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- From Smartphones to Smart Everything: The 'Smart' Revolution (Part 2: a Presentation)
Tailored to marketers, this presentation covers what the Smart Revolution is and why you need to begin focusing on these emerging technologies. It also lays out a five-point framework of best-practices, with examples.
Compared with the creation of original content, curation can be a faster and easier way to generate content. But bad curation can damage your brand's credibility and potentially lead to legal issues. Here's how to do content curation right.
In professional services, relationships and referrals are the anchor of business development. In the past, those referrals were driven by geographic proximity. Today, conducting business from afar is the new norm, so how can professional services reach far-away prospects? Enter content marketing.
Whether in the form of a book, a movie, or a marketing campaign, great storytelling will always resonate with audiences. As consumers become increasingly mobile and social, however, they want to interact with the story, not just be exposed to it.
The winner of the "Best B2B Marketing Project" Bright Bulb Award during the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum offers takeaways based on common themes between her tradeshow campaign and the Forum's main messages.
Responsive Web design has become the gold standard for website redesign projects due to its fluid nature and ability to adapt to the size of device screens.
Here are some specific tactics for getting more happy customers to share the good word about your business, product, or service.
We are about to move from an age of smartphones... to an era of smart everything. And in this era, technology will not only change how we market our brands but also transform the core brands themselves.
Envisioning the future of the mobile marketing industry is certainly challenging. Nevertheless, to guide marketers through the 2014 mobile planning process, outlined here are some important trends and innovations.
Thoughtful, eye-catching animation in email has the ability to compliment a marketing message rather than distract from it. Here are three ways Emma customers have used animated GIFs to make their email campaigns pop.
Instagram launched its ad-supported model with an ad for a Michael Kors watch that showed up in the feeds of Instagram's users on Nov. 1. Three experts weigh in on how Instagram can become a successful platform for marketers and advertisers.
If you're interested in getting your brand in front of a larger audience, one way to do so is to create high-quality, engaging, and informative video content for your target market. Google's Hangouts on Air can help you do exactly that.
Apple customers are emerging as an important new demographic, accounting for a massive 89% of mobile commerce sales. It's time to apply that knowledge.
Small businesses can't go toe to toe against large retailers on Black Friday. It's just not a fair fight... But small businesses can still capitalize on Black Friday in ways the Big Box stores can't or don't.
Your plate is full... every day: payroll, inventory, scheduling, employee issues... the list goes on and on. Now, Small Business Saturday is around the corner, and some of you are asking, "Is it worth adding to my plate?"
In this, the third of three articles focusing on how the professions—lawyers, consultants, accountants, etc.—can effectively market using new/digital media, I focus on LinkedIn.
There is plenty of proof out there that trust is not just good for one-on-one relationships, it's also good for business. Building trust can reap higher response rates, loyalty, and revenue.
Your "About" page is one of the most popular destinations on your website. Leaving your "About" page in sub-par condition is costing you more than you think. So why have we been ignoring the quality of this valuable space?
Google has introduced a search results section dubbed "in-depth articles," which present some great new opportunities to content marketers. Here's the nitty-gritty on how to take advantage of those opportunities.
Whether you are new to content marketing or you are looking to re-evaluate your current resources, keeping these four steps in mind will help you assemble your dream team.
Even in utterly banal optimization methods, you can find something new—something that will differentiate you from competitors and will increase visitor numbers and sales.
Whether your goal is to obtain a seat at the table or to prove the value of Marketing—or more easily obtain approval for your budget—you need a viable relationship with Finance.
Two characteristics are a mark of successful digital marketing: keeping your outreach in bite-size portions, and marketing with a personal touch.
It is that time of year again, when employees are forced to attend a "morale-building event" that does nothing of the sort. But if you consider these five elements, a holiday party actually can be a fabulous bonding opportunity and an event to look forward to.
Selecting the right qualitative researcher for your marketing project is critical, because a lot of money and your credibility are on the line. So make sure to ask these five questions when selecting a qualitative researcher/moderator.
Declining email open rates... Chances are, they bother you as a marketer. Don't fret, here's both a diagnostic checklist as well as suggestions on alternative, more useful ways to measure email marketing performance.
New accountability expectations across sales and marketing departments, coupled with increased demand for online content, are changing the playing field for sales teams. How you connect with your prospects can ultimately have an impact on meeting sales goals.
As customers change, the channels of engagement morph, and data explodes, ultimately it's going to be the partnership between IT and Marketing that will be the lynchpin to grasping new, emerging opportunities.
Professional services marketing is not normally known for early adoption of cutting-edge techniques, likely because its role tends to revolve around reducing risk for clients. But the world has changed, and there's now a new normal.
Rich media, social media, and native advertising may be making the headlines these days, but let's face it: They don't work for everyone. You know what does? Email marketing. Nothing delivers results like email.
Some of the most progressive brands have discovered quantifiable marketing success in what may seem like an unlikely place: philanthropy. Here's how you can align your marketing with philanthropy using existing marketing assets.
Real-time marketing isn't necessarily new, but marketers are now scrambling to understand how they can integrate it into their marketing mix. Here are a few tips to get started.
Mobile is personal, with every feature, sound, and function customizable. To capture mobile's potential, marketers must personalize the mobile experience for customers. Here are easy-to-implement tactics to do just that.
Stories have always been vehicles via which we communicate and perceive truth. So, for growth-minded retailers and consumer brands, omni-channel success hinges on the ability to deliver cross-channel brand stories that are engaging, memorable, and consistent.
There's been plenty of speculation about the death of outbound marketing in recent years. In fact, however, outbound marketing still efficiently drives leads and sales.
Though social media may feel as if it has been around for a while, it's important to remember that it's just picking up steam and there will be continued growth and disruption in how consumers use social platforms.
Adopting lean principles for your mobile strategy ensures that complexity, rigidity, and friction are replaced with simplicity, adaptability, and speed.
It's OK, you can say it: Online leads are a pain in the neck. One problem is that many firms treat online leads like traditional leads, but online leads are live—more like an inbound phone call or a face-to-face customer.
It is easy to become so focused on creating content for your blog, and marketing it properly, that you forget to periodically check its health. Here's how to turn a dusty blog around for increased conversions and SEO.
Bela Lugosi's portrayal of the creepy count continues to inform all depictions of vampires on screen and in books. Because of that consistency and memorability, Dracula can teach us lessons about branding.
A mobile marketing strategy is crucial to an online retailer's success these days, and here's how to get your strategy working for you ASAP.
Time is not just money, it's a factor in the efficiency of your CRM strategy. Here are five ways you can have a more productive day with your CRM—one for each day of the week.
This holiday season, customer-centric brands have an opportunity to up the ante for their consumer shopping experiences with an ace in the hole: Big Data.
Especially in social media, if there isn't an immediate and significant response to an initiative, it's deemed a waste of time. But before you rush to judgment, give your effort an honest assessment against these three basic criteria.
Sometimes you struggle to get your firm's executives to recognize the power of good writing. You edit their text, but they put the jargon and longwinded language back in. But you can win over your subject-matter experts.
E-commerce is one of the hottest trends in B2B marketing. Inspired by B2C e-commerce sites, buyers and procurers are demanding that their B2B suppliers deliver buying experiences comparable to those of leading online retailers.
From social media to retargeting ads, marketers continue to add new communication channels, and with each one we add the ability to sell but we also increase our ability to annoy.
How do you make the transition from marketing strategy to actionable tactics in time for the holiday season? Here are three ways you can integrate social—and mobile—engagement into your holiday campaigns.
The resurgence in storytelling, the original social medium, is an important and welcome evolution for many reasons. Memorable stories scale in a way that facts alone cannot. In a world of noise, the best stories win.
Low conversion rates, users that leave your site without engaging, and blatantly falsified registration data are the obvious symptoms of a broken registration system. Consider the following five best-practices for online registration that have been proven to increase conversion rates for leading B2B brands.
The Scenario: You want to email a list of people who have not opted in to get email from you (i.e., you have an "opt-out" list).
Private companies and investment firms are no longer forbidden from advertising that they are seeking investors. But their marketers and PR professionals still need to stay on the right side of the law.
Google has delivered a one-two punch in the past few weeks, announcing that organic keyword data will no longer be available and that it has released the Hummingbird update.
Over the last few months Google has secretly rolled out an algorithmic update called "Hummingbird." Upon hearing of it, many in the SEO community panicked...
Most content marketing is intelligent and strategic and professional. But it's also a bit... limp. Middle-of-the-road. Safe. It's lacking the "C word." But Ann Handley pointed out it's lacking something else, too.
I once had to call on a prospect 52 times before we were invited to pitch. But the last client I picked up at my current firm took exactly one call and a meeting over beers. Exact same result. Far less effort and expense.
Not enough time to find the best content to share with your audience? Too many articles to read to keep up with what's going on in your industry? These seven low-cost tools will help you to find and share great content.
I hear a lot of excuses about why marketing automation won't work: My company is too small; my product is too transactional; my leads don't respond; my porridge is too cold...
So what do C-suite executives need to know about SEO? (Hint: it has more to do with enterprisewide collaboration than actual SEO skills like programming or copywriting.)
Email marketing is the perfect tool to grow your website traffic or boost your Web shop's conversion rates. But to do so, recipients first have to click the hyperlinks you included in your email.
Despite your overwhelming work schedule, you can still capitalize on social media for learning and for supporting your career and business objectives. Here's how.
There may be whispers of it in the workplace, but if learning leaders haven't heard a lot about gamification yet, they will in the near future.
I got to interview Albert Einstein. It was insane. And he told me the secret to online content! Here's how it all went down.
Today's B2B marketers find themselves confronting a rapidly shifting landscape. Let's look at how you can tap into five developing trends that can help you steer your way to success.
There's a difference between being a service organization to Sales and being a value generator for the company. As marketing professionals, our future depends on being the latter. Let's clarify the difference.
My friend Joe Pulizzi today releases a new book on the evolution of content and marketing. Joe is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute, and his new book is called Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less.
Just as press releases were about to go the way of the horse and buggy, SEO saved that workhorse of public relations. But Google again changed the rules, stripping most SEO value away from press releases. Now what?
For most e-commerce providers, the question isn't whether video content should be a part of the brand's e-commerce strategy, but how to harness video content effectively and efficiently, and in a way that generates measurable returns to the brand.
