The New Rules of Marketing and PR, 6th Edition

Introduction

As I write this, it is several months after Donald Trump was elected 45th president of the United States. Rather than rely on the marketing and public relations techniques that had worked in the past, like dozens of other major party candidates did in 2016, Trump embraced the new rules. He spoke directly to his audience via Twitter, and he used real-time content to get the media to pay attention to him, generating more than $5 billion in free exposure for his candidacy. While Hillary Clinton used the strategies that had gotten her husband elected, and Jeb Bush used those that had allowed his father and brother to win, Trump forged his own path using the tools and techniques that you will read about in this book.

Many of the same marketing techniques that elected the most unlikely candidate to the most important job in the world are available to you, right now, for free. I'll show you how they work. Rest assured that you don't need a big international company or controversial opinions to take advantage of these new rules. Let's look at a more approachable example. We'll return to President Trump in Chapter 10.

A few years ago I was considering buying a new surfboard. I've been mainly riding an 8′0″ Spyder Wright over the past several years, and I wanted to get a smaller board. In an article in Surfer magazine, I read about a trend back to wooden surfboards, so I thought I'd do a little research on wood as an option for my next purchase. Like billions of other consumers, ...