NEW RULES FOR MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS – One of my recent Christmas gifts from my brother-in-law was the book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott.  Thanks to my wife, he knew that the use of new media in marketing and advertising is a major part of The Crouch Group business plan for 2009.  All of our clients are looking for how to best use the web and new media as a primary tool of communication.  If nothing else the Obama campaign has shown us the power of using these tools to communicate and motivate.  As a result this book is remarkably on point with my thinking.

In “The New Rules for Marketing and PR”, Scott has laid out 13 New Rules:

  1. Marketing is more than just advertising
  2. PR is for more than just the mainstream media audience.
  3. You are what you publish.
  4. People want authenticity, not spin.
  5. People want participation, not propaganda.
  6. Instead of causing one-way interruption (advertising inserted into programming), Marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.
  7. Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiencdes via the Web
  8. PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.
  9. Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business.
  10. The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.
  11. Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content.
  12. Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in the form they appreciate.
  13. On the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

Scott goes on to say that  “Great content in all forms helps buyers see you and your organization ‘get it.’ Content drives action.”  Our world is changing.  In this weakened economy buyers are driven to make educated buying decisions.  The age of the impulse buy may be a thing of the past.  Impulse has been replaced by information and the key for all business in 2009 is getting good information to buyers.  For The Crouch Group  clients in 2009 this is our highest priority.

In this age of information, my question is what is working? What isn’t working? And how can this blog serve as a place to share that information?