Very few businesses run entirely online, which means most are going to have offline advertising campaigns. Make visiting your website one of your offline calls to action, and you can assign attribution. That approach is actually quite common, but it's often poorly executed.
As a marketer, your every encounter with a smartphone-toting consumer should be considered an opportunity: They want to buy. You want to sell. But how do you make the connection happen?
Tradeshows are where up-to-the-second media such as Twitter come into their own, helping make the physical event virtual, and bringing something very localized to a wider—and potentially global—audience.
Ed Abrams, vice-president of marketing for IBM's small and midsize business unit, offers tips for SMBs on social strategy, content marketing, and running a social business.
In search results, keyword-to-landing page correlation can be unpredictable; however, you can take certain actions to increase the chances of a better match. Here are seven steps to get the right page to rank for the keyword you target.
Social media has proven itself an invaluable venue for businesses promoting their products and specials, but its value doesn't end there. Here are five ways CMOs can start getting more out of social media today.
This year, the number of people browsing the Web from mobile phones is expected to surpass the number using laptops, tablets, and desktop computers combined. App use has similarly exploded. So how can you make your app stand out from the crowd?
Video appeared on the scene so suddenly that marketers are still learning how to use it effectively. Here's a look at three forces shaping the evolution of content marketing, and the crucial role video plays within each.
How can brands encourage social sharing via Facebook? By deploying social engagement apps to showcase campaigns and content. And the basic best-practices for boosting engagement on Facebook fall into three main categories.
Hashtags are powerful, useful tools for marketing, communication, and driving engagement. They are an excellent way to break through the noise of the Internet and reach valuable audiences.
You might not think much about it, but we experience the world through colors. Every day, in all we do, we respond to the colors around us. That has implications for your marketing.
Rather than just throwing money at content creation, taking a "quality over quantity" approach can reap greater rewards. Here's how a "less is more" approach to content can create the maximum marketing impact.
So you've created some great content that can be used for natural link-building, but what if you want to give it an extra push? (And if you're an SEO, you're more than likely inclined to want to.)
All companies should have a social media strategy built into their crisis communications plan that includes multiple modes of delivering a message. When a crisis hits, you can't wait until tomorrow's paper to resolve it.
"People who think well, write well," said David Ogilvy. Good writing is the clearest indicator of good thinking. You also need love and commitment.
Event attendees have come to expect more from their time and investment in meetings and events. These five trends are a response to those expectations and will shape event management success in the year ahead.
With over 72 hours of video content being uploaded every minute, the days of creating a video, posting it on YouTube, and assuming viewers will find it... are a thing of the past. How do you break through the clutter and succeeed in sharing your message?
You are now in a position to execute an informed conversion rate optimization program—one designed to address the most important and promising areas of improvement.
"It's complicated" would be the proper way to describe the love/hate relationship between Sales and Marketing. But it doesn't have to be that way. Having been on both sides of the fence, I have a few tips to offer to my fellow marketers. Hopefully, these tips will help make your Sales stakeholders fall in love with you.
Understanding visitor intent is at the heart of conversion rate optimization. How do you effectively harvest intent-related information from the Internet?
Historically, personalized targeting has been done through direct mail, sending offers to segmented lists, targeted at personas. So how can you achieve the same level of segmentation and targeting in the digital world?
Today's consumers are mobile, on the go, sending and receiving messages of all types. The fundamental practices outlined in this article provide a solid foundation for how to communicate with mobile subscribers appropriately and comfortably using SMS.
Social media conversations are shifting from text to pictures, making images the new language of fan engagement. How can you harness this engagement to build stronger relationships with fans? Here are three easy ways.
Relationships begin with an introduction. In the case of Twitter (and social media in general), your profile picture is a big part of that introduction—your first impression. Don't blow it...
Whether you're completely new to marketing automation or already approaching pro status, there are several things you can and should be doing. Here are a few ways to integrate and automate your digital marketing, along with a few tips for beginners, intermediate users, and automation experts.
How can a brand be sure that its investment in TV, Internet, radio, or other media is paying off at the checkout counter? Companies must follow the entire customer path and attribute the sale correctly. Otherwise, marketers can flunk one of the most profitable sale seasons of the year.
Most companies have only a basic mobile optimization strategy, if any at all, so here are five tips for taking your email to the small screen.
Most SMBs may not realize that it is possible—and affordable—to target relevant consumers in close proximity to their stores by using an online, neighborhood-level targeting approach.
Creating a tradeshow booth can be difficult. Here are some helpful tips to get you started as you plan, design, and create an effective booth that can be used for many years to promote your company.
Just how do you optimize your funnel, and shuttle visitors quickly along their way to the experience that will turn them not just into a conversion but into engaged users who love your product and spread the word to their friends?
Although websites were introduced over 20 years ago, the vast majority still function on old-school paradigms. Here's where most websites are getting it wrong—and how you can get it right with your own site.
How do you know where to start when jumping into website optimization? As easy as crossing the street, building a testing strategy oriented to the needs or your users all starts with stop, look, and listen.
To portray data effectively, use simple and informed graphs to reveal the story behind the data. This article focuses on how to apply data visualization techniques in marketing operations to make a real impact.
A good way to think about your marketing operations function is that it could operate either as a pit crew or as a service station. Both maintain and support a car's (or Marketing's) performance, so what's the difference?
Over the past few weeks, email marketers have been criticizing Gmail for its new interface. Some are saying that it's delivering a "spammy" experience for users, while others are sounding the alert that Gmail open rates have already started to decline.
In the last two months, Google has trampled on the rulebook with the introduction of its Promotions tab in Gmail and the addition of email-style advertising. Here's what you need to do to prepare.
You've probably heard the saying, "It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission." All too often I hear from marketers and business owners who find themselves considering such an unfortunate choice. Here's what to do instead.
In Part 1, we began the examination of how emotion and logic operate in the buying cycle, and we covered what sort of content to produce for the Awareness stage. This week, the remaining four stages of the buying cycle...
In Argo, which won the Best Picture Oscar, the filmmakers followed what I now call the Argo rule: Lure them in, keep them engaged end-to-end, and keep them talking about you long after it is over. Your corporate storytelling can do the same.
Is your LinkedIn business page up there with the best? It should be... After all, it's a sought-after online destination for business networking, hiring, and even financing.
Strong customer relationships drive sales, sustainability, and growth, especially in today's economy. Regardless of your industry, follow these five tips for stronger and healthier customer relationships.
Naming your new company or product is a huge opportunity. Get it right, and you could put your brand on the map, generate buzz, and spark interest among customers. Get it wrong, and you might render your brand invisible—or call attention to it for all the wrong reasons.
The good news is that you don't need an MBA and you needn't have taken an accounting class to figure out the basics of your cost structure and an associated billable rate.
Here are three sets of email best-practices for turning prospects into actual customers, extracting value from active customers who eagerly make purchases, and retaining customers for the long term.
The saying "people buy on emotion and rationalize with logic" has been around so long that people rarely question it. But in content marketing, you need to question it. Otherwise, you run the risk of either not providing people the right information or—worse—alienating your audience.
All marketing practitioners are seeking ways to save money and get a bigger bang for their budget buck. How to do that isn't at all obvious. But, sometimes, the answer can be staring you in the face!
Attention is a scarce resource—and that means it's a costly one. In a world of hundreds of competing voices, art and music have become a powerful way to bring a brand back into the spotlight.
The passionate emotional enthusiasm (and sizable financial expenditures) that 1D inspires among its massive global fan base is not a fluke: It's the result of a meticulously nurtured loyalty-building strategy.
In our world of branding and marketing, we know how crucial it is to share knowledge and information among colleagues and teams. But what if you have marketers working in different locations and time zones across the world?
Today's marketers have a lot of questions about programmatic advertising: Where do I start? If I automate my bids, will I be sacrificing quality for "low rent" inventory? How much control will I have over where my ads appear?
To unlock long-term love for our brands and set the stage for strong lasting connections, one simply has to look at and apply basic human relationship principles. Here are five ways you can keep the spark alive and forge a devoted, lasting connection to consumers.
Want to get frighteningly good at content marketing? Take a trip with me to the dark side. Off we go... venturing into some scary territory: the human psyche. Who knows what we'll find...
Purpose-driven marketing is used to grow and sustain a business, but the overall idea is to help a business understand where it's going and then act effectively. Here are a few questions that will help you understand your company's purpose and its ability to change.
Your life is increasingly mobile. And to support your mobile lifestyle, MarketingProfs is giving away an iPad Mini to one lucky MarketingProfs member.
Innovative marketing campaigns may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the agricultural industry, but these four campaigns have something to share with any marketer—ag-focused or not.
If you ask people about their preferences, their answers aren't always accurate. But by tracking and analyzing behavioral data gathered during webcasts you'll be able to "hear" what your customers and prospects really think.
We all knew that one day the government would catch up with this thing called "social media." It was only a matter of time. But it's somewhat surprising that the TTB, FDA, and FTC are starting to consider it a type of advertising.
For most software purchases, you identify a business process that could be accomplished more efficiently with the help of technology. Then you buy it. Then you use it. Then your life becomes easier. For marketers, however, it's not that simple. (Of course not, we're marketers!)
What is it that regularly blows apart business development efforts and causes marketing to fail? The lack of follow up. Yes, it can be uncomfortable to do for professionals, but it isn't hard; anyone can do it.
A classic email conundrum: How do I prevent or minimize unsubscribes from my email list? First, accept them as a fact of life and don't take them personally. Then, take these five steps to mitigate unsubscribes.
You send a great proposal, but now the client says your costs are too high. Should you reduce your rates to win the job, or should you stick to your guns and risk losing the project altogether?
Like agile software development, agile marketing relies on speed, lots of communication, rapid iteration, and highly measurable results. Let's take a closer look at this emerging discipline.
Here's what you need to know to make sure you filter out the riffraff and find an agency partner that actually jibes with your company and, most important, helps your bottom line.
We certainly are moving toward a digital world, and QR codes are part of that evolution. But QR codes do not replace print; they can, nevertheless, supplement it in new, unique, and interesting ways.
Inaccurate myths surround the print industry, leaving many with the wrong impression. That misinformation can lead to missed opportunities and a weaker marketing presence for your brand.
Nothing beats face-to-face communication, which is why live events are still vital to your branding mix. At many companies, though, events have grown stale. Here's what's you can do to reinvent your events.
