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In a classic "New Yorker" cartoon, a man approaches the pearly gates. Saint Peter, greeting the new arrival, gestures to a sign saying "Birth, Death & Beyond" and comments, "Actually, I preferred 'Heaven,' too, but then the marketing guys got hold of it." Ah, the dreaded "m" word. Instead of inspiring awe and admiration, it's now more likely to prompt contempt and eye-rolling.

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Traditional TV tends to deliver measurable advertising results only for true mass-market products—in part because you need about $15 million to begin even the smallest mainstream TV campaign. Cable TV, on the other hand, is a powerfully viable alternative, delivering much higher ROI on much lower budgets in a national campaign. With cable TV, significant impact can be seen from as little as $500,000 in media spending.

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Selling intangibles is hard work. Putting together a successful Web site that peddles intangibles is even harder. Here's a look at the top sins that many professional services sites—maybe most—commit... along with some suggestions on what can be done about them.

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For some organizations, there's no business like tradeshow business. But diversifying your marketing efforts leads to better results. So what are the alternatives to tradeshow marketing?

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Remember back in the '90s, when voice of the customer (VOC) was all the rage? It was a process discipline, a way for companies to gather customer insight to drive product and service requirements. But VOC got lost amidst a booming tech sector, abundant resources, and the many, many new markets, customers, and transactions that companies pursued. Somewhere along the way, pulling out all the stops to delight the installed customer base got lost. But today, VOC is again moving to the center of the radar.

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Make no mistake: Online, your success in converting interest into acquisition depends on your ability to connect with prospects precisely where they are in the buying process. B2B and B2C buyers go through similar stages in that process as they consider their purchasing decision: needs assessment, requirements analysis, evaluation, purchasing. Using this model, there are four distinct methods you can use to successfully transition prospects from first click to conversion.

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Sometimes, copywriters and content writers write in clichés. They say things like, "Company X offers an integrated end-to-end solution." To a reader, the line has barely any meaning, and certainly no impact. Why not? Because it is too familiar. Because he or she has read the same phrase too many times before, in too many other places.

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If only clients would stand still. How much easier our lives as marketing professionals would be if client needs were consistent year after year and their marketplaces were never buffeted with changes from the economy or competition. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

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The whole is more than the sum of its parts. To recognize and value the baby boomer opportunity, it is critical to comprehend all of the pieces of their lives and how they are linked together holistically. Success with this market will come to those who understand how boomers define who they are and where they are going to... on a road that's never been traveled before. First things first: Who are these boomers, and why are they so important?

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Guerrilla Marketing is often defined as an unconventional way of performing promotional activities on a very low budget. While this is accurate, it's not quite right. The great guerrillas like Che or Mao had something more going for them than being "unconventional and cheap." Their battles became legend because they were thinking beyond the next quarter.

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If you want to learn how to develop new revenue generating customer relationships, check out the strategic Nike+ iPod alliance. Would a similar model work for you?

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One way to delight users is with the guy-in-the-unexpected-context phenomenon. Any company with way-over-the-top customer service is giving its users an unexpected, delightful surprise. Something to remember. Something to talk about. But even the subtle out-of-context surprise can trigger some neurons and brain chemistry. A reference to one movie slipped into the dialogue of... another movie. An Easter egg hidden in a... logo (like FedEx). A bud vase in a... car. It's not about the thing—it's about the context in which that thing is expressed. Some examples, big and small....

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Increasingly there's a new priority emerging for marketers, and that is sales acceleration: Finding disciplined and repeatable ways to move existing customers as well as prospects from "why?" to "buy"—more rapidly. Here are tips on how marketers can prove their value and work together with sales to accelerate the sales cycle.

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Customers have more power than ever, requiring marketing to change how it works to better meet customer demands.

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Do you remember that Dilbert panel where Dilbert follows a building map to find the marketing department? Upon arrival, he finds Grecian columns, a party that would make Bacchus proud, and a sign that says, "Welcome to Marketing. Two drink minimum." For me, having been on both sides of those Grecian columns, this cartoon sums up a gap between marketing and technology.