1장
Revolutionizing Your Marketing Approach: A Digital Age Manifesto
In a world where traditional marketing increasingly falls on deaf ears, David Meerman Scott's "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" arrives as a breath of fresh air. Now in its ninth edition, this revolutionary guide has become the go-to resource for marketers worldwide, with translations in 29 languages and endorsements from industry titans. BusinessWeek named it a bestseller, while Publishers Weekly awarded it a coveted starred review, calling it "an excellent look at new-millennial marketing." What makes this book so special? It dismantles the old marketing playbook that relied on interruption and broadcasting, replacing it with a framework built on authentic connection and valuable content. Whether you're a Fortune 500 company or a small business owner, Scott's principles have proven transformative-just ask the thousands of readers who've written to share how this book literally changed their professional lives.
2장
The Great Marketing Transformation: From Interruption to Connection
The traditional marketing and PR playbook is dead, yet most organizations haven't gotten the memo. Before the internet revolution, companies had only two significant options for attracting attention: buying expensive advertising or convincing journalists to write about them. These approaches relied on interruption (commercials breaking into TV shows) and third-party validation (media coverage). The problem? They no longer work effectively in our digital world.
Today's consumers are bombarded with hundreds of commercial messages daily and simply don't trust them. Mass marketing channels have fragmented-while the World Series once captured half of all Americans, today's most-watched cable news networks reach less than 2% of the population. Meanwhile, PR professionals still blast generic press releases to journalists who immediately delete them.
The transformation began around 1995 with Netscape Navigator, marking what Scott calls "the most important communications revolution in human history." This shift has fundamentally changed how buyers make decisions. When people want something today-whether it's a vacation destination, a college education, or a business service-they turn first to the web, not to advertisements or salespeople.
This new reality demands a complete rethinking of marketing and PR. Rather than interrupting audiences with unwanted messages, successful organizations now create valuable content that buyers actively seek out. Rather than relying exclusively on media intermediaries, companies can communicate directly with their audiences through websites, blogs, videos, and social networks.
The power has shifted dramatically. As Scott witnessed firsthand at NewsEdge Corporation during the dot-com boom, expensive traditional marketing efforts (PR agencies, print advertising, trade shows) consistently underperformed compared to virtually free content-based web programs. The companies thriving today understand this fundamental truth: on the web, you are what you publish.
3장
Understanding Buyer Personas: The Foundation of Effective Marketing
The most critical step in creating an effective marketing plan is building detailed buyer personas-representations of the specific types of buyers with particular interests or problems that your product solves. This approach fundamentally shifts focus from what you're selling to who you're selling to.
Consider a simple example: tricycles. While preschoolers use them, parents and grandparents buy them for entirely different reasons. Parents typically purchase basic models as temporary solutions, while grandparents often splurge on extravagant models as expressions of love. Each represents a distinct buyer persona requiring different marketing approaches.
Developing effective buyer personas requires documenting what media your buyers consume, what words and phrases they use, and what content appeals to them. The best approach is interviewing actual buyers, asking questions like when they first researched your product or what websites they read. Naming your personas and finding representative photos helps visualize them-like "Sam the Athlete," a high school junior with good-but-not-great grades hoping his sports abilities will help him get into college.
Companies that excel at understanding buyer personas create remarkable products and marketing. Beko, a global white goods manufacturer, interviews consumers in target markets to understand cultural nuances. In China, they discovered people believe clothing must be exposed to sunlight after washing to "bring the soul back." Rather than fighting this cultural belief, Beko created dryers with a setting that stops mid-cycle so slightly damp clothes can be finished in the sun. Similarly, they developed refrigerators with special rice storage compartments after learning about Chinese families' specific needs.
Doritos demonstrated similar insight with their "Crunch Cancellation" technology-software that silences the crunching sound of chips for gamers. Their research revealed that 85% of gamers choose Doritos as their snack, but many find eating sounds distracting during gameplay. The AI-powered technology, trained on over 5,000 Doritos crunches, allows gamers to enjoy chips without disrupting their voice chats.
Stoned Immaculate, an online clothing store, perfectly targets the "Modern-Day Hippie" buyer persona with its 1970s-inspired aesthetic. Creative director Elliot Hans creates authenticity by shooting all content on actual film-35mm for photos and Super Eight for videos-despite the expense. Models wear minimal makeup, and shoots take place in locations that look unchanged since the 1970s. This commitment to authenticity resonates deeply with their target audience, generating 1.3 million views for a recent collaboration with the Rolling Stones.
