One of the great new books to come of age is The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. David writes and excellent book comparing and contrasting the “old rules” of marketing with the new. He writes with compelling explanations about how new technologies have changed the marketing / PR profession from a focus on communicating with journalists, reporters and editors to writing for and focusing directly on the end customer. He says that marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of under-served audiences via the web.

The traditional “interrupt” (TV-style) advertising does not work in today’s world. Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in a form they appreciate. And the best part of all (if done right)…the customers will find you and they will want to buy your product.

Producing and distributing ebooks is another great concept for which I consider David Meerman Scott the thought leader. He writes his ebooks with great content and puts them out for everyone to download with no obligations (he describes this process in at least one of the ebooks). They are all great, but my favorite is The Gobbledygook Manifesto; this ebook analyzes the most-used and under-meaningful words and phrases in business writing. It’s definitely made a difference in the words I use when I write (though I no doubt still throw in gobbledygook now and again).

I listened to a webinar last week where David answered questions about the new rules of marketing, effectively using blogs, viral marketing and other types of media to get your message out to the masses. We have great technology available now and David is becoming a master at using it effectively and teaching others to use it too. He is not only a leader in using new means of marketing, but he’s also teaching people how to be more effective leaders by using the new media and means of marketing.

David’s work—including his book—has been a tremendous positive influence for me. I am learning much on how to better market products and get the right information into the right forms so that it reaches the people who are looking for it. What have you found that works well for your organization?