Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now (Wiley Desktop Editions) [Hardcover]

David Meerman Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2010 | Series: Wiley Desktop Editions

Wake up, it’s revolution time!

Gone are the days when you could plan out your marketing and public relations programs well in advance and release them on your timetable. It’s a real-time world now, and if you’re not engaged, then you’re on your way to marketplace irrelevance.

“Real time” means news breaks over minutes, not days. It means ideas percolate, then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. It’s when companies develop (or refine) products or services instantly, based on feedback from customers or events in the marketplace. And it’s when businesses see an opportunity and are the first to act on it.

Caught up in old, time-consuming processes, too many companies leave themselves fatally exposed by flying blind through this new media environment. You don’t have to be among them. Discover Real-Time Marketing and PR and get a clear path to navigate and succeed in the changed business landscape.

In this eye-opening follow-up to The New Rules of Marketing and PR, a BusinessWeek bestseller,David Meerman Scott reveals the proven, practical steps to take your business into the real-time era. Find out how to act and react flexibly as events occur, position your brand in the always-on world of the Web, and avoid embarrassing mistakes and missteps. Real-Time Marketing and PR will also enable you to:

• Develop a business culture that encourages speed over sloth
• Read buying signals as people interact with your online information
• Crowdsource product development, naming, and even marketing materials such as online videos
• Engage reporters to shape stories as they are being written
• Command premium prices by delivering products at speed
• Deploy technology to listen in on millions of online discussions and instantly engage with customers and buyers

Scale and media buying power are no longer a decisive advantage. What counts today is speed and agility. While your competitors scramble to adjust, you can seize the initiative, open new channels, and grow your brand. Master Real-Time Marketing and PR today and become the first to act, the first to respond, and the first to win!

From the Book: Benefits to People and Orgainizations that React in Real-Time

• When you start a conversation, you are recognized as someone who is plugged into the marketplace of ideas
• If you talk about an idea early, you naturally get more exposure because the threads of conversation stem from what you have said. If you’re late you get lost in the cacophony
• With a new product, if you are first to market in a hot category, your initial momentum may give you a competitive advantage for many years
• If you’re an early adopter on a social media platform, you build a larger following than those who join later
• If you’re first to engage the market, people notice and your offering gains valuable attention
• If you react early and connect with customers as their concerns arise, they see you as thoughtful and caring

From the Book: What's Expected in the Corporate World Vs. Real-Time Business

Corporate World:
• Wait, to make certain
  
• Work from checklists dictated by one-year and even five-year business plans
  
• Measure results quarterly
  
• Execute based on a long-term “new product launch” mentality
  
• Organize around multimonth marketing and communications “campaigns”
  
• Get permission from your supervisor
  
• Run decisions by your staff
  
• Bring in the experts, the agencies, and the lawyers
  
• Conduct extensive research
  
• Carefully evaluate all the alternatives
  
• Aim for perfection before public release
  
• Respond to customers on your timeframe
  
• Engage with media, analysts, and commentators only when it’s convenient and comfortable for you
  

Real-Time Business:
• Act before the window of opportunity vanishes
• Revise plans as the market changes
• Measure results today
• Execute based on what’s happening now
• Implement strategies and tactics based on breaking news
• Empower your people to act
• Move when the time is right
• Encourage people to make wise decisions quickly, alone if necessary
• Make swift inquiries, but be prepared to act
  
• Quickly evaluate the alternatives and choose a course of action
• Get it done and push it out, because it will never be perfect
• Respond to customers on their time frames
• Engage with the media at the moment they need your input

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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From the Author: Learning to Think in Real-Time

Author David Meerman Scott

What would you do right now if….?

Could you recognize a marketing or PR opportunity, or threat, in its early stages? Would you know how to respond in real-time to capitalize on the former or stave off the latter? How would you react right now if...

• Your company is cited as the best place to work by your local newspaper?

• A customer raves about your customer service on an influential trade magazine website?

• A well-known industry analyst says on his blog that your company is too difficult to do business with?

• A competitor announces they are lowering prices by 25%?

• Your CEO is fired?

• In forums and chat rooms, people said your product poses a health risk?

• A huge company announces its intent to acquire your competitor?

If you understand how to react quickly to events as they unfold, you will gain superior competitive advantage. Real-Time Marketing & PR will show you how.

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--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Wake up, it's revolution time! Gone are the days when you could plan out your marketing and public relations programs well in advance and release them on your timetable. It's a real-time world now, and if you're not engaged, then you're on your way to marketplace irrelevance.

"Real time" means news breaks over minutes, not days. It means ideas percolate, then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. It's when companies develop (or refine) products or services instantly, based on feedback from customers or events in the marketplace. And it's when businesses see an opportunity and are the first to act on it.

Caught up in old, time-consuming processes, too many companies leave themselves fatally exposed by flying blind through this new media environment. You don't have to be among them. Discover Real-Time Marketing and PR and get a clear path to navigate and succeed in the changed business landscape.

In this eye-opening follow-up to The New Rules of Marketing and PR, a BusinessWeek bestseller, David Meerman Scott reveals the proven, practical steps to take your business into the real-time era. Find out how to act and react flexibly as events occur, position your brand in the always-on world of the Web, and avoid embarrassing mistakes and missteps. Real-Time Marketing and PR will also enable you to:

• Develop a business culture that encourages speed over sloth
• Read buying signals as people interact with your online information
• Crowdsource product development, naming, and even marketing materials such as online videos
• Engage reporters to shape stories as they are being written
• Command premium prices by delivering products at speed
• Deploy technology to listen in on millions of online discussions and instantly engage with customers and buyers

Scale and media buying power are no longer a decisive advantage. What counts today is speed and agility. While your competitors scramble to adjust, you can seize the initiative, open new channels, and grow your brand. Master Real-Time Marketing and PR today and become the first to act, the first to respond, and the first to win!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 244 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (November 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470645954
• ISBN-13: 978-0470645956
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My book The New Rules of Marketing & PR opened people's eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web. Six months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list and published in more than twenty languages, New Rules is now a modern business classic. My popular blog and hundreds of speaking engagements around the world give me a singular perspective on how businesses are implementing new strategies to reach buyers.