Marketing nirvana is liberation from a deluded marketing mind—the one that imagines it can persuade people to do things they don't truly believe in or desire. Enlightened marketers, on the other hand, understand the realities of today's savvy and well-connected marketplace.
Yes, buyers leave breadcrumbs behind them, in the form of data, with every online click or in-store interaction. But mountains of data don't solve a core problem: How do you use that data for insight into buyer behavior?
If you can't retain a customer, you'll need to spend 6-7 times more to find a new one. By using a mobile app and focusing on the following three areas, you can promote customer loyalty and help retain your most valuable customers.
For marketers, achieving a high email open rate is highly desirable, and it is often a key metric for shedding light onto the effectiveness of a campaign. The following 10 best-practices ensure open rates are as high as possible.
Your brand has a story, which is nearly impossible to tell without some form of digital media. Managing those media assets effectively is an important skill. Here are five ways you can manage media assets while keeping the focus on telling your story.
B2B marketing—at least in the tech world—is starting to mirror the simple marketing, transparent pricing, and frictionless buying process that we see in the B2C world. Here are four ways that B2B marketers can "consumerize" their marketing.
You can master many tasks as a social media marketer, yet remain amazingly mediocre. That's because the world's best social media marketers possess more meaningful skills, including these 10 traits.
Samuel Clemens created the cherished celebrity known as Mark Twain as surely and craftily as he created Huck Finn. The man had "platform" a century before the concept had circulation.
Though hundreds of millions of QR Codes are being generated every year, it seems customers are not scanning them as much as marketers were expecting. The key to unlocking that problem is engagement.
Can a computer really understand and interpret your customer's needs? We know computers can win in Jeopardy! and chess, but can they compete on personal interaction? In business to customer communication, it seems a computer just might, in many instances.
Zombie takeovers are the monster event of the moment. And they hold lessons for us marketers. In addition to learning to never get bitten, and to sever heads off completely, those lessons include some worthwhile marketing tactics.
Many online marketers get too wrapped up in measuring data that, though useful, is not the most important for understanding how your website is performing as a marketing channel. Here are five online marketing metrics you should be looking at every day.
By day, I am a marketing manager, and I truly enjoy what I do. By night, I am a comedian. The basic principles of improvisational comedy have proved useful not only in marketing but also in other areas of my professional life.
The typical business communications mistakes I read and hear rarely reach the level of farce or slapstick. They're more missteps that detract from your message. Here are three of them to avoid.
Marketing is full of choices, so let's have some fun with the social platforms of choice: What social media outpost works best your brand? And which do you love to use personally? And which would you choke, if you could?
Apple just unveiled iOS7—a radical transformation of the world's most popular smartphone and tablet operating system. Apple is preparing for a rapidly evolving mobile world, and so should marketers. Here's how.
Events used to be about getting bodies in the door, then delivering a message to a captive audience and hoping it sticks. But today's busy professionals—attendees and event organizers alike—don't have time for such a haphazard method.
Good personal branding is all about presenting yourself as both personable and professional. In this article you'll find seven tools and services to help you automate the growth of your personal (or business) brand.
If there's a bible for this new media world in which we do business, it's David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR. A revised and updated edition (its fourth!) of the classic is out this month. David and I had a chance to sit down and talk about what's new in new marketing.
Before I ventured into the exciting world of digital marketing, I had a short career with the Israeli Defense Forces. Some of the lessons I learned during my service apply to my current role managing people as well as marketing campaigns.
The new world order of media and advertising demands that brands find new ways to drive consumer engagement. They must now look for ways to optimize paid, owned, and earned media. And the Holy Grail is to integrate all three sources of media into a single, consistent brand experience.
The recognition of digital user interface's importance seems to be slowly sinking into corporate culture the way "brand" did a couple of decades ago. Branding agencies need to hire or train great UX people, and CMOs must start managing digital UI/UX as an asset alongside the branding asset, because they are inherently intertwined.
If you're a B2B marketer, you've likely felt the frustration of trying to give Sales the materials it needs. You even ask what they want and follow their direction to the letter—and they STILL don't use what you create. Why?
Because Google has transformed its free Google Product Search into the paid Google Shopping service, retailers must re-evaluate their comparison shopping engine strategies, asking themselves a host of questions.
Can a marketer combine free and paid YouTube promo methods in a campaign? Of course. Moreover, if you do it the smart way, each individual method becomes more effective.
Companies looking for more profitable growth often turn to three common strategies. But each has a major flaw that causes leaks in precious margin. Here are counterintuitive ideas to make each strategy more effective.
One tool for Twitter stands above the rest, yet everyone already has access to it. In fact, it's right in front of your face every time you're on Twitter. And if you're a marketer, you can't afford to overlook it.
Whether you've never had a logo developed for your small business or you suspect your logo isn't everything it could be, these five rules for your brand can help guide the process of creating or updating your logo.
Demand Success conference keynote speaker Arianna Huffington gave attendees her take on marketing today, as well as on how the workplace needs to change to sustain the wellbeing of employees.
Although online video might not be the easiest marketing technique to take on, more businesses are carving out time and resources to ensure it's on their list. Why? Because its benefits are so many.
Online shoppers who have an unsatisfying shopping experience at a website are unlikely to make a purchase from that site again. Here are three tips to help you succeed with customer experience monitoring before that shopping cart is abandoned.
We're drowning in data. We generate it from our own activity or research; we collect and capture tons more from external sources. But action doesn't always follow collection. And more data does not always translate into better insights.
Despite its current popularity, brand reputation management is not a new concept, but today it's about actively managing the references, conversations, and feedback that typically occur online. Here are seven key areas you should address.
As summer approaches, some of us will hit the gym in hopes of being swimsuit-ready. The more we exercise, the easier it becomes. That's because we're building up our endurance and creating a habit. Content marketing is the same way. When we stretch our creative muscles and get into the habit of producing content, it becomes almost second nature.
Recently, a client told me he wanted to share his content with a larger audience and reach out to prospects, but added, "I don't have time for Twitter. It's trivial. I want to get into serious social media." I gave Jason Falls a call to help me out.
Competing on price is not a sustainable strategy for most businesses. So, instead of asking "how low can I go?" ask "how high can I set the bar to deliver an experience that connects with my customers?"
Now, more than ever, buyers have more control over the sales cycle. Marketers must therefore evolve with the buying cycle and find new ways to own the early part of the sales process. How? Here are a few steps in the journey toward a buyer-centric marketing automation strategy.
Many see content marketing as just that—marketing. But smart marketers know that what they're delivering is a great story—so long as it's a true story, even if it's not perfect...
You know the importance of SEO, but building a program can be overwhelming. If the thought of SEO makes your head hurt, here's a tried and tested guide on how to create and execute a killer SEO keyword strategy.
No matter what you're selling or promoting, video should be a consideration. Technology is no longer a hurdle, but coming up with the right message, tone, and approach can be. Here's a brief intro to bring you up to speed.
You want return visitors who are engaged by your blog content, because they are the folks most likely to convert to customers. The following "secrets" will help you turn casual visitors into loyal fans.
Finding nine minutes and spending them building your brand isn't difficult if you develop the nine-minute habit. Here are nine tips and tricks—and an infographic—for making nine minutes a day work for you.
Timely, pithy, and unique content is critical to establishing awareness and trust with your audience. The need for you to produce content is not going away. So how do you make content work for your brand?
If you're like most B2B sellers, you've seen the features and functions available in the consumer e-commerce marketplace and realized that your company's website is woefully inadequate for delivering similar online experiences. Here are some tips to start fixing that problem.
Little attention has been paid to the importance of being better at receiving and processing email. So, here are my tips to help you process email more efficiently, free up hours of otherwise wasted time, and reduce your stress level.
Before you can use a new channel, you must create a strategy around it. But many marketers struggle to create strategies. So, how can you begin to chart a successful social media route? Map out these five areas.
Many marketing professionals are having serious challenges in executing a content marketing program at a very basic level. How can you address those challenges and implement a successful content marketing program? By following these four steps.
Being visible and available is something you must do every day so you can attract ideal opportunities and advance your career. Here are nine activities you can easily slot into nine minutes to help you stand out, get noticed, and achieve your goals.
Gutenberg's invention has had a fantastic run. But it's time for content marketers to cut the ink-stained umbilical cord and become digital content marketers.
As a marketer, how can you effectively use brand images in social marketing? What are some proven tips and tricks to incorporate images into your social content mix? Here are four practical ways to incorporate images into your social media marketing programs.
Most bloggers don't know how to emotionally connect with readers and get them sucked into their blog posts and articles. Here, I want to give you five easy tactics to instantly transform an ordinary blog post into an empathetic work of art.
Larger companies may be less concerned about the direct correlation between content marketing efforts and deals. But, for the rest of us, it's critical. So, how do you gauge the power of content and the value of your content marketing initiatives?
In the show "Undercover Boss," senior execs go undercover as frontline employees to see how the company is really doing and what customers experience. CMOs should try that, too—with these outside-the-box ideas.
Understanding the power of stories is one thing; knowing how to craft them is another. So, let's delve into some practical applications of story. I'll use case studies, annual reports, and video as examples.
J. Peterman is a brand with far more personality than most. However, somehow, it got lost along the winding road to the social Web, and it's a tragedy that's costing the cataloger. Here are our ideas to engage the J. Peterman fan base.
Many companies at all stages invest time in planning but lack the processes and leadership needed to ensure a strategy achieves the desired results. Failure is expensive and wastes precious resources. To avoid both and to achieve execution success, check out these four tips.
Many career-minded marketing professionals we coach tell us they are too busy working in their career to work on it. Sound familiar? If so, it's time to switch from autopilot to manual mode and deliberately manage your career.
First impressions matter a great deal. That's why you need to structure your sales calls to establish rapport and drive toward a sense of trust and camaraderie with your prospects. Here are three tips for success on that first call.
A lot of marketing organizations today think that they are on the path to greater insight because they now have analytics technology. The reality is that it takes a significant investment in four foundational areas to ensure analytics success. Here's a look at each area.
Want to market your small business online? Doing so isn't difficult. Just make sure to produce quality content and authentic messages. Here are seven ways to get started with your online marketing.
Through apps or the mobile Web, on a phone or tablet, consumers are watching more and more video on mobile, and now you have some figuring out to do lest you get stuck in the last century. Here are seven steps to get started planning your mobile content strategy.
