David Meerman Scott: Changing the Rules of Marketing, PR … and Business

EDITOR’S NOTE:

David Meerman Scott has been a contributor to  Cincom Expert Access since 2006. Check out the interview below and win a free copy of  his worldwide bestselling book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly“courtesy of Cincom Expert Access. Thanks to David for freely sharing his time and ideas over the years. We only have 50 copies – so first come first serve.

Contact  Steve Kayser at skayser@cincom.com or on Twitter at @SteveKayser.

INTERVIEW BY EXPERT ACCESS CONTRIBUTOR  NETTIE HARTSOCK

David Meerman Scott’s  best-selling book, “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”  has been extensively updated and features several new major marketing campaign stories as well as how Facebook and Twitter’s usage have impacted the online marketing world.

Nettie: What’s different in this new edition?

David Meerman Scott (David): This second edition of the book has gone through an extensive rewrite. Of course, I have checked every fact, figure, and URL. But I’ve also listened. In the past two years, I’ve met thousands of people who have shared their stories with me, so I’ve drawn from those experiences and included many new examples of success.

While including so many new stories and examples has resulted in my removing many of the less interesting originals, I’m convinced that these exciting replacements are even more valuable.

Nettie: The book also covers the new emergence of tools like Facebook and Twitter?

David: Yes, when I wrote the first edition of the book, Facebook was only available to those with a .edu email address (students and educators), so I didn’t feature Facebook. Twitter didn’t even exist at the time I was researching the first edition. I added extensive new information and examples on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.

In fact, the rise of the term social media has been so strong in the past few years that I’ve even changed the subtitle of the book to include it.

Nettie: What are a couple of favorite case studies in the book that are new and will be of interest to readers?

David: I have dozens of examples in the book, but I’ll share two here:

Facebook group drives 15,000 people to the Singapore Tattoo Show (www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32140274011)

In its first year (2009), the Singapore Tattoo Show had an aggressive target of 5,000 attendees. Organizers launched via a Facebook group called Tattoo Artistry three months prior to the show. The group grew very quickly, securing a place as the center of tattoo artistry for the Asia region.

The passion of the Tattoo Artistry Facebook group members meant they would help promote the group to their friends, so the online community eventually included many people eager to attend the live event. Instead of relying on expensive advertising, show organizers built a community of passionate fans who built anticipation and buzz for the event. The Tattoo Artistry Facebook group quickly reached 3,000 members and was an important reason that more than 15,000 people attended the first Singapore Tattoo Show—that’s three times the expected number of attendees!

Film Producer Creates a World Wide Rave by Making Soundtrack Free for Download (http://www.thegraduatesmovie.com/)

As I say many times in the book, a great way to generate interest in products and services is to make select content available for free online. There’s no doubt that free content sells. The Graduates, a feature film released in 2009, is an award-winning comedy about four friends who head to the beach without a care in the world. Prior to release, the film had been developing a loyal following among the 18- to 34-year-old demographic following a dozen sold-out festival and sneak preview screenings. It had been advertised solely by word-of-mouth and in a clever marketing technique, via a free soundtrack download.

The film features the music of some incredible indie bands (The New Rags, Plushgun, Sonia Montez, The Mad Tea Party, Our Daughter’s Wedding, and The Smittens) that are popular with the buyer personas who might see the movie. So the idea of making the entire soundtrack available for free is a brilliant strategy.

Of course, the bands also benefit because new listeners are exposed to their music and, if they like it, may decide to buy an album or see them live. “We felt it made sense to give away the soundtrack to build loyalty, show off the product, and compensate for a zero-dollar marketing budget, all in one fell swoop,” says Ryan Gielen, executive producer of The Graduates.

I wondered about the musicians whose music was given away. Did any of them resist? “The worst-case scenario for even an established band is that we just crafted a $100,000 music video for them,” Ryan says. “The Rolling Stones should laugh us out of the room, but this is a good opportunity for many, many bands.” The strategy has worked well for Gielen. “The free soundtrack has been a real success,” he says. “The totally free music promo opened us up to many more people.”

What is a World Wide Rave?

Nettie: What surprised you most in the period since 2007 when the first edition was published?

David: Let me disclose a secret. Back when I was writing the first edition in 2006 and when it came out in 2007, I was a bit unsure of the global applicability of the new rules.

What is heartening is that since that time, 25 percent of the first edition’s sales have come from outside the United States. As I write this, the book has been or is being translated into 24 languages including Bulgarian, Finnish, Korean, Vietnamese, Serbian, and Turkish. I’m also receiving invitations from all over the world to speak about the new rules. In the past year, I’ve traveled to countries including Saudi Arabia, the UK, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Croatia, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the Dominican Republic.

