Most Recent articles by the best and brightest in the field

• Talk to Me: 10 Tips for Translating PR Results Into the Language of Businessby Diane Thieke
  As communications experts, we should find it easy to convey the value of our services to the business managers in our organizations. Yet many public relations professionals struggle with expressing results in a way that allows senior executives to easily recognize the impact that PR has on the success of the business. more
• Case Story: Boosting Email-Subscriber Satisfactionby Stephanie Miller
  Sometimes doing a little more for your email subscribers can make a huge difference. Tafford Uniforms of North Wales, Pa., faced a challenge to engage email subscribers because of two common but seemingly incongruent realities. more
• Four Four-Letter F-Words That Stall Your Careerby William Arruda
  If you want to get ahead in your marketing career, stop using four-letter words that begin with the letter "F." No, we aren't talking about THAT word. (Although cursing your boss is probably not going to get you very far, either.) But the F-words here are far more lethal, more destructive, and more devastating to your career and professional fulfillment. more
• Five Tips for Small B2B Companies That Depend on Big Channel Partnersby Robbie Kellman Baxter
  It's a challenge faced by hundreds of small companies: how to get the CXO of a Fortune 1000 company to consider its product. One effective strategy that helped get companies such as Citrix and VMware off the ground is to align closely with a major partner. Building a strong channel, even with just one or two partners, can be much more effective and easier to leverage than trying to develop your own sales team and customer relationships. The following five tips can help B2B companies maintain strong channel partnerships. more
• Three Essential Market-Research Methods in an Online Communityby John Kembel
  How much do you know about your customers right now, at this moment? A lot of companies can show you composite profiles that describe their target customers, including job titles, needs, obligations, and goals. No doubt about it: It's important to know those things. But relying solely on such information to connect with customers is like trying to strike up a conversation with a cardboard cutout. It just isn't enough. more
• Five Top Tips on How to Write More-Effective PPC Adsby Nick Usborne
  Contextual ads, whether delivered by Google, Yahoo, or any other company, are not standalone ads in the way that a newspaper classified ad is. In fact, your pay-per-click ad is simply the connector between a desired keyword or phrase and a destination landing page. So while you may have some wonderful things to say about your products or services, your PPC ad is not the place to try to cram your latest sales message into 95 characters. more
• Achieving Relevance in Direct Digital Marketing: An Introductionby Bryce Marshall
  There are five keys to making a relevance-centered approach a reality in your direct digital marketing programs(such as email, websites, mobile, and so on). more
• Why Gen Y Is Passing You Byby Kimberly Smith
  What works in enticing a new generation of buyers? Here's why some of your efforts to reach this demographic might be going amiss. more
• Data-Driven Campaigns: Five Ways to Leverage the Customer Data You Have to Drive Conversions and Salesby Morgan Witt
  As marketers, we are all looking to reach "nirvana": targeting the right person with the right message at the right time. It's the clear path to driving conversion rates that exceed expectations. The days of blasting promotion messages to all are dead and gone. The conversation has changed. We must put ourselves in customers' shoes and target them individually as best we can through data-driven strategies. more
• Ten Essentials of Software-as-a-Service Solution Marketingby Peter A. Cohen
  Here are 10 essentials of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution marketing. more
• Maximizing Lead-Generation Marketing ROI, Part 3: Measuring Effectivenessby Jim Lenskold
  How do you know whether your lead-generation program is working and delivering a good ROI for the company? You may be doing some lead tracking to understand conversion rates and customer profitability, which is great. But the sales team will inevitably let Marketing know that (1) Marketing was just a small step in closing the sale so the sales team deserves the credit; (2) the sales team would have found and closed those leads anyway, so there is no incremental value; or (3) the leads are fine, but there is just never enough. We need reliable measurements to both prove and improve our marketing effectiveness. more
• Use Search Queries to Save Money and Increase Conversionsby Craig Danuloff
  Search queries, the exact word or phrases a person types, are a vital clue into the objectives of the searcher and how valuable that person is to your business. Is each searcher relevant to you? Are all the search queries equally valuable? Can you write a single text ad that matches the intent of each of those queries and inspires searchers to click and convert? The answer, likely, is no. Yet, search queries don't play as prominent a role in paid-search management as they should, especially with Broad-match and Phrase-match campaigns. more
• Marketing in a Recession: What Do the Studies Really Tell Us?by Christian Shea
  Have you heard this one? "All the research shows that companies that spend on marketing during a recession come out ahead of the competition as the economy rebounds." It's a catchy buzz phrase—and if people believe it, even better. But here's the thing: What research, exactly? more
• Sweat the Small Stuff: A Counterintuitive Approach to Professional Successby Linda Kaplan
  It might sound counter-intuitive, but "sweating the small stuff" is actually a recipe for success. In fact, it can be one of best weapons in your business arsenal. more
• The Parasite Economy: Why Leaders Must Reinvest in Their Brands (Not Just Drain Off Profits)by Eric Garland
  It's time to start investing in the future, for real. Brand equity from the old economy is about dead. The financial collapse is a sign of a larger movement that would have us stop draining off reserves, and get us back to the business of making promises to tomorrow's customers. more
• Retail Survival Tips in a New Economic and Customer Environmentby Adam Boyden
  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 profile of the retail environment has shifted as consumers settle in for what may be a protracted economic change. Here are some smart, manageable tips on how to survive through the second half of the 2009 buying season and keep your business on track. more
• Avoid the Five Routes to Strategic Failureby Nilofer Merchant
  Disconnects are a big cause of strategy failure. You think you've communicated well, then find out you have—just not to your target audience. Or maybe at the end of a long research session, you realize that input from colleagues in the company's Ohio office was critical to your strategy, yet was overlooked in favor of input from more-assertive colleagues in the New York office. There are five major disconnects that consistently trip up strategy implementation. more
• Man Bites Giraffe II: A Return Visit With Email Subject Lines From Real Companiesby Josh Nason
  When it comes to email subject lines, the Golden Rule hasn't changed: Tell what's inside, don't sell what's inside. 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. more
• Put Your Site Search to Work and Improve Your Targeted Marketing, Part 1by Shaun Ryan
  If you're like most online marketers, you may not realize that some of the technologies that power your website can be critical tools for improving the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. For example, did you know that you can use data from your site-search solution to create emails with lists of popular products that match your customers' preferences? The result: stronger brand visibility, higher conversions, and a more engaging customer experience. more
• Nine Email Tactics That Can Put You Out of Businessby Gwen Moran
  As the technology and the legal issues around email evolve, so should your email marketing programs. Otherwise, you could misstep, and that could cost you opportunities to communicate with your customers or constituents as well as damage credibility. Here are nine pitfalls to avoid, that can put you out of business. more

