business at American Airlines Reaches Buyers Directly

II: Web-Based Communications to Reach Buyers Directly

4 Social Media and Your Targeted Audience

What Is Social Media, Anyway?

Social Media Is a Cocktail Party

“Upgrade to Canada” Social Program Nabs Tourists from Other Countries

Social Networking and Agility

Do You Allow Employees to Send Email? How About Letting Them Use Social Media?

The New Rules of Job Search

Brewing Authenticity: How Kolkata Chai Co. Uses Instagram to Reach Interested Buyers

5 The Content-Rich Website

Political Advocacy on the Web

Content: The Focus of Successful Websites

Reaching a Global Marketplace

Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

Blogging to Share Your Passion

A Blog (or Not a Blog)

Not Another Junky Blog

Why You Need a Blog in the Age of Social Networking

Audio and Video Drive Action

How to Poop in the Woods

Putting It All Together with Content

Great Websites: More Art Than Science

6 Marketing and PR in Real Time

Real-Time Marketing and PR

Real-Time Customer Communications from Cubby Oil & Energy

Develop Your Real-Time Mind-Set

Real-Time Blog Post Drives $1 Million in New Business

The Time Is Now

Real-Time Video for Business

Crowdsourced Support

7 Artificial Intelligence for Marketing and PR

AI-Powered Marketing and PR

Your Marketing May Already Be AI-Powered

Find Ways for AI to Benefit Customers

Creating an AI Project

Making AI a Part of Your Marketing

Unlocking the Potential of AI for Use with Your Own Content

Remaining Human in a World of AI

Clams, Wagoneers, and Harings: Creativity Is Even More Important in an AI World

AI Companies and Content Creators Fight, or They Learn to Work Together

III: Action Plan for Harnessing the Power of the New Rules

8 You Are What You Publish: Building Your Marketing and PR Plan

What Are Your Organization's Goals?

Buyer Personas and Your Organization

The Buyer Persona Profile

Doritos Silent “Crunch Cancelling” Plug-In for Gamers

How Beko Develops Products Global Consumers Are Eager to Buy

Modern-Day Hippies! Meet Stoned Immaculate's Unique Buyer Persona

The Importance of Buyer Personas in Web Marketing

In Your Buyers' Own Words

What Do You Want Your Buyers to Believe?

Developing Content to Reach Buyers

Marketing Strategy Planning Template

The New Rules of Measurement

Asking Your Buyer for a Date

Measuring the Power of Free

What You Should Measure

Stop Thinking of Content Creation as a Marketing Expense

Stick to Your Plan

9 Growing Your Business: How Marketing and PR Drive Sales

It's Time for a Sales Transformation

How Web Content Influences the Buying Process

Tips for Creating a Buyer-Centric Website

Step 1: Sales Begin with Informational Content

Step 2: A Friendly Nudge

Step 3: Closing the Deal

Triathlon Coach Delivers Content for All Ability Levels

Why Salespeople's LinkedIn Profiles Don't Sell

Salespeople as Content Curators

Your Company's Salesperson-in-Chief

Educating Your Salespeople About the New Buying Process

Registration or Not? Data from an E-book Offer

Close the Sale—Continue the Conversation

Measure and Improve

How a Content Strategy Grew Business by 50 Percent in One Year

10 Strategies forCreating Awesome Content

Ways to Get Your Information Out There

How to Create Thoughtful Content

Using AI to Make Content Creation Easier

How RTX Uses Journalists to Create Interesting Content

Your Web Content Must Be Accessible

Content Creation in Highly Regulated Industries

Content Ethics and Employee Guidelines

Thought Leaders from Outside Your Organization

Who Wrote That Awesome White Paper?

How Much Money Does Your Buyer Make?

11 How to Write for Your Buyers

An Analysis of Gobbledygook

Poor Writing: How Did We Get Here?

Branding Gone Amok™

Effective Writing for Marketing and PR

The Power of Writing Feedback (from Your Blog)

Injecting Humor into Product Descriptions

Brand Journalism at Boeing

12 Social Networking as Marketing

How to Use Facebook to Market Your Product or Service

Increase Engagements with Facebook Groups

Check Out My LinkedIn Profile

Tweet Your Thoughts to the World

Social Networking and Personal Branding

Write Your Biography in First Person

The Sharing More Than Selling Rule

Which Social Networking Site Is Right for You?

Nextdoor, the Social Network for Local Businesses

You Can't Go to Every Party, so Why Even Try?

Optimizing Social Networking Pages

Integrate Social Media into an Offline Conference or Event

Build a Passionate Fan Base

Social Networking and Crisis Communications

Why Participating in Social Media Is Like Exercise

13 Blogging to Reach Your Buyers

Understanding Blogs in the World of the Web

The Four Uses of Blogs for Marketing and PR

Monitor Blogs—Your Organization's Reputation Depends on It

Comment on Blogs to Get Your Viewpoint Out There

Bloggers Love Interesting Experiences

What Should You Blog About?

