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We often complain that we have too few success stories or lack examples in specific verticals, or in specific geographies, or find that the customers' quotes are bland and lack specific metrics of success. Even worse, all success stories age. Those that are a few years old may cease to be relevant—they were based on old releases of the software or situations that no longer match current customer needs. How can we accelerate the collection and use of relevant and useful success stories? Here are four ways.

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Do your marketing and sales communications perpetuate the head-to-head competitive bakeoff? Or does it equip and enable your sales people to participate earlier and more effectively in the customer buying cycle? There is an easy way to tell.

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New postal rates were implemented last month. But the rate hike is not just a normal increase across the board. Instead, there is a tangle of new regulations that will affect how mail is classified and how rates are applied. Direct marketers: take note.

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Customer case stories are a powerful way to communicate the value of a company, product, or service. Nobody speaks more loudly for you than your customers. But if that's the case, why do so many customer success stories and case studies fall short? Here are 10 things that blunt case study effectiveness... and what you can do to avoid each.

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As today's markets consolidate and become increasingly competitive, and as buyers become more sophisticated and demanding, customer references gain even greater importance. But many customer reference programs are stuck in outmoded thinking, and that could be significantly holding your company back. So how can your reference program evolve to meet today's challenges?

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How long will the Second Life media frenzy last? And if not for PR, what is the value of investing time and money with avatars when marketing budgets are under renewed pressure to deliver real returns from real consumers? Joel argues that there is more than meets the eye in Second Life. Indeed, there is genuine value to be extracted for brands that are willing to learn the dynamics of the "metaverse" and play by its rules. Get the full story.

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Brands that deliver general interest newsletters filled with tips, tools, and advice—but not unique, brand-differentiating content—should re-think their approach. Progressive brands are making advances in their approach, tightening the focus of their relationship marketing, and now filling newsletters with more unique-to-the-brand content.

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Can you make money by giving away your product? Absolutely—and companies like Adobe (PDF Reader) and Macromedia (Shockwave Player) have proven it. With Web 2.0, consumers have gotten a lot of things at no cost due to various monetization practices—and that's good. But should you give away your product? That's another question entirely.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

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.

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by Loren McDonald Email is the most-used tool in the marketer's arsenal—but there's a pretty good chance your CEO just doesn't understand its contribution to the bottom line. Unfortunately, that's because most marketers don't get it either. And, as long as we don't get it, we also won't get the boss's ear long enough to get the resources we need.

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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 to the show in all online and offline media, plus product placement in the show, integrated marketing, and promotions—and most importantly, a new brand image.

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The major problem with blogs is that they are a relatively new—albeit rapidly growing—Web phenomenon. As a result, they constitute a more or less uncharted realm for companies, with few official policies or guidelines.

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Here's to you! You just got deputized to handle demand generation. You're not sure if you should reach for the champagne, or the antacid... From this point on, you're a metric-driven marketer; your success is measured by the number of leads you generate. Just don't take your eyes off the end game: revenue. How can you avoid lead myopia?

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Numerous people have studied the process that creative people go through to develop their ideas. Most of these students of creativity agree that ideas come from a subconscious process that takes two relatively unassociated thoughts and combines them together to produce a new thought—a new idea.

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It's no longer the world of work you knew when you graduated from college. The tried and true career management techniques you've been using just don't work in today's marketplace. Working hard, writing a compelling resume, staying connected to head hunters are all so... 20th century. To achieve the highest level of success and fulfillment today, you must immerse yourself in the Web 2.0 frame of mind. That means developing a new set of career management habits.

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If you are flying from Los Angeles to Tokyo, you can learn how to say "how are you" in Japanese. The lesson is provided as part of the JAL in-flight entertainment in four language categories: numbers, dates, words, and dialogue. Other airlines also offer interactive audiovisual language programs, including Virgin Atlantic, Air France, and Singapore Airlines. It's all part of the trend toward brand engagement, one of the two great trends reshaping branding today and tossing such tired, 30-year-old theories like "positioning" to the dustbin of marketing history.

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Before it was released on July 4, 2002, many expected the $7.3 million game would join the ranks of the $436 hammer and $640 toilet seat as a study of excess. Few predicted "America's Army" would become the artillery's most effective marketing tool, conveying the authentic military experience in a voice that prospective recruits want to hear.

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Whether your company has an ongoing customer relationship, such as a bank or magazine publisher does, or your sales effort is based on single-unit sales and repeat purchasers, attrition affects us all. It behooves us to better understand the what and why of attrition and exactly what, if anything, can be done about it. The first question one should ask: "Is customer retention a problem in my company?"

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Marketing within social networks and Virtual Worlds is becoming a viable means for reaching and influencing the attitudes and behavior of consumers in ways that was never before believed possible. In fact, marketers who have dabbled in Virtual Worlds recognize the enormous potential of the medium... but have ventured only far enough to reveal the tip of the iceberg.

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Changes in the way customers buy technology are stressing existing vendor channel and partner organizations, processes, and capabilities. As a result, companies need to rethink the ways they allocate their channel marketing resources and how they use marketing infrastructure to scale their channel operations, particularly as they target the small- and medium-sized business market.