The key insight: when you create media that your buyer personas love, customers will reward you with engagement, sales, and loyalty.
4장
Content Marketing: The Heart of Modern Communication
The most successful organizations today think and act like publishers, creating targeted content that people eagerly consume. This approach represents a fundamental shift from traditional marketing's focus on products to a new focus on solving buyer problems.
The Lodge at Chaa Creek, an eco-resort in Belize, exemplifies this approach by publishing valuable content about rainforest wildlife, nearby Mayan ruins, and Belize travel information. Unlike major hotel chains with generic corporate content, Chaa Creek researches what people are searching for-terms like "Belize honeymoon" and "Xunantunich Maya Temples"-and creates specific content that ranks highly in search results. This strategy generates an impressive 80 percent of new bookings, reducing reliance on expensive advertising and commission-based online travel sites.
Content marketing works across every industry and organization type. REI Co-op offers hundreds of instructional articles and videos about outdoor activities their customers love. Their comprehensive video library covers everything from gear guides to skills demonstrations like "Backpacking in Bear Country" and the surprisingly popular "How to Poop in the Woods" (nearly a million YouTube views). This content helps customers prepare for adventures while driving both in-store and online purchases.
RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies Corporation) takes content marketing to another level by hiring actual journalists to create stories. Their team includes Chris Hawley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the Associated Press, and John Zaremba from the Boston Herald. Led by former TV producer Corinne J. Kovalsky, the team produces feature stories and trend pieces about products using journalistic principles. This strategy has delivered impressive results-at one trade show, they increased traffic by 451% with just three high-quality stories compared to 20 the previous year.
Boeing similarly transformed its website from a dull, product-focused site to one featuring interesting human stories. Their editorial team, led by former Bloomberg journalist Todd Blecher, creates compelling content like "Rocky Earns His Rest" about a Boeing explosive-detection dog and videos showing dramatic aircraft testing. This approach puts human faces on the company while supporting business objectives.
The most effective content comes in multiple formats to accommodate different learning styles. Beyond written articles, successful organizations use:
1. Videos that demonstrate products or share expertise
2. Podcasts that build intimate connections with audiences
3. Infographics that visualize complex data
4. Email newsletters that deliver information in regular doses
5. Social media posts that engage communities
6. E-books that solve specific problems
7. Virtual events that showcase thought leadership
The key to success? Creating content that focuses on solving buyer problems rather than promoting your company or products. This approach establishes your organization as an expert and trusted resource, driving action toward clearly defined business goals.
5장
Social Media: The Cocktail Party of Marketing
Social media provides the way people share ideas, content, thoughts, and relationships online. If the web is a sprawling metropolis, social media represents the bars, clubs, and cocktail parties where people gather socially. Corporate websites are storefronts, mainstream media sites are newspapers, and forums are like pubs and cafes.
This metaphor helps marketers understand how to approach social media-not as a place to shout "BUY MY PRODUCT!" but as a social gathering where listening, being helpful, and building genuine relationships leads to business opportunities. The most successful approach treats social media like a cocktail party where you give more than you get, creating lasting friendships that naturally lead to business connections.
The most effective social media strategy follows an 85-10-5 ratio:
• 85% sharing and engaging with others' content (commenting, retweeting, responding)
• 10% publishing original content (photos, blog posts, videos)
• 5% or less promotional material about your business
Jay Blakesberg, a San Francisco music photographer with 96,000+ Facebook followers, exemplifies this approach-constantly sharing free content and engaging with fans, which earned him enthusiastic support when he rarely promoted his book "Guitars That Jam." When you build relationships first through helpful engagement, your occasional promotional messages will be welcomed.
Ocean Frontiers, a scuba diving operation in the Cayman Islands, demonstrates effective Facebook marketing with their Green Short Challenge, where divers who visit all 55 dive sites receive recognition through green shorts, medals, and Facebook celebrations. These posts get shared by proud recipients, building a loyal customer community of nearly 30,000 followers.
Aaron Silidker of RoamRig, who installs lithium battery systems in camper vans, shows the power of Facebook groups by actively participating in the Winnebago Revel group (20,000 members). By freely sharing his expertise about electrical systems, answering questions, and helping troubleshoot problems-even for non-customers-he's built a reputation as the group's most helpful member. This goodwill translates directly into business for his $10,000+ electrical upgrades.