Many companies turn to newer, hotter media and technology when they want to increase profits. But being successful isn't about tech; it's about effectively engaging customers. Here are three ways to do that.
Google Analytics is a great free tool for e-commerce websites. It can allow marketers and webmasters to record specific data about items purchased, learn how a user navigates the website, and focus on specific, actionable ways to increase sales.
Social networks were meant for real humans—for real-life conversations about real-life things. But, of course, we marketers saw an opportunity. Social media can become a powerful medium... so long as you preserve a human face while acting on behalf of your company.
Value propositions are the heart, soul, and epicenter of a business. They reflect its market positioning while communicating the core promises it makes to its customers. Let's look at three smart organizations innovating their value propositions through mobile.
Though email campaign process metrics such as delivery, open, and click-through rates have their place, if you don't look beyond them... the true impact of your email marketing—and opportunities for continuous improvement—will go undetected.
Positive ratings and 5-star reviews from online consumers are powerful marketing content, because consumers trust other consumers for purchasing advice. But few marketers have integrated reviews into their social marketing.
The time has come for air travel and hospitality brands to address an existential threat to the travel industry: Customer loyalty has all but vanished.
Moving from one-size-fits-all broadcasting to highly targeted communications that are personalized and timely, and in the consumers' preferred channel... that's the proven path to marketing success in today's world.
One of the toughest marketing jobs today is working for an app developer. Here's how text messaging can attract new users and increase engagement with customers.
The if-then logic of the marketing automation process can lead to a snarl of over-communication, with only a loose relevance to the recipient's true interests and needs. It doesn't have to be that way.
Mobile is a boon to the customer experience, because mobile provides myriad ways for marketers to delight customers and improve their experiences in ways previously unavailable.
Content marketing is not rocket science, but it can appear so in the absence of a clear-cut strategy—and planning, without which your content marketing machine will be firing on three cylinders instead of being a turbocharged V8 behemoth.
Here's the quick-and-dirty guide to being an SEO "expert," which merely means you know more than the people around you. This article will accomplish that. Well, not really... But the building blocks are all here.
When the need arises to train a large department within your organization on a new marketing campaign, or you find yourself having to relay crucial marketing information to partners or associates in a short amount of time, traditional e-learning methods just won't cut it.
Whether you think it, believe it, or discard it... the truth is that buyer personas are the start of every successful campaign. Every marketer knows that understanding your buyer is key, but every smart marketer knows that standard demographics just won't cut it anymore.
Globalization brings exciting opportunities and enormous challenges for all parts of a business, but nowhere is that more apparent than in the marketing department. Here's how to avoid five common European marketing pitfalls.
Millennials grew up with the Internet, and they are used to having everything at their fingertips. After interviews with 21 global marketing executives, we defined a five-step plan for improving your marketing to Gen-Y.
Your customers, whether consumer or executive audiences, expect you to use the same mobile technology that has improved their lives to also improve the products and services they use: your offerings.
The retail industry has recognized that critical events in customers' lives can shift loyalties, or serve as opportunities to retain or upsell via event-driven marketing. That approach can also work with B2Bs...
So where does the line get drawn between a creative, compelling email subject line and one that is deceptive (and, therefore, illegal)?
Marketing professionals can use their mobile phones to maintain efficiency on the go and professionally manage day-to-day communication demands by applying the following tips and mobile features.
Like the word "content" itself, "content strategy" is often an ambivalent term. But, however you define it, any good content strategist should have these seven skill sets.
If Pinterest is great for driving referral traffic, Instagram takes the lead in customer retention and engagement. The practices outlined here are only just starting to spread, and they will continue to do so as more brands adopt Instagram.
Lead nurturing and dinner parties require the host (marketer) to build and maintain relationships through conversation, rapport, and trust. And both involve careful planning...
As any marketer knows, sales are mission-critical to the success and survival of all companies. But what many a marketer doesn't yet fully understand is how many ways mobile can be wielded to stimulate sales... more so than via any other medium.
Why do rock stars have fans but companies have customers? The short answer: that's what rock stars and companies want to have. But if you think like a rock star, you can cultivate an army of fans for your brand. Here are four steps you need to take.
Although the dawn of the Web was nearly two decades ago, many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) still have a limited, ineffective online presence. Let's examine the top reasons SMBs are failing online.
Understanding how the customer behavior you can monitor influences the buying process... is key. Here are three areas to monitor and how to tie them to more outcome-based metrics.
The cost of managing an online crisis or reputation issue can seem limitless. Worse, bad news travels online at turbo-charged speeds: A negative tweet or nasty video can end up on mainstream media within hours. It pays to plan ahead.
In the '80s, in the days of Michael Milken and Gordon Gekko, the rule on the street was "eat your young." Nice guys finish last. Hold your information. Keep the rules to yourself. Win at all costs. No matter who or what you have to trample. But not anymore...
Conversion-rate optimization can be intimidating, especially since marketers don't have many sources of clear advice on how to avoid common pitfalls, generate strong ideas, and run tests that get real results.
The battle for attention—and, in turn, engagement—has escalated into an all-out war by marketers... and their target audiences are its victims. This article explores how to innovate brand engagement via mobile, providing three examples of companies that are doing just that.
The combination of search and social is revolutionary. Find out the search capabilities of Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ and how to search-optimize your presence on them.
The iPad is one of the best ways marketers can enhance their brand image and interact with today's mobile generation, but marketers are struggling to find innovative ways that encourage and enhance customer conversation. Here are a few basic steps you should keep in mind.
As consumers become increasingly more connected, so too will multiple shopping channels. The industry has dubbed this shift the "omni-channel" experience. Here's how, by embracing this approach, two brands significantly increased sales.
What really drives success in B2B marketing can be hard to decipher. Here are seven misconceptions about what makes for truly successful B2B marketing—and how you can steer your efforts in the right direction.
This article will help writers gain a better understanding of Google Authorship and Author/Agent rank, learn to set up their own Google Author accounts, and help protect their online work from piracy.
Though some forward-thinking businesses are already using Instagram, chances are you aren't yet, and neither are your competitors. With its universal appeal, however, Instagram is not a medium marketers should ignore. And you'd better move quickly if you want to make an impact.
Mobile devices are the first thing people reach for in the morning, and the last thing they look at before going to bed. Mobile is at the center of your customers' lives. Now, with mobile, you can be at the center of your customers' experiences.
The combination of search and social is revolutionary. Find out the search capabilities of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+—and how to search-optimize your presence on them.
Social media is quickly changing what's expected in today's customer service world. But many companies are still struggling to find a way to fit it into their customer service processes.
Anticipation and planning improve your ability to effectively cope with emergencies such as a storm—or a career crisis—even when its timing is uncertain. Those who are always prepared for an unexpected job change are likely to suffer less than those who are caught by surprise.
Weight Watchers is clearly the dominant company among weight-loss centers and programs. So what are the company's marketing secrets? Let's take a look at six savvy principles Weight Watchers has implemented to solidify its position at the top of the weight-loss stack.
Content is the treasure trove that connects customers to companies now. And where there's gold, you're bound to find miners. The problem is that far too many will be swinging a wimpy little pickax and struggling mightily to break any ground.
In the final installment of this series, we cover three mistakes: Your content doesn't tell a story; your content never leaves home; and your content never grows up.
Your "marketing universe" contains everyone you can sell to; you must expand it, or your business will stagnate. Even if you build a receptive, high-conversion audience, but then can't increase its size, you'll soon be sunk.
What's the best way to establish connections with video viewers? Storytelling. But a great story does not guarantee success. Your video's genre plays a large role in determining whether you'll meet your campaign goals.
Most people's perception of that Millennials don't like radio could do with a splash of cold, hard facts. Here are five ways you can put this phenomenal medium to work for you to reach Millennials.
The next time you confront a marketing problem, consider George Polya. What can marketers learn from the Muhammad Ali of mathematics? Problem-solving in four steps, of course. Here's a brief outline of those steps.
Landing pages aren't dead—or even unimportant—but you shouldn't be treating them as a standalone strategy. Rather, you should be focusing on the big picture: optimizing the entire customer experience.
The rise of real-time bidding (RTB) for online display advertising now allows marketing departments and agencies to build lean display ad campaigns. That's because RTB allows marketers new ways to optimize and adjust display ad campaigns on the fly.
Consumers are using social media to interact with brands, but most customer complaints and comments there remain unanswered. Big mistake! You must deal with these five types of complainers on social media.
Does your content sound like everyone else's? Did you do any research before producing your content? Do you always use the same media format? And do you tailor your content according to venue and audience?
Social media is full of numbers, but most of the time we don't use them in any actionable way... because social metrics are often too complicated. But here are some easy (but rough) calculations that will give you a general idea of success. They may not be perfect, but they will give you actionable insights you need to succeed online.
Changes in technology, marketing channels, and customer behavior challenge a lot of tried and true tactics that worked in the past. The result is fear, uncertainty, and doubt about what will work. That kind of FUD often stands in the way of necessary action.
I'm a solo-preneur and a guy, and I run a women's jewelry and accessories store. I needed data to understand women's jewelry-buying habits. So I designed a survey, ran a contest, and marketed it via lifestyle bloggers. All for less than $350. Here's how.
Seagate, a leading provider of hard drives and storage solutions, realized that they knew very little about a very big target market: college students. So it conducted focus groups to gain insight. Looking to host your own focus group? Here are steps you can take to put together a program.
Focusing on ways to increase customer retention rates is a key to real growth, but you also need to determine whether certain customers are the right fit for your business. Ask these four questions to help you decide just that.
Many marketing organizations are now placing an emphasis on the role of teleprospecting as a component of their B2B lead generation strategy. Here are seven steps (and an RFP outline) that can help you locate, evaluate, and select the right teleprospecting partner.
Many B2B marketers are still avoiding social media. They wonder whether it works and how in the world they can tell whether it's working. Let's put that excuse to rest once and for all, shall we?
"Content marketing strategy" is a phrase that gets thrown around quite a bit, but how well do we really understand it? Not well at all, which is why content marketers make these 10 content marketing mistakes.
Measurability is the battle cry of every digital marketer. The challenge is how to decide which measurements make sense based on campaign objectives. The ultimate challenge is how to optimize in real time to maximize impact on brand-marketing or direct-marketing objectives.
