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- Here's a look at how Annie's Homegrown used grassroots marketing to propel itself from a home-based startup selling a commodity food item—packaged macaroni-and-cheese—in small mom-and-pop natural food stores to a vibrant business with products that are sold by supermarkets in all 50 states. more
- Ah, sales and marketing. They're like two siblings fighting in the back seat while mom, pop—or a company executive—drives the car. Jonathan doesn't know how to stop all this bickering (and he's not interested in "who started it"), but here he suggests a few ways those of us on the marketing ... more
- Most midsize-to-large companies have long learned the value of the press release, but the vast majority of small companies haven't. The notion seems to be that, to make it into the newspaper, companies must have some momentous news to break. But, by forfeiting the newspaper coverage to the "big boys," small ... more
- The Sideways Wine Club, launched in April 2005, improved sales 161% year over year through July 2006, despite the fact that most online wine marketers experience an average visitor-to-buyer conversion rate of about 0.0085, or 0.85%, much lower than most other online retailers' conversion rates. The company's founder, Dave Chambers, ... more
- One of the critical parts of generating a large number of quality referrals is, of course, getting quality referrals, as opposed to just getting names and phone numbers. You can assure yourself of getting quality referrals if you take the time to learn who your client knows prior to asking for ... more
- Think of personas—customer archetypes—as "stand-ins" representing the needs, goals, and personal characteristics of various groups of your customers. They are invaluable for giving salespeople insight into the behaviors, expectations, and motivations of users and buyers in the buying process. more
- Do you have the killer instinct? A small percentage of Web content really makes a difference. It makes the sale, delivers the service, and builds the brand. This is the killer Web content. It probably represents less than 10% of content published on the Web, because—let's face it—most content just gets ... more
- All too often, Web pages, even homepages, provide readers with a variety of choices, but don't really provide a clear way forward. This is particularly true when a site has multiple products or services to sell. If visitors read your homepage and become interested in something you are selling or ... more
- Pay-per-click advertising is the biggest lead-generation breakthrough to come about in a long time. For small and midsize companies, in particular—and thanks to its ability to narrowly target prospects, tightly manage spending, and precisely measure results—PPC is one of the most efficient lead generation tools ever developed. It does, however, have ... more
- Marketing departments perform many tasks throughout the year: hiring good talent, keeping quality employees, choosing the right communications strategy, improving ROI, and generating higher quality leads for Sales. But with increasing competition and diminishing budgets, achieving these goals is becoming increasingly difficult. Fortunately, there is a crucial step that marketing departments ... more