Most Recent: See all 2600 marketing articles

Most Recent case studies, deconstructing real life examples and illustrating lessons learned

• Reviving the Dead List to Grow Email RevenuesPerricone MD
  CASE STUDY: All your opt-ins won't stay loyal forever: Interests change, as do expectations about messaging and frequency. Even as your list grows, so will the number of unopened emails. So you should cut off the "dead weight," right? Not so fast, there might still be money to be made. more
• Generating Serious B2B Buzz With Dead Bugs... and VideoGrasshopper.com
  CASE STUDY: Entrepreneurs, by definition, don't play it too safe. So for a company that serves startups and small businesses, what better way to launch a rebranding campaign and generate buzz than doing something novel and risky—but being wicked smart about it. Which is where the bugs come in. more
• How an Interactive Game Stimulated Product Awareness and SalesSony United
  CASE STUDY: To differentiate itself in a crowded consumer-electronics market, Sony Electronics leveraged a bond—James Bond—with sister company Sony Pictures. A Bond-themed interactive game and sweepstakes resulted in 45,000 clickthroughs to product pages—and a 12-15% increase in sales of those products. more
• Tips From Microsoft on Cultivating Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty on a Global ScaleMicrosoft Corporation
  CASE STUDY: With millions of customers in more than 90 countries, Microsoft has its hands full keeping customers satisfied and loyal. But it has found a way to do so—by using Web-monitoring tools, social-media analytics, and the energy of influencers. Read on for valuable insights. more
• Three Small (Biz) Steps to Increased Product & Service Sales, Recession EditionPaul Hyland Salon & Day Spa
  CASE STUDY: Sales of luxury products and services have been suffering in the current economy—all the more so for small businesses. But email, coupons, and new-client referral and member-rewards programs have helped this small business beat the recession blues. See how. more
• Using Video to Reel in Record High Traffic and ConversionsKinaxis
  CASE STUDY: 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
• Harnessing Web 3.0 to Pump Up Brand Preference and LoyaltyASUS (North America) and Intel
  CASE STUDY: In this new age of conversation between corporation and consumer, chip-maker Intel and PC-maker ASUS have embraced "crowdsourcing." Allowing consumers to design the ideal PC, they are gaining valuable consumer insight and in the process building not just a PC but customer loyalty. more
• How Good Karma Mixed With Moxy and Social Media Created Close to $1 Million in RevenueHelp A Reporter Out
  CASE STUDY: How does helping out a friend, or a friend of a friend, become a million-dollar business... with not a penny spent on advertising? When those little favors are in huge demand—and word-of-mouth and social media spread the good news like wildfire. more
• How a Single Modification to a Web Site's Functionality Significantly Upped Natural Search Traffic, SalesDiapers.com
  CASE STUDY: Customer reviews are powerful, held in high regard by consumers—and search engines, which love keyword-rich content. But the technology that serves up reviews on a product page makes them all but invisible to those engines. By getting around that conundrum, Diapers.com scored big. more
• How a New-Product Launch via Facebook Resulted in Immediate Sales, Ongoing Consumer Relationships3M Canada Company
  CASE STUDY: At a fraction of the cost of traditional media, 3M Canada not only generated immediate sales and new excitement around its Scotch Tape brand but also gathered invaluable intelligence about its target market and forged long-term relationships with consumers. more
