Like the internet phenoms they trumpeted, Internet company names of the last decade have been, by turns, wildly inventive, deeply troubled, breathtakingly silly, serviceable (if dull)—and, occasionally, brilliant. Here are the trends and names that rose to the top (and sank to the bottom). more

Link-building services are the most commonly outsourced aspect of SEO. The process involves finding qualified and thematically relevant one-way linking partners who will link to your website. Spammy, automated products often never cultivate valuable links and tend to do more harm than good. Doing it right means link-building by hand. ... more

:ooking for ways to create a proposal that sets you and your company favorably apart? Ways that capture the great things you have to offer? Here are six suggested best-practices intended to not only maximize your chances to stand out and land the job but also manage the risks. more

While we struggle to emerge from a full-blown recession, marketers know all too well that advertising and (unfortunately) innovation are the first budgets that are most likely to get cut. So how can marketers continue to innovate? more

You'd think that to get half of your subscribers to click through, you might have to give away a million dollars every month. Publishers Clearing House actually does give away millions of dollars, but that wasn't enough on its own to earn a significantly higher-than-average response rate on its email ... more

In the current economic climate, more business owners need to evaluate their website and revamp it to turn it into a presales tool, lead-generation machine, or even a revenue-producing cash cow. Can it be done? It just takes a few tweaks to turn on the profits. more

We've created a cool website. The bell and whistles are working well—not too little, not too much. We're getting lots of visits from lots of cool folks. But now that we're up and running so well, we're panicked about keeping content fresh! How do I keep it interesting, and keep ... more

In the world of B2B marketing, what would you say your customers want most from you? Some of the obvious things are quality products, great service, reasonable prices, and solutions that increase profits. But what would they really want if they could have anything from you? How about more customers? more

Organizational challenges can be the silent killer to achieving relevance in direct digital marketing, placing constraints on innovation and on the adoption of technology and best-practices, or limiting the manpower to create compelling campaigns and programs. You can do everything else right, but failure to address organizational challenges can torpedo an ... more

During challenging economic times, buyers look for value. The more value you provide, the more likely you are to become the provider of choice. Presentations offer you excellent opportunities to provide that value at different stages of the sales cycle. Here are five ways to create more value in your ... more

Plan A, which calls for pouring dollars into advertising, rarely increases profitability. Sometimes it doesn't even boost sales, and it certainly doesn't guarantee improvements in marketing effectiveness or ROI. Enter Plan B: taking a closer look at the basic marketing strategy fundamentals that drive tactical decisions. more

In the B2C space there's a lot of buzz around mobile marketing, but in the B2B sector it's more likened to a whisper. B2Bs are missing out on super-sized opportunities for integrating a valuable new brand touch point for their customers and establishing a dynamic new communications channel with professional ... more

New vision and approaches can add significantly more value to brands over their competitors. Some brands can easily become commodities. Unless they choose otherwise. more

Billy Mays, who, sadly, passed away at age 50, was a potbellied, black-bearded Atlantic City carnival barker who wore a blue long-sleeve shirt and a white undershirt. And direct marketers loved him. According to Mays, to be great and an easy sell, a product must have these five essential character ... more

We are facing economic challenges the likes of which many of us have not experienced before. As professionals, how do we break away from this stagnation and take advantage of opportunities to grow your business? more

One of the traps that many organizations fall into when launching a new Web initiative is putting the focus of the project on new technology or new functionality. Instead, you need to start your project with the end result in mind. This article outlines project phases that you need to ... more

With Q4 looming, along iwth company revenue targets for the year ahead, this company faced the perennial dilemma common to B2B marketers: how to fill the sales funnel with quality leads now to get a jump on sales-cycle activity in January. A classic direct-mail package and a brilliantly simple strategy ... more

At its core, market opportunity is your sizing forecast for a specific product or service, now and over the next several years. At a minimum, you should know that information in terms of sales dollars. A solid understanding of opportunity will guide you to the best markets and warn you ... more

Salespeople rely on strategies such as "sell the value" or to "value-add"—neither of which produces sustainable advantage. They do so because it's hard to achieve genuine differentiation based on something the customer values. But suppose salespeople were able to create highly differentiated offerings that provide real value that competitors can't ... more

Don't indiscriminately get rid of people paying you for your goods and services. But identify that 20% from the old 80/20 rule and get rid of some of those who meet the four points described here. Your goal should not be to "please" customers. Studies show only 6% of "satisfied" ... more

"Relationships don't just happen, they are built—one experience at a time," says Joel Book of ExactTarget. And lucky for us, Joel has mapped out the process of doing just that via email marketing. more

The economy still stinks. But only if during the long-gone good times your business was on cruise control and you saw your customers as dollar signs and not people. Some marketers are suffering far less than others, because they cared to look deep into their customers' eyes and not just ... more

By using new campaign-management techniques, smart marketers can gain a sizable and lasting advantage over the competition in the auction for keywords—ensuring their ads show up high in search results without dampening ROI. more

Are your website visitors like tourists strolling through Times Square on their way to a matinee with little time to spare, or are they a captive audience willing to watch and absorb all you hope to communicate? Websites increasingly appear to assume the latter, but Web-analytics data prove the former. more

You know that saying about how you can't understand where you're going unless you understand where you've been? That's the reason we've pulled together this list of the top stories of 2009. more