So maybe your organization hasn't had a stellar year. (Really, how many have?) But you still have fans. How can you reach out, in a more personal way, to keep the customers you have? more

Applying SEO best practices like keyword research and link-building is a surefire way to start increasing your search rankings. However, in a recent Search Engine Watch post, Chris Boggs warns us not to forget the non-SEO ways to get websites consistently ranked for relevant desired terms. "SEO involves getting lots ... more

Sales techniques that succeed in a strong economy can work against you in a weak one. The reason, says Bruce Wedderburn in the whitepaper "Five Questions Your Clients Are Asking," published by Huthwaite, Inc, is that buyers' motivations are different in growth periods (expansion, corporate growth and hiring) than they ... more

"Imagine if a customer in one of your stores asked a rep where to find a particular product and that rep directed [her] to a door that led to the alley behind the store," says Chad White in a post at the Retail Email Blog. "What do you think that ... more

OK, we admit it: For a platform as popular as it's become, Twitter's surprisingly hard to understand to the untrained eye. What are all those messages? IMs? Forum discussions? Public IMs? And what the heck is a "tweeple," for goodness sake?!! Most importantly: What's with this rumor that Twitter can ... more

Heads-up: It's time to take a fresh look at LinkedIn. That's what Diana Huff says in a recent guest post at the Savvy B2B Marketing blog. "In the last year or so, LinkedIn has significantly increased its functionality," she reports, "making the business networking site a great way to gather ... more

"The business environment is shifting so fast these days that I'm continuously seeing companies jump from one idea to the next in some kind of frenzied attempt to force results to happen on their time line," says Ardath Albee at the Marketing Interactions blog. "If something doesn't work immediately, they ... more

"In email marketing, we seem to tolerate a level of mystery that would not be acceptable in any other channel," says Stephanie Miller in a post at the Daily Fix blog. Take deliverability: You might know, for instance, that you have a "delivered" rate of 95 percent. "This is a ... more

We're five or so years into the "Era of Accountability," and what do we have to show for it? Is marketing any closer to demonstrating to CEOs and CFOs what they're getting for their money? Are we marketers more comfortable in our own skins, confident of our ability to measure ... more

What are two of the biggest obstacles companies face in link marketing? Consultant Justilien Gaspard believes they are: (1) developing linkable content, and (2) making people aware of it. In a recent Search Engine Watch article, he offers advice on how to overcome these Big Two and start linking up with hot ... more

If you worry that an email with a horizontal (left-to-right) scroll will confuse your subscribers, Dylan Boyd is prepared to disagree. Unless it tests well, he doesn't suggest using this type of scroll as a regular feature, but he does think it can serve as a useful interrupter that spurs engagement. ... more

Recently, TubeMogul reported that Twitter refers some of the least-fickle viewers to video sites, with tweeties watching videos 36.91 percent longer than those referred by Facebook, and 49.98 percent longer than those referred by Digg. Got dreams of broadcasting live to this eager bunch? Now you can! Ride the statistical wave ... more

"In light of the economy, more and more marketers are concerned with late-stage leads," says Karen Landis in a recent post at the My Educated Guess blog. "While many marketers won't discount [newer] leads entirely, they will stop messaging them on the theory that they are too early-on in the ... more

As the global recession grinds on, marketers continue to turn to email marketing to drive sales. But those efforts often confront email-deliverability obstacles: In the US and Canada, more than 20% of commercial email doesn't reach subscribers' inboxes. more

In recent months, argues Lisa Barone in a post at the Outspoken Media blog, we've had a ready and convenient excuse when things don't go our way. It doesn't really matter what the setback might be; the simple act of blurting out "recession" seems to cover a number of professional ... more

In a post at Copyblogger, Sonia Simone reports on a recent study from Return Path that found 23 percent of permission-based email never reaches the inbox of Gmail users. "No, I'm not saying it goes to a junk box," she says. "Most of it doesn't get delivered at all. No ... more

To drive response and determine the appropriate marketing mix in this new digital paradigm, marketers must adopt a fresh approach to understand how to influence prospects and customers. By doing so, marketers can maximize marketing spend and generate stronger return on investment. more

Suppose you learned that most of your brand's buyers are switchers: that only 15% of your customers are highly loyal to your brand and account for maybe half of sales. The harsh reality is that that's a typical pattern for many grocery brands. So how do you build a marketing ... more

There's no one-size-fits-all solution to survival during challenging times. But there are some strategies that will help no matter what situation you and your business are in. more

"Do more with less." That is the challenge for software marketers today: to get better results from their marketing programs on increasingly smaller budgets. It's important for software marketers to analyze the effectiveness of their programs and determine their return on investment (ROI), because a careful look will reveal that some ... more

One year ago, Lynda Partner wrote—but did not publish—a blog post that eviscerated a software company for taking liberties with her email address, and then treating her complaint with stunning indifference. "Why publish it now, you ask? This week I got more spam from this same company," she says. "It ... more

Ever since the Web delivered reliable and low-cost connectivity, software as a service (SaaS) has evolved into a formidable business model. Profiting from SaaS, however, continues to challenge the industry. In a post on Chaotic Flow, Joel York writes that SaaS success requires rigorously aligning your business to the underlying ... more

Last week, we showed you some cool makeup vids as an example of how viral videos can rack in the mega-bucks. This time, we offer a sample of how a consistent, useful and compelling online video campaign can serve your brand amazingly well. Consider "Will it Blend," a fascinating online ... more

Although B2B marketers may use the terms drip marketing and closed-loop marketing interchangeably, they are actually two distinctly different approaches to lead nurturing, says Maria Pergolino in a recent post at the Modern B2B Marketing blog. She offers a breakdown of the differences between the two techniques. Some highlights: A ... more

Changes in the way customers receive and process information via social-networking sites, mobile phones, and the Internet, combined with shrinking margins, deteriorating customer loyalty, and increased demand for marketing accountability, suggest the need for a new approach to customer-centricity. A. G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor & Gamble, signaled this reconfirmation best ... more