With Web hosting fast becoming a commodity, Web hosting firm Rackspace realized it needed to stand out from the pack. Its founders decided they would stake a claim to "fanatical" commitment to customer service. Rackspace wove the concept into its very business structure, even trademarking the term "Fanatical Support." And ... more

Royal Canin Canada puts an enormous budget behind creating customized, breed-specific pet food. But many pet owners don't realize how much their dog or cat could benefit from a specially formulated food. By creating a loyalty email program targeted with information on specific breeds, Royal Canin was able to earn ... more

When the clients of SalesTrac, Inc., were looking for more in-depth consumer insight to determine the effectiveness of their promotional events, SalesTrac seized the opportunity to provide increased value through an all-in-one system that added survey management and real-time reporting of consumer feedback to its services. Check out the results. more

Privately held Pavilion Technologies knows how important it is for businesses to track ROI. But two years ago, its marketing department realized it was having trouble tracking its own ROI. Pavilion ultimately found a solution through a software system that helps monitor all prospects who visit its Web site. more

A Web site isn't much of a marketing tool if your target audience can't find it. Officials at RUD Chain, a manufacturer of high-end industrial chains, discovered that access to a quality vertical search engine was the missing link to getting its Web site in front of key customers. Until a ... more

Monster.com, an established online staffing firm, needed new ways to reach its core audience of busy corporate human resources professionals. In the third quarter of 2006, Monster revamped its main email marketing campaign to make it more interactive and personal. Monster representatives now send their contacts a short text email ... more

Podcasts are an excellent way to share your latest findings and juiciest developments in a medium that's engaging, fun, and portable. If you're thinking about podcasting, here's the second installment of an insider's peek at the creation of a podcast series, complete with professional tips from a talented audio team. more

Let's give it up for Unilever! This company has not made any false moves on the marketing-to-women front, and the "presenting" sponsorship for its Pond's brand is another smart strategy in a long line of savvy business decisions. With its sponsorship of "The Starter Wife," Pond's gets its name linked ... more

The customer development group at a large, publicly held high-tech company needed a central repository of data to help identify satisfied customers willing to be references when sales associates approached new prospects. By putting together a customer reference management database filled with relevant data on customers, the company was able to ... more

Mother's Day is almost here, a day filled with fresh flowers, delicious dark chocolates, fancy fragrances, and gem-filled jewelry. But is that really the way to a woman's heart? What'll really make her swoon is sleek, metal, shiny, and fast. more

A civil engineering firm with a tremendous reputation faced a major challenge: It had grown its business by repeat business and referrals, and now some of its best clients were beginning to retire. The company was losing market share. By implementing a "voice of the customer" survey and then creating marketing ... more

Dunderson, a Swedish manufacturer of high-end urban clothes, wanted to expand its clientele to the key US market. Since the vast majority of its business came from third-party retailers selling to European consumers, it had limited exposure to Americans—mostly through one retail outlet in New York City. At the same ... more

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This week, the Lenskold Group and MarketingProfs released results of our new survey on marketing accountability, measurements, and ROI. The 2007 Marketing ROI and Measurements Study focuses on the difference between companies using profitability metrics and those using traditional marketing metrics with no financial metrics. Among other findings, the research ... more

Though by no means cutting edge in the usual sense... scissors and related tools help drive the $30 billion craft and hobby industry. Fiskars Brands, Inc., a global brand based in the Netherlands with U.S. headquarters in Madison, WI, was losing sales of craft tools—including its famed specialized scissors—to commoditized, ... more

When an online electronics retailer runs a holiday-season Google paid search campaign, and the resulting cost per acquisition is far higher than the average cost per order, something is not right. Yet that's what happened with the 2005 holiday campaign of The Source By Circuit City. The following year, Source flipped ... more

Women love fashion. But fashion doesn't love them. Not real women, at least. Most women aren't supermodels—in fact, the average American woman is 5'4", weighs 140 lbs., and wears a size 14. So most American women find the fashion industry a bit out of touch. Who is in touch with the ... more

When a top Web site took a close look its landing pages, company officials noticed something unacceptable: The landing page for the company's most popular search term converted about 30 percent less frequently than the company's general landing page. By simultaneously testing four new versions of the landing page, the site ... more

ITtoolbox was looking for a way to increase ROI on lead-generation campaigns for its 700 advertisers, among them such big guns as IBM, Microsoft, and Accenture. So ITtoolbox built its own contextual keyword engine, which provided a greater than 50% boost in lead volume and dramatically increased relevancy, boosting conversion ... more

Contrary to popular opinion, Boomer women aren't in denial about aging. Advertisers are. And the women they're supposed to be trying to connect with are getting annoyed. more

Luke runs MySpace marketing campaigns on a daily basis. Here, he shares his real-world experiences and tips, including the best way to leverage MySpace to zero in on your target market. more

When you've schlepped your staff and booth to numerous tradeshows throughout the year, with no concrete results to point to, it's time for a change in your marketing approach. Euchner-USA, Inc. all but jettisoned its traditional print advertising efforts and embraced a comprehensive B2B online marketing model. more

With 2007 in full swing, here are our online marketing predictions for the rest of the year to come. We busted out our omniscient crystal ball, and this is what it told us... . more

Let's review: Women make 80 percent of all purchases. They buy more electronic equipment, vehicles, and home-improvement products than men do. Women hold nearly 50 percent of all jobs. In dual-income families, more than 30 percent out-earn their husbands. They control considerable sums of money and spend it for a ... more

The Points of Light Foundation's annual event had grown moribund, and the house list stagnant, says Chief Creative Director Todd Potochnik. But he and his team were able to boost attendance from the previous year's conference by more than 25% and garner an 85% "satisfactory or above" approval rating from ... more