• How a Single Voice Recording Scored Immediate Ticket Sales for Boston CollegeBoston College Athletics
  CASE STUDY: Boston College had just two weeks to inspire alumni and fans to make a last-minute trip to Florida after the school's football team secured its first conference title game. An enticing voice-marketing campaign quickly generated 5,000 ticket sales, netting $200,000. more
• How a Little Sweet Talkin' on a Company Blog Led to Increased Search Engine Rankings, SalesFairytale Brownies
  CASE STUDY: Fairytale Brownies cooked up a win-win strategy to satisfy both its bottom line and its costumers' preferences. It created magic with a brownie blog optimized for search and attuned to customers' deepest dessert desires. The result? Some very happy endings. more
• How a Company's Word-of-Mouth Strategies and Customer Focus Helped Grow Its User Base 150%FreshBooks
  CASE STUDY: Small businesses need all the TLC they can get. Billing and invoicing online-solution provider FreshBooks knows that better than most. Its customer-centric focus is so fresh and refreshing, word-of-mouth has spread far and wide—and helped grow its user base 150%. more
• Four Steps to Spurring B2B New-Product Awareness and Sales via TwitterCOOP Ale Works
  CASE STUDY: Twitter isn't the first tool that comes to mind in the B2B marketing toolbox. But COOP Ale Works deftly used it to generate buzz among potential consumers of its specialty brews—creating a level of demand that retail establishments, such as bars, couldn't ignore. more
• How Mobile Text Marketing Is Increasing Ancillary Revenues, Room Upgrades, and Customer LoyaltyDays for Business Alliance (Days Inn)
  CASE STUDY: Cutting-edge customer service that relies on mobile texting has helped an alliance of hotels to retain customers among the thinning number of business travelers—and avoid disaster during the economic downturn. Read on to see how. more
• How One Company's Content Marketing Improved Qualified Lead Generation, Boosted Revenue 38%Intellitactics, Inc.
  CASE STUDY: Good content can position your company as an expert in its field, delivering more and better-qualified traffic to your door. Here's how one company leveraged its vendor-neutral whitepapers, podcasts, and more to increase leads, conversion, and (ultimately) revenue. more
• How Kodak Generated Marvelous Results by Turning Users Into SuperheroesKodak Imaging Network
  CASE STUDY: Kodak knew that in all of us there's a superhero yearning to come out. It launched a viral-video campaign that reached two million customers and prospects who unleashed their inner superhero (along with howls of laughter), generating traffic to—and sales for—KodakGallery.com. more
• How a Facebook Game Attracted 10 Times the Traffic, New Fans, Real SalesAdobe Systems, Inc.
  CASE STUDY: Here's how a single Facebook game application attracted more than 11,500 plays, 10 times the usual traffic, 5,500 new fans, and more.... more
• How a Franchiser Automated Its Marketing Support to Improve Efficiency, ProfitabilityCartridge World
  CASE STUDY: Global ink and toner supplier Cartridge World expanded its US presence to 650 franchisee-owned stores. But its marketing support lagged behind. Here's how the company turned things around: creating a centralized marketing resource center, upping efficiency and increasing profitability. more
• How the Obama Presidential Campaign Leveraged Mobile Marketing to Generate Support, Increase Participation and OutreachObama for America
  CASE STUDY: Mobile marketing offers a sense of immediacy and intimacy that few other media can. Such timely connection is what the Obama for America Presidential campaign leveraged to establish deeper relationships with supporters. Here's how. more

