Rule Number One -- Get With the New Rules
For a long time we marketers have relied on buying expensive advertising and begging the media and analysts for coverage of our companies, products and services. We’ve basically interrupted people with our messages in the hopes of generating interest from buyers (who usually ignored us anyway). The Web has profoundly changed this practice.
Smart marketers now communicate with buyers through content rich Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, ebooks, and other online media that buyers actually want to consume. The products and services offered by tuned in companies resonate with people who willingly buy without being coerced. But how do you get to this place in your marketing?
To answer this question and more I’ve asked David Meerman Scott to join me for today's author series show. He’s written a new book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” and I think it should be on every marketers' shelf.
If there was one key concept shared out today it is that you are what you publish -- and to borrow a phrase from the world of higher education this is equal to "publish or perish". It's all about what you put online and if we've heard anything over the past two shows the role of the Web site is essential (see my last post on having a bad Web site).
What can you do today to start implementing the new rules? David had some great tactical advice which includes:
1. create a Web site based on buyer personas and not your company ego (a common theme here folks -- it's not about you, your products, or services).
2. publish online press releases using the content based on your personas. Write the release for them not to boast about you.
3. Get onto the social networks that match your personas. Just because Facebook is all the rage right now, it may not be the right place for you. Go where your buyers are, not where the hype is at.
Tons of other great ideas including a brilliant metaphor about the Web being like a city. I haven't heard this before and it refreshed my thinking about how to incorporate online media into my own marketing efforts.
-- David Kinard, PCM