Getting caught up in the content marketing frenzy is easy. But content delivered in the right channel, but at the wrong time in the customer's buying process, can be a wasted touch point. You need to synchronize mix and content with the customer buying journey and lifecycle.
Although the exponential increase in the availability of customer and business data has enhanced our ability to measure success, it has also increased our chances of misunderstanding and misinterpreting it. Avoid these common errors when setting out to measure your marketing efforts
The idea of unlimited customer insights, in real time, guiding every decision, is attractive. But before you embark on a Big Data project, separate the buzz from the reality of turning the hype into insight, business value, and, ultimately, increased revenue.
We are in the age of information overload, with a plethora of blogs for every topic imaginable. We don't have time to read everything. And we need to maximize value: We read content to learn, after all. Which is why marketers must create purposeful content.
Facebook presents a robust opportunity for your to reach potential and current customers. If used correctly, it increases brand awareness and advocacy, lowers service costs, and drives loyalty and incremental sales.
Content has always been, and will always be, the very foundation of marketing. Yet we are challenged with meeting the constant demand for consistently compelling content. These tactics will help you supply such content.
The most difficult task in marketing is to get people to take the action you want them to take. But once they have, getting them to take one more is so much easier—especially if you use "action trains."
Slapping a QR code on a handout or a poster is easy, but creating something useful takes thought and planning. So what are QR codes good for? Plenty, including for your events, if you use QR codes wisely.
Few things are as antithetical to good inbound marketing as purchasing a list of email addresses and blasting them with your latest campaign. You risk significant business damage. Here's what to do instead.
If you are on LinkedIn to really connect with people, LinkedIn Groups is where the party is. But to get the most out of LinkedIn Groups, you need to learn how to be the life of the party—not a wallflower or a party crasher. Here's how.
The final installment in this series answers three questions: What are the keys to successful nurture campaigns? What's an example of a typical nurture sequence? How do I select a marketing automation vendor?
Salespeople's lips moving—that's how deals get done. The entire deal rides on what you have to say even more than what you have to sell. So here's how you'd better the three deadly sins of sales messaging.
As storytelling becomes more and more part of marketing, another trend is coming clearly into focus: Brands are becoming more visual. Businesses that aren't ready for this visual revolution will get left behind.
He is, of course, David Ogilvy, who was given the educational opportunity of a lifetime at the University of Oxford, then expelled (for undisclosed reasons). Here are some lessons you can learn from his life and work.
Agile marketing prioritizes the needs of the customer and focuses on a rapid response to customers and current trends. Here are five reasons you should consider adopting the strategies of agile marketing.
This installment of our series answers two questions: Are blogging and social media viable lead nurture tools? And do all demographics respond well to lead nurturing?
Get this content marketing and PR tactic right, and you'll gain authority in your market, you'll improve your search engine optimization (SEO), and you'll spark conversations that can generate leads. Take these three steps to get started.
Much has been said and done regarding post-Penguin link-building. Here are some foolproof tips to not only secure improvements in your rankings but also survive the Penguin update successfully.
The next cultural shift your organization must pay attention to is mobile marketing—at the strategic planning level and at the tactical level. As a marketer, are you ready to ease your organization into mobile?
Just what the title says... along with an infographic and a host of examples, illustrations, and explanations.
When you see a screen displaying some type of message, image, or video, you are seeing a digital sign. These design tips will help you with your first digital display, and these marketing tips will help you create an ongoing digital display strategy.
You might already have your video marketing strategy figured out, but technology is always changing. Learn whether your video platform is future-proof, and get tips on making sure your video platform and enterprise videos remain accessible and useful as technology advances.
Online videos, which users love, have become useful marketing tools—for SEO, social media programs, and mobile and e-commerce. Here's how video will continue to make inroads in 2013.
As publishing evolves, writers need to expand their skill set to succeed. They must "own" the marketing and sales introduction of their books. What used to be done via a whirlwind multicity book tour is now done mostly online: more efficient, yes, but also a lot of work!
If you could speak with the brains behind TED Talks videos, Google's Webmaster community, and my.barakobama.com—and 17 other digital pioneers, what might they advise? Probably not what you'd expect.
This installment answers two questions: "What's the difference between inbound and outbound marketing? (and which is better?)" and "With so much content to create, where do we focus our efforts?"
Some common questions arise as you begin to implement a content marketing program: How often do I need to update my content? How often should I be publishing? What is too much? How do you find the time to publish?
Mobile marketing changes so rapidly that every day brings new developments, but some trends are here to stay, including the steady growth of mobile apps. To stay at the top of the mobile marketing game, you have to stay on top of these four trends.
Online marketers near and far resolved in January to get to the top of search results this year. If you're still stumped, here are a five simple yet effective tactics to employ during the rest of 2013.
This year's Super Bowl advertisers' near total failure to engage viewers beyond the TV screen led me to distill seven marketing lessons for any marketer looking to get more ROI from marketing investments.
China has become one of the most competitive consumer markets in the world. In such a dynamic market, building a strong brand is imperative if you are to be picked out from the clutter of products. But how, exactly?
Video has become one of the primary ways people consume information and companies market products. Clearly, marketers need to create engaging, fun videos as part of their marketing efforts. But where to start?
This week we answer two questions: When is a lead truly "Sales-ready," and what are some best-practices of lead scoring? And we offer two tools you can use to help you answer those questions for yourself.
I run a liquor store in a small town, and I've always dealt with instant communication among customers. An unhappy customer, can go down to the coffee shop and spread the word all over town. Now every business faces that same pressure online.
If you need some help with your online presence (think social media, blogs, local listings, and more...) here's a list of 10 do's and 10 don'ts to keep your marketing on the right track in 2013.
When pricey data tools are not an option, these few simple steps can help make data work for you by allowing you to derive insights that make the most impact across your department or organization.
Do you need a customer relationship management system to do lead nurturing? The short answer: A good CRM system is critical for getting all the value possible from your lead nurture and marketing automation investments.
It's time to get serious about your strategies for 2013. How will you treat your customers? How will you acknowledge their experiences and build their brand loyalty? How will you encourage interaction with multiple channels? The short answer: listen to them. The long answer: read this article.
Are you able to make sure you're properly resourcing your new-product portfolio? And do you have the tracking tools you need to make sure those products launch on time?
Learn how to measure and communicate the results of your website testing and optimization efforts in this third article of a three-part series on the steps you need to take to create a successful optimization program.
The torrent of content is increasing by the day. It's a good sign: Marketers are getting hip to the power of content. But the only way to survive the coming erosion of engagement with your content is to create a Great Content Brand.
Sure, marketing can generate leads—but leads, though necessary, aren't sufficient. You also need a sales rock star to convert those leads into sales. So, what qualities should your star have?
In Part 1 of "10 Personal Branding Trends for 2013," I shared five important personal branding trends for the New Year. In this second installment, I have five more trends for you to include in your personal branding strategy to make you stand out and achieve your goals.
This second article in a three-part series on website testing and optimization outlines the four key steps you'll need to take to implement your optimization program.
To answer the question of how much content you'll need for lead nurturing and marketing automation, let's look at how you pack for a long weekend of skiing with friends and family at a mountain resort.
When we hear a name, see a logo, whiff a particular scent, or encounter a sensation, we are conditioned—like Pavlov's dogs—to respond in a specific way.
The human brain is programmed to take in a large amount of information when it's presented in a combination of images, movement, and sound. The benefits of Web video as a marketing medium for business, then, suddenly becomes clear...
At the end of each year, personal branding guru William Arruda predicts what personal branding trends will be valuable to career-minded marketers in the coming year. He says many exciting changes are afoot that will simplify building your brand in 2013.
The second article in this series answers three questions: How do we get started with lead nurturing/marketing automation? What is lead nurturing and how does it work? How long till we see ROI on lead nurture?
Whether you've been testing for years or you're just getting started, your optimization program's success depends on careful planning, implementation, and measurement. This is the first in a three-part series of articles that looks at the steps involved.
Our penchant for snappy axioms—most of them a derivative of "set content free"—has put content marketing on a collision course with otherwise sensible business objectives.
If you're interested in optimizing your email campaigns at all, you'll steer well clear of the all-too-tempting email marketing sins of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth!
We might be living in the age of the Internet, but print collateral is still a part of just about every organization's marketing arsenal. Here's what you need to know to make good choices when purchasing printed materials.
This first article of a series focusing on lead nurturing asks and answers, "How do you achieve alignment between Marketing and Sales?" The series will cover 15 questions that are top of mind for companies.
Your PR folks have access to content treasure you didn't know you had—without weighing down your team or running up the bill. Here are some easy ways they can help you find those content gems.
Buyers don't care about your product or service. They just care about the problems and opportunities they face and how your expertise can help them. Accordingly, Marketing and Sales share a common goal: earning the right to connect with buyers.
Before SMBs embrace new advertising opportunities offered by social networks, they need to seriously consider how to go about measuring the ROI impact of such ad investments.
Reaching people is easy these days. For all intents and purposes, we no longer have technological barriers and geographical boundaries to worry about. Brand awareness is easy to come by. Or is it?
I know, I know. You're probably thinking, "Great, another end-of-the-year list!" I'm with you... But, it's easy to get contemplative when the last quarter draws to a close. And there are real lessons to learn. Here are eight of them for B2B marketers.
With the prevalence of the smartphone, email has become a virtually "always on" channel. It can lift retention, increase brand favorability, and create more payers out of players (or subscribers or members or prospects...).
Working through a six-month rebranding effort, we learned seven key lessons we deemed worthwhile to share in the hope they can help others who might face similar challenges.
We're astounded, amused, and occasionally awestruck by brand names that naming consultants and other marketers come up with over the course of a year. So here are the most inspired (and most misguided) product brand names of 2012.
Whatever happened to Cinderella's shoe? Who knows? It didn't go viral. Put another way: Story generation and the way we develop content have changed, so you must change, too—and answer these four questions.
Again, that time of year has come. It's predictions season... And in the spirit of the season, here are 10 marketing trends of 2012 that will grow even more prominent in 2013.
Marketing is often viewed as a cost center, and marketers meet resistance when their budgets are being approved. But Marketing is an asset, and you need to position it to your CEO in terms of the revenue it delivers. Here are some best-practices that can help you do that.
Whiteboards are an essential visual storytelling tool that you as a marketer can help create for salespeople to differentiate your company from the competition—and get customers and prospects to choose you.
