Week 2 EOC: Questions and answers

1)    Gutenberg’s mechanical printing press was the most important event in the communications revolution. What was the second most important?

556 years later, in 1995, the second most important communications revolution took off. I choose 1995 because it was the year Netscape went public on the success of Netscape Navigator the first popular product to allow people easy Internet connections and Web browsing. (http://www.webinknow.com/2012/12/the-second-most-important-communication-revolution-in-history.html)

2)      What does Gerard Vroomen tell bicycle enthusiasts?

        Vroomen also excels at using the web to tell cycling enthusiasts compelling stories, to educate them, to     engage them in conversation, and to entertain them. Because he uses web content in interesting ways and sells a bunch of bikes in the process, Vroomen is a terrific marketer.

3)      What are the five ways a customer can obtain content about a product?

        Vroomen makes certain that his bikes are in front of people many different ways, starting with search engines, so that they get those five exposuresexposures. “For example, they may see the bike on the site, on TV in a pro race, at the dealer, and on a blog,” he says.

4)      Why is Gerard Vroomen’s goal that of educating perspective customers

       concerning his products?

To become his real customers by using new rule of PR and marketing. 

5)    The Theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a large number of niches in the tail. What did Chris Anderson mean?

6)    What are some examples of businesses that leverage the long tail to reach underserved customers and satisfy the demand for products not found in traditional stores?

       
      plugged-in bloggers, online news sites, micropublications, public speakers, analysts, and consultants who reach the targeted audiences who are looking for what we have to offer. 

7)    Why do consumers browse blogs and chat rooms and websites?

        As consumers search the Internet for answers to their problems, as they browse blogs and chat rooms and                             websites for ideas, they are searching for what organizations like yours have to offer.

8)    What are two ways people interact with web content?

          They search and they browse.

9)    An often-ignored audience is people who do their own research and consider the decision over a period of time before making a commitment. How can the web be used to reach this audience?

The site is designed to work for a major and often-ignored audience: people who do their own research and consider a decision over a period of time before making a commitment.

10)  What can great web content (blogs and news releases) do for any company?

Great content in all forms helps buyers see that you and your organization get it. Content drives action.

11)  What do the New Rules of PR say?



The Internet has made public relations public again… Your newsroom is for your buyers, not just the media… By building a media room that targets buyers, you will not only enhance those pages as a powerful marketing tool but also make a better media site for journalists. (http://thekeypoint.org/2014/04/25/the-new-rules-of-marketing-and-pr/)

12)  What is meant by "All businesses have information that can contribute to the education of the marketplace"?

Every business has information that can contribute to the education of the marketplace. You need to ask yourself, ‘How can I get that information out there?’ You have to have a bit longer view and have a sense of how your business will be better down the line. For example, we created an entire series of buyer guides, because we knew that they would be valuable to the market.

13)  What is PR really about?

                  It's about reaching our buyers.

14)  What is meant by "bypassing media filters”?

To avoid tradition PR rules to get your story to the people who is interested. it’s never been easier to share your story, and you don’t need the media filter that previously determined if something made the news and how it was presented to viewers, listeners and readers. (http://bellevuepr.com/bypassing-the-medias-filter-to-relay-your-message/) 

15)  Briefly summarize 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 want participation, not propaganda.

• Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.

• Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the web.

• PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It's about your buyers seeing your company on the web.

• Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It's about your organization winning business.

• The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.

• Companies must drive people into the purchasing process 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.

• Social networks allow people all over the world to share content and connect with the people and companies they do business with.

• On the web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

16)  What is meant by the "convergence of marketing and PR”? 

The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Great content in all forms helps buyers see that you and your organization get it. Content drives action.

Week 1 EOC: Questions and answers

1) What kinds of messages were the big three auto companies putting out? Did they consider education and the individual needs of consumers?