For local businesses that can only serve people within their geographic area, Nextdoor provides a hyper-local social networking solution. Ron Mejia of Royal Environmental Painting finds success not through direct advertising but by being a helpful community member. When painting questions arise, Mejia responds as a local expert rather than pitching his services. This neighborly approach works because "people are more trusting of their neighbors," with 90% of his new customers coming through Nextdoor referrals.
Silver Oak Cellars exemplifies how social media engagement can transform casual customers into passionate advocates. Unlike other high-end wine brands that rely on exclusivity, Silver Oak authentically engages with fans sharing their wine experiences. Their approach focuses on facilitating dialogue rather than pushing content, celebrating the special moments people associate with their wine through the #LifeIsACabernet hashtag.
6장
The Power of Visual Content in Marketing
Images are vital marketing assets for storytelling and connecting with buyers. Original photography can be more powerful than words, as demonstrated by Zursun Idaho Heirloom Beans. Their true-to-size, natural light photos of uniquely colored beans drove sales more effectively than written descriptions. Despite well-crafted text about their growing conditions and flavor profiles, the beautiful bean photography resonated most with customers, helping double sales within a year.
Stock photography and AI-generated images insult both customers and employees by presenting generic, unrealistic portrayals. Heritage Communities takes the opposite approach, proudly featuring actual residents in high-quality photographs throughout their senior living center website. Their images show real people with dignity while preserving their humanity-like six residents playing pool in realistic clothes and postures. This authentic approach signals that the company genuinely cares about its residents, which correlates with their strong financial performance.
Instagram stands out among social networks for combining content sharing with artistic expression, making it exceptionally easy to create and share compelling visual content in minutes. With over one billion monthly users, Instagram allows even word-challenged marketers to produce engaging content through photos that can be enhanced with filters and shared across multiple platforms.
Gary Kohner of Nantucket Island Surf School masterfully uses Instagram (@nantucketsurfing) to market his business through a mix of spectacular surfing photos and images of beginners standing up for their first time. Using accessible equipment-GoPro in water, drone in air, and iPhone on land-Kohner captures thousands of images during surf sessions, carefully selecting the best to create a steady stream of daily content. His approach builds excitement among students (especially kids) who feel "famous" when tagged in his posts and often share these images with their own followers.
Pinterest serves as a virtual bulletin board where users "pin" interesting visual content to revisit later while sharing their curated collections with others. With over 475 million users, Pinterest drives significant traffic when people pin content from websites or repin from others' boards. Whole Foods Market exemplifies effective Pinterest marketing with nearly 500,000 followers across 44 themed boards containing over 5,000 pins.
Infographics visually represent complex data or information in a way that's much easier to understand than columns of numbers or percentages. Melissa Agnes of Crisis Ready Institute demonstrates this approach with her "Crisis Ready Issues Management Flowchart," which helps communications teams manage online negativity toward their brands. The infographic has been downloaded thousands of times and is used by students, law enforcement agencies, and Fortune 500 companies.
7장
Real-Time Marketing: Speed as Competitive Advantage
The real-time revolution has transformed how businesses must operate to succeed in today's fast-paced world. Speed and agility now trump size and careful planning in business communications. Companies that react first to market opportunities gain tremendous competitive advantage by connecting with customers precisely when concerns arise and capturing media attention that slower organizations miss.
When Oracle acquired marketing automation company Market2Lead, Eloqua CEO Joe Payne seized the moment by immediately writing a blog post analyzing what the acquisition meant for the industry. The Oracle announcement was buried on their website with minimal details, giving Payne a unique opportunity to define the narrative. His strategic post positioned Eloqua as an industry authority while media outlets quickly picked it up, quoting his analysis as if they'd interviewed him directly. Eloqua's sales team then alerted Market2Lead clients about the acquisition-often breaking the news before Oracle did-and offered a money-back guarantee to customers wanting to switch. This real-time approach generated nearly $1 million in new business within two weeks, including a $500,000 deal with Red Hat.
American Airlines demonstrates the power of real-time customer engagement through social media. The company's social media team operates 24/7 with 25 team members, many with 16+ years of company experience, handling everything from rebooking flights to lost bag inquiries. Most significantly, American Airlines integrates social media into core operations. A social media representative sits directly next to the operations manager in the Integrated Operations Center, providing real-time passenger feedback that often arrives faster than internal reports. As Jonathan Pierce explains, "Every passenger on a plane is a reporter now," making social media intelligence critical to running the entire airline.
