- Marketing: Beware of 'Outkicking the Coverage' by Laura Patterson
Although football metaphors abound in business, this article explores the idea of "outkicking your coverage," which is when an overly strong player can actually be harmful to a team's performance.
"Outkicking" refers to when an exceptional punter kicks the ball so ...
- Blogging From Scratch: Four Elements Your New Business Blog Must Have
by Mack CollierYou've decided to launch a blog for your business and you're busy laying the groundwork. You've selected a name for it, and you know what you want to blog about and who your bloggers will be.
But do you have the ...
- Marketing to the New Gen X by Dave Sohigian
Most businesses are well aware of how to market to Generation Xers (those born 1961-1981) mainly because so many people in business today are part of Generation X. But as Gen Xers move into midlife (the oldest are 48, and ...
- Email Marketing Tips for the 2009 Holiday Season by Alex Williams
The holiday season is the most important time of year for retailers, when aggressive goals are set for increased traffic and sales, both in-store and online. Email marketing is a powerful tool that retailers can use to build their brands ...
- Do Your Customer Surveys Measure Up? by David Jackson
Most companies use a crude approach to gathering vital customer data: Periodic, often annual, surveys that are disconnected in time from the events they are purporting to measure are the norm.
We call them the Annual ''Do You Love Us?'' Survey, ...
- Three Strategies for Inspired Holiday Email in Tough Times by Karen Talavera
The pumpkins come out, the days grow shorter, the weather cools, and there's no mistaking that the holiday season is upon us, even though we're barely past the back-to-school rush.
Already, it's holiday marketing time.
Yet, in recessionary periods, what is normally ...
- Top 5 Elements of an Annual Business Plan by Donna Bletzinger
It's that time again: the end of another fiscal year. Time to assess this year's successes and start planning for next year. What does that mean? It means it's time to write your business plan.
A business plan can be hundreds ...
- Problem Solved: How Do You Convince the Boss That It's Time to Go Social? by Claire Coyne
There's nothing we love more than solutions—top-notch insights from top-of-the-line experts that help solve common marketing problems. Here's this week's solution, featuring SAS, which offers us a solution to the following problem: How does Marketing convince the CEO that it's ...
- '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, ...
- Seven Questions Local Businesses Should Answer Before Investing in SEO by Kenton Newby
In the current economic climate, many local businesses are seeking more-effective ways to market.
Since their potential customers are increasingly using the Web as a way (and sometimes the first and only way) to find products and services, local businesses realize ...
- How to Run Your Own Successful Virtual Conference
by Kimberly SmithIntrigued by the ease, broader reach, and lower cost of hosting a virtual event? Be aware that there are distinguishable differences in how online conferences are planned and carried out—and the technology is just the beginning. Here's how to effectively ...
- Setting Performance Targets: The Ins and Outs in 10 Steps by Laura Patterson
Despite the emphasis on and progress in marketing performance measurement and management over the past decade, research continues to show that the link between marketing and the business still needs to be stronger and clearer.
- Cures for Eight Common Small-Marketing-Firm Ailments by Steve Adams
Small-agency quirks don't have to be fatal. In fact, many can be fixed by applying simple technologies that provide big-business tools while allowing firms to stay true to their small-business core. The following eight cures to the common small-marketing-firm ailments ...
- 10 Practical Tips for Creating Blockbuster E-Books by Jonathan Kranz
Without careful planning, your e-book may become a sinkhole of confused agendas, missed opportunities, and poor distribution. Here are a few key things that might help you avoid the pains and achieve the gains.
- A Corporate Field Guide to Social-Media Policy Development
by Kimberly SmithYour employees are already on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like... so isn't it high time for companies to acknowledge that activity and implement a protective framework that will assist them in mitigating the risks related to employee productivity, confidentiality, ...
- Emerging Consumer Values: Why Brands Must Adjust by Claire Ratushny
Consumer trends come and go. What else is new?
Plenty. We're living in an unprecedented era when several critical elements—consumers' rising debt, higher costs for basic necessities, low savings rates, shrinking assets, and a growing awareness of environmental issues—have gradually come ...
- Use Surveys to Get Close to Your Customers by John Wechsler
We all know that it costs less to keep a current customer than it does to acquire a new one. As budgets continue to be pinched and resources diminish, businesses would do well to stop looking at past and future ...
- Put Crowdsourcing to Work for You: Five Tips for Getting Started
by Kimberly SmithSome companies are finding that their customers have a truer understanding of their own motivators and needs than even the most-qualified Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and (what's more) that an outsider perspective may be just what their organizations need.
It's called ...
- Brand-Building: The Limits of Engagement by Joel Rubinson
Suppose you learned that most of your brand's buyers are switchers: that only 15% of your customers are highly loyal to your brand and account for maybe half of sales. The harsh reality is that that's a typical pattern for ...
- Software Sales: How to Do More With Less by Tim Keyes
"Do more with less." That is the challenge for software marketers today: to get better results from their marketing programs on increasingly smaller budgets.
It's important for software marketers to analyze the effectiveness of their programs and determine their return on ...