When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, millions lost electricity, heat, and water. But just a few days later, many companies promoting to those millions had—cluelessly—gone back to business as usual. Here is a list for brands that "surged" and brands that "sank" in Sandy's aftermath.
Protecting your brand, one of the most fundamental aspects of your market presence, is not something that should be taken lightly or ignored. From the very beginning of your business, you need to create and maintain a solid intellectual property (IP), patent, and copyright strategy.
Whether you're looking to move beyond the occasional tweet or you're aiming to further polish your approach, here are some tips for how you, as a B2B marketer, can take full advantage of Twitter as a marketing tool.
Any e-commerce site owner knows the frustration resulting from the abandonment of a full shopping basket. But the most likely causes of a high rate of abandonment are few, and they're relatively simple to rectify. Here are three key areas that can generate improved conversions if you pay attention to them.
Online video is a highly engaging and versatile tool for B2B marketing and lead generation, including tradeshow marketing. This brief case study shares how a B2B technology company used online video to increase in-person tradeshow meetings with targeted decision makers by 218%.
Don't just try to move up a few places in search results with your SEO efforts; rather, turn a visit to your website into a better experience and help your site to naturally grow in popularity.
As marketers, we instinctively realize it's impossible to pinpoint when our prospects will be buying. That's why it's critical not just to keep in touch but also to make sure your company shows up in all of the right places when the prospect is selectively attracted to buy from you.
Your banner ads aren't all about the click-throughs and immediate purchases. Brand retention and recognition are key goals of online advertising, because you want customers to seek you out when ready to make purchases.
Big Data, applied to marketing, is transforming how marketers in myriad industries attempt to reach consumers. But achieving meaningful returns from Big Data investments can be an elusive goal. Here are five of the best ways to increase the ROI you achieve on your Big Data expenditures.
Have you ever wondered whether a Facebook contest will work for your B2B company? Here are some helpful tips to consider before creating a Facebook contest.
Although social media is a relatively new marketing channel, there is fairly strong consensus that it can help with business growth. What few people realize, though, is that you can actually drive direct sales from social media—provided you have the right strategy in place.
Facebook's Open Graph is a formidable force that is changing the way brands and consumers interact. As 2013 approaches, more brands will try to quantify the ROI of their Facebook marketing investments, and the Open Graph provides significant opportunities to do just that.
Holiday marketing can be tough. But some of the coolest holiday marketing campaigns of years past can prove instructive, so we've identified five campaigns, along with takeaways, to help your holiday marketing.
Almost everyone would agree that content must be relevant. But what is the best way to measure relevancy? Many of the ways are complex, but here's a simpler, three-step process any marketer can use to link interaction (behavior) with content and a method for measuring relevancy.
Let's face it, video is hot—and everyone knows it. Video gets people more excited and engaged with the message we marketers are trying to convey than do paragraphs of writing. But one major problem most of marketers have with video is this: How the heck do you measure the success of a video?
Having a strong online presence is essential in today's economy, and an excellent way to ensure such a presence is to establish a blog that's connected to your company website.
The athletes competing at the London Olympics broke many records, but the number coming out of the Games that is most revealing for us is the worldwide audience: not the number of TV viewers worldwide, but the overwhelming number of global online spectators.
Retailers are planning now to deal with the oncoming consumer-oriented buying frenzy that is Black Friday. Here are eight tips for retailers on preparing a checkout line for the crowds and excitement of an event filled with great opportunity—and great risk.
Speaking is one of the best ways to get the word out about your company. But getting speaking engagements can be tough, and many would-be public speakers struggle to find opportunities. Here are five ways to get speaking engagements that market your business.
Marketers today need to be more in tune with where, when, and how people want to receive messages. You need to build a presence in places that matter most, so that when people come looking, they find you. But that's just the beginning...
We're not talking "Welcome back John" and certainly not "Dear Valued Customer." Real personalization goes much deeper than that today. Call it Personalization 2.0: it means the delivering the right content to the right person at the right time on the right device, using the right channel, published on the right platform.
Every year, your stakes are at their highest during the holiday season, when deals and discounts have proven especially attractive to online shoppers. But what else can you do to boost sales online? And how do you keep shoppers coming back when the holidays are over?
Every year, retailers employ the same strategy: churn and burn through their email list in an attempt to cash in on subscribers over Black Friday/Cyber Monday. But remarketing can produce dollars without weighing down inboxes. You can send fewer emails yet achieve greater impact.
Your customers see the world through a lens of comparisons to meaningful reference points. That has repercussions for the design, measurement, and analysis of customer experiences—and, by extension, customer loyalty.
If you're not deriving customer intelligence from social media to inform your marketing decisions, you're missing an important opportunity to extend the reach and effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
When Pablo Sandoval faced Justin Verlander in Game 1 of the World Series, each had a season full of data at his disposal: what pitches Verlander tended to throw in certain situations, and which areas of the strike zone Sandoval was most likely to get a hit. We marketers can learn from that.
Not Apple, not General Motors, not Microsoft. If we're talking the really big brands currently dominating American consciousness, we're talking politics: the 2012 US presidential election. And the relative strengths and weaknesses of the competing campaigns point to some interesting lessons for brands.
Online video can engage an audience, help viewers retain information, and—for businesses—assist customers in remembering a brand. But how can you go one step further... and make your videos social?
Using paid search in conjunction with retargeting to drive conversions will boost marketing performance overall while amplifying the effectiveness of each tactic. That's because audiences are more likely to respond to marketing messages if they see the same message across multiple channels.
"Trick or Treat" may be a beloved phrase come Halloween, but it takes on a whole new meaning for many B2B marketers whenever a lead generation campaign gets deployed: Will its performance be an absolute treat bag full of results, or do the open, bounce-back, and click-through rates point toward some kind of trickery?
Have you heard of the phenomenon of “declared preference” versus “revealed preference?” If you haven’t, you may be in for a scary surprise this Halloween season if you are using “voice of the customer” research to drive the positioning and messaging for your product launch.
"Science + structure + metrics = successful outcomes" might not be the formula that immediately comes to mind for improving your teleprospecting results, but following it step-by-step is a great way to keep your teams focused and organized throughout a campaign.
Blogs provide an excellent platform for engaging with customers, but many bloggers make fundamental mistakes that can seriously harm their success. Here is a list of nine unforgivable blogging offenses you should avoid.
A rebrand requires a compelling vision that can be understood and articulated by all—starting with your company's leadership and employees. After all, if they haven't bought into the rebrand and the philosophy behind it, why in the world would anyone else?
Engendering trust in your company and understanding what your customers consider great service are vital to getting testimonials from them. Here's how we marketers can make it easy to get those customer testimonials.
Social media is a powerful thing, which is why it can wreak havoc if misused or misdirected. Here are five rules for building users' trust, interesting them in your business, and getting them to talk among themselves about it.
You still have a small window of time to enhance your holiday marketing initiatives before shoppers start checking off their wish lists. The most engaging medium to use with those initiatives is online video advertising. Here are five tips for smart video ads that will make the most of this holiday season for your business.
The most fundamental tenet of professional services marketing is trust. How can you expect potential clients to retain you if they don't trust you? You can't. Until recently, only one path led to trust between you and clients; now, another path is available to you.
That Google personalizes your search results is no secret. What that means for SEO is the inability to target particular groups of customers. But what if you could "fake" Google personalization to step into your customers' search shoes?
What do you get when you put an analyst, a consultant, a practitioner, and a ringleader on the same panel devoted to demand-gen data? You get smart answers to your most pressing questions. Here's a summary of the smarts that such a panel imparted at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum earlier this month.
Grab a smartphone. Key in your website/blog URL. If what you see is jumbled or distorted, you are likely losing tons of traffic—and conversions. Now that your audiences are mobile, is your website?
Marketing is a game of seasons and cycles. We deal with ups and downs, timing, and patience. It's a lot like farming, actually. Farmers have to deal with seasons, and so do you.
With the global economy still slumping, businesses and marketing companies are embracing new methods of social marketing as a way to spread the word in a more reliable, consistent, and cost-effective way. Are you taking advantage of all that LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter offer?
These days, if a marketing organization is to deliver value and show tangible results, it must build an analytical culture. If yours is like most marketing organizations, you already pack a strong dose of creativity. Analytics enables you to combine that creativity with fact-based decision-making—with powerful results.
People hate push marketing: It interrupts their favorite shows. It clutters their screens. And too often it has nothing to do with their interests. But customers don't mind messaging that's relevant to their needs. These four commandments will keep relevancy central to your messages.
Whether you like politicians or not, you've got to hand it to them: On either side of the aisle, they know how to connect with others and win hearts and minds. How they do it is how you can do it, too.
The more than 21 million US college students have a total discretionary spending power of $120 billion per year. No wonder marketers are excited about the opportunity at colleges. Here's a quick refresher course on how your brand can make a splash on campus.
When people want to know about you, your products, and your success story, the first thing they do is go to Google to see what you're doing, even before checking out your website. And if you look as if you don't have momentum, you may never get that call. It's not too late to start doing that PR stuff...
Content creation is a large part of what we do as marketers—and writing effective, well-optimized content is, well, hugely important. In fact, poorly written and unoptimized Web content can render you all but invisible on the Web. Not good...
Here's a quick crash course on the agile project management methodology and how I, as a marketer, applied it to managing my team. I hope to help you identify where you can improve your marketing project management.
What would you rather have, a big list with dismal conversion rates or a smaller list targeting a highly engaged audience? Thought so. For a healthy opt-in email list, quality always trumps quantity, and here are 19 budget-friendly ways to get the list you want.
Because nearly every person has at least one social media account, businesses have embraced social media to connect with people and drive promotions. A poorly managed social media campaign, however, can easily backfire.
Need a celebrity spokesperson? Bypass Hollywood and turn to YouTube. Established brands have been on a hiring wave of YouTube video stars, such as Toby "Tobuscus" Turner and iJustine, and there's no reason you shouldn't consider YouTube video stars, too.
The way teleprospectors phrase their questions and emphasize key messaging can be the difference between a fully qualified lead or a dial tone. But don't fall into the common trap of writing a script and trying to get everyone to follow it verbatim.
Social media marketing facilitates engagement with consumers in real time and contact with people who influence others. But it also allows you to microsegment audiences in a way that traditional marketing segmentation couldn't possibly.
A common misconception about lead nurturing in marketing automation systems is that its purpose is to "move prospects through the sales funnel." But it's not—at least not if you want the end result to be a sale...