Most Recent: See all 127 case studies

Most Recent online seminar broadcasts from the best minds in marketing

• Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a TimeAttendee rating:  - Jul 2, 2009
• Cracking the Code: Web Analytics for Paid Search AdvertisingAttendee rating:  - Jun 25, 2009
• What to Do When Growth StallsAttendee rating:  - Jun 19, 2009
• You 2.0: Measuring (and Improving) Your Personal Brand on the WebAttendee rating:  - Jun 12, 2009
• It's All About the Click: Fundamentals of Paid Search MarketingAttendee rating:  - Jun 4, 2009
• How to Create Advertising Campaigns that Make Men Do What You WantAttendee rating:  - May 28, 2009
• What Matters Now in Branding: Ten Ideas to Get RefocusedAttendee rating:  - May 21, 2009
• Seven Fast-Acting Methods to Drive B2B Revenue NowAttendee rating:  - May 14, 2009
• Customer Experience Intensive: What CEM Means for Your Brand and Your MarketingAttendee rating:  - Apr 30, 2009
• Behind the Online Curtain: Secrets for Building a Successful Webinar ProgramAttendee rating:  - Apr 23, 2009
• How to Craft a Winning Business Case for Your Marketing InitiativeAttendee rating:  - Apr 16, 2009
• Extreme PowerPoint Makeover: Transform Your Data-Driven Presentation Beyond Bullet PointsAttendee rating:  - Apr 9, 2009
• Next Steps with Your Blog: Building Excitement, Readership and CommunityAttendee rating:  - Mar 27, 2009
• Not Blogging Yet? What Marketers Need to Know to Get StartedAttendee rating:  - Mar 26, 2009
• When the Budget Axe Falls: What to Cut, What to Keep, What to GrowAttendee rating:  - Mar 12, 2009
• How to Make Your B-to-B Website a Lead Generation MachineAttendee rating:  - Feb 26, 2009
• Green to Gold: Why Smart Companies Are Going Green (Even in a Recession)Attendee rating:  - Feb 12, 2009
• Bam! A Recipe to Add Social Media to your Marketing MixAttendee rating:  - Feb 5, 2009
• Social Graces: Strategies to Take Your Social Media Marketing Beyond One-Off TacticsAttendee rating:  - Jan 22, 2009
• Search Engine Optimizing Your Website, Soup to NutsAttendee rating:  - Jan 15, 2009

Most Recent: See all 171 seminars

Most Recent mini articles distilling bite-sized advice (from our Get to the Point newsletters)