So I can say with certainty that the ideas do resonate worldwide. We are indeed witnessing a global phenomenon.

Nettie: Your books are now being used as part of dozens of notable university marketing programs. Do you have any tips on how universities need to be educating marketing students in terms of social media?

David: At first, when the first edition was released in 2007, College and University marketing programs were resistant to the ideas. But a few professors, including Karen Miller Russell, Associate Professor, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia and Stephen Quigley from Boston University, quickly adopted the ideas in the book and began assigning it to their students as part of classes.

However, what I found most interesting is that it was the students demanding that their professors use the book that pushed adoption in dozens of universities. Students would email me exasperated that they were not being taught online marketing and PR and the tools and techniques seemed to be stuck in the 1980s. Several admitted they had cried when they read my book because they felt their investment in an education had been wasted.

So I would say to the professors out there: OPEN YOUR EYES. Study what’s going on and how smart marketers and PR pros are reaching audiences today and educate yourself on the new ideas so you can better prepare your students.

Nettie: What do you think are the three things everyone needs to understand about new marketing and PR for 2010?

David: Before the Web came along, there were only three ways to get noticed: buy expensive advertising, beg the mainstream media to tell your story for you, or hire a huge sales staff to bug people one at a time about your products. Now we have a better option: publishing interesting content on the Web that your buyers want to consume.

The tools of the marketing and PR trade have changed. The skills that worked offline to help you buy or beg or bug your way in are the skills of interruption and coercion. Online success comes from thinking like a journalist and a thought leader.

The Web allows organizations of all kinds (large and small companies, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, political candidates, consultants, even rock bands and churches) the ability to become publishers of content.

So to be successful in 2010, everyone (including me) needs to be asking this series of questions:

1) Who are my buyers? (Or who are my donors, voters, readers, etc.)

2) What problems do my buyers have that my products or services solve?

3) How can I create some amazing information on the Web (a YouTube video, ebook, blog, Webinar, series of photos, charts and graphs, survey results, and so on) that my buyers will be eager to consume and that will brand me as someone to do business with?

Nettie: How do you deal with skeptics?

David: Here is my video response for that:

David Meerman Scott keynote at BMA 2009 national conference from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.

At every speech, I pose four questions to the audience and ask them to raise their hands if the answer to a question is “yes.” How would you answer?

In your personal or professional life in the past two months, when looking for an answer to a problem or to research a product, have you

(1) responded to a direct mail advertisement?

(2) consulted magazines, newspapers, TV, or radio?

(3) gone to a tradeshow as an attendee?

(3) used Google or another search engine?

( 4) electronically contacted a friend, colleague, or family member (email, IM, Facebook, etc.) who responded with a Web URL that you then visited?

I just love asking these questions in front of skeptics. I’ve asked them in boardrooms filled with senior executives who are adamant that my ideas are not appropriate for their business. I always turn people around.

Over the course of a year, in front of over ten thousand people from many dozens of groups all over the world including college students, marketing professionals, technology buyers, and executives at Fortune 500 companies, the answers were surprisingly consistent. Between 5 and 20 percent of people answer each of the first three questions affirmatively.

These answers mean that the ways most companies have historically reached people—advertising, direct mail, tradeshow booths, and pleas to the mainstream media for coverage—are only effective in reaching a small portion of potential customers. However, between 100 percent of people raise their hands to indicate that they have used a search engine to find a solution to a problem or to research a product and 90 percent report that they have checked out a Web site suggested by a friend, colleague, or family member.

Clearly, establishing a new rules of marketing & PR strategy and creating effective Web content that is indexed by search engines is critical for any business. When people are looking for answers to problems, they go online first.

Nettie: What would you say to people who think social media is a fad?

David: I’d say they are correct.

But let me explain. “Social media” is a misunderstood and over-hyped phrase. Much like the overused “Web 2.0,” many people think they know what social media is, but few can actually describe it. So in my experience, the use of the term “social media” is absolutely a fad.

By way of clarification, here is my personal definition: Social media describes the way people share ideas, content, thoughts, and relationships online. Social media differs from so-called ‘mainstream media’ in that anyone can create, comment, and add to social media content. Social media can take the form of text (blogs & wikis), audio (podcasts), video (YouTube), images (Flickr), and communities (Twitter, Facebook, & more).

What’s not a fad is that creating interesting information and publishing it online. The New Rules of Marketing & PR is incredibly effective and most certainly not a fad. The ideas in my book are much more than just “social media.”

Nettie: Thank you.

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