"A subject line … invites others into your email marketing open house," says Josh Nason in an article at MarketingProfs. "If you have something to sell or a message you want to get across, that subject line better be good—or else your prospects might head to a different neighborhood." Nason ... more

Retailers did everything possible to attract buyers over the holidays. From educational sessions to discounts and coupons, and special offers, retailers used their ingenuity and marketing smarts to make the best of a dismal season. Nonetheless, numbers were down and every indicator pointed toward an even gloomier 2009. Perhaps the very ... more

We all know that content is king in search engine optimization, but in a recent Search Engine Land post, Daniel Waisberg reminds us that "usability is queen." According to Waisberg, the synergy between content and usability design can be a powerful generator of website conversion rates. To help search marketers optimize ... more

It's a simple fact: We love watching online videos. In a post at the Digital Marketing blog, Eydie Cubarrubia cites Nielsen Online research that found 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month of April. "Total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago," she says, ... more

Getting the most out of your website? As a B2B marketer in the IT world, you likely have a key objective for your site: generating leads and moving prospects to your offline sales department. While most online marketers live and breathe their conversion rates, this approach, according to a post ... more

Careful: You just missed out on a great lead when you analyzed that B2B conversion rate. That's what Todd Michiels says, anyway, in a recent article at Miechiels.com. All too often, Miechiels says, B2B marketers decide to "spend either more or less money based solely on the conversion rate of how ... more

"There are many similarities between social media marketing and email," says Ross Kramer in an article at MarketingProfs, "but they are two distinct marketing channels and they should be used separately to enhance or magnify, not just promote, each other." Kramer outlines a process for complementary strategies that play to the ... more

In Part 1 of this article, the author talked a little bit about the necessary components to a successful landing page: You need "bones" to hold it all together; you need to keep the message on track and motivating by maintaining a consistent theme throughout; and you need to stir ... more

Supply-chain software provider Kinaxis needed to reel in more customers, so it created a comedy video series, which soon became its most popular online content. The videos drew record site traffic and conversions, as well as doubling RSS subscriptions to the company blog within the first month. more

While the blogs we highlight are a great resource for email marketers, you might also benefit from the more in-depth guidance of downloadable whitepapers. Companies have discovered the marketing advantage of offering free whitepapers to prospects, and some of those papers are worth a look. ExactTarget's One-to-One Marketing Field Guide ... more

So you say you're still a bit iffy about investing in Facebook's panoply of paid brand offerings (virtual gifts, banner ads, homepage takeovers)? Not to worry: we've done some legwork for you, and turned up some freebies at the site that could actually serve your marketing plan to a "T." ... more

Congrats! You've created a terrific whitepaper, and now you're adding a download link to a free copy of it on your landing page. All your prospects have to do is enter their email addresses, and voila! Instant whitepaper! Perfect B2B lead generation, right? Well, not quite so perfect, says ... more

Mainstream is not a target market. In fact, by trying to blandly appeal to everyone, you wind up not really appealing to anyone in particular. Yet, in many companies, "niche" is a dirty word, right up there with "polarizing." more

With the widespread use of technical lingo—words like segment, list, database—sometimes it's easy for email marketers to forget about the actual human being on the other side of the Send button. "[W]e're not just delivering to inboxes," Karen Talavera reminds us in a MarketingProfs article, "we're communicating [with] individuals." Here ... more

It was just a month ago that Apple reached the prestigious mark of 1 billion downloads from its iPhone App Store—a huge milestone. The enormous number of downloaded apps elicits the question: How much money has Apple really made from paid apps? more

When the latest marketing answers fail to produce the results you expect, maybe it's time to start asking different questions. You don't need me to tell you that we're in a crisis of confidence: Consumers don't believe or act on the information we give them in the ways we'd hope, so ... more

You've probably made a practice of asking customers to review your products, but are you using their praise to its full advantage? "Recently," says Kelly Lorenz at the Bronto blog, "I have seen an uptick in retailers utilizing customer reviews to sell products in their emails." Why? Because user-generated reviews ... more

Last month, talk of Volvo invaded the blogosphere when the company embedded live Tweets into a YouTube banner ad for its XC60 model. The feed kept viewers abreast of live coverage of the NY Auto Show, then gave them the option to follow Volvo on Twitter. It's a simple enough ... more

While most retailers have experienced various degrees of tumult during this recession, the picture isn't entirely gloomy. A recent survey by Internet Retailer, for instance, shows many online-only businesses have maintained—or are improving—their email marketing conversion rates. Of the 275 retailers surveyed: 56.4 percent report their ... more

For decades, the prevailing wisdom was that nonprofits should learn from for-profit enterprises how to become "more businesslike." Many nonprofits thus embraced best practices in branding, marketing, service delivery, money management, and leadership. They have also learned how to keep different business models running simultaneously. To be successful in all these ... more

Capturing the experiences of your most successful customers not only boosts your credibility but also educates buyers and shows them the payoff of your solutions. Here are 25 ways to use customer success stories in your sales and marketing to increase buyers' trust. more

Today's buyer is in control. This transition means that our sales teams are no longer required as a conduit of information. Industry websites, vendor sites, blogs, social media, and search all make the required information readily available and, by doing so, leave the sales representative out of the room. As a ... more

Occasionally people may buy on impulse. Often, however, they go through a recognizable purchase cycle. "By targeting specific cycle stages, advertisers can increase relevancy by delivering appropriate messages at the right time," says Page Zero Media's Mona Elesseily in an article at Search Engine Land. Here are her definitions of the five ... more

We hear lots of advice about maintaining a clean list, and much of it centers on how to handle subscribers who seem uninterested in your messages. At a certain point, you might decide it's time to take them off your list. Before you do, though, consider these four "hidden" segments ... more

When subscribers open email messages, you have about seven seconds to answer their most important question: "What's in it for me?" According to Steve Adams, the best way to prove value is to deliver great content again and again. Here are three time-tested rules to keep in mind when writing ... more