Blogging Basics: What You Need to Know to Get Started

Bling Out Your Blog

Building an Audience for Your New Blog

Tag, and Your Buyer Is It

Cities That Blog

What Are You Waiting For?

14 An Image Is Worth a Thousand Words

Photographs as Compelling Content Marketing

Images of Real People Work Better Than Inane Stock Photos

How to Market an Expensive Product with Original Photographs

Sharing Beautiful Images on Instagram

Marketing Your Product with Photos on Instagram

Sharing with Pinterest

The Power of SlideShare for Showcasing Your Ideas

Infographics

Infographics as a Marketing Asset

15 Video and Your Buyers

What University Should I Attend?

Business-Casual Video

Have Fun with Your Videos

Stop Obsessing Over Video Release Forms

Your Smartphone Is All You Need

Video Made for Just £100 Grows Fans of a Welsh Hardware Store

Facebook Live Is Great for Real-Time Content Marketing

Create and Connect Through Live Video

Video to Showcase Your Expertise

A Lawyer with Seven Million TikTok Followers

Creating a Great Virtual Event

Getting Started with Video

Building a Business One YouTube Video at a Time

16 Audio Content via Podcasting and Social Audio

Grammar Girl Podcast

Podcasting 101

Clubhouse and Other Social Audio Apps

Creating Elegant Calls to Action in Social Audio and on Podcasts

17 How to Use News Releases to Reach Buyers Directly

News Releases in a Web World

The New Rules of News Releases

If They Find You, They Will Come

Driving Buyers into the Sales Process

Developing Your News Release Strategy

Publishing News Releases Through a Distribution Service

Reach Even More Interested Buyers with RSS Feeds

Simultaneously Publish Your News Releases to Your Website

The Importance of Links in Your News Releases

Focus on the Keywords and Phrases Your Buyers Use

If It's Important Enough to Tell the Media, Tell Your Clients and Prospects, Too!

18 Your Newsroom: A Front Door for Much More Than the Media

Your Newsroom as (Free) Search Engine Optimization

Reaching Reporters and Editors and Telling Your Story

Best Practices for Newsrooms

Ontario University Shines Spotlight on Faculty Researchers

A Newsroom to Reach Journalists, Customers, and Bloggers

19 The New Rules for Reaching the Media

“Re:,” Nontargeted Pitches, and Other Sleazy Tactics

The New Rules of Media Relations

Media Relations Using X

Working with Brand Advocates

How Blog and Social Media Mentions Drive Mainstream Media Stories

Launching Ideas with the U.S. Air Force

Legal Caution Versus PR Clarity: Navigating Media During Crises

How to Pitch the Media

20 Newsjacking Your Way into the Media

Journalists Are Looking for What You Know

Get Your Take on the News into the Marketplace of Ideas

How to Find News to Jack

X Is Your Newsjacking Tool

Beware: Newsjacking Can Damage Your Brand

Newsjacking for Fun and Profit

21 Search Engine Marketing

Making the First Page on Google

Search Engine Optimization

Own Your Marketing Assets Instead of Renting Them

All Search Is Niche

The Importance of Voice Search

How to Get Found in LLM AI Chatbot Search

Carve Out Your Own Search Engine Real Estate

Using the Amazon Search Engine as Marketing

Web Landing Pages to Drive Action

Optimizing the Past

Search Engine Marketing in a Fragmented Business

22 Make It Happen

Your Mind-Set

The Journey from a Traditional Marketing Executive to a Modern CMO

Manage Your Fear

Mixing Business with Your Personal Life on Social Networks

Getting the Help You Need (and Rejecting What You Don't)

Bringing It All Together: Brand Journalism at Cleveland Metropolitan School District

Great for Any Organization

Now It's Your Turn

Acknowledgments for the Ninth Edition

About the Author

Index

Master Newsjacking the Online Course

Have David Meerman Scott Speak at Your Next Event!

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Acknowledgments for the Ninth Edition

About the Author

Index

Master Newsjacking the Online Course

Have David Meerman Scott Speak at Your Next Event!

End User License Agreement

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Praise for The New Rules of Marketing & PR

“The silos that marketing and PR have been operating in are crumbling. This monumental shift has redefined the ways that brands target, engage, and build relationships with their audiences. David Meerman Scott's visionary approach started a chain reaction whose effects can still be felt today. The legend that is The New Rules of Marketing & PR continues to be one of the most influential books in the hybrid marketer's library.”

—Jason A Miller, Global Content Marketing Leader at LinkedIn and Author ofWelcome to the Funnel

“This excellent look at the basics of new-millennial marketing should find use in the hands of any serious PR professional making the transition.”

—Publishers Weekly(starred review)

“This is absolutely the best book on the new world of marketing and PR. David Meerman Scott is ‘the teacher's teacher in the world of social media.’ I get all my best stuff from him. In fact, I buy each new edition because, in the ever-changing world of online marketing, if you don't stay current, you die a fast death. This edition is so new that it includes tools I hadn't even heard of yet. You'll love it.”

