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Marketing Operations is an emerging discipline with the potential to significantly increase performance and accountability in complex marketing organizations. It addresses the seven deadliest marketing sins that plague organizations of all sizes by leveraging a strong front-end infrastructure to reinforce marketing strategy and back-end programs and tactics. Is your organization ready for a change?

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Do you remember a time when most restaurant meals were the sit down, full-service, dessert-included variety? Even if all you wanted was a cup of soup or a simple salad, you were offered the blue plate special with everything at one price. Then the culinary folks came up with small plates, a la carte items, tastings, pairing menus, buffets and the like.... Similarly, high-tech companies have stopped serving everything one way with a side of structured licensing? Where once companies had to select / install / customize/upgrade, now we're allowed to use smaller-scale online services that do one thing really well, without integration and without customization.

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If you're marketing in a highly competitive keyword space or providing products and services with little or no name recognition, you should consider creating branded keywords and driving their search demand with buzz.

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Web 2.0 has changed what product definitions look like, and how things that are sold as 'free' can make money. So while the 4 Ps are a good start as buckets, let's update them for today's era and discuss what you need to be doing to keep your mix both relevant and impactful. Here's one take on what's happening…and some ideas on what you need to do to win your market.

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Rewards program members are more likely to have spent a greater amount of money in the past six months across 11 retail categories examined in a recent study, including home improvement, electronics, grocery and book stores. Check out the study's specific results here.

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Web 2.0 reflects how the Web is changing from watching to "involving." What are the best ways to engage with customers in this new climate?

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Generating quality leads is a growing challenge for many marketing professionals. More than ever before, legions of marketing materials are competing for the attention of prospects. How can you be sure to stand out from the crowd?

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Every time the tradeshow season rolls around, marketers ask themselves the same old question: how can I tap into the special sales markets without using last year's hats, bags, Frisbees, pens, and other boring gimmicks? The solution is so simple and effective—good old-fashioned books.

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Marketers assume that "Googling" for information is an automatic response the instant a Web surfer opens a browser. And for many Internet users, the theory is true. But for a number of reasons, and with increasing regularity, many people bypass search engines altogether in favor of a technique called direct navigation. Simply put, direct navigation is when a users directly types a Web address into a browser.

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For marketers, technologically sophisticated products and services pose a special problem—translating the technical talk that engineers love into the plain talk customers need and will act upon. From the depths of my experience with bits, bytes, high-voltage devices and semi-toxic chemical compounds, we offer a few suggestions that will help you turn good science into compelling marketing copy.

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Done well, e-books deliver authentic thought leadership, branding an organization as one to do business with. Here are some examples of successful e-books to get your creative energy flowing....

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In Part 1 of this two-part article, the author looked at how MySpace (and the social networking industry in general) has evolved. Here in the second part, Cliff examines how he has applied what he has learned and observed to the MyCityRocks testbed, which he launched in Houston in 2005.

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If your visitors like your Web site, there is a very good likelihood that the search engines will, too. With this in mind, the following 10 tips focus on how to develop your site with your visitors in mind, and also effectively conduct search engine optimization.

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In grade school, one of the key determinants of popularity on the playground was how quickly you were selected when the time came to choose up sides for basketball, baseball, or soccer. In the same way, the developing business model for the next 10 years depends hugely on which set of developer and ecosystem partners pick you. However, unlike grade school, you might have more ability to influence this selection.

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A fundamental question in selling is not why people sell, but why people buy. People buy for their own reasons—not for the seller's. In fact, their motivation to buy may have very little to do with the reasons sellers think they should buy. When it comes down to it, people buy something to meet their needs or resolve the problems they are facing. A good sales professional can help customers come to that realization. But it doesn't happen as easily as you might think.

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Why should you create a Voice of the Customer program? And what steps should you take to do so?