As a result of its online customer community, a company can get much more than basic product feedback. It gains deep insight into the needs of customers, and creates ever-greater customer loyalty by embracing customers as co-designers. Most importantly, the company goes directly to the source for product enhancements, pulling new innovations and ideas directly from the minds of the customers who use, buy, and recommend its products. This is the holy grail of customer-centered product design. Online customer communities can enable the connections, host the conversations, and facilitate the processes that make routine innovation possible. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

An engagement between a buyer and a seller begins with a single point of contact. It could be as a sale or an inquiry that, with the appropriate follow-up, can be converted into an ongoing experience for both the seller and the buyer. It is such an experience or set of experiences that create what we define as an engagement—or at least the potential of creating one. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

How can you build and steward a long-term customer relationship if you can't access your prospect in the first place? To reach those big fish takes creativity, perseverance, ingenuity, chutzpah, and, sometimes, just plain dumb luck. Here are five creative ideas that will get you in the front door. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Blogging takes advances in marketing one step further by allowing businesses to initiate conversations with their audience. Gaining a better understanding of your customers allows you to more effectively and efficiently market to them. This, of course, lowers your marketing costs. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

One of the biggest challenges that marketing departments face is producing marketing tools that actually get used by the sales team. You want to create marketing tools that help sell products, not collateral that sits on a shelf. So how do you do it? How do you create a marketing tool that not only gets used but also can reinforce your marketing messaging so that everyone is speaking the same language? [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

As web marketers seek new ways to boost conversion rates and improve the site experience of their visitors, interest in multivariate testing is on a feverish rise. But those unfamiliar with the techniques are often unclear about where to start, or how to ensure success. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Marketers must continually fight the temptation of executing random, disconnected lead-generation activities to prospects. Success today requires marketers to apply the discipline of campaign development in order to establish a relevant, timely dialog with the target audience. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Web analytics tools and pay per click reporting features are becoming more sophisticated, offering savvy marketers vital insights into what's working, what's not, and what needs more effort. But there is so much data available that it can become difficult to determine what to look at and which to ignore. TMI (or Too Much Information) becomes both a blessing and a curse. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Online users expect more today from Web sites, and competition is fierce. Marketers should be considering how to change their sites to keep up with customer expectations of the Web, and to increase conversions and enhance the brand experience. In fact, all companies with public-facing Web sites may soon be challenged with a redesign. There is opportunity for marketers to take the lessons of customer-centricity and put them to work to optimize customer relationships online. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

There are plenty of reasons for email marketers to pay attention to their unsubscribes. But if we read a bit between the lines, we might find some value by learning both to reduce the number of unsubscribes from our campaigns and to better engage those who stay with us. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Much is being said these days about how marketing effectiveness can be increased by targeting customers with the right message at the right time based on customer behaviors and buying patterns. However, many companies have not been able to evolve past text-based confirmation messages. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Technology marketers have spent decades trying to connect with CIOs. And in an environment where technology is fueling innovation, yet investment capital remains tight, reaching CIOs has never been more important (or more difficult). Here are five proven approaches. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

The ability to move, motivate, and entice consumers within the confines of their inbox is not an easy task. Too often, marketers overlook the tools available to attract and draw customers to open their messages. The inbox is a competitive arena in which you must fight for your open. The battle can be won by effectively utilizing and optimizing four straightforward email marketing elements. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

In this second of our three-part series on the six Cs of permission email marketing, we continue to define the permission fundamentals by examining the third and fourth dimensions of permission: Clarity and Confidence. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Suppose your product features are much like your competitors', and the benefits of using your products or services are similar. Looks like you're on the commodity train. When a typical approach fails to distinguish your business from the pack, it may be time to take your messages into the heart of the customer experience. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

For email marketers, dealing with the small business owner can be an ongoing challenge. There are typically three main obstacles to introducing email marketing to a small businesses. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Sadly, the value of most conference panels is questionable, due mostly to the lack of effective moderation. But done well, a panel can be enlightening and instructive and can serve the needs of the audience (and the speakers) equally well. In other words: Yes, there is a right way to moderate a conference panel! [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Most marketers have email addresses for less than half their customers and prospects. If this is the case for your company, it might make sense to explore email appending. Let's first look at the process, and then we'll examine how one publisher implemented its communication plan. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Are we in a recession, or poised to enter one? Maybe, maybe not. However, let's assume that the US economy will be in a recession and that as marketers we need to work within that reality. Here are five tips for what you can do to market your products or services in an economic downturn. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Email can be a great call to action for multichannel customers, particularly in retail but also in B2B marketing. We all know that email can play a powerful role in turning Web researchers and site browsers into buyers. In fact, more and more of our retailer clients are building a specific segment of in-store buyers—and getting results that blow away store managers. Lessons learned in these B2C experiences can also be applied to B2B, especially with the advance of more strategic account management approaches that cross business and geographic boundaries. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Search engine optimization decrees that there are a certain set of words that people tend to search with. But when those same people arrive on your Web site, a different set of words, called "customer carewords" becomes important. Choosing the right carewords will bring visitors through your Web site... and complete the sale. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Direct marketers live in an impatient world. A week (maybe two) after a campaign drops, the verdict is in. And if that campaign appears not to be working, it either gets fixed pronto, or the direct marketer gets fired. To avoid being shown the door, the DM manager needs to know how to swiftly solve direct marketing's most common and costly problems. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

