The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, & Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, Second Edition

Chapter 3. Reaching Your Buyers Directly

The frustration of relying exclusively on the media and expensive advertising to deliver your organization's messages is long gone. Yes, mainstream media is still important, but today smart marketers craft compelling information and tell the world directly via the Web. The tremendous expense of relying on advertising to convince buyers to pay attention to your organization, ideas, products, and services is yesterday's headache.

Chip McDermott founded ZeroTrash Laguna^[17] as a nonprofit organization to rid the streets and beaches of Laguna Beach, CA, of trash. Population and tourism had exploded, and the city had not kept up in providing a sufficient infrastructure for public trash and recycling. McDermott used the Web to rally the community with a grassroots movement.

"The spark of the idea in 2007 was that trash was becoming commonplace on the streets and the sidewalks of Laguna Beach," McDermott says. "We started to tackle the problem with a Facebook^[18] fan page for ZeroTrash Laguna and quickly built it to hundreds of members."

People use the ZeroTrash Facebook page to organize events and to connect local storeowners with residents. Facebook was instrumental in launching the ZeroTrash "First Saturday" movement, where storeowners and volunteers walk the city and pick up trash on the first Saturday of each month. The storeowners love it because people support local stores and keep the shopping areas clean. In turn, McDermott has tapped storeowners ...