Know-How News by MarketingProfs.com

Issue 11 | March 16, 2007

Dear Small Business Marketers,

Last week I asked for your help picking seminar topics for our new Small Business Seminar Series. Thanks so much for your input! With 722 voters, it was easy to identify the top three choices:

Since they won by a landslide, we'll focus on these topics for the first three events in our seminar program. Michael Goodman, Top Expert in the MarketingProfs discussion forum, will be speaking at all three. He and I are working together to plan out an ongoing curriculum of monthly seminars designed specifically for small businesses. So please email me if you have topic requests.

In this week's newsletter we have three articles packed with good ideas for small businesses. Click below to learn about salvaging customer relationships, lead generation and writing case studies.

Also, be sure to browse the 10 hottest conversations in our discussion forum this week. You'll find them listed below.

Happy Friday!

Best wishes,

:: Valerie Frazee
:: Know-How News Editor
:: MarketingProfs.com
:: An online community of 252,500 marketers

Three Ways to Keep Your Customers Happy When You Screw Up

Casting a Wide Net for Leads? Here's How to Get Great Results

Case Studies With Kick: How to Write an Insight-Based Case Study

Three Ways to Keep Your Customers Happy When You Screw Up

By Elaine Fogel

Glitches happen and setbacks occur when we deal with customers. They're as inevitable as death and taxes. The key to retaining these customers when an error occurs is handling them right from the start.

Whether your organization delivers products, services or promises, its credibility and reputation is on the line when you don't deliver what you say you will and when. There's no magic pill to averting these situations, but you can be proactive in redeeming yourself when things go wrong. Here are three ways to keep your customers when you can't deliver.

Get the full story.

Note: This article is available to our Premium Members only.

Casting a Wide Net for Leads? Here's How to Get Great Results

By Anna Talerico

Here's a popular way to generate online leads: Buy a keyword ad on a search engine site. In your ad, offer free content -- such as a white paper -- to respondents who complete a short form. In theory, this type of campaign works well. The people who respond get something of value. You get leads. Everyone's happy. Not so fast ...

Get the full story.

Case Studies With Kick: How to Write an Insight-Based Case Study

By Mark Levy

Case studies are like condensed action films: full of characters, plot and conflict. Then thanks to your help, the client has a happy ending. Part of a case study's persuasive power comes from its energy. It should be exciting. Many of us, though, bore with ours. The reason? We use the standard problem, solution, result formula -- and fumble "the solution" part.

Get the full story.

Discover the 5 critical keys
to consulting success

•	26 lessons from Rasputin
•	A client's-eye view of what's essential
•	8 top consultants share their secrets

Do you have what it takes?

Find out now

Here are this week's hottest topics. These have been the most active discussions in KHE over the last seven days.

These are this week’s superstars! The Most Stimulating started the hottest discussions. The Most Active contributed the most posts (questions + answers). And the Most Expert earned the most points.

Most Stimulating	Most Active	Most Expert
Jane shouq.s Major_D rushabh16 glosdata bilal.bhatti glosdata brendakitchen Matt stacey	Phoenix ONE proeditor ethnicomm retail stevea peanutpeanut rjohnni kathysmithcasting W.M.M.A. glosdata	Phoenix ONE proeditor stevea ASVP/ChrisB L81 Software Builder thetarg peanutpeanut retail W.M.M.A. ethnicomm

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