Fortune 100 Companies That Engage in Real-Time Communications Beat the S&P 500 Index. Media Expert David Meerman Scott Explains Why in New Book

Best-selling author and marketing and public relations expert David Meerman Scott today released an e-book titled Real-Time: How Marketing & PR at Speed Drives Measurable Success, in which he reveals the results of his latest business experiment; a look at the real-time engagement level of the Fortune 100 companies.

Portions of this e-book appear in Scott’s most recent book, REAL-TIME MARKETING & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Consumers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now, published by Wiley on November 1^st 2010. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470645954.html

"Real time” means news breaks over minutes, not days, and that ideas percolate and then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. Real-time engagement occurs when businesses see an opportunity, are the first to act on it and do not get caught up in old, time-consuming processes. In his experiment, Scott contacted the communications departments of the Fortune 100 companies and found that only 28 percent engaged with him in real-time. Surprisingly, the companies that did engage in real-time communications outperformed the S&P 500 stock index while the others underperformed.

Scott, author of the Bloomberg BusinessWeek bestseller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, World Wide Rave and Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, began his research with one simple question – how much of an effect does real-time communications have on the most successful companies? To decipher this, Scott took matters into his own hands and reached out to the top 100 of the Fortune 500 companies. Fully disclosing his credentials as a member of the media, an author and speaker, he sent an inquiry via e-mail to the communications departments of each of the top 100 companies asking each company to explain how it had adapted to the new realities of the real-time Web.

After collecting all of the responses, or the lack of, Scott noted which companies actively engaged in real-time communications with him, those that ignored the inquiry completely and those that delivered unhelpful, auto-responder messages. He then compared the closing stock price of each company on December 31, 2009 through its closing price on September 3, 2010. Scott found that the stock prices of 67% of companies that operate in real-time were up, while only 42% of those that do not were up in 2010 year-to-date.

Are the unexpected numbers and stats the most surprising aspect of the e-book? Not at all. In both the e-book and the new hardcover book, Scott names each of the Fortune 100 companies that responded to him with helpful and relevant responses, such as State Farm Insurance and Boeing, the companies that did not respond at all, such as Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil, and those that simply sent automatic, canned auto-responses with irrelevant information, such as Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance and Walgreens.

The e-book includes additional details from Scott’s research, such as:

• The actual responses, from companies like Verizon and Wells Fargo, regarding how they are integrating real-time marketing into their company communications
• A list of all of the companies that were involved in the study, their response times and reactions to the inquiry
• Detailed information regarding how the Fortune 100 companies’ stock prices correlate with the responses from Scott’s real-time study

The full e-book Real-Time: How Marketing & PR at Speed Drives Measurable Success is available for download at http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/documents/Real_Time.pdf

About the Author:

David Meerman Scott (Lexington, MA) is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and bestselling Wiley author.

His 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 25 languages from Bulgarian to Vietnamese, "New Rules" is now a modern business classic. Scott's popular blog and hundreds of speaking engagements around the world give him a singular perspective on how businesses are implementing new strategies to reach buyers.

He is also the co-author (with Brian Halligan) of the hit book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History and wrote three other books including World Wide Rave.

He is 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. Scott has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in over twenty countries.

His Web Ink Now blog is ranked by "AdAge Power 150” as a top worldwide marketing blog.

If you are interested in an interview with Scott, or if you would like any additional information, please contact Melissa Torra, Publicist – WILEY mtorra@wiley.com – 201-748-6834

REAL-TIME MARKETING & PR
How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers
and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now
By David Meerman Scott
WILEY; Hardcover; November 2010; $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-470-64595-6

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