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Media training is hot. With the growing awareness that PR is a potent marketing tool, many companies are using media training to strengthen their communication capabilities. Media training can be a complex, expensive undertaking. But with a little planning, it can make your organization's message clearer and more compelling.

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There has been a flurry of RSS activity in the last two years, including countless startups that are hitting the new technology from every angle. These companies are doing everything they can to get RSS ready for prime time. Unfortunately, it's not quite there yet, but we're getting closer. What will it take to get RSS ready for wholesale embrace?

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Acquiring new customers is the "show biz" side of direct marketing: The budgets are much larger, and you get to be more creative and perhaps use a broader variety of media. There's this problem, though: It costs five times as much to find a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. That's why smart organizations are focusing more of their resources on keeping and growing current customers. The key is to exceed customers' expectations. Here are 10 ways to accomplish that.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

In a world of mental clutter, information anxiety and narrow attention spans, your Web voice could become the next big weapon in Web media presentation and marketing. So how do you effectively implement voice on the Web?

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Marketers are much more aware of the significant opportunity that varying demographic groups present. What's more, they realize that they can no longer afford to neglect the combined buying power of ethnic Americans who, according to estimates, make up $1.3 trillion or 18.5 percent of all US buying. To appeal to these highly lucrative and diverse audiences, marketers are now abandoning traditional mass-marketing practices in favor of laser-focused, multicultural marketing efforts.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Since its inception, the Do Not Call Registry has had a profound impact on the telemarketing industry, just as it has on individual organizations relying on outbound telemarketing in their marketing strategy. The challenge now facing these businesses is to find creative ways to still make telemarketing work.

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The sound of the human voice is powerful. It connects to a prospect on a whole different level. Online, it breaks through that liquid crystal barrier and says, "Listen to me, I'm here, I'm human, and I have something real to talk to you about." It's time to bring a human voice to your own site.

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Aside from server logs, clickstream tracking and a host of analytics tools, it's necessary to consider customer experience and customer satisfaction. This is the art of peering into the hearts and minds of visitors rather than simply following them around. It's time to ask them for their opinion.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

You're sitting on a hard chair, constantly shifting position, trying to get comfortable. The speaker doesn't keep your mind off your discomfort, since he is reading precisely exactly what's on the slides. Unfortunately, you have to squint to follow along, because he squeezed two pages of content in 10-point type on each slide. Sound familiar? Here's how to avoid the same ol', same ol' boring presentations.

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This is the first in a series of point/counterpoint articles by Bill Babcock and Bill Rozier. Babcock is CEO of a direct and relationship marketing agency. Rozier is on the client side. This week, the pair discuss relevance: How long do you have to convince prospects that your message has importance, value, truth and, most important, personal resonance?

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Savvy marketing professionals understand that sales and marketing must work together to move prospects through the sales pipeline. This is especially important in the complex sale with long decision making cycles and multiple buyers that need to be influenced. The good news is that Web content drives people through and shortens the sales cycle for any product or service—especially complex ones, that have many steps and take months or even years to complete.

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You wouldn't go on a date with the next person that walked through your door, and yet, you have no qualms in accepting any client that comes your way. The result? Your customers will push you around; not pay the invoices on time; and end up being the most pedantic, irritating pests on the planet. The way out is to create barriers. Create a system that filters out customers, before they become headache clients. Here's how.

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Excite co-founder Joe Kraus has a new venture, and he likens the technology driving his new business to the Internet in the mid-1990s, when it was still "trapped in the land of the nerds." His new venture is the collaborative publishing tool known as Wikis. Just what is a Wiki, anyway? And why should you care?

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Branding is more complicated than it first appears. It is also much more than finding a clever name for something. Here are the key branding points to remember as demonstrated by marketing's branding of a hypothetical company called MidSize.

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Management wants more leads, but you can't get an increase in your budget. To meet their demands, you have to lower your cost per lead. You have to either increase response rates or cut your cost per contact. There are literally dozens of ways to accomplish those goals. Here are 10.

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Few rules are more widely quoted in marketing today than the 80/20 Rule, which states that 80 percent of your sales come from just 20 percent of your customer base. Intuitively, it makes sense. But this marketing interpretation of the 80/20 rule is actually flawed.

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In many organizations, corporate communications doesn't get a lot of respect. Why is that? And more importantly: How can you change it?

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There are millions of Web pages online that represent the "best guesses" of the marketing and Web experts who created them. A large number of these pages appear to be working just fine. Indeed, many are profitable and clearly deliver good conversion rates. But could they do better? Could the same pages have their design and writing tweaked to deliver better results? Nobody will ever know. Unless, of course, the pages are tested.

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You might have the greatest show on Earth, but if no one knows about it, nobody will see it. For marketing many kinds of entertainment — from video games to live theater — here's what works best.

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So many companies spend $25,000, $50,000 or $100,000-plus on a research study, only to give the results a cursory glance before relegating it to the "I'll get to that later" pile. Research studies usually collect dust because they fail to get the attention they deserve in the kind of format that leads to action. Here's how to change that.