—Michael Port,New York TimesBestselling Author ofBook Yourself Solid

“Most professional marketers—and the groups in which they work—are on the edge of becoming obsolete, so they'd better learn how marketing is really going to work in the future.”

—BNET, “The Best & Worst Business Books”

“The New Rules of Marketing & PR has inspired me to do what I have coached so many young artists to do, ‘Find your authentic voice, become vulnerable, and then put yourself out there.’ David Meerman Scott expertly and clearly lays out how to use many great new tools to help accomplish this. Since reading this book, I have been excited about truly connecting with people without the filter of all the ‘old PR’ hype. It has been really energizing for me to speak about things that I really care about, using my real voice.”

—Meredith Brooks, Multi-Platinum Recording Artist, Writer, Producer, and Founder of record label Kissing Booth Music

“I've relied on The New Rules of Marketing & PR as a core text for my New Media and Public Relations course at Boston University for the past eight years. David's book is a bold, crystal-clear, and practical guide toward a new (and better) future for the profession.”

—Stephen Quigley, Boston University

“What a wake-up call! 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. I am a huge fan and practitioner of his advice.”

—Jill Konrath, Author ofSnap Sellingand Chief Sales Officer, SellingtoBigCompanies.com

“David is a leading expert on how the digital age has dramatically changed marketing and PR. A great guide for large and small companies alike to navigate the ‘new rules.’”

—Martin Lindstrom,New York TimesBestselling Author ofBuyology: The Truth and Lies about Why We Buy

“When I read the New Rules for the first time, it was a ‘eureka’ moment for me at HubSpot. David nailed the fundamental shifts going on in the buyer-seller relationship and wrote the classic text to help marketers take advantage of them.”

—Brian Halligan, Co-founder & Executive Chairperson, HubSpot; Co-author ofInbound Marketing

“The Internet is not so much about technology as it is about people. David Meerman Scott, in his remarkable The New Rules of Marketing & PR, goes far beyond technology and explores the ramifications of the web as it pertains to people. He sets down a body of rules that show you how to negotiate those ramifications with maximum effectiveness. And he does it with real-life case histories and an engaging style.”

—Jay Conrad Levinson, Father of Guerrilla Marketing and Author,Guerrilla Marketingseries of books

“The New Rules of Marketing & PR teaches readers how to launch a thought leadership campaign by using the far-reaching, long-lasting tools of social media. It is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to make a name for themselves, their ideas, and their organization.”

—Mark Levy, Co-author,How to Persuade People Who Don't Want to Be Persuaded, and Founder of Levy Innovation: A Marketing Strategy Firm

“Revolution may be an overused word in describing what the Internet has wrought, but revolution is exactly what David Meerman Scott embraces and propels forward in this book. He exposes the futility of the old media rules and opens to all of us an insiders’ game, previously played by a few well-connected specialists. With this rule book to the online revolution, you can learn how to win minds and markets, playing by the new rules of new media.”

—Don Dunnington, President, International Association of Online Communicators (IAOC); Director of Business Communications, K-Tron International; and Graduate Instructor in Online Communication, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey

“The history of marketing communications—about 60 years or so—has been about pushing messages to convince prospects to take some action we need. Now marketing communications, largely because of the overwhelming power and influence of the web and other electronic communications, is about engaging in conversation with prospects and leading/persuading them to take action. David Meerman Scott shows how marketing is now about participation and connection, and no longer about strong-arm force.”

—Roy Young, Chief Revenue Officer, MarketingProfs.com, and Co-author,Marketing Champions: Practical Strategies for Improving Marketing's Power, Influence, and Business Impact

“David Meerman Scott not only offers good descriptions of digital tools available for public relations professionals, but also explains strategy, especially the importance of thinking about PR from the public's perspectives, and provides lots of helpful examples. My students loved this book.”

—Karen Miller Russell, Associate Professor, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia

“This is a must-read book if you don't want to waste time and resources on the old methods of Internet marketing and PR. David Meerman Scott reviews the old rules for old times’ sake while bridging into the new rules for Internet marketing and PR for your cause. He doesn't leave us with only theories, but offers practical and results-oriented how-tos.”

—Ron Peck, Executive Director, Neurological Disease Foundation

“The New Rules of Marketing & PR is all about breaking the rules and creating new roles in traditional functional areas. Using maverick, nontraditional approaches to access and engage a multiplicity of audiences, communities, and thought leaders online, PR people are realizing new value, influence, and outcomes. We're now in a content-rich, Internet-driven world, and David Meerman Scott has written a valuable treatise on how marketing-minded PR professionals can leverage new media channels and forums to take their stories to market. No longer are PR practitioners limited in where and how they direct their knowledge, penmanship, and perception management skills. The Internet has multiplied and segmented a wealth of new avenues for directly reaching and activating key constituencies and stakeholders. A good book well worth the read by all marketing mavens and aging PR flacks.”

—Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director, CMO Council

“The New Rules of Marketing & PR provides a concise action plan for success. Rather than focusing on a single solution, Scott shows how to use multiple online tools, all directed toward increasing your firm's visibility and word-of-mouth awareness.”

—Roger C. Parker, Author ofThe Streetwise Guide to Relationship Marketing on the InternetandDesign to Sell

“Once again we are at a critical inflection point on our society's evolutionary path, with individuals wresting away power and control from institutions and traditional gatekeepers who control the flow of knowledge and maintain the silo walls. As communications professionals, we have little time to figure out what has changed, why it changed, and what we should be doing about it. If you don't start doing things differently and start right now, you may as well start looking for your next career path. In a world where disruption is commonplace and new ways of communicating and collaborating are invented every day, what does it take for a hardworking, ethical communications professional to be successful? David Meerman Scott's book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, is an insightful look at how the game is changing as we play it and some of the key tactics you need to succeed in the knowledge economy.”

—Chris Heuer, Co-founder, Social Media Club

Also by David Meerman Scott

Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans (with Reiko Scott)

Standout Virtual Events: How to Create an Experience That Your Audience Will Love (with Michelle Manafy)

The New Rules of Sales and Service: How to Use Agile Selling, Real-Time Customer Engagement, Big Data, Content, and Storytelling to Grow Your Business

Marketing the Moon:The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (with Richard Jurek)

Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products That Grow Your Business Now

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead:What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History (with Brian Halligan)

Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage

World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers That Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories

Tuned In:Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs (with Craig Stull and Phil Myers)

Cashing In with Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers into Buyers

Eyeball Wars: A Novel of Dot-Com Intrigue

THE NEW RULES of MARKETING & PR

HOW TO USE CONTENT MARKETING, AI, SOCIAL MEDIA, PODCASTING, VIDEO, AND NEWSJACKING TO REACH BUYERS DIRECTLY

9TH EDITION

DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT

Copyright © 2024 by David Meerman Scott. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available:

ISBN 9781394282166 (Paperback)ISBN 9781394282173 (ePub)ISBN 9781394282180 (ePDF)

Cover Design: WileyCover Illustration: Barsoom DesignAuthor Photo: Rogovin

For the Scott women

my mother, Carolyn Jones Scott;my wife, Yukari Watanabe Scott;my daughter, Allison Carolyn Reiko Goulet-Scott; andmy granddaughter Sora Moon Goulet-Scott

Introduction

A few years ago I was considering buying a new surfboard. I've been mainly riding an 8′0″ Spyder Wright over the past several years, and I wanted to get a smaller board. In an article in Surfer magazine, I read about a trend back to wooden surfboards, so I thought I'd do a little research on wood as an option for my next purchase. Like billions of other consumers, I headed over to Google to start my research. I entered the phrase “wooden surfboard.” Then I followed the link at the top search result to Grain Surfboards at grainsurfboards.com.

I was not disappointed. The Grain Surfboards site drew me in immediately with beautiful images of the boards and excellent descriptions of how the company makes them. No wonder Grain Surfboards had the top search result for the most important phrase in their business.

I learned that while surfboards were originally made of solid wood a 100 or more years ago in Hawaii, for the past 60 years machine-made materials such as polyurethane or polystyrene foam have all but replaced wood. After all, wood is heavier and harder to work with.

However, along came Grain Surfboards. The company pioneered the idea of applying boatbuilding techniques to make a hollow wooden board that is light, beautiful, and eco-friendly. The Grain Surfboards site wasn't just talking up their products. It was educating me about the history of my sport.

The lessons didn't stop with history. In fact, the company details its building process on the web for all to see. The idea of sharing your best ideas is foreign to many marketers and entrepreneurs, because people don't want their competitors to understand their business. Yet the more you educate a consumer, the more likely they are to buy.

Along the way, I learned that at Grain Surfboards, you can buy a build-it-yourself wooden surfboard kit that has everything you need, including detailed plans. I also learned that the company conducts classes most months in its Maine workshop and also has a traveling course (held recently in California). If building your own board doesn't appeal to you, you can have the artisans at Grain Surfboards craft one for you.

Grain Surfboards perfectly illustrates a different way of doing business—the very method we will discuss in this book. Grain Surfboards understands that when you share your work on the web, you spread your ideas and grow your business as a result. Throughout these pages, we'll discuss how to create content that educates and informs, just like Grain Surfboards does.

As I was poking around on the site, I found my way to the Grain Surfboards Facebook page (13,000+ followers) and the @GrainSurfboards Instagram feed (50,000+ followers). Grain Surfboards engages with fans and shares what's new. Because fans are excited to be engaged, they naturally help spread the company's ideas—without even being asked. On Instagram, for example, Grain Surfboards' posts get hundreds of likes and many comments and shares. The team regularly posts images of the boards they are building, of customer-created work, and, of course, images of surfing enthusiasts shredding atop the company's gorgeous boards.