Newsjacking-the practice of injecting your ideas into breaking news stories-represents another powerful real-time marketing technique. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their step back from royal duties in January 2020, London's Madame Tussauds museum immediately removed their wax figures from the Royal Family exhibit. This quick reaction generated widespread coverage across major media outlets like CNN, NBC News, and the Washington Post at zero cost to the museum. Similarly, Burger King tweeted job offers to "harry" with their royal crown, while Simpson Air in Canada offered Prince Harry a helicopter pilot position.
Cubby Oil & Energy demonstrates effective real-time communication during challenging circumstances through a heartfelt letter from company president Charlie Uglietto addressing dramatic energy price increases. The letter succeeds by coming from the right person, directly outlining customer concerns, providing detailed insider information about market volatility, addressing conspiracy theories about oil company profits, reassuring customers about supply reliability, and offering help to those struggling with payments. This transparent, honest approach during difficult times builds customer loyalty rather than eroding it.
8장
The AI Revolution in Marketing
AI tools are transforming marketing workflows in ways both visible and invisible. Marketing is increasingly data-driven, with AI working behind the scenes in everything from website ads to automated press release processing. AI excels at automating routine tasks, allowing marketers to focus on strategy.
If you're using platforms like Google Ads or Meta ads, you're already leveraging AI in your marketing. Facebook's advertising platform uses AI to target specific users based on their attributes and optimize ad spending through real-time data analysis. Similarly, marketing technology platforms like HubSpot incorporate AI tools that analyze massive datasets from hundreds of thousands of customers. These systems can personalize website content for different visitors, dynamically adjust traffic to better-performing page variants, and provide anti-abuse tools that detect fraudulent email practices.
When companies use AI effectively, they create better customer experiences. Retargeting emails that offer discounts on products you've browsed feel helpful rather than creepy. Eversource exemplifies this approach with power outage notifications that use databases to pinpoint outages and send personalized messages about power status, including restoration times and causes. This demonstrates how AI and large datasets can effectively communicate with customers. When we collect personal information, we have an obligation to use it to better serve customers through AI-created offers and personalized communications.
While much AI discussion focuses on querying public web data, the more interesting applications involve working with proprietary content. Organizations can tap AI's potential with their own original content in various ways. The author uses Chat Thing to create a personal AI chatbot ("David Meerman Bot") that searches his own writing, including six books and nearly 2,000 blog posts spanning two decades. This allows him to quickly find what he's previously written and get suggestions for new content. Since it draws only from his own work, the output serves as an original first draft, saving time while maintaining his voice.
Another tool, Lately.ai, generates dozens of short-form social media posts from any long-form content, helping organizations like Revry (an LGBTQ-focused streaming network) amplify their reach without manually writing every post. These AI applications work best when enhancing existing human strategies rather than replacing team members.
While AI can make marketing jobs easier, it cannot replace human interaction or the essential qualities marketers bring: curiosity, creativity, empathy, emotion, intuition, and imagination. As customers become more adept at detecting AI interactions, they will increasingly crave genuine human connection. In a world where AI generates predictable content, creative writing stands out more than ever. While AI calculates the most probable next word in a sequence, great writers choose unusual words, poignant phrases, and unconventional storytelling approaches.
9장
The New Rules of Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing stands apart from traditional marketing because it doesn't rely on interruption techniques. When users type a search phrase, they're actively looking for information-a marketer's dream scenario. For example, when Shaquille O'Neal joined the Boston Celtics, he found his multimillion-dollar home by simply Googling "big house outside of Boston."
Following the new rules of marketing and PR naturally creates an effective search engine optimization program: by understanding buyer personas, creating content that addresses their problems in their language, and delivering it in formats they prefer, you've already built content that search engines will index.
Colin Warwick of Keysight Technologies transformed his company's search rankings by creating a targeted blog focused on signal integrity-their most important search term. Before the blog, Keysight's products appeared on Google's fifth page at position 44. After launching the blog with valuable content for signal integrity engineers, they climbed to the fourth position on the first page.
Search marketing programs often fail because marketers optimize for general keywords that produce untargeted results. Searching for "travel" yields over a billion Google results, making it nearly impossible to rank highly-and even if you did, that's not how people actually search. Rather than using broad terms like an oceangoing drag fishing boat capturing thousands of unwanted fish, successful search marketing targets specific phrases buyers actually use.
