The New Rules of Marketing and PR. L 9

2. The New Rules of Marketing and PR. L 9 Ing. Jiří Šnajdar 2013

3. The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Prior to the Web the organizations had only two significant choices to atract attention: Buy expensive advertising or get third-party ink from the media. The Web has changed the rules. The Web is not TV and organizations that understand the new situation develop relationship directly with consumers.

4. The Web has opened tremendous opportunity to reach niche buyers directly with targeted messages that cost fraction of what big-budget advertising costs. Traditional advertising has a primary techique what is named in TV – interruption. You are watching your favorite TV show, so the advertiser´s job is to craft a commercial to get your attention. Moreever, the messages in advertising are product focused one-way spin.

5. The Web is different. Instead of one- way interrruption, Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that buyer needs it. Before the Web, good advertising people were well proficient in the tools and techniques of reaching broad markets with low denominator messages via interruption techniques.

6. The old rules of marketing Marketing simply meant advertising and brending. Advrtising needed to appeal to the masses. Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message. Advertising is one-way: company to consumer. Advertising is exclusively about selling products.

7. Advertising is based on on campaings that have limited life. Creativity is deemed the most important component of advertising. Important for the ad agency is to win advertising awards than for the clients to win new customers. Advertising and PR are separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies and measurment criteria.

8. The Web has transformed the rules and you must transform your marketing to make most of the Web-enabled Marketplace of ideas. Reporters and editors use the Web to seek out interesting stories, people and companies. Public relations was once an exklusive club. PR people use lots of jargon and follow strict rules. PR seemed like estoric and mysterious job that requiers lots of training.

9. Only the best PR people have personal relationships with media and can pick up the phone andprovide story to the reporter. This is not true any more. The Web has changed the rules. Today organizations are communicating directly with buyers. The media are critically important for many organizations.

10. PR relations work has changed. PR is no longer just an estoric discipline where great efforts are spent by companies to communicate exclusively with reporters who then tell the company story. Now PR includes programes to reach buyers direct. The Web allows direct acces to information about products and companies understand and use this phenomena to great advantage.

11. The internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exklusive focus on media. Blogs, online video, news releases and other forms of Web content let organizations communicate directly with buyers.

12. The old rules of PR The only way to get ink and airtime was through the media. Companies communicate to journalists via press releases. Nobody saw the actual press release exept of reporteres and editors. Companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write press release. Jargon is permitted because the journalists all understand it.

13. The only way buyers would learn about the press release´s content is if the media content is if the media write a story about it. PR and marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies and measurments techniques.

14. The Web has transformed the rules, all must transform PR strategies to make the most on the Web - enabled marketplace of ideas. The vast majority of organizations do not have instant acces to media for coverage of their products. Companies need to work hard to be noticed in the on line Marketplace of ideas. By understanding how the role of PR and press release has changed we can get our stories known in that market place.

15. There are some exceptions. Very large companies, very famous people and governments might still be able to using the media exclusively. If you are smaller and less famous, but have an interesting story to tell, you need to tell it yourself, the Web is a wonderful place to do so.

16. Public relations is not just about speaking through media, although the media remain an important component. Marketing is not just about one-way broadcast advertising, although advertising can be part of an overall strategy. It is noticeable that many marketing executives, CEO´s, entrepreneurs and professionals use the chance to tell stories directly.

17. These people love the new way of communicating with buyers. Marketers are bringing success to their organizations by communicating through the Web. Consider your goals for communicating via marketing and public relations.

18. Some of today´s most successful Internet businesses leverage the long tail to reach underserved customers and satisfy demand for products. Examples include Amazon which makes available hundreds of thousands books not stocked in local bookshop.

19. As consumers search on the internet for answers to their problems, as they browse blogs and chat rooms and web sites for ideas, they are searching for what organizations have to offer. Today´s consumers are looking for just right product or service to satisfy unique desires at the precise moment they are online. Marketers must shift their thinking from the short head of main stream marketing to the masses to a strategy of targeting large numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.

20. As marketers understand the Web as place to reach large audience of micromarkets with precise messages just at the point of consumption. The techniques pioneered by the leaders of long-tail retail for reaching customers with niche interests are examples of marketing genius. At a broad level there are two ways that people interact with Web: They search and they browse. Most organisations optimize sites for searching, which helps people answer their questions but does not encourge them to browse.

21. People also want a site to tell them something they did not think to ask. Marketing on the Web is not about generic banner ads desined to trick people with colour or unusual movement. It is about understanding the keywords and phrases that the buyers are using and then deploying micro-campaignes to drive buyers to pages filled with content that they seek.

22. The new rules are just as important for public relations. In fact the online content in all of its forms is causing a convergence of marketing and PR that does not really exist offline. And in an inter-connected Web world, content drives action. Great content brands an organizations as a trusted resource and calls people to action – to buy, subscribe, apply or donate. Great content means that interested people return again. As a result the organization succeeds, achieving goals such as adding revenue, building traffic or generating sales.

23. Note: Every business has information that can contribute to the education of the Marketplace. How can I get the information out there? For example we create an entire series of buyer guides, because we know that would be valuble to the market. You need to think about how a series of news releases over two years will benefit your business.

24. Business will live or die on original content. If you are creating realy useful content for customers you are going to be seen in a great light with a great spirit. Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on a media relations program and TV stations to cover the company it is essential targeting the bloggers, online news sites, mickro-publications and cosultants and reach targeted audiences that are looking what is on offer. With social media we communicate directly with our audience. We have the power to create our own media brand in the niche of our own selection.

25. The New Rules of Marketing and PR Marketing is more than just advertising. PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience. You are what you publish. People want authenticity not spin. People wish participation not propaganda. Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.

26. Marketers should shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strtegy of reaching large numbers of underserved audiences via the Web. PR is not about seing your company on TV. It is about your buyers seeing your company on the Web. Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. I tis about your organization winning business. The Internet has made PR public again after years of almost excusive focus on media.

27. Companies need to drive people into purchasing proces with great online content. Blogs, online video, 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 marketing and PR have changed.

28. Reaching your customers directly Mainstream media is still important. The immense expense of relying on advertising to convince buyers to pay attention to your organization, ideas, products and services is previous headache. There´s no doubt that getting the word out about an idea, a product, a service is much simpler when you can rely on social media sites like blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

29. The Web allows any organization as well as large and small companies, candidates for public office, government agencies, schools, artists and even job seekers to reach buyers directly. The power is clear to nearly everyone these days, but many executives and entrepreneurs still struggle to find the right mix of traditional advertising and direct communication with customers.