In this book, you'll learn how to use tools like Instagram and Facebook in your business too. Social networking platforms are easy, fun, and powerful to use. It just takes a minute or two to shoot a photo, manipulate it with the filters, and share it with your network. With Instagram, images and videos do the talking, so even writing-challenged people can create awesome content.

In about 10 minutes of research on the Grain Surfboards site, as well as their Facebook and Instagram feeds, I made up my mind to purchase one of their boards. But I did more than that. I signed up for the four-day class on building a wooden surfboard held at the factory in York, Maine. When I read this description, I just couldn't refuse this empowering opportunity: “Four days in, beautiful board out! You'll get right down to it in this four-day class, beginning on Day 1 with a board that has pre-installed (by us) frames, chine and one railstrip. You'll pair up with another student to build the rails of your board in the morning and your classmate's that afternoon. Spend the remaining three days completing, shaping and sanding your board. It's fast, but it's fun and in only four days, you've got a shaped and sanded board ready for glass.” Sign me up!

It was a fantastic experience to build my own board. Many others share my enthusiasm, and they tell the story of their Grain Surfboards workshop via the company's Facebook page. These posts further spread the word about the brand. My story? Four days to a beautiful 6′4″ Wherry fish model board, which I left behind to be finished with a fiberglass coating. When I went back to pick it up, I signed up for a second course to build yet another board.

The company has me hooked. Grain Surfboards has built a thriving business and become number one in its marketplace. And the online content is a primary reason for its success. The company doesn't resort to paying for expensive ads in surfing magazines. It doesn't focus on trying to get retailers to carry its product. Instead, it reaches potential buyers directly—at the precise moment when those buyers are looking for what it sells.

I did a search on Google for “wooden surfboard.” Less than a half-hour later, I had my credit card out to book an out-of-state class that cost more than $1,000! Had it not been for Grain Surfboards' content-rich website, beautiful images, detailed process information, and happy customer showcase, I would have quickly clicked away to check out other manufacturers. Instead, I spent thousands of dollars, rewarding a company that had treated me with respect and invited me into the wooden surfboard world.

The web provides tremendous opportunities to reach buyers directly, and you will learn how to harness that power. What was science fiction just a few years ago is common, even expected, today. Take a moment to acknowledge how incredible it is that you can instantly create a video stream using that small device in your pocket and connect to a service like Facebook Live, Instagram, or TikTok to reach thousands of interested people who pay attention to what you are broadcasting. Or you can have a two-way video conversation with a potential customer on the other side of the planet. For free! Your mobile device is much more powerful than what the creators of The Jetsons imagined decades ago. Each of us has the ability to reach almost any human on the planet in real time. You can publish content—a blog post, video, infographic, photo—to reach potential customers who will be eager to do business with you.

Or you can use artificial intelligence (AI) to transcribe a conversation, summarize the important points, and use the result to make it easier to create written content. AI can proof your written content for grammatical errors too. You can also use an AI-powered video or image generator to create visual or multimedia content. It is most certainly a new world.

There used to be only three ways to get noticed: Buy expensive advertising, beg the mainstream media to tell your story for you, or hire a huge sales staff to bug people individually about your products. Now we have a better option: publishing interesting content on the web, content that your buyers want to consume. The tools of the marketing and PR trade have changed. The skills that worked offline to help you buy or beg or bug your way into opportunity are the skills of interruption and coercion. Online success comes from thinking like a journalist and publishing amazing content that will brand you as an organization or person it would be a pleasure to do business with. You are in charge of your own success.

The New Rules

At the height of the dot-com boom, I was vice president of marketing at NewsEdge Corporation, a NASDAQ-traded online news distributor with more than $70 million in annual revenue. My multimillion-dollar marketing budget included tens of thousands of dollars per month for a public relations (PR) agency, hundreds of thousands per year for print advertising and glossy brochures, and expensive participation at a dozen trade shows per year. My team put these things on our marketing to-do list, worked like hell to execute, and paid the big bucks for it all because that's what marketing and PR people did. These efforts made us feel good because we were doing something, but the programs were not producing significant, measurable results. We were working based on the rules of the past.

At the same time, drawing on experience I had gained in my previous position as Asia marketing director for the online division of Knight-Ridder (then one of the largest newspaper and information companies in the world), my team and I quietly created content-based marketing and PR programs on the web.

Against the advice of the PR agency professionals we had on retainer (who insisted that press releases were only for the press), we wrote and sent dozens of releases ourselves. Each time we sent a release, it appeared at online services such as Yahoo! and resulted in sales leads. Even though our advertising agency told us not to put the valuable information “somewhere where competitors could steal it,” we created a monthly newsletter called The Edge about the exploding world of digital news. We made it freely available on the home page of our website because it generated interest from buyers, the media, and analysts.

