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CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Social Media Marketing

As companies tighten their ad spending, inexpensive social media is clearly the next marketing frontier. As with any new craze, there are enormous opportunities. And with them come giant pitfalls that must be avoided.

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What's your Return On Sound? Budgets may be tight and long-term planning may feel out of reach, but a few simple principles can help lay the groundwork for long-term brand value for "sonic identity." Music and sound create significant long-term brand power. That effect comes by design, and it starts with a few questions.

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Sears performed a courageous email-marketing act in mid-December. Like every retailer, Sears was surely eager for additional sales and revenue as the worst holiday season in memory reached a crescendo and the sale window started to close. Despite that pressure, the Sears team had the discipline to hit the pause button on the hard sell in attempting to make a connection with subscribers. Instead, it sent a co-marketing email with Heroes at Home, promoting a national gift registry for returning US soldiers.

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There are a number of ways to measure the success of a Word-of-Mouth marketing campaign on the Web. Start by looking in the right place: where the target audience congregates online.

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Knowing what to improve and by how much is vital to establishing realistic performance targets and metrics. This two-part article discusses how to use benchmarking to assess your organization's performance and to understand what changes to make. Part 1 defined benchmarking and explored its value. This second and final part identifies marketing capabilities and process that can be benchmarked and outlines the five phases associated with a successful benchmarking initiative.

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A few basic thoughts advertisers should consider for the 2010 Super Bowl: • Who watches the Super Bowl? Approximately 100 million viewers, with more than 40 percent of them women. • Who spends the most money as a consumer? Women spend approximately 85 percent; men spend only 15 percent. • Who focuses more on the game—and who on the commercials? Though many women love football, and a lot of men enjoy seeing the new commercials, women focus more on the commercials... and men more on the game. The 2009 Super Bowl commercials were far below my expectations.

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Your company may already have more than enough traffic on your Web site to achieve your business goals, but the problem is that you may have a leaky Web site: Prospects and customers are visiting your Web site, but very few are taking the next step to do business with you. Here's how to plug the leaks.

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Perhaps your spending has spiraled out of control and your conversions haven't budged. Or, like many of us, maybe your performance is fine but your budgets have been slashed, forcing you to produce the same results with less spend. Before you scrap everything and start from scratch, pull out this trusty first-aid kit for PPC campaigns.

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Over the past two years "green" has become part of nearly every serious business discussion. But what will happen now in this damaged economy? Some of the green pressure on companies will lessen, but the underlying forces driving the green wave will continue over the coming years—from volatile commodity prices (which will rise again aggressively after the recession) to a rise in transparency to tougher questions from key stakeholders (such as your business customers, consumers, and employees). Those big picture trends will continue over years, but here now a few specific predictions for 2009.

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What are the seven most important words in Web marketing? Here's a hint: Search, engine, and optimization don't make the cut. So what words do make the list? What are the seven words that will make your Web site worth viewing?

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Getting your permission-based email marketing emails into the inbox and ensuring that your email design is just right are closely related. Here is some useful information on the nexus between the two as well as on doing both well.

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The current financial meltdown prompts another, larger catastrophe in the works: the change in the earth's climate and what it will do to business and society. Although those two challenges may seem worlds apart, there are three critical attributes of the financial crisis that are eerily similar to those of the climate crisis.

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Dear CEO: Welcome to the blogoshere! So, umm, how do you really start? How do you get started blogging, and do it well? Let's avoid the technical requirements. (You've got people who can figure that stuff out!) Instead, let's focus on creating the right mindset.

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Digital marketing isn't just an ever-growing collection of components anymore (if it ever was). Don't limit your perception of it to adding the latest Web 2.0 gadget to your site or playing in the newest online community. It's not simply about befriending the Johnny-come-lately of the Web 2.0 family, ranging from YouTube to Twitter to podcasts, blogs, MySpace, Facebook and SecondLife. There is no "connect the dots," because digital marketing is geometric, not linear. What's it all about then? These days, it's about creating fusion.

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Blogs provide rich opportunities for organizations to interact with customers. But now marketers are wondering how to create even more dynamic content and "stickiness." That next level of intimacy has already started to emerge with video blogs, or vlogs.

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CEOs and CMOs are interested in seeing marketing organizations improve their performance in two key areas: effectiveness (the ability to produce the desired result) and efficiency (reducing waste). The economic environment makes these efforts even more top-of-mind. Often the question that remains is how much do we need to improve? Benchmarking is one way to assess your organization's performance and understand what changes to make.

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It's probably no surprise that the process of acquiring new customers comes with one of the higher price tags of any of your marketing initiatives. The value of growing your customer base is obvious: the potential to sell more products or services. Moreover, increasing customer loyalty will reduce your marketing costs by providing you with a growing number of prospects and customers that can be easily and efficiently communicated with. Accounting for these 5 basic lifecycle tactics for the coming year will help identify areas of focus when laying out your strategy and setting goals.

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Wall Street had a stormy 2008, but there is a silver lining: Industry leaders are now turning to all things "eco" as a new source of (genuine?) green. Here are the top 5 green marketing stories from a volatile year—and what they may mean for your business in 2009.

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Finding the balance between search engine optimization (SEO) and a successful user experience can be a challenge. The two strategies can conflict, and companies may mistakenly favor one over the other.

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What does your brand look like? Is it recognizable—in any medium? Or does it change its appearance and present a confusing array of visual styles? Most organizations understand the strategic importance of a consistent visual style... but fall short on implementation, especially when there are multiple in-house or agency creative teams.