• Is This My Fairest URL of All?Interactive Marketing
  As of June 13, Facebook has made it possible for users to secure a URL for both their profiles and any Facebook Pages they administer. Why this matters: Facebook is ...
• Optimize B2B Email for Search, Pt. IB2B Marketing
  "I get a fairly large number of content marketing emails each week," writes Galen de Young in a post at the B2B Marketing Blog. "I'm surprised how many of them ...
• I Feel Your Pain—Here's an AspirinSmall Business
  "When your visitor arrives at your site," says Pete Caputa in a post at HubSpot, "they're most likely looking to solve a problem. In order to grab their attention and ...
• You Have Much to Learn, GrasshopperMarketing in a Downturn
  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 ...
• Keep Your WOM Roots HealthyCustomer Insight
  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 ...
• It All Comes Down to ProcessEmail Marketing
  We spend a lot of time discussing topics like deliverability and relevance, but rarely touch on another factor that plays a critical role in successful email marketing campaigns. "Process is ...
• Limit Your Negative ExposureMarketing Analytics
  In a post at the MineThatData blog, Kevin Hillstrom poses a scenario in which 100 of your online customers abandon their shopping carts on a Monday. The following day, after ...
• Now That's a Good Release!Small Business
  "As many of you know," begins an article in a recent edition of the Editorial Emergency newsletter, "[cofounder Julia Rubiner has] been cranking out publicity communications—bios, press releases, one-sheets, corporate ...
• Take a Deep Breath. Do a Brief Test.Search Engine Marketing
  "Do you know what attracts your readers? What headlines they respond to most? Do they respond to pictures? Do they know what your offer is?" asks Peter Da Vanzo in a recent SEObook.com ...
• Two Xs Mark the SpotMarketing Inspiration
  The current ad campaign from brewer Dos Equis features a fictional spokesperson it calls The Most Interesting Man in the World—a dashing chap engaged in a series of action-oriented vignettes ...
• Mom Probably Knows BestEmail Marketing
  In a post at the Deliverability.com blog, Dennis Dayman presents a short series of off-the-cuff emails that his wife wrote in response to his question about video in email marketing ...
• Tips for That Pivotal Sales PresentationHigh-Tech Mktg & Sales
  Closing an IT sale is a complex process. But in most cases there is usually one pivotal sales presentation that can firmly seal the deal. Darrin Mourer, in a post ...
• When in Doubt, Double DownMarketing Inspiration
  In a piece at The New Yorker, James Surowiecki recounts how two companies—Post and Kellogg—reacted to the Depression. "Post did the predictable thing: it reined in expenses and cut back ...
• Getting Testy Again and AgainEmail Marketing
  "Testing can be a powerful tool to move your email marketing program forward," says Kelly Lorenz in a post at the Bronto blog. "Testing can also help you move from ...
• Seed That Video and Reap Its HarvestInteractive Marketing
  Good news for all you budding Spielbergs out there: YouTube this month made it possible to automatically seed freshly uploaded videos across popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and even ...
• Stay Away from Plug-and-PlayB2B Marketing
  Diana Huff offers an interesting warning to small businesses in a recent post at her B2B Marcom Writer blog: When creating a website, keep away from companies that offer "plug-and-play" ...
• Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a MatchSmall Business
  Anyone can claim to design websites. So before you hire a designer, it's important to ask a few key questions. Oliver Feakins of WebTalent recommends starting with a request to ...
• When Problems Arise, Go to the SpotMarketing in a Downturn
  In an article at the New York Times website, Michelle Maynard tells the story of Akio Toyoda's secret visit to an Ann Arbor, Michigan, car dealership. The grandson of Toyota's ...
• Hey! Over Here! We're Buying!Customer Insight
  Good news for retailers! There is one consumer segment that apparently remains ready and willing to buy: Hispanic shoppers. "According to a new study conducted by Experian Simmons for Univision ...
• Nobody Likes a Wild-Goose ChaseEmail Marketing
  Chad White of the Retail Email blog was impressed when he recently received an email from Lands' End with this subject line: Free Shipping + 20-50% off summer! Swim, shorts, ...