Way back in the 1990s, when web marketing and PR were in their infancy, my team and I ignored the old rules, drawing instead on my online publishing experience, and created a marketing strategy using content to reach buyers directly on the web. The homegrown programs we created at virtually no cost consistently generated more interest from qualified buyers, the media, and analysts—and resulted in more sales—than the big-bucks programs that the “professionals” were running for us. People we never heard of were finding us through search engines. We had discovered a better way to reach buyers.

In 2002, after NewsEdge was sold to the Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters), I started my own business to refine my ideas and teach others through writing, speaking at conferences, and conducting seminars for corporate groups. The objective in all this work was to help others reach buyers directly with web content. Since then, many new forms of online media have burst onto the scene, including social networks like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, plus blogs, podcasts, video, and virtual communities. But what all the new web tools and techniques have in common is that they are the best way to communicate directly with your marketplace.

This book contains much more than just my own ideas, because I blogged the book, section by section, as I wrote the first edition. As I have worked on revisions, including this ninth edition, I've continued to blog the stories that appear here. Thousands of you have followed along, and many have contributed to the writing process by offering suggestions through comments on my blog, via social networks, and by email. Thank you for contributing your ideas. And thank you for arguing with me when I got off track. Your enthusiasm has made the book much better than it would have been if I had written in isolation.

The web has changed not only the rules of marketing and PR but also the template for business books. The New Rules of Marketing & PR is an interesting example. My online content (the e-book and my blog) led me directly to a print book deal. Other publishers would have freaked out if an author wanted to put parts of his book online (for free!) to solicit ideas. The people at John Wiley & Sons encouraged it. So my thanks go to them as well.

Life with the New Rules

The New Rules of Marketing & PR has sold remarkably well since the initial release in June 2007. The first edition made the BusinessWeek bestseller list for multiple months. Since then, the revised editions have remained a top title for well more than a decade among thousands of books about marketing and public relations. Want to know the amazing thing? I didn't spend a single penny advertising or promoting it.

Here's what I did do when I launched the first edition: I offered advance copies to approximately 130 important bloggers, I sent out nearly 20 news releases (you'll read later in the book about news releases as a tool to reach buyers directly), and my publisher alerted contacts in the media. That's it. Thousands of bloggers have written about the book over the years (thank you!), significantly driving its sales. And the mainstream media have found me as a result of this blogger interest. The Wall Street Journal called several times for interviews that landed me quotes in the paper because the journalists had first read about my ideas online. I've appeared on international and local television and radio, including MSNBC, Fox Business, and NPR. I've been interviewed on hundreds of podcasts. Magazines and newspaper reporters email me all the time to get quotes for their stories. How do they find me? Online, of course! And it doesn't cost me a single penny. I'm not telling you all this to brag about my book sales or my media appearances. I'm telling you to show you how well these ideas work and to assure you that you can achieve a similar result in your business.

But the coolest part of my life since the book was published isn't that I took advantage of the new rules of marketing and PR, nor that this book has been selling like hotcakes as a result. No, the coolest part of my life right now is that people like you contact me every day to say that the ideas in these pages have transformed their businesses and changed their lives. Really! That's the sort of language people use. They write just to thank me for putting the ideas into a book so that they could tap into the new realities of marketing and PR.

Take Jody. He sent me an email to tell me the book had an unexpected effect on him and his wife. Jody explained that, to them, the really exciting and hopeful idea is that they can actually use their genuine voices online; they've left behind the hype-inflated, PR-speak their agencies had used so tediously.

Jim wrote to tell me, “More powerful than saying I read your book twice, I used it to innovate a new writing model. I've been building my audience from scratch on LinkedIn ahead of publication of my first novel and I've now got over 70,000 subscribers.”

Jorge, who lives in Portugal, commented on LinkedIn that “it was because of this book that I started blogging. It took me one entire day to do my first blog post. Now I use content marketing in a regular basis and all my business comes from Mr. Google! Thanks David and thanks New Rules … (and Mr. Google)!”

Andrew left a comment on my blog: “David, your book so inspired me, I decided to start a brand-new business (launching shortly) based [on] the principles you espouse. You cogently expressed many of the things that I'd been grappling with myself. So your book has certainly changed one life.”

Mark said, “I took your advice back in 2006 and started a blog. If you Google ‘fix sales problems,’ you will find 42 million listings, and I am number one in the world! Thanks again for the advice years ago, and I forced myself to do it and I am glad I did.”

Julie, who is a senior executive at a PR firm, handed out copies to all 75 of her staff members. Mike wrote to say that his company takes advantage of all the trends and techniques described in the book. He purchased a bunch of copies to share with everyone in his organization. Larry bought copies for all the members of his professional association. Robin, who works for a company that offers public relations services, purchased 300 copies for clients. People approach me at conferences asking me to sign wonderfully dog-eared, coffee-stained, Post-it-noted copies of the book. Sometimes they tell me some funny secrets, too. Kathy, who works in PR, said that if everyone read it, she'd be out of a job! David told me he used what he learned to find a new job.

