This final installment in a series of articles on achieving relevance in direct digital communications discusses the fifth vital key: developing and maintaining a plan. Achieving relevance requires you to define a step-by-step approach to overcoming each hurdle. more

"If B2B sales teams reduce the amount of face-to-face selling time in favor of more efficient sales models using the Web and telephone, will B2B buyers be receptive?" asks Robert Lesser in a recent post at the Acquiring Minds blog. You bet they will, he answers: "In fact, B2B buyers ... more

Welcome to the power of the testimonial: A potent plug can make people as much as seven times more likely to buy or try than if they saw a paid advertisement. Email-based testimonials can be just as persuasive, but the key is to maximize their power. Here's how to do ... more

If you're like many professional service providers, you get a lot of business from referrals. You get them because you're an expert and you provide excellent service. Nevertheless, that's not enough. Several things need to happen first: In fact, the referral process parallels the buying process that prospects use to ... more

LinkedIn is "one heck of a community for getting to know your prospects and customers," writes Ardath Albee at Marketing Interactions. "[But it] can also expose a lack of integrity and authenticity in a heartbeat." So if you're using LinkedIn as a lead-generation tool—or for any other purpose—consider this cautionary ... more

Despite dismal economic news overall, some business sectors are showing signs of improvement: Fully one-half of industrial-sector companies are expecting annual revenues in 2010 to be higher than they were in 2009, compared with the 24% of companies that reported the same a year earlier, according to a survey from ... more

B2B marketers continue to shift their marketing mix away from traditional marketing vehicles toward social media and digital channels: 67% plan to increase spending on social media over the next two to three years and 64% plan to increase spending on digital and online marketing over the same period, according ... more

When it comes to social media, the one thing that small and midsize businesses want to know is this: Is it worth it? Yes, it is. Here are five quick reasons why. more

Just because marketers are jumping on the interactive-marketing bandwagon doesn't mean things on the interactive side are all rosy. The decreasing numbers for print don't necessarily mean a particularly high ROI for all digital initiatives. Still, there is opportunity—but you need embrace a multichannel approach. Catalogs are a great example. more

If you've ever manned a tradeshow booth, you're familiar with that sense of urgency to bring back home a stack of qualified leads. And, with so many other exhibitors vying for the same prize, you may find yourself behaving a bit like a carnival barker in your efforts to lure ... more

Targeting the right audience is the key to success for any marketing campaign. Up-to-date contact information, valid email addresses, and the tools to segment a list accurately are must-haves for any marketer, yet they are by no means assured in the lists purchased from business-contact vendors. more

In a post at HubSpot, Kipp Bodnar argues for the integration of your business blog and your corporate website. "Blogs are dynamic; they drive fresh content that prospects and search engines love," he explains. "Traditionally, corporate websites were static; they had traditionally served as digital brochures for businesses. By ... more

If you're using direct marketing to sell your products and services, then you know that it's all about making an offer. But are you testing your offers to find out what work best? There are hundreds of offers and thousands, perhaps millions, of offer variations you can test. However, some ... more

If no one's reading your email campaign, no matter how great it is, it's not going to make any sales. You need a great email list filled with customers and prospects who have said yes to receiving information from you and who will be moved to action if the time ... more

Since the Internet began, some 40 years ago, most of its content has been free to access. Today, that is still the case. However, paid content is one of the fastest-growing areas of Internet business, generating more than $15 billion in revenues in 2009 in the US alone. With so ... more

"Online lead generation requires you to erect just the right-sized barrier," writes Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing. "Something [just] big enough to keep unqualified, unpromising leads out, while letting interested potential customers, voters or clients in." He offers a 10-point primer on building a solid lead-generation program, and here are ... more

"Reps selling into complex organizations need to be enabled with at least three levels of detail," Andy Hasselwander writes in a post at the B2B Marketing Confidential blog: "one for the business lead, one for [the lead's] researchers/support in the deal, and one for the technical folks that will [perform] ... more

Lead nurturing has high potential value when your acquisition programs have generated responses from interested prospects, but those prospects are not yet ready to buy. The 2010 Lead Generation Marketing ROI Study found that six in 10 lead generation marketers (58%) agree that nurturing stalled leads is under-funded relative to ... more

Large reductions in marketing budgets contributed to dismal sales performance in 2009, but companies are fighting back: Over three-quarters (72.5%) say they are increasing their marketing budgets in 2010, and over 9 in 10 cite customer acquisition as their top marketing objective in the next 12 months, according to a ... more

E-commerce sites can be particularly challenging for search-engine optimization (SEO) because they tend to lack unique, relevant content. The challenge can be easily (though not necessarily quickly) overcome with these five content techniques that can help you search-optimize e-commerce websites. more

Despite the proliferation of emerging media channels and ever-tightening marketing budgets, notes Chris McArdle at DemandGen Report, "fewer than 10 percent of B2C organizations are using proven techniques to effectively identify and target prospects." Why? According to McArdle, B2C companies are often daunted by lead-gen components, such as scoring. But, he ... more

US retailers are actively pursuing the mobile channel to enhance customer engagement and loyalty: 73% have some type of mobile initiative in place and 20% of are in the process of evaluating the mobile channel, according to a survey from Forbes Insights, in association with Research In Motion (RIM). more

"Marketing doesn't fully understand how buyers use content," warns Paul McKeon in a Pro article at MarketingProfs. "B2B marketing is no longer just in the business of brand management and lead generation," he states. "It must serve a huge demand for content that spans buyers' needs, from pre-awareness to post-sale." ... more

Part 1 and Part 2 of this article covered the first 10 of the 13 worst marketing mistakes. Here are the rest of the top 13 marketing mistakes you should avoid at all cost. more

Salesforce.com has released a beta of Salesforce Chatter, its "real-time collaboration cloud" that offers sales teams "a brand-new way to collaborate with people at work." So what exactly does Chatter offer? "Updates on people, groups, documents, and your application data come straight to you in your real-time feeds," the Chatter ... more