- Are Your Marketing Dollars Buying Customers—or Just Renting Them?
by Debra EllisHow many marketing dollars did you waste last year contacting customers who didn't buy from you? It's easy to look back to see where your investment was ineffective... if you know precisely where to look.
- 'Hypey' Copy That Converts, and How to Write It
by Barry DensaHypey copy is like a fine wine. It has great legs, a fine body, and a rich nose.
Hype excites the emotions, stimulates the buying glands, and ultimately converts better- than-dull; drab; "only the facts, Ma'am" marcom-style copy.
The challenge, of course, ...
- Four Customer-Centricity Best-Practices and Three Customer-Value Metrics for Customer-Relationship Success by Laura Patterson
Changes in the way customers receive and process information via social-networking sites, mobile phones, and the Internet, combined with shrinking margins, deteriorating customer loyalty, and increased demand for marketing accountability, suggest the need for a new approach to customer-centricity.
A. G. ...
- Social Media 101: Use Twitter to Attract Prospects and Engage Customers by Debra Ellis
Before you enter the relatively new frontier of social media, you need an action plan. Although the costs are low, social media tools require extensive maintenance to be effective. Your strategy needs to fit your corporate culture, resources, and customer ...
- Ten Essentials of Software-as-a-Service Solution Marketing by Peter A. Cohen
Here are 10 essentials of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution marketing.
- The Pursuit of ROI: Will It Lead You to Rags or to Riches? by Sharan Jagpal
It's no secret that the business world is slow to change. Sure, it has made the evolution from typewriters to computers for word processing, and from snail mail to email for written communication. But in regard to the core of ...
- In a Tough Economy, Go to Battle for Your Customers by J. Mark Carr, Karl Gustafson
Decision-makers who are worried over the stability of their company's finances should remember one simple truth: The source of your business's cash flow is your customer base.
What all of this boils down to is the need to make smart, informed ...
- How Hyundai Uses Behavioral Segmentation to Take the Bull by the Horns and Send the Bear Packing by Michael Barr
Hyundai took the bull by the horns in this bear market and scored big. It used behavioral segmentation to identify what was keeping prospects from buying and then developed a strategy that made it easier for customers to part with ...
- How to Acquire and Retain Customers via Content Marketing
by Paul ChaneyFace it. If you are an online marketer, you're a publisher. Your Web properties are media sites, whether you consider them such or not; so you might as well make the most of it and provide your customers and prospects ...
- Getting in the Front Door of Prospects: Five Creative Marketing Ideas That Work
by Elaine FogelHow can you build and steward a long-term customer relationship if you can't access your prospect in the first place? To reach those big fish takes creativity, perseverance, ingenuity, chutzpah, and, sometimes, just plain dumb luck. Here are five creative ...
- Five Keys to Using Innovation to Acquire and Retain Customers (Part 3 of 3) by Leland Shaeffer
In Part One and Part Two of this series, the author discussed using "voice of the customer" (VOC) in defining innovative core products and services. The focus was on breakthroughs in the basic product, on hitting the home runs. Here, ...
- Selling Professional Services? It's All About Leverage by Barbara Bix
Attracting—and ultimately closing—deals with new clients can take professional service providers anywhere between several months and several years. Since most firms rely on their partners and principals to bring in new work, client acquisition ends up consuming a lot of ...
- The 'Freemium' Business Model: Not Quite a Slam-Dunk by Nilofer Merchant
Can you make money by giving away your product? Absolutely—and companies like Adobe (PDF Reader) and Macromedia (Shockwave Player) have proven it. With Web 2.0, consumers have gotten a lot of things at no cost due to various monetization practices—and ...
- How Online and Offline Have Fused Into a Single Dialog (and Why Marketers Should Follow Suit) by Akin Arikan
Last year, a study by comScore Networks found that an average of 63% of online searchers who proceeded to complete a purchase did so offline rather than online.
Just as online and offline shopping have fused into a single experience, ...
- Marketing Challenge: Do You Stalk Customers? by Hank Stroll
We've learned not to trust email to arrive safely in the recipient's inbox. So we leave voicemail asking whether the person received the email or the earlier voicemail.
How much follow-up is too much? Where do you draw the line to ...
- Five Things Every CEO Should Want to Know About Customers
by Jeanne BlissThe perennial cry from CEOs around the globe is that they are focused on their customers: It is their highest-priority mission, the critical job of their company—and everything emanates from understanding what customers need and want and delivering on it. ...
- How to Establish Sales Credibility: It's Not the Story You Tell, It's the Questions You Ask by Jeff Thull
Establishing credibility is one of the most critical elements in securing a new customer. The customer must see you as a credible and trustworthy resource.
Here's how to establish credibility with a prospective customer.
- Marketing on MySpace by Stephan Spencer
The cardinal rule in MySpace is the same one as in the blogosphere: Keep it real.
Before you leap in to MySpace as a marketer, you'd best understand it. Because if you don't, the MySpace community can turn on you the ...
- Hollywood Tie-ins: How to Avoid a Horror Show by Stephen Denny
You can do Hollywood tie-ins right. It just takes nerves of steel, the ability to say no to a lot of very charming people, and a ton of planning. But you will live to fight another day if you follow ...
- Innovative Ways to Attract Female Consumers (Part 2) by Gerry Myers
Connecting to the female consumer is not easy, because there is no single magical way to target women. They are a diverse group, and in many ways it is harder to reach them than their male counterparts.
As a follow up ...