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Most Recent marketing downloads for the busy professional

• Email Success Stories: How 11 companies are pushing the (electronic) envelope
  Propel your email marketing efforts beyond the subject line. Read Email Success Stories: How 11 companies are pushing the (electronic) envelope to learn how to convert your emails into money-making machines.
• Twitter Success Stories: How 11 Companies are Achieving Their Marketing Objectives—140 Characters at a Time
  Twitter’s brief tweets let you communicate with friends and family. But did you know that those 140 characters can also build your business? Read Twitter Success Stories: How 11 companies are achieving their marketing objectives, 140 characters at a time.
• The Obama Playbook: How Digital Marketing and Social Media Won the Election
  Want to create a veritable army of customer-advocates to champion your brand? The Obama Playbook: How Digital Marketing and Social Media Won the Election shows you how the Obama campaign masterfully used new media to build awareness, engage prospects, and start a movement. It takes you step-by-step through the new media strategies of the campaign and provides actionable guidance on how you can modify each to benefit your business. Both entertaining and useful, it's an invaluable resource for the savvy marketer who wants to take full advantage of the amazing powers of new media.
• Facebook Success Stories
  Learn about Facebook, the fastest-growing and largest social network, and discover how you can leverage it to meet your marketing goals.
• Web 2.0 Marketing Guide
  Here's a straight shooting guide on how Web 2.0 can help you grow your business
• Blog Marketing Guide
  From establishing your company as an expert to providing a forum for testing new products, and much more, blogs can be useful, cheap and effective. Want to give it a go? This 65-page Bible of Blogging will get you started.
• Marketing Strategy Guide
  This Guide explores the three stages of effective marketing, and how you can determine which approaches will give you the greatest bang for your buck.
• Direct Marketing How-To Guide: Your Template for Optimal Media Selection for B2B Marketing
  Find out what's new, what's hot and what's not in B2B marketing trends.
• Email Marketing How-To Guide
  Get the most up-to-date info on email marketing. Step-by-step guides and answers to all those annoying questions about contradicting metrics.
• Small Biz How-To Guide: Positioning, Naming & Taglines
  Spot-on positioning leads to names that attract customers and taglines that sing. Get your small business on the track to marketing success.
• Small Biz How-To Guide: Market Research
  Need to learn about your customers without the big price tag of market research firms? This guide on do-it-yourself market research will help you get the information you need to position your business without emptying the corporate coffers.
• Small Biz How-To Guide: Avoiding Key Pitfalls
  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.
• E-Newsletter How-To Guide
  The e-newsletter has become ubiquitous. Almost a dime a dozen. How do you make yours not only stand out in the inbox, but make a positive impact on your bottom line? This guide will show you how.
• Marketing Metrics How-To Guide
  Metrics is the guiding light of your marketing efforts. Without measurements, you're operating in the dark. Make sure you are tracking the right metrics, and get tips on interpreting the data with this comprehensive guide.
• SWOT Analysis How-To Guide
  This comprehensive, step-by-step how-to guide will help you assess the position in the market of your product or firm, by identifying the product's Strengths and Weaknesses, by considering the potential Opportunities the product has in the marketingplace, and by assessing the potential Threats posed by either the competition or the marketplace.
• Online Research How-To Guide
  Set clear objectives and a realistic scope to online research projects. These are just two of the steps that this comprehensive, step-by-step planning guide will help you to accomplish to insure your online research results in the most relevant and useful information possible.
• Lead Generation How-To Guide
  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.
• B2B Direct Marketing How-To Guide
  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.
• Conducting a Marketing Job Search
  Here's your guide to landing that perfect marketing job. Complete with exercises, checklists, and a whole boatload of advice, you can be on your way to a better, more challenging, and more rewarding position.
• Your Career Management Guide
  As marketers, you juggle many projects, priorities, and agendas all at the same time. This life of multitasking sometimes means you forget one of your most important professional projects: managing your career. Although we can't help you find the time to manage your career, this template to managing your career can tell you how. With exercises, checklists and step-by-step guidelines on how to make this lifelong project - your career - your biggest professional success.

