When I was at ad:tech last week, I picked up a copy of The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott. David gets it, as demonstrated by the rules themselves — a pithy distillation of much of what’s been going on in marketing and P.R. over the past decade:

• Marketing is more than advertising.
• P.R. is 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 vast numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.
• P.R. 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 public 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 P.R. and marketing have blurred.

Takeaway for marketers: This may not be a seminal book like The Cluetrain Manifesto, but it’s a coupla hundred pages of solid and practical advice. Add it to your business book library. And follow the rules — they’ll put you ahead of the pack, because so many others still don’t get it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 9:28 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.