BusinessNext Social conducted a study of CMOs in the Fortune 100 to see which of them were most socially active in 2012. Surprisingly, only one in five Fortune 100 top-level marketing/communications executives have an active public presence on social networks, the analysis found. more

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%. more

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. more

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. more

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. more

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. more

Over the past year, America's top brands have made few improvements in how they use online branded communities to reach their customers: A dwindling proportion is using a strategic approach to social engagement in 2012, and most have recorded static or falling engagement activity levels, according to a report released ... more

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 ... more

A note to our readers: MarketingProfs has decided to cease publication of the Get to the Po!nt (GTTP) newsletters, and this issue of the Email Marketing GTTP is the last you'll be receiving. We hope you continue to enjoy our daily newsletter, MarketingProfs Today, and our best-of-the-week newsletter, MarketingProfs This Week. "According to a study by Litmus, ... more

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. more

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. more

"If you check your subscriber lists, you'll probably find contacts lingering who should have been dealt with long ago," says Denise Keller in an article at MarketingProfs. "Instead of sitting in limbo, uncertain whether to save or dump email addresses, you need to decide which contacts you should keep and ... more

A note to our readers: MarketingProfs has decided to cease publication of the Get to the Po!nt (GTTP) newsletters, and this issue of the Social Media GTTP is the last you'll be receiving. We hope you continue to enjoy our daily newsletter, MarketingProfs Today, and our best-of-the-week newsletter, MarketingProfs This Week. Facebook ... more

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. more

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. more

To find out what times during the day are best for email opens and click-throughs, GetResponse analyzed 21 million messages sent from US accounts during the first quarter of 2012. The study found that 23.63% of all email opens occur within the first hour after delivery. Within the second hour ... more

"The key to being a good consultant of any kind is to ask the right questions," Michael Teitelbaum notes in a recent post at Marketing Trenches. "I've seen that the best sales and account managers I have worked with treat initial interactions with prospective clients as fact-finding missions rather than ... more

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. more

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. more

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? more

Every small business makes compromises on a daily basis. Adding something here means subtracting something there. But does it ever make sense to cut back on the customer experience? Can bad service be good business? Bill Taylor, writing at the HBR Blog Network, asked this question after reading a New York ... more

Moms are among the most connected demographics in social: more than 54% own smartphones, 75% use Facebook; and 5 million visit Pinterest daily. Their purchasing decisions affect entire households and spill over to their super-social friends. So how do you attract this connected, influential audience? At Inc.com, Christina DesMarais gives us her top ... more

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. more

You have a very good reason to join your local chamber of commerce: "One study on consumer preferences found that 63% of consumers prefer to shop and do business with chamber members," writes Mike Bowman at MarketingProfs. But the respectability of chamber membership isn't the only perk: It can also generate a steady ... more

Nearly nine in ten Facebook users (87%) say they "like" brands on Facebook, and among them fully one-half (50%) say a brand's Facebook page is more useful than its website, according to a survey from Lab42. more