Most Recent: See all 38 downloads

Most Recent Daily Chirp for the busy professional

• McCafé? McProfits!
  Looks like the recent $100 million ad blitz for the McCafé seems to be working. The McDonald's experiment in the specialty coffee arena may now have bumped Dunkin' Donuts from the No. 2 spot. But how? more
• iPhone Tops Blackberry in Smartphone Loyalty
  Nearly 4 in 10 Blackberry and other smartphone users (38%) would switch to Apple's iPhone as their next smartphone purchase, but only 14% of non-Blackberry smartphone users would switch to a Blackberry. more
• Know What Happens When You Don't Advertise? Google Knows.
  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
• Commercial Break: Target, Brand New Day
  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 Target's "New Day" commercial. more
• Twitter and Trolls and Squatters... Oh My!
  Recently, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter for the misappropriation of his name by an anonymous account holder (the now vacant @TonyLaRussa) who had a whopping four followers. One issue that the incident brings to mind is Web anonymity and the plethora of online trolls, squatters, and the like that reside on social sites such as Twitter and Digg. more
• iComicRelief
  Apple has certainly captured the heart of consumers across the globe with the iPhone, and it recently announced new, upgraded models at the WWDC Conference this past week, after having recently hit 1 billion app downloads at the iTunes store. more
• Marketing Addictionary: 'Bird-of-mouth'
  Bird-of-mouth (noun): The spreading of news or information via Twitter. more
• Streaming Music 2.0
  Top 40. Jazz. Alternative. To stream music online, you have several choices. Whether you want radio or individual songs, some of the more popular sites are radio paradise Pandora, Last.fm, iLike and imeem—and a relatively new site. more
• Website URLs Are so 2005
  Social network popularity is growing. So much that even TV is noticing. Major brands now list URLs not to their websites but to the social networks that they're on. "Look for us on Facebook" or "Follow us on Twitter" is becoming more widespread. more
• Commercial Break: Get a Mac, Bean Counter
  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 one of the Get a Mac ads, a series that began in 2006 and is still as humorous, and popular, as ever. more
• We Love Eric
  We've seen the power of Twitter's community used for good: spreading vital information during natural disasters, distributing Amber Alerts, and raising money for charities. Now imagine using not only Twitter's power but also the celebrity of the Nine Inch Nails. more
• Marketing Addictionary: 'Badvocate'
  Badvocate: (noun): People who passionately criticize or detract from companies, brands, or products. more
• Get Creative
  We've seen some great creative ads in the past, both online and on television. Now imagine that you could be the brains behind a nationwide ad. Well, Panasonic gives you this opportunity with its Next Generation Talent competition. more
• Eyes Glued Open: Video on the Internet
  Media—from television to Internet video sites like YouTube and Hulu—consume more and more of our time nowadays. A Nielsen quarterly report gauges the influence of these media in our every daily lives. The findings are eye-opening. more
• Commercial Break: Trust Condoms, One Love
  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 a commercial about a subject that still makes some people squirm: condoms. more
• New Brain in Town
  There's a new thinker in town, and its name is Wolfram Alpha—a "computational knowledge engine." It can handle some complex searches, and it's quite different from how Google functions. more
• Marketing Addictionary: 'Emalfeasance'
  Emalfeasance (noun): A particular kind of guilt caused by a pile of unanswered email. more
• Air New Zealand Baring It All
  Airline travel of late has become decidedly less of a joy. Planes are crowded and passengers are nickel-and-dimed at nearly every opportunity—for bottles of water, blankets, checked baggage, and so on. Which makes for a perfect opportunity for an outfit like Air New Zealand. more
• Commercial Break: Honda's 'Cog'
  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
• 'Mainstream' Is Not a Target Market
  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
• Marketing Addictionary: 'Headfake'
  Headfake (noun): A situation in which you are familiar with a person's online avatar picture, which gives you an inaccurate idea of how that person appears in real life. more
• How Much Has Apple Really Made from iPhone Apps?
  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
• Entrepreneurs Can Change the World
  A video can empower. It can inspire, creating a moment or a feeling that moves you to sally forth and conquer the world. It can leave you feeling capable and invincible and energized, all at once. Like this one does. more
• Commercial Break: Nestle's Sweet Dreams You Can't Resist
  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 Nestle's "Sweet Dreams You Can't Resist." more
• Google: New Media Meets Old Media
  Google has always been considered a giant in the online world—it's even been said it rules the Internet. But one medium it hasn't ventured into is television. Until now, that is. more