Had some time to kill waiting for an appointment and got started on one of the items on my 'to read hit list'. The book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott had originally appealed to me in the context of social marketing, a subject I'm currently seriously researching and analyzing for the industry and for several projects I'm involved in.
As I began reading, I became acutely reconnected with some of the thoughts and beliefs that guided myself and colleague Jason Butterfield as we entered this industry first with Nutrachoice.com and ultimately the NPIcenter proposition. Let's face it - marketing, messaging and communication has dramatically changed in the past ten years and continues to evolve at a furious pace. This book focuses on the evolution of a press release to a 'news' release, the opportunity to have disintermedation of the communication pathway as companies seek means to interact directly with consumers, and the general opportunity presented by forums, blogs etc.
The book also goes into audience behavior in a web-enabled environment. Editors, and more importantly, consumers, can scour the online world to locate articles, releases, and product reviews by themselves, so as a manufacturer, you had better be plugged into all this online dialogue in order to understand your consumers and ultimately your marketplace.
One of my key takeways so far is that the web operates as an equalizer meaning that companies need, more than ever, to be smart with their marketing programs. Smaller organizations can relatively easily leverage the power of the Internet to gain equal reach to larger organizations. Of course, credibility still plays a key role, and so objective reviews and reporting still has a defined place, but using blogs, social media and forum contributions to establish a credible position, and then reinforcing that and driving business with a direct communication strategy can make real sense - especially for more dynamic companies.
As in all sectors, we see a variety of behavior in the health and nutrition industry. If you happen to know of good programs and strategy, share 'em...