While all this incredible feedback is personally flattering, I am most grateful that my ideas have empowered people to find their own voices and tell their own stories online. How cool is that?

Now let me disclose a secret of my own. As I was writing the first edition of this book, I was a bit unsure of the global applicability of the new rules. Sure, I'd found a number of anecdotal stories about online marketing, blogging, and social networking outside North America. But I couldn't help but wonder at the time: Are organizations of all kinds reaching their buyers directly, with web content written in languages other than English and for cultures other than my own?

I quickly learned that the answer is a resounding yes! About 25 percent of the book's English-language sales have come from outside the United States. And as I write this, the book has been or is being translated into more than 29 other languages, including Bulgarian, Finnish, Korean, Vietnamese, Serbian, and Turkish. I'm also receiving invitations from all over the world to speak about the new rules. I've traveled for talks to Bulgaria, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Trinidad, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic to name a few countries. So I can say with certainty that the ideas in these pages do resonate worldwide. We are indeed witnessing a global phenomenon.

What's New

This ninth edition of the book builds on the completely revised eighth edition with the most extensive rewrite of The New Rules of Marketing & PR so far.

By far the biggest change since the previous edition was published has been the explosion of AI onto the marketing and public relations scene. Earlier editions did include an AI chapter where I shared how AI has become an important way to automate routine tasks to save time and money, as well as to increase the success of marketing and PR initiatives.

However, with generative AI services like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Sora from Open AI, as well as similar services from Google and other companies, the world of AI has broken wide open—for everyone. In fact, the rapid growth of AI is the most significant development for marketing and PR since the first edition of this book back in 2007. In addition to making repetitive tasks easier (like transcribing audio), AI has transformed the analysis of enormous datasets that was previously impossible for humans to parse (like analyzing how many thousands or even millions of users interact with your website, predicting what they will want next, and serving it to them when they need it).

Because the world of AI is moving so quickly, I significantly enhanced Chapter 7 (“Artificial Intelligence for Marketing and PR”) for this edition. The chapter explores ways that AI can help marketers, such as analyzing which blog or email newsletter topics have the greatest chance of getting seen and shared, the best ways to write headlines for maximum exposure, the best time and day to post, which channels are the best to share on, and what hashtags are appropriate to use. As you consider AI in your organization, think about the routine tasks that drive business value that might be possible to automate. Even if you're not using AI yet, you need to know what's possible in this, the fastest-changing aspect of marketing.

Another change in this edition was the 2023 renaming of Twitter to X shortly after the purchase of the company by Elon Musk. Personally, I think it rather odd that the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and several other companies would toss out more than a decade of brand building. Twitter, as Twitter, was one of the most important social networks in the world. But the deed has been done, and the platform is now X.

I've replaced each instance of the name Twitter in the book with X, including in quotations. So even though somebody might have mentioned Twitter when I interviewed them, I changed their quote to X for consistency. However, I have chosen to keep the terms tweet and retweet to refer to the actions that people do when they post and share messages via X.

In this new edition, I have checked every story, fact, and figure. But I've also listened. In the past decade, I've met thousands of people like you, people who have shared their stories with me. I have drawn from those experiences and included in these pages many new examples of success. For those of you who have read earlier editions, you'll still find many fresh ideas in these pages.

I've made other significant additions as well. The tools of marketing and public relations are constantly evolving. Consider this: When I wrote the first edition of the book, Instagram, TikTok, X, and other social networks didn't even exist, and Facebook was available only to students. Now they are essential tools of marketing. Remarkably, as of early 2024, Facebook had more than three billion monthly active users around the world.

Here's another example of how the ideas in this book have become mainstream: I first wrote about newsjacking—the art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story to generate tons of media coverage, get sales leads, and grow business—back in 2011. I'm honored and grateful that because of people like you who learned about my pioneering ideas about newsjacking in previous editions of this book, the concept has become incredibly popular.

In fact, Oxford Dictionaries listed newsjacking in the Oxford English Dictionary several years ago. In their announcement, Oxford Dictionaries said: “In the space of a few short years, newsjacking has gone from an experimental technique to a staple in every social media-savvy marketing department's arsenal. Brands from across industry sectors fully embraced the strategy this year, increasingly taking advantage of current events to not only push their brand into the public consciousness, but to align themselves with certain ethical or moral positions. Blending ‘news’ and ‘hijacking,’ the word itself dates back to the 1970s with reference to the theft of newspapers in order to sell them to scrap dealers. Its contemporary iteration, however, dates from the early twenty-first century, as first popularized by marketing and sales strategist David Meerman Scott.” You will learn about newsjacking in Chapter 20, where I have added several new examples in this edition of the book.

I've also used my scalpel to cut stories and concepts that I felt were no longer appropriate. I always love sharing new stories of success, and you will read more than a dozen new ones here. So even those who have read earlier editions of this book can look forward to lots of fresh material.

