"How much do you know about your customers right now, at this moment?" asks John Kembel in an article at MarketingProfs. You can't depend solely on the static nature of composite profiles, he argues, when the current downturn has put needs and attitudes in a state of flux. "[Y]ou need ... more

Total communications spending will decline 1% in 2009, to $882.6 billion—its first spending decline since the 2001 recession—according to the latest Communications Industry Forecast (CIF) from private-equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS). more

One reason social media sites have caught on like wildfire among users is that, by and large, they operate on basic principles of social decency. Now, be honest: Do your social-media skills match the subtle standards set at sites like Twitter and YouTube? Not sure? Well, here are a few site-inspired rules ... more

It seems almost inevitable these days: You run a search on your company's name or product and a negative review, remark or blog post appears in the top listings. What do you do? "Don't  ... lose your cool and try to retaliate," says Internet Marketing Consultant Jeremy Martin in a recent ... more

OK. Quick fable: Prior to a trip to Nebraska, Dave Carroll checked his $3500 Taylor guitar with United Airlines. (If you've been online at all recently, you know where this is going.) The guitar suffered serious damage, and Carroll spent months pursuing the issue via the usual channels of complaint—to no ... more

Heads-up, all of you out there who market to moms: Food mogul Nestlé is using Twitter to promote Juicy Juice—the super-popular, and now vintage, juice-box brand that caters to kids. Expect to see the pea-green pieces on mom-targeted sites like CafeMom and BabyCenter.com. Questions like "How do you stimulate your child's ... more

"Is your website search- and social-media-friendly?" inquires a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog. According to Lee Odden, search is the most efficient and effective way for consumers to discover content. However, focusing on standard SEO tactics, such as keyword usage and links, is not enough to remain competitive, ... more

In a post at the Marketing Minute, blogger Drew McLellan admits he gets some rather strange mail. "But I have to say," he notes, "chocolate-covered grasshoppers might just top the list." The unusual package arrived from Grasshopper.com, which provides integrated telephone services, and McLellan praises the company for a well-executed ... more

The dreaded phrase "word-of-mouth" keeps a lot of company execs awake at night. It's that feeling of helplessness: How can any company apply quality assurance to something that is so out of their control? Well, a recent post at the Church of the Customer Blog says the secret to ensuring ... more

It's safe to say the first batch of post-dot-com-bubble brands have come into their own. Brands like Google, eBay, and Amazon. The one thing that sets them apart? They became successful without the support of television advertising to help launch them. more

In cooperation with Ball State University and the Email Marketers Club, ExactTarget studied 18 methods used by marketers to build an email list. Among the results published in its 2009 Email List Growth Study are these conclusions: The best method for email list growth is onsite registration; ... more

Bird-of-mouth (noun): The spreading of news or information via Twitter. more

A cool thing is happening through sites like blogging service Xanga, review site Yelp, and Twitter. Some of their faithful users have started attending meet-ups, where folks who interact online and live in the same geographic area can actually meet—in person! What a concept. Now, here's the really good news: These ... more

In the past, recessions have proven disastrous to the momentum of eco-conscious movements. But not this time. "There is a growing body of evidence that [green policies pay big] dividends," says Chet Dalzell in an article at MarketingProfs. Apparently, "environmental concerns resonate with consumers—even amid a … recession." Dalzell suggests ... more

In this regular Daily Chirp feature, William Arruda shares some of his favorite television ads. And he offers up a lesson for how the ad relates to your personal brand. Today, he looks at Honda's "Cog," which went viral before the term "viral" had gone viral. 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

Some time ago, we highlighted a MarketingProfs article in which Michael Antman cautioned against making word-of-mouth (WOM) strategies the primary element in your marketing mix. "He raises reasonable points about the limitations of WOM," says Deborah Eastman in her response. "[A]fter all, it can't completely replace other forms of marketing ... more

Last year, Southwest Airlines refused passage to two young women for obnoxious behavior. The ladies immediately went out and told the press they weren't permitted aboard because they were "too pretty to fly"—sparking a media-driven feeding frenzy on Southwest's precious brand equity. It didn't matter that it wasn't true. It ... more

"I get by with a little help from my friends." The words of that old Beatles song could well be applied to today's search marketers. After all, there's nothing like a good link-back among friends to boost search rankings. And in a recent guest post at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, ... more

Clearspring Technologies, which has helped everybody from WaPo to UCSF bring their branded wares to the mainstream, has put out a new tool that tells you how popular your widgets are on social networks. The ConnectedAds tool can follow the movement of your branded widget across 80 different social networks, ... more

In a post at the Brains of Fire blog, Spike Jones tells the story of Pizzeria Delfina, a San Francisco establishment that chose not to ignore its one-star reviews at Yelp. Instead, the restaurant printed up employee T-shirts with gems like "This place sucks" and "The pizza was soooo greasy. ... more

The iPhone and iPod touch positively swept the Engadget Awards, winning Gadget of the Year, Smartphone of the Year, Handheld of the Year, Portable Media Device of the Year, and, finally, a spot in Editors' Choice. So, what's this mean for you? It means you need to be ... more

"We all like the comfort of the crowd," says Mark Brownlow in a post at the Email Marketing Reports blog. "The knowledge that others went here before us tells us we're on the right path." Because of this tendency to trust the wisdom of crowds, he argues, you can encourage opt-ins ... more

According to an iProspect and JupiterResearch study released last year, search users prefer "blended" search results—in which results are potpourried with videos and other media—over standard (slightly boring) text-only search results. Blended results (Google's term is "universal search") work like this: If you've got a restaurant, a search on your restaurant's ... more