I'm the author of other popular books about marketing including Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History and World Wide Rave: Creating triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories.

I am a recovering VP of marketing for two publicly traded technology companies and was also Asia marketing director for Knight-Ridder, at the time one of the world's largest newspaper and electronic information companies. I've lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in over twenty countries on four continents.

Check out my blog at www.WebInkNow.com

Important note about my Amazon reviews: You may notice all my Amazon reviews are five or four stars. I read (and write) a lot. I'm too busy to read a book I don't like -- there's just so many great books waiting! If a book doesn't capture my interest within a few chapters, I put it down and don't finish. I won't review a book I don't finish, so all my reviews are of books I've enjoyed and get a lot of stars!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Acting When It Matters Most October 28, 2010

By Mark Levy

Format:Hardcover

Peter Drucker, who Jack Welch called "the greatest management thinker of the last century," suggested that businesspeople have clear answers to the following three questions:

1. What is your business?

2. Who is your customer?

3. What does your customer consider value?

In "Real-Time Marketing & PR," bestselling author David Meerman Scott urges businesspeople to consider a fourth question:

"How can you deliver value faster?"

With changes brought on by the internet and other forms of technology, the concept of delivering value faster has become, for many, a governing competitive advantage.

In this new effort, Scott (who, in full disclosure, is a client and friend) tells the stories of people and organizations that have acted on real-time opportunities, or have built cultures based on delivering value at breakneck speed.

Scott writes, for instance, about how TMZ and Politico regularly scoop larger news sources, because TMZ and Politico operate on a model that focuses almost exclusively on "breaking news and instant analysis." He tells us, too, about how ClickSquared gets better open-rates and more upsells when the emails they send are triggered by what's happening to recipients in the moment. Also, in an in depth analysis of the "United Breaks Guitars" story, he discusses how Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases grabbed attention for their brands by taking prompt action on a piece of the whole.

If you've read other books by Scott, you know he provides readers with plenty of tactics. This book is no different. In it, you'll learn about using social media, crowdsourcing, videos, mobile devices, media alerts, communications guidelines, and other tools, which will speed up the way you collect and act upon information.

The book's greatest service, however, isn't in its tactics. Instead, it's in helping readers develop a "now" mindset - one that will help them take action in a situation as it's happening -- when acting matters most.

Once you read Scott's sage counsel and entertaining stories, you'll likely see your business environment in new ways. With speed as a lens, you'll spot opportunities and take action with a swiftness that may surprise you.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why wait until it's too late? Why speed is essential. October 11, 2010

By Roger C. Parker

Format:Kindle Edition

It's appropriate that the Kindle edition of David Meerman Scott's Real-Time Marketing & PR is available before the print version--because, as he compelling describes in this book, "it's all about time."

Getting there first. Creating a position. Responding before it's too late. Being proactive instead of reactive. Making your presence known. Getting noticed.

David Meerman Scott has a habit of being ahead of the market; being both an observer and a pioneer. He was one of the first to offer downloads of his upcoming books from his blog, while writing his book--and, then--creating a best-selling business describing the whole process. His provided a road map to New Rules of Marketing & PR that is as valid today as it ever was.

Then, having established a paradigm for using "free" to build demand for "paid," he reversed direction and co-authored a best seller, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, and kept it a secret until 2 days before publication, then, let his carefully-nurtured fans promote his book for him (providing the impetus for A-list media to join the bandwagon).

Now, we have the (perhaps inadvertent) availability of the Kindle version of David's latest book available almost a month before the print version! How appropriate.

As a frequent interviewer of David Meerman Scott, I was fortunate to see Real-Time in its early stages. I liked it then, and I like it even more, now that David's populated the ideas and advice with dozens of examples of real-time marketing at work (or, in some cases, real-time opportunities wastefully squandered).

David's strength is showing entrepreneurs, marketing professionals, and self-employed professionals what's going on in the real world, and how to put the trends to work.

The message described in Real-Time Marketing & PR is as relevant and up-to-date as today's Tweets, blogs, and viral YouTube videos, yet--because the case studies are about individuals facing and overcoming challenges--it's a highly-readable story.

Real-Time Marketing & PR is a great story to have on your Kindle when the plane takes off--or (more likely) while waiting for the plane to take off.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How to make the most of an "Always On" World October 27, 2010

By LucyT

Format:Hardcover

David Meerman Scott specialises in real-time marketing.

His main point is that we live in an "Always On" world. We encounter opportunities all day long as we meet people and interact via social media and as a result we need to be fleet-footed and flexible enough to seize those chances whenever they appear. Waiting to run ideas past the board is going to cost you dear in the "Always On" world.

As someone with a background in 24 hour news, this makes perfect sense. If a story drops on the newswires you need to check it, verify it and broadcast it as soon as possible, because if you don't, another channel will.

News did not always move this fast. There was a time when a journalist would be given one story to write first thing in the morning, and they'd have all day to write it. No more.

In his book "Real-time marketing and PR" David Meerman Scott exhorts us to both live and respond in the here and now. There's no point sitting around scratching your head about an opportunity that comes your way. You need to respond instantaneously and have the clearance and the confidence of your boss/clients to do that.

This means listening to conversations online to find out what is current and acting on it - engaging the media about what they are going to write, not what they have already written - and using your social media relationships to make the most of all opportunities.

In a world which is always on, can you afford not to be too?