Writing Like on a Blog, but in a Book

Because the lines between marketing and PR have blurred so much that the distinction is now virtually unrecognizable, the best online media choice is often not as obvious as it was in the old days. I had to organize the book by chapters for the various tools, including blogs, video, social networking, and so on. The truth is that all these techniques intersect and complement one another.

These online media are evolving very rapidly, and by the time you read these words, I'll no doubt have come across new techniques that I'll wish I could have put in the ninth edition. Still, I believe that the fundamentals are important, which is why Chapter 8 (where you'll start to develop your own online marketing and PR plan) is steeped in practical, commonsense thinking.

The book is organized into three parts. Part I is a rigorous overview of how the web has changed the rules of marketing and PR. Part II introduces and provides details about each of the various media. Part III contains detailed how-to information and an action plan to help you put the new rules to work for your organization.

While I think this sequence is the most logical way to present these ideas, there's no reason why you shouldn't flip from chapter to chapter in any order that you please. Unlike a mystery novel, you won't get lost in the story if you skip around. And I certainly don't want to waste your time. As I was writing, I found myself wishing that I could send you from one chapter to another chapter with hyperlinks, like on a blog. Alas, a printed book doesn't allow that, so instead I have included more old-fashioned references where I suggest you skip ahead or go back to review specific topics.

When I mention people and organizations, I frequently mention their X IDs, which are preceded by the @ sign. So if I were to reference my name and X ID, you'd see it like this: David Meerman Scott @dmscott. This way, you can quickly learn more about the person or organization by checking them out on X.

You'll notice that I write in a familiar and casual tone, rather than the more formal and stilted voice of many business books. That's because I'm using my “blog voice” to share the new rules with you. It's how I like to write, and I believe it also makes things easier for you, the reader.

When I use the words company and organization throughout this book, I'm including all types of organizations and individuals. Feel free to mentally insert nonprofit, government agency, political candidate, church, school, sports team, legal firm, or other entity in place of company and organization. Similarly, when I use the word buyers, I also mean subscribers, voters, volunteers, applicants, and donors, because the new rules work for reaching all these groups. Are you a leader of a nonprofit organization that needs to increase donations? The new rules apply to you as much as to a corporation. Ditto for political campaigns looking for votes, schools that want to increase applications, consultants hunting for business, and churches seeking new members.

This book will show you the new rules and how to apply them. For the people all over the world interacting on the web, the old rules of marketing and PR just don't work.

Showcasing Success

The most exciting aspect of the book is that, throughout these pages, I have the honor of showcasing some of the best examples of building successful programs on the web. There are more than 50 profiles throughout the book, many of them featuring the marketers' own words from interviews with me. These profiles bring the concepts to life. You'll learn from people at Fortune 500 companies and at businesses with just a handful of employees. These companies make products ranging from racing bicycles to jet helicopters and from computer software to men's hair accessories. Some of the organizations are well known to the public, while others are famous only in their own market niches. I profile nonprofit organizations, political advocacy groups, and an inner city school district. I tell the stories of independent consultants, churches, rock bands, and lawyers, all of whom successfully use the web to reach their target audiences.

I can't thank enough the people who shared their time with me, on the phone and in person. I'm sure you'll agree that they are the stars of the book. My favorite part is that many of them are people who read earlier editions and shared their success with me. How cool is that? You can read this edition and be equipped to create programs that could grow your business and lead you to achievements that might inform readers of future editions!

As you read the stories of successful marketers, remember that you will learn from them even if they come from a very different market, industry, or type of organization from your own. Nonprofits can learn from the experiences of corporations. Consultants will gain insights from the successes of rock bands. In fact, I'm absolutely convinced that you will learn more by emulating successful ideas from outside your industry than by copying what your nearest competitor is doing. Remember, the best thing about new rules is that your competitors probably don't know about them yet.

Thank you for your interest in the new rules. I hope that you, too, will be successful in implementing these strategies and will improve your life as a result.

—David Meerman Scott

davidmeermanscott.com

[@dmscott]

IHow the Web Has Changed the Rules of Marketing and PR

1The Old Rules of Marketing and PR Are Ineffective in an Online World

As I write this, I am considering buying a new car. As it is for billions of other global consumers, the web is my primary source of information when I consider a purchase. So I sat down at the computer and began poking around.

Figuring they were the natural place to begin my research, I started with some major automaker sites. That was a big mistake. I was assaulted on the home pages with a barrage of TV-style broadcast advertising. And most of the one-way messages focused on price. For example, at Chevrolet, the all-capital-letters headline in a huge font that took up most of the page screamed, “0% APR FOR 72 MONTHS ON SELECT POPULAR SUVS WHEN YOU FINANCE WITH GM FINANCIAL.” Dodge announced a similar offer on their sales event: “NO MONTHLY PAYMENTS FOR 90 DAYS.” Other manufacturers touted similar flashy offers.

I'm not planning to buy a car now, thank you. I'm just kicking the virtual tires. These sites and most others assume that I'm ready to buy a car right now