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Attracting—and ultimately closing—deals with new clients can take professional service providers anywhere between several months and several years. Since most firms rely on their partners and principals to bring in new work, client acquisition ends up consuming a lot of the organization's most valuable resources. One sure way to increase profitability, then, is to find ways to reduce the time that these highly paid professionals spend developing new business—so that they can devote more time to generating revenue.

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In Aikido, martial arts students study and practice katas—pre-arranged movements that enable them to deal with an opponent successfully. The centuries-old art teaches practitioners to use the force of an opponent against the opponent. This strategy gives the student a definite advantage if they are attacked. In a similar way, what were considered strengths in Web 1.0 have become weaknesses in Web 2.0. Now, agility and intellect are critical. There are several things businesses need to pay attention to if they're going to thrive in this environment.

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You might be an expert when it comes to marketing to large businesses. But selling your products and services to smaller companies requires an entirely different strategy.

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There's new interest in solving an age-old corporate problem of how to measure customer satisfaction. Lukcily, there are new tools for doing so, too.

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It's well known that a page-one search placement on Google, Yahoo, or MSN is imperative for driving organic traffic to your Web site. But if you're already in the enviable top spot position, is there something more you can do to gain even more traffic? There is, and aggressive web players are implementing the strategy effectively. Here's how.

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What constitutes marketing operations? Marketing operations adds an emerging dimension to the marketing mix. Enabled by new processes and technology, it goes beyond the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), and 3Cs (Customers, Competitors, Corporation), to fully round out the marketing mix.

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Here are five powerful referral strategies—and precise action steps—that, when used either individually or collectively, can cause a flood of new introductions.

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These 18 concepts will give you an edge on your competition—or an edge, period. So if the same old left-brain thinking that everybody else is using just doesn't get you where you want to be, try these creative concepts on for size.

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In this MarketingProfs Classic, Jim Lenskold reminds us that, since the dreaded annual planning and budgeting process isn't going away, it's time to make the effort to get more value out of the process. Jim writes, "Here are four ways to use financial insight to create more profitable strategies and tactical plans while building greater credibility with your executive team."

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Marketers often lament, "If only I had more time...." Improving your productivity by using something like GTD (Getting Things Done) will take you part of the way there. But you also need to become ruthless at delegating. The more effectively you delegate, the faster you will excel in your career.

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Results from a recent survey found that only 17% of us indicated that our CEOs would give marketing an A. What's more, this study and others continue to suggest that a gap remains between a company's business goals and the metrics marketing uses to measure their impact on these goals. The need and opportunity remains for marketing to improve the linkage between marketing expenditures and delivered results. But what should we measure? And which metrics are best?

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Leading consumer-products companies are looking to rebrand, repackage and relaunch... often too frequently. Sometimes, the effort is merely putting a bandage on a deeper sore. It's far less painful to assess lagging sales in a superficial manner than it is to dig deeper into company practices, customer-service issues, and the actual product mix being offered—not to mention how customers are experiencing the brand and whether that brand is delivering on its promises. In fact, companies that really want to dig for the truth ought to seek answers to these questions... .

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At a time when business and marketing strategy changes at the speed of light, and competitors, partners and customers have instant access to information, the days of the handler the publicist are numbered.

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What's the most common mistake companies make in crafting collateral? What are the keys to creating content that reflects a company's credibility? And how does a company stop talking about itself... and focus on its customers? Here, the author of "Writing Copy for Dummies" shares his insider secrets and expertise.

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In an online sales environment that is both increasingly competitive and cluttered, B2B marketers must be able to perform two critically important tasks: They must communicate a unique brand identity, and they must be agile enough to quickly customize lead generation and communication programs to meet their measurable objectives. These tasks can be especially challenging for small-to-medium-sized B2B firms, as well as for divisions of very large firms. Here's where they are turning for help.

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Kronos had an obvious identity problem that clearly impacted its sales performance, so getting support from the executive suite for a branding initiative should have been a slam-dunk. Except not quite. While everyone agreed there was a brand problem, the solution was costly and very long-term. Here's how Marketing won over Management, by talking a language they understood.

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Part one of this three-part series examined the overall role the customer can (and should!) play in innovation. Here is a deeper look at five specific ways that Marketing can engage the customer in the innovation process, using examples from LEGO, a company that has used these techniques with clear and brilliant success.

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Paul has earned his keep over the past 20 years by building buzz for heavyweights like Google, IBM, and Microsoft. These days he's immersed himself in social media, which serves him well as the director of Global Field & Interactive Marketing for BearingPoint. In this one-on-one, he gives us the lowdown on how to use social media to kick-start your buzz marketing efforts.

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How come some brands are great, while others manage to be just good? Is there a trick up the sleeves of those great brands—a trick that good, sustainable brands can adopt to become equally well-known? The answer is yes.

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If you're responsible for the direction of the online strategies for your company or organization, you've probably been hearing buzz about Twitter, a next-generation instant messaging tool. Even if you're new to Twitter, this article will serve as a guide to educate you to help you make a decision, by linking to resources and providing a starting point for your strategy.