Content creation is a huge opportunity for brands. But when done badly, it's a potentially huge fail that could tick people off—and damage your reputation, your brand, and your business. So Brands must adhere to some basic editorial standards, including these 10 ground rules.
Adding game mechanics to your marketing arsenal will accomplish more than adding a bit of fun: It adds incremental value. Here are three ways to make your existing customers more profitable via gamification.
Naming or renaming your business or product can be one of the toughest challenges you face. Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire help, you need to know some basics before launching out into the wide, sometimes-weird world of naming.
You've seen the hoarder reality shows... Email marketers can be hoarders, too: Do-nothing subscribers are likely piled up in you lists, getting in the way of your marketing. Get rid of the clutter and salvage what you can.
What causes customers to flock to one brand rather than another, even when their offerings aren't substantially different? The ability to listen to customers. But effective listening is not intuitive: We have to work at it. Here's how.
However efficient your organization's processes may be, you're almost certainly experiencing endless rounds of revisions in the development of creative—ads, graphics, emails, press releases... Follow these rules to stop the madness.
Companies are dispensing with the traditional website, instead integrating popular social networks right into their site and communicating with customers in real time via tweets and Facebook posts. Here's why you might want to follow their lead.
How social media is transforming the English language offers lessons for businesses and marketers. With the right strategy, marketers can use those insights to achieve social media wins for their organizations.
We often think of marketing as a way to acquire customers. But, today, business is more relationship-based and therefore just as focused on retaining customers. So how do the 7 Ps of marketing apply to customer retention?
This article teaches you the nitty-gritty of a powerful content marketing tactic that makes use of two of online marketing's most powerful tools: SEO and social media. The benefits you'll derive are invaluable.
Armed with smartphones, shoppers are going to brick-and-mortar stores to evaluate products—then, often while still in the store, buying them online to get deals. That's "showrooming." Here's what you can do about it.
How much is a $3 ashtray purchased at a yard sale worth on eBay? If it includes a short story by William Gibson, then it's worth $101. Still don't believe in the alchemistic powers of a great story? Read on.
The best B2B marketers are successful because they start with building a brand. In other words, the best B2B marketers think like B2C marketers. And here's just how they think and what they do.
Companies often don't practice what they preach (or sell)—a classic case of "the cobbler's children have no shoes." Agencies and marketers are not exempt. Here's a guide to help you succeed at internal marketing.
Marketers far and wide know the value of content marketing. But delivering a high volume of quality content that is profitable and efficient poses operational challenges. Here's a way you can overcome those challenges.
It's an old adage: Driving increased sales from your current customers is easier than acquiring new customers. But when marketing via email, a lot of businesses seem to be missing an opportunity that's right in front of them.
One of the first things consumers look for when making a purchase is a review of the product or service they're interested in. They look to their peers for input and advice and trust them far more than they do the brand, especially if they've had little or no interaction with it.
Most commonly, market research is viewed as a method to improve advertising and marketing initiatives and to develop products that are friendlier to specific markets. However, the true range of uses for market intelligence is much larger than most businesses think.
At a recent industry event, I was often inspired, but also confused... therefore this attempt at Zen, to provide feedback to presenters everywhere about what they do that's excellent—and less than excellent.
Various variables contribute to customer experience: your product line, painless processes, engaged employees... Giving your employees the opportunity to maximize the impact they have on customers enables you to create successful (and profitable) customer experiences.
Getting lost down a dark alley in a seedy, unfamiliar part of town is nobody's idea of a good time, so don't make your customers wonder whether they've visited the wrong side of the Web when they come to your website.
The old adage that "a product sells itself" is nothing more than a sales and marketing myth. Products sell in large part because of the due diligence that is completed before the first sales call is made. That means taking the necessary time to create your "ideal customer" profile and then securing a high-end database of prospects and companies that match that profile.
What was once defined as a tidy "funnel" or a simple "waterfall" is no longer as relevant as it once was. Think, instead, a river fed by many brooks and streams that gracefully come together, only to rush over the edge of the waterfall into the (sometimes) beautiful and tranquil pond below
Instinct tells us that "humanizing" a brand—connecting it in the consumer's mind with a distinctive personality or an engaging personal narrative—is a good idea. But we don't have to rely on instinct. Research demonstrates how human interaction affects transactions, with lessons for marketers.
Marketing folks and designers have the same goal: well-designed sites and well-executed campaigns that convert viewers into customers. But getting to that goal can be challenging. Start by understanding the ways in which marketers and designers are similar, where their differences lie, and what they can do to minimize conflict and maximize creativity.
Thanks, in part, to its pay-for-performance model, affiliate marketing is one of the fastest-growing segments of online commerce. But low-quality affiliates can end up costing, rather than making, money. The best way to make sure an affiliate marketing program delivers sustainable results is to recruit and nurture high-value affiliates.
Although you can use online media to develop relationships, real-world connections are what solidifiy them. Here are five ways social media can support your efforts to increase foot traffic, brand awareness, customer relationships—and sales.
Seinfeld reigned as the most popular sitcom for most of the 1990s and inspired many a workplace water-cooler conversation with its quirky characters and absurd plots. The show might not seem the most likely source of practical advice, but some of its most memorable moments provide lessons for email marketing.
Does your business have a mobile site that is designed with your mobile customer in mind? Is it a branded, usable, engaging experience? If the answer is no, or if you're not sure, you are not alone. One thing is clear, though: If your site isn't mobile friendly now, it's time to make it so.
Pinterest and email marketing are intersecting in three ways: emails that use Pinterest-generated content, emails prompting recipients to follow a brand on Pinterest, and emails that have content appealing enough that recipients end up "pinning" the content. How do you get started?
Creating consistently engaging and fresh content for any company's blog is no easy task; even the most thoughtful corporate bloggers can get stuck from time to time. If you think it's time to rethink your company blogging strategy, follow the following five quick tips to build your audience and make your company blog worth reading.
Online video should be an essential part of every business's online marketing strategy. Of course, everyone wants a video that goes viral, but no amount of money can guarantee a blockbuster. Fortunately, you can employ some strategies to get your video in front of as many viewers as possible.
Your prospects have a huge array of websites to choose to visit—and buy or learn from. You have to give them good reasons to choose yours. So how do you turn your website into your prospect's favorite online business destination?
Email might not be as shiny as social media and other emerging marketing channels, but it's still arguably the most powerful marketing tool around. So how do you maximize this old workhorse for new gains? In part by avoiding these common mistakes.
Many businesses are members of their local chamber of commerce but don't take advantage of opportunity to increase sales and brand awareness. Here are five ways business owners can derive value from their chamber membership.
It would be great if online marketing—websites, pay-per-click, email, etc.—were all you needed to get the most out of your business's marketing plan, but that just isn't the case. Could you make it work? Sure. But you'd be leaving money on the table.
Stories matter. We see it over and over again: Companies that capitalize on an inflection point and grab a leadership position always have a thought-provoking point of view that resonates with buyers.
Webinars can be great lead-generation tools. But virtual communications can also help you build communities, communicate with customers, train sales teams and partners, measure the success of campaigns, and launch products.
For marketers, mobile apps present an unprecedented opportunity to always be a mere arm's length away from customers. And we can know more about them than ever before. But how do you ensure a lasting mobile relationship?
Customers are now using video to educate themselves on products and services before they buy, and that extends across both the consumer and business-to-business markets. Here are five tips from five companies that are making online video work for them.
Even the most seasoned marketing professionals sometimes fall prey to mistakes in tactics or implementation. But with a watchful eye, practitioners can avoid costly pitfalls. Here is a quick review of the 10 most common B2B traps and how you can dodge them:
The importance of local search has been growing. But with the recent release of Google's Venice update, local search has become more important than ever. If you don't have a strategy for local search optimization, you're losing business.
Here are nine ways to draw tradeshow attendees to your booth and engage with them. Some of these tips may seem like common sense, but you'd be amazed at how many exhibitors completely disregard them.
You've been hearing about the generic top-level domain (gTLD) registration expansion. From 22 now (think .com, .net, .org, etc.), TLDs will expand to 1,400+ starting in 2013. Will you be ready?
The process of developing and overseeing a campaign for a company's advertising or marketing program can be broken down into these five steps that a marketing manager must oversee or personally complete.
Even though launching an organization-wide collaboration effort isn't just a marketing project, its success is largely dependent on your internal marketing efforts. Marketing's role is crucial... and here's what it entails.
To inspire people to prepare emergency kits for real-life disasters, the CDC brilliantly crafted an imaginative and educational "zombie apocalypse" campaign, generating some 80,000 Likes and 2,500 tweets. Here's how.
Today, customers can share their rants and raves instantly with a worldwide audience. In such a wired world, your online image is everything! Here's how to track and enhance that image and manage your reputation.
Without content—reports, webinars, and follow-up emails—your expensive marketing automation software will be a big flop. Learn why content is the fuel that makes any marketing automation system run smoothly.
To achieve brand marketing goals, you must know your target audience—and how best to reach that group. Learn three key questions to ask before funneling marketing and ad dollars out of your television advertising budget and into new media.
Is blogging useless nowadays? Not if you're blogging the right way. When done right, blogging can attract a huge pool of prospective customers. Learn how to go from 0 to 1,000 daily blog readers in six steps.
When Peter Parker practices his heroics as Spider-Man, he captivates the citizenry and the press alike. By emulating his superpowers, you too can masterfully connect with customers and followers online.
Although content marketing continues to prove its effectiveness, and it's used by nearly 90% of marketers across all industries, creating relevant, fresh, and intriguing content that engages your community remains as difficult as it has always been. Or does it?
Looking at the evolution of social media over the last few years, you can plainly see that it's now being driven by imagery. Consider Facebook's Timeline (and its acquisition of Instagram) or the rise of Pinterest. However, we forget that email, too, is a social medium. So now is a great time to evaluate how you use images in your email marketing.
Only a few Games ago, trying to take advantage of the Olympics if you weren't a sponsor was as difficult as teaching a Los Angeles Kings "fan" the meaning of icing. But in the case of the 2012 London games, you can... without investing serious sponsor-level cash.
Brand extensions can be a great way for a core brand to develop its overall brand equity and reach new customers. We can learn valuable lessons from those who have done it right, and those who haven't.