With voice assistants in a quarter of U.S. households, voice search is dramatically changing SEO requirements. While keyboard searches use short phrases like "Mexican restaurants in Boston" and return multiple results, voice searches typically use complete questions like "What's the best Mexican restaurant nearby that's open now?" and return just ONE result. If you're not in the top position for voice searches, you get zero visibility.
AI chatbots are further disrupting search engine marketing. Unlike traditional Google searches that return lists of links, tools like ChatGPT provide comprehensive answers without citing sources. This means carefully crafted SEO strategies are becoming obsolete across industries. To get noticed by LLM chatbots: become a recognized expert in your field, write and market a popular book, create a YouTube channel with detailed descriptions and captions, or invent a new concept and purchase the URL-as the author did with "newsjacking."
Beyond Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, Amazon's search engine offers a powerful but often overlooked marketing opportunity. Shelly Palmer demonstrated this approach in 2021 when interest in cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and blockchain was exploding. Recognizing businesspeople needed practical information rather than hype, Palmer wrote "Blockchain-Cryptocurrency, NFTs & Smart Contracts," self-publishing via KDP at just $2.99 to maximize sales. Within a month, he sold over 20,000 copies, reaching the top of Amazon's money and banking category. This visibility led to six significant client inquiries from CEOs who now viewed Palmer as the foremost expert, plus interview requests from reporters.
10장
Making It Happen: Implementing the New Rules
After absorbing all these new marketing and PR strategies, you might feel either eager to implement ideas immediately or overwhelmed by too much information. The good news is that these new rules can be implemented gradually in bits and pieces-no one needs to do everything at once. Unlike traditional linear marketing campaigns requiring perfect execution, web marketing is iterative and forgiving. You can add content incrementally, test approaches, and make changes on the fly without significant risk.
Adopting the new rules of marketing and PR requires a fundamental mind-set shift. You'll need to focus on understanding buyers rather than just promoting products, stay aware of real-time news and social networks, create timely web content, and embrace two-way communication instead of traditional broadcasting approaches. These habits don't come naturally to entrepreneurs and marketing professionals trained in conventional methods, but the transition is essential for modern business success.
Brian Kardon, a Wharton MBA and experienced CMO, exemplifies the transformation required of traditional marketing executives. Despite his impressive credentials, Kardon realized everything he had learned in school and his early publishing career had become obsolete. When confronted with digital marketing concepts, he found himself lacking fundamental knowledge about metatags, blog platforms, WordPress, and pay-per-click advertising. Rather than delegating these new skills, Kardon humbly asked his younger team members to teach him, sitting beside them to learn how HTML works, what JavaScript is, and how social sharing functions. His advice to other senior marketers: "You've got to tell yourself you're a child again, and you have to relearn what you're doing."
Many executives resist embracing new marketing and PR rules due to fear that "people will say bad things about our company" on social media. This anxiety leads them to avoid blogs, forums, and employee participation in social media. However, those with actual experience consistently report this fear is significantly overblown. Ironically, participating in social media typically results in fewer negative comments about your company, not more.
Implementing new marketing and PR strategies often requires outside help, yet finding agencies truly skilled in these approaches can be challenging. Many traditional advertising and PR firms suddenly claim social media expertise without demonstrating it. The simplest vetting method: ask prospective agencies to show their own social media presence. If they can't successfully blog, tweet, or create compelling content for themselves, they'll likely fall short for clients too.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District transformed its communications by adopting brand journalism principles. Chief Communications Officer Roseann Canfora built a 12-person team divided between news/information and marketing/advertising, hiring former journalists to tell authentic stories about the district's 40,000 students. This approach counters negative media narratives about inner-city schools by producing high-quality content across multiple platforms. The key to their success: hiring trained journalists who know the Cleveland market and can tell authentic stories with credibility.
Creating web content benefits both organizations and individuals professionally and personally. Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington DC, exemplifies this approach. Without a traditional church building, he reaches thousands through theaters and digital channels. His "evotional" blog, podcasts, webcasts, and social media presence attract primarily singles in their 20s. "The greatest message deserves the greatest marketing," he says, noting that his podcasts reach as many people in one click as Methodist founder John Wesley reached in 40,000 sermons.
This approach works regardless of your industry or target audience. Despite colleagues who may argue that old rules still apply and insist on big advertising budgets or traditional media coverage, the numerous success stories throughout this book prove otherwise. The message is clear: get out there and make it happen!
