Michael Stoner shares insights he gained from compiling 25 case studies in higher education marketing, and how marketers can build integrated marketing plans that maximize audience reach using traditional channels, social media, and emerging platforms. more

Jason Falls of CafePress talks about cause marketing, Autism Awareness Month, and how businesses of any size can give back to the community. more

Online nonprofit fundraising is on the rise, with explosive growth in sustaining gifts and a larger audience of supporters reached via social networks, according to an analysis of leading US nonprofits. However, the long-term decline of email response rates is continuing, even as online revenues increase and social media audiences ... more

Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye (KD) Paine, authors of Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World, discuss performance metrics and nonprofits. more

Boston University's Dean of Students Kenn Elmore discusses BU's sometimes-pioneering use of social media, including for "reaching the unreachable." During our conversation, I asked him to explain what he meant by "the unreachable." more

The Girl Scouts of the USA, Best Friends Animal Society, Stand Up to Cancer, American Red Cross, and Goodwill are among the top nonprofit brands within their respective categories, according to the Harris Poll Non-Profit EquiTrend brand-equity tracking study of the health of some 87 nonprofits. more

We took Marketing Smarts on the road and recorded the podcast live in Los Angeles, where I interviewed Eric Granof, CMO at the largest underwriter of surety bail in the US, and Brad Abare, communications director of a Los Angeles-based church. more

From its 2008 launch, Kickstarter has become a major funding platform for creative projects worldwide. More than $53 million has been pledged by users who believe in the projects they've seen, and its project success rate is a whopping 43%. How can that help you? Eloqua has compiled five marketing lessons ... more

In this week's episode of Marketing Smarts, Ian Lurie, CEO of Portent Interactive, and Geoff Livingston, author and marketing strategist, offer unique perspectives on how to rescue marketing from itself. more

Bored with the usual "Seasons Greetings" client postcard? Use a bit of holiday spirit to warm up your social campaigns! Meghan Gargan has made a list of do's and don'ts for sending social holiday greetings with panache. "While you should capture the magic and merriment of this time of year, ... more

People running nonprofits are under attack by zombies! Idea zombies, that is. That was the topic of John Haydon's session at the recent BlogWorld Expo, and the starting point of our conversation in this episode of Marketing Smarts more

You've no doubt seen the reports of organizations like the Red Cross blasting their response rates through the roof by seeking on-the-run mobile donations. But that's just part of the nonprofit social-media success story. The Dragonfly Effect, a book by Stanford University marketing prof Jennifer Aaker and marketing strategist Andy ... more

Few things are more fun than learning about yourself, right? At least when the Net makes it easy. Consider the explosion of personality test apps on sites like Facebook or MySpace—or quizzes on their own hosted sites: You can learn what superhero you are, what your kissing style is, or what city ... more

Thought leaders in the email marketing industry are just about unanimous on the subject of randomly purchased lists. Their advice to marketers? Avoid them like the plague. You may, however, still encounter those who push the buying of email lists as a perfectly legal alternative to building lists through opt-in subscription. ... more

More companies seem to be realizing these days that they can use their power in the marketplace to aim for goals bigger than just bottom-line-related ones. That may be because more consumers, when buying similar products, are opting to choose ones that "give back" to a charitable cause. It's an easy way to ... more

"[C]ontinual email list growth is the Achilles heel of email marketing," says Karen Talavera in a Pro article at MarketingProfs. She says marketers face some tall challenges when they strive to maintain healthy list growth. For instance:  They must constantly replenish the subscriber pipeline. "For every sign-up you get there's a ... more

Some marketers might regard an opt-in subscription as the end of the permission process—but it's just the beginning, says Stephanie Miller in a post at the Daily Fix blog. "Permission does not give marketers a license to just send whatever, whenever," she argues. "In fact, more than just a one-time exercise, ... more

Good news, nonprofits! At Le Web this year, Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan discussed how, in an era when a panoply of tech options are available to us at a finger-swipe, we can pick and choose the charitable causes we support in the same way we pick and choose ... more

Dudes: Are you ready to give off some fresh new surfer vibes? Search engines are constantly looking for new signals they can use to improve the quality of the results they provide to Internet surfers, says Eric Enge in a recent post at Search Engine Watch. "Search engines continue to ... more

Let's face it: If your marketing approach consists of sporadically touting your company's greatness via the overpopulated social mediaverse, you're about to get absolutely nowhere—except ignored. Or hated. Blacklisted, even.  Frustrated with today's confusing social-media etiquette? Well, don't be! There are sassy methods for making your outreach simply ooze old-fashioned Southern ... more

"In the technology industry," writes Morgan Stewart in an article at MarketingProfs, "we are constantly focused on the next big thing." And there's often an assumption that whatever comes next will wipe out whatever came before. Do you remember, for instance, when computers were going to make paper obsolete? Or ... more

In May 2009, Omniture and The CMO Club asked 102 CMOs to rate the relative effectiveness of digital-marketing media. The vast majority (78 percent) gave top marks to email marketing, but a sizable minority (33 percent) reported success in emerging social-media channels, too. That's because, these days, consumers "engage with a ... more

Before you start soliciting links and becoming active in online communities, it's best to first ensure that your site's content, structure, and design are in peak condition, Virginia Nussey advises in a recent post at the Bruce Clay blog: "Before you can expect a site to develop inbound links, you have ... more

The Great Recession has certainly not spared nonprofit organizations. With contributions down an average of nine percent, many charitable organizations have been forced to cut services. Some even face closure. Fortunately, though, the news is not all bad. "With the right marketing mix, savvy nonprofits are able to leverage social-media marketing ... more

In a post at the Email Karma blog, Matt Vernhout discusses recent layoffs at AOL and the challenges facing employees who remain. "The individuals [who] do end up making it past the latest round of layoffs and buyouts will now have a major increase in workload," he notes. We can assume ... more