Google recently entered the semantic search sphere with its Knowledge Graph update. Semantic search changes the way a search engine "thinks" about a search term. What does Knowledge Graph mean for searchers?
Is your brand's message getting lost in today's data deluge? Learn how to maintain a consistent brand voice, and how to ensure your messaging cuts through the data noise.
Convincing older business owners to invest in social media can be difficult—but it doesn't have to be. Learn five undeniable benefits of social media that could help make the case for a social investment.
Today's revenue-focused marketers need to be experts in inbound marketing. Learn why effective inbound marketing requires relevant, compelling content that is tailored to prospects at each stage of the buying cycle.
Generation Y is estimated to be the largest consumer group in US history, and marketers simply cannot afford to ignore the student segment. Learn why you should be marketing to college students—and how to do so effectively.
How much can your company benefit from a timely rebranding? A business rebrand can make your business look good, and, more important, make your bottom line look good, too. Here are four reasons to rebrand your business.
Today, brands are building social campaign experiences that spread from one brand loyalist to her friends—creating a powerful social loyalty loop that cultivates new brand loyalists. Learn four ways to fuel such a loyalty loop.
Enterprise-grade mobile apps can equip sales teams with a set of high-impact selling tools. But not all apps are created equal. Learn the five essential elements of an effective sales app.
The consumers of Generation-Y are the next great decision-makers in the consumer world. Fortunately, marketing to Gen-Y is actually not as difficult as you might think. Here are five ways to appeal to Gen-Y.
If you aren't tailoring your marketing for a mobile audience, you could be selling your efforts short—and missing a huge opportunity to get results. Here are seven best-practices for reaping the most benefit from mobile.
Countless solutions have been developed to automate lead-scoring, but those scores don't provide salespeople much valuable information. Learn a practical six-question scoring system that effectively evaluates and qualifies leads.
What's the key to effective blogging? Strategy. A solid blog editorial strategy will help you create relevant content regularly to attract readers and convert them into customers. Learn six steps to creating a strategy that gets results.
Want to enhance your mobile marketing efforts? Rather than undergoing dreaded technical training, apply a common-sense approach to mobile. Learn four practical tips from four marketers in the trenches of mobile marketing.
Have your marketing efforts gone "SoLoMo" yet? Learn why combining your social, local, and mobile marketing efforts are critical in today's market—and how you can go "SoLoMo" in seven ways.
I spend two hours a day on Google+ because doing so is enjoyable and good for my brand. In addition to my fondness for its members, Google+ embodies many appealing attributes that make social networking better.
If you aren't one of the millions using Pinterest, now is the time to add the image-driven social network to your traffic-generating toolbox. But if you're going to use Pinterest, do so responsibly by using these nine tips.
Are you using social media to fuel product strategy and development? Learn why social can be an effective research tool, and how three forms of social listening can help inform product marketing.
For analytics to succeed in an organization, analysts must be capable of speaking the language of executives. Learn five ways analysts can create meaningful communication with the higher-ups.
Measuring and reporting on Marketing's value is more important than ever. To truly demonstrate their value and design an effective performance measurement system, marketers should focus on four key areas.
Photography and video have an immense impact on customers' purchasing behavior because they enable customers to visually connect with products before they buy. Learn how compelling visual content can help drive sales.
Here we go again. We have a new buzzword. Social media experts, and many others, are now talking about Social Business. But being a social business is not about having a team of people monitoring LinkedIn, Twitter, and (if you are in the "leading edge") Google+ and Pinterest.
Pinterest has managed to claim a huge following in a short time. But if you're a blogger or content marketer who uses words more than pictures, can you generate buzz using Pinterest? Absolutely—if you've got the right tools.
A lack of communication between analysts and other departments can be an express ticket to ineffectiveness—and can significantly diminish the value of analytics. Here are four ways to improve communication across departments.
Marketing automation companies are steadily rolling out new features and new versions of their products. What changes can you expect? Here are four cool ways marketing automation tools are evolving.
Running an A/B test requires resources, so it pays to know how to conduct tests for the maximum benefit to your organization. Here are eight of the most important lessons on running a successful A/B testing program.
What happened when a Canada-based religious order turned to social media to reach women who were hearing God's call to the religious life? It worked wonders. Learn invaluable social media tips that led to the group's success.
Do your online marketing efforts consider the cultural context of your target market? Learn why cultural understanding is critical to online marketing—and how to implement cultural qualification in your strategies.
Companies that struggle to realize the impact of analytics often blame the solutions they have in place. But communication flaws could be to blame. Here are five ways analysts can enhance communication within their teams.
The popularity of daily deals shows no signs of abating. But how can you ensure your deals effectively appeal to subscribers? Learn examples of daily deals strategies that work wonders—and those that flop.
A major change is afoot in the way people are spending; they are moving away from one-time buying and toward subscribing to services. That shift means more revenue opportunities for marketers—and big changes in how they market.
Why is agile marketing imperative to marketing today? Here are four reasons marketers should implement agile marketing—and seven expert tips for those thinking of starting their own sprints and scrums.
OK, SEO ranking reports are not dead... but Google's personalized search is making them less and less relevant. Learn why many are using the wrong metrics to measure success—and three ways to reach online customers despite personalized search.
Do you think a prospect responds better to your marketing message because you've based it on a customer persona? Unfortunately, that is not the case. To craft effective messaging, you need to address four essential questions.
Want to create the next online viral sensation? Though no magic formula will get you there, the creators of the wildly popular Texts From Hillary website offer four essential tips that helped make their site a huge Internet smash.
Many brands recognize the potential of Facebook's Timeline, but they don't really know how to use it to their full advantage. Learn six straightforward ways to optimize your brand's Timeline to drive better marketing performance.
Creating a great call to action that gets results can be tricky, unless you have a few tricks up your sleeve. Here are 12 essential tips for optimizing your calls to action to ensure they compel potential customers to act.
Despite their critical contribution to a business, sales reps can often get in their own way. Here are three of the biggest ways sales reps kill leads—and three solutions that'll help turn prospects into customers.
If you've ever been to a zoo, you probably used a zoo map during your visit. Those maps provide wonderful visual cues to the customer-experience and performance-chain lessons we can all apply to our businesses.
Like any marketing campaign, a mobile marketing campaign can be well thought out, meticulously planned, and perfectly functional... but still produce limited user engagement. Why? A subpar call to action.
Companies are leaping onto the Pinterest bandwagon, and your brand, too, can benefit from what is now one of the world's largest social networks. Learn what type of content marketers should pin—and how.
In an age of information overflow, having a user-friendly website is critical. How does your site measure up? Here is a three-step approach to analyzing the usability of your website, along with tips for improving its usability.
Sure, you have customers. But are they loyal to you? Learn four things you need to know about your customers to inspire their loyalty.
Choosing and installing a new content management system (CMS) is a great opportunity to improve your online presence. Here are six critical questions to consider when choosing a new CMS.
Do you know exactly what your campaign goals are? Do you know how to measure your campaign outcomes? If not, here are three steps you must take when developing and executing any marketing campaign.
Media appearances are essential if you want to build your personal brand and emerge as a recognized industry expert. Learn 10 tips for mastering media appearances, and five key guidelines to follow during an interview.
The call to action in your marketing materials is one of the most important elements in a campaign. So how can you write one that works? Learn tried-and-true tips that can help catapult your call-to-action writing to expert level.
Too many companies have yet to embrace marketing resource management (MRM) technology, which offers a host of capabilities that can empower them. Learn why you need an MRM solution, and tips for choosing the right one.
For B2B, the ROI from social media isn't always so clear. Learn research findings about the social media use of one B2B segment—and four opportunities for B2B marketers to maximize social media ROI.
Marketing mix analysis provides insights that improve ROI and optimize spend. The question is... will you get better results from outsourcing marketing mix analytics or building in-house capabilities?
Customer experience is about meeting customer needs, aligning touch points, and creating relationships. Learn customer experience basics—and how to create an enriched customer experience that gets results.
The post script (P.S.) can be a powerful tool for marketers—if it's used the right way. Learn five things you can do with your post script to generate more clicks in your emails and capture the reader's attention.
Before taking your brand global, make sure you've done the proper market research, hired the right staff, and implemented the cultural checks needed to succeed. Here are six steps all brands must consider before going global.
Marketing automation systems offer a veritable multitude of capabilities. But don't let all those features overwhelm you. Learn five ways to jump-start your marketing automation strategy without getting stressed out.
Marketers can feel overwhelmed by the waves of marketing "solutions" that come at them daily: new digital advertising options, new mobile apps, every surefire lead-generation scheme in the book. It's enough to give a person a monumental headache. No worries, though. The data doctor is in.
Imagine having a switch that activates your buyer's brain and gets her to pay attention to what you say—and to take action. Learn how "engagement energy" can help you craft stronger sales and marketing messages that get results.
Almost inevitably, every website will encounter a problem of some kind. Many online marketers lack the technical skills to make website fixes themselves. So how can they effectively mitigate a website problem?
Social media success is not just about gaining followers or "Likes." You need to track how many followers buy your products or subscribe to your services. Learn five steps to building a successful social CRM practice.
It's a no brainer. Local businesses that want to maximize their business results should implement hyper-local digital marketing. Learn key tips for effective local advertising that can help take your business to the next level.
Marketing automation (MA) software allows marketers to manage prospect and customer databases, track activity, and personalize their messaging. Get the maximum benefit from your MA software by taking these five actions.
To make social media work for your brand, you need a solid engagement strategy. Learn five engagement-strategy idea starters—and three key ingredients—for social media success.
No excuse justifies emailing like it's still 1999. Today, email marketing is about achieving optimal delivery, response, and financial benefits from the channel. Learn how to modernize your email marketing for success in 2012.
Improving the lead-to-sales handoff at your company—and setting lead follow-up guidelines—can significantly boost ROI and help close Sales. Learn four invaluable handoff techniques you should be implementing.
To get real business results from your social media efforts, you need to build a community, engage your audience, and create word-of-mouth. Learn how running a social campaign on Facebook can help you do just that.
Mobile barcode campaigns can deliver a call to action, engage customers and prospects, and enhance the human experience as it relates to your brand. Learn seven key tips for launching a successful mobile barcode campaign.
Considering the emergence of the social network Pinterest and Facebook's Timeline, it's clear that brands without a solid visual vocabulary will be left behind. Learn six tips for ensuring your brand is ready for the visual revolution.
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