Those big three auto companies are trying to make sales and thinking every customer is ready to buy their car. At all three, I was assaulted on the home page with a barrage of TV-style broadcast advertising. And all the one-way messages focused on price.  
 (The new rules of marketing&PR , textbook, chapter 1) 

Not so much, To learn about all the Ford products, I had to go to the Ford, Mercury, and other brand sites separately, even though each brand is owned by Ford. These individual sites were no better help to me, a person who was considering a new car purchase possibly many months in the future. Sure, I got flash-video TV commercials, pretty pictures, and low financing offers on these sites, but little else. 
(The new rules of marketing&PR , textbook, chapter 1) 



2) What were the only two choices for organizations to attract attention prior to the web?

Prior to the web, organizations had only two significant choices to attract attention: Buy expensive advertising or get third-party ink from the media. But the web has changed the rules. The web is not TV. Organizations that understand the New Rules of Marketing and PR develop relationships directly with consumers like you and me.

(The new rules of marketing&PR , textbook, chapter 1) 



3) Under the New Rules of Marketing and PR, to whom are companies talking? 

If you are smaller and less famous but have an interesting story to tell, you need to tell it yourself. Fortunately, the web is a terrific place to do so.


4) Should companies immediately drop their existing marketing and PR programs? 



No, If your newspaper advertisements, Yellow Pages listings, media outreach, and other programs are working for you, that's great! Please keep going! There is room in many marketing and PR programs for traditional techniques. If your organization isn't present and engaged in the places and at the times that your buyers are, then you're losing out on potential business—no matter how successful your off-line marketing program is. Worse, if you are trying to apply the game plan that works in your mainstream-media-based advertising and PR programs to your online ones, you will not be successful.

5) Under what conditions are traditional media still appropriate? 


In many niche markets and vertical industries, trade magazines and journals help decide which companies are important. However, I do believe that, while these outlets are all vital aspects of an overall PR program, there are easier and more efficient ways to reach your buyers. And here's something really neat: If you do a good job of telling your story directly, the media will find out. And then they will write about you!


6) What is meant by “traditional advertising messages interrupt the consumer and present a product-focused one-way spin in their messages”? 

Forced to compete with new marketing on the web that is centered on interaction, information, education, and choice, advertisers can no longer break through with dumbed-down broadcasts about their wonderful products. With the average person now seeing hundreds of seller-spun commercial messages per day, people just don't trust advertising. We turn it off in our minds, if we notice it at all. The web is different. Instead of one-way interruption, web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment a buyer needs it.

7) Briefly summarize the Old Rules of Marketing.

• Marketing simply meant advertising (and branding).
• Advertising needed to appeal to the masses.
• Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message.
• Advertising was one-way: company to consumer.
• Advertising was exclusively about selling products.
• Advertising was based on campaigns that had a limited life.
• Creativity was deemed the most important component of advertising.
• It was more important for the ad agency to win advertising awards than for the client to win new customers.
• Advertising and PR were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement criteria.

                    (The new rules of marketing&PR , textbook, chapter 1) 

8) Characterize traditional PR. 



From press releases to blog posts, everything gone digitally. 



9) Briefly summarize the Old Rules of PR. 

• The only way to get ink and airtime was through the media.
• Companies communicated to journalists via press releases.
• Nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors.
• Companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write a press release.
• Jargon was okay because the journalists all understood it.
• You weren't supposed to send a release unless it included quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysts, and experts.
• The only way buyers would learn about the press release's content was if the media wrote a story about it.
• The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through clip books, which noted each time the media deigned to pick up a company's release.
• PR and marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement techniques.

                     (The new rules of marketing&PR , textbook, chapter 1) 

10) Why do the new rules make traditional PR people uncomfortable? 

Some marketing and PR professionals have a very difficult time changing old habits. These new ideas make people uncomfortable. When I speak at conferences, people sometimes fold their arms in a defensive posture and look down at their shoes. Naturally, marketing and PR people who learned the old rules resist the new world of direct access.

11) How do you know if the new rules are right for you? 

Consider your goals for communicating via marketing and public relations. Are you buying that Super Bowl ad to score great tickets to the game? Are you designing a creative magazine ad to win an award for your agency? Do you hope to create a book of press clips from mainstream media outlets to show to your bosses? Does your CEO want to be on TV? Are you doing PR to meet Oprah? If the answers to these questions are yes, then the new rules (and this book) are not for you.