The New Rules of Marketing and PR

Why this book?

I decided to use this book (not only because the other two I wanted to do were already taken) because I have lately been working on a few different website ventures with friends of mine and I felt this would be a good book to read and expand my ideas.

What is the book about?

David Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing and PR addresses the issue of how we can use new releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly. I selected this book because online marketing is something I have become interested in and some part of me believed it would help me with business in the future, whether that was for someone else or for my own business. My hope was to gain a foundational knowledge of the many different aspects of marketing that use the internet and figure out which areas I could benefit from most.

The book gives us an idea why the old rules of marketing and public relations are no longer effective in an online world. The first chapter discusses the waste that occurs with the old way of advertising, how “One Way” interruption marketing is yesterday’s message and exactly what the old rules of marketing were. It tells us of the old rules of public relations and, while the media is still important, the old rules are no longer a legitimate way to use public relations.

The second chapter tells us of the new rules of marketing and public relations. David Scott speaks about Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail and how that spoke of the economic shift away from mainstream markets toward smaller niche products and services. He basically believes that marketers must shift their thinking from the short head of mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of targeting vast numbers of underserved audiences through the web. Using a variety of methods, Scott tells us that the web can be utilized to reach millions of smaller markets with precise messages developed for the individual and not the masses.

He then goes into reaching your buyers directly by letting the world know about your expertise and developing messages that your buyers want to hear. He then tells us that the new publishing model of the web is not about hype and spin and messages, rather it is about getting the content to where it needs to be, to whom it needs to be delivered to, and when they need to see it. Using the web, organizations can now directly tell their story to the consumer and let content drive the action plan.

After this first section, Scott tells us of the many web-based communications that we can use to reach buyers directly. These are blogs, News Releases, Podcasting, Forums, Wikis, and Your Target Audience, by Going Viral and Content Rich information. Finally, he wraps the book up with the third section describing your action plan on how to publishing, write, use web content and news releases and blogs to reach your buyers. He also speaks of the online media room and the new rules for reaching the media, how to make podcasting and video simple, how to utilize social media networks and search engines for effective marketing

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, I really think the book is a great way to gain understanding into the new areas of online marketing and how they can really allow a marketer to be much more profitable and work "smarter not harder".
While I feel the book can be repetitious at times, I still think its good knowledge and a smart read for someone wanting to pursue marketing or advertising using the internet and its tools.