The traditional marketing mix focused on the 4 Ps of Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Today, marketers need to expand their vision to include the new 4 Ps of Pearls, Pumps, Purses, and Power. To capture the $0.85 that women spend out of every dollar, it is time to rethink how marketers are approaching their jobs. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Here are the 10 biggest business blunders, and advice on how you can avoid them sinking you (and your company). [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

Whether you are campaigning to gain budget approval to implement your nurturing strategy or need to illustrate ROI for an existing nurturing program (or you are just trying to evaluate your current tactics) effective measurement of your nurturing program is critical. Outlined below are five steps to measure your nurturing initiative and start having it be viewed as a profit center rather than a cost center. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Sales

In late 2006, Dollar's business was slowing at New York's LaGuardia airport. With some outside help, the local marketing manager developed an email survey, then used the answers to pinpoint Dollar's weaknesses. The resulting efficiencies helped Dollar grow its parking-related business by 24%.[Read the full story]
Marketing Case Studies: Sales

By hiring an outside expert in lead optimization and leveraging its full range of data, San Francisco-based Objectivity increased turnout for its webinars an average of 10%. The quality of the leads is high as well: More than 30% of the leads typically score high enough to be handed off to sales.[Read the full story]
Marketing Case Studies: Sales

Tracleer won approval in 2001 as the first oral treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension, an illness difficult for patients to grasp. Tracleer helps patients control the symptoms, but it has drawbacks. Faced with high patient-dropout rates early on in treatment, the drug's maker needed to change patient perceptions.[Read the full story]
Marketing Case Studies: Sales

The landing page for a top Web site's most popular search term converted about 30 percent less frequently than the company's general landing page. By simultaneously testing four new versions of the landing page, the site was able to ensure relevance, increasing conversions 67%—and decreasing abandonment rates.[Read the full story]
Marketing Case Studies: Sales

Let's face it, more small businesses fail than succeed. Make sure yours is one of the winners with this guide to getting your small business off the ground and solidly on the road to success. [Download] Marketing Downloads: Sales

Great product, great sales team, great marketing collateral - now what? People to sell to, of course. Put your lead generation tactics under the microscope with this enlightening how-to guide. Get more and better qualified leads, faster today. [Download] Marketing Downloads: Sales

Direct marketing is one of the fastest changing disciplines within marketing today. What worked 10 years ago, isn't working today. Heck, what worked last week sometimes doesn't even work today, so keep your skills sharp with his How-To guide, focusing on the B2B market. [Download] Marketing Downloads: Sales

Trade show marketing is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. This Template provides a sytematic look at trade show marketing. It walks you through selection and promotion, to follow-up and measurement. This step-by-step guide will insure your trade show marketing is effective, efficient, measurable, and successful. [Download] Marketing Downloads: Sales

Link directly to the raw (aggregate) data in this 2006 survey of the ways companies are targeting their marketing efforts, and adjusting their business processes, for the lucrative Spanish-speaking segment. With access to the raw data, you can view the results, and even filter them to see how a subset of companies in your country or industry answered. In this way, you can interpret the data in the most meaningful way for your business. [Download] Marketing Downloads: Sales

In a recent post at his blog, Seth Godin recounts the experience of arriving at a trendy restaurant for his 6:30 reservation. "We were promptly seated at the worst table in the place," he says, "in the back, in the corner, cramped by the kitchen."... [Read the full story]
Marketing Quick Read: Sales

Sooner or later, you're going to raise your prices. An intimidating prospect? Sure, but Drew McLellan says you can implement a price hike without alienating your customers. Just apply a little forethought and finesse. McLellan says businesses commonly raise prices across the board. When you... [Read the full story]
Marketing Quick Read: Sales

Marketers often entice customers to buy a product by offering a free gift with the purchase. They might, for example, offer a free half gallon of milk with the purchase of Oreos or a pair of tickets to Disneyland with the purchase of an airline... [Read the full story]
Marketing Quick Read: Sales

Customers can be suspicious of salespeople because their motives are unclear. Do they have the customer's best interest at heart, or are they simply seeking a commission? Researchers have discovered that, depending on one's perception of a salesperson's intentions, the same sales tactics can be... [Read the full story]
Marketing Quick Read: Sales

We know that email marketing can add punch to a company's marketing efforts. Yet selling the solution to small business owners (SBO) can be a difficult task. Josh Nason of SendLabs identifies three major obstacles when pitching email's value to the SBO: 1) budgetary... [Read the full story]
Marketing Quick Read: Sales