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I was a gift card virgin - until recently. Now, I will not use them anymore. Number one - they aren't worth the trouble. Number two - they aren't worth their full face value. There's hidden info that consumers don't know about until they try to use them, which brings me to number three...

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According to a recent Reuter's "Foodmakers tout innovation to battle imitation," food manufacturers stated at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago in mid-March "that they are the ones who develop innovative new products and spend marketing dollars to draw shoppers into retailers' This statement was issued, no doubt, to counter perception of the growing

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Marketers talk about asking for feedback all the time. Yet, few marketers take the time to really engage with subscribers on any level. That's why BettyCrocker.com stands out.

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Measuring your natural-search performance is definitely a good idea. However, establishing goals for your natural-search program is what will help communicate direction for the program and serve as a guide for measuring overall success. The challenge lies in establishing realistic goals in an achievable timeframe.

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You get it. Email needs to be relevant, timely, and personalized, and it has to arrive in the inbox—not the spam folder. When an email renders, it should load images perfectly, guide the eye through stunning, effective design that drives subscribers to convert—download, purchase, whatever. But effective one-to-one marketing is more than just email.

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Harnessing the power of customer insights throughout your organization produces a powerful, ongoing interactive connection with key constituents that competitors can't duplicate. Beyond the clever words and attention-getting visuals, the connection with the customer truly engages. When the product has been reviewed, when the ad is over, it's the feeling that remains that makes the sale and keeps the customer. If your marketing is based on customer insights, it's likely that your customers are going to feel understood—and therefore good about themselves. That's the feeling that will build the brand and drive sales.

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Creativity is hard Sure, an idea can strike out of the blue, but very few of us are paid for ideas alone. If you are like me, it is in the alchemic work that follows ideation where the true rewards are to be Shepherding an idea through various checkpoints and turning it into something tangible takes

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By Kevin Horne Several iconic brands of note such as Heinz and Bumble Bee have recently revived once-memorable taglines, for nostalgic purposes or maybe because the newer ones weren't any good. Among them is Nationwide Insurance, who is bringing back its "on your side" theme. (If you're as old as I am, those three words will

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: None

By Kevin Horne Several iconic brands of note such as Heinz and Bumble Bee have recently revived once-memorable taglines, for nostalgic purposes or maybe because the newer ones weren't any good. Among them is Nationwide Insurance, who is bringing back its "on your side" theme. (If you're as old as I am, those three words will

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No one's got a big budget these days, but we've all got big goals. For email marketers, the pressure is high to build the file, despite the lack of resources. Get actionable tips from three direct marketers on what works * * * * The high attendance and palpable energy at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing

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Business Week published its 50 Best in the magazine's April 6th issue. The caption, "Our 13th annual ranking of the top-performing companies in America shows innovation remains a powerful engine of success." No surprise Consumer product companies have long known that continually filling the pipeline with innovative new products is one of the keys to success.

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Before you ask me to go to work for you, go to work for yourself. When you've implemented the suggestions above, I'm more receptive to helping you connect with your next job opportunity. But I don't have time or inclination to work with job-seeking networking spammers. Heed the lesson of the online social networkers: "It's the relationship, stupid." You won't stay unemployed forever. But the work you put into documenting your accomplishments online and taking an interest in others in your field is a long-term investment in yourself.

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Marketers today understand that consumers think, feel, and react in ways different from June Cleaver some 50 years ago. We use descriptors like fickle, indecisive, and disloyal to describe the modern consumer. Just what do these terms mean? Mainly, they mean that consumers have too many choices—multiple brands, brand extensions, and sub-brands—and too much stimulation, especially online, making it nearly impossible to predict their next move. And yet, marketers continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on segmentation analysis and other research, hoping to understand and predict the behavior of these fickle consumers. It's as though they're still chasing June Cleaver when neither her modern counterparts nor today's consumerism as a whole bear any resemblance to the past. So what can marketers do? They can start by grasping the profound societal and technological changes that define today's new consumerism.

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A good landing page should tell a story. But filling the page with fluff isn't going to sell your product or service. There is a method to the madness behind the creation of a great splash or jump page. And it's a pretty systematic, organized, and detailed method, at that.

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Email marketing is likely your most effective tool for improving customer relationships, building brand awareness, and generating sales. It is also the most abused one. Practitioners of knee-jerk planning rely on emails to bolster a sagging month or fill in the holes left when other marketing techniques miss their mark. Even though it works (which is why it is abused), there is a price to be paid. Customers become disenchanted when they receive numerous emails promoting one sale after another or one product over and over. Everyone's threshold is different. Some may opt out after a week, others a month, and still others a year or more. (Note: there tends to be a jump in opt outs at the start of the New Year. People want to start fresh, so they do some housekeeping. If you saw a jump in opt outs in January, then you desperately need to review your email strategy.) The best way to avoid a mass exodus from your subscriber list is to have an email strategy that works with the rest of your marketing.

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Social Marketers beware. Tapping in to highly vocal, critical, loyal, active and chatty network on Twitter may seem like a great opportunity - but it isn't for the faint of heart. Further, you can't just take traditional marketing tactics, throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks - or you may wind up with egg

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I recently registered for a business summit that includes a year's subscription to a national business publication. If I don't want to receive this magazine, I need to send a copy of my registration e-mail to a third-party fulfillment company in order to get $12 refunded. What would you do? What do you think of this

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By DJ In the midst of a recession, most marketers are preoccupied with keeping their current job. Unemployment continues to rise and job opportunities are That's why you must take full advantage of any opportunities to improve your job prospects. The tips below illustrate ways for you to easily optimize job opportunities during a I know