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CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

This week, our regularly featured "SWOT Team" column gets a new name as it becomes the weekly "Marketing Challenge" column. In it, a reader asks: How do I create a big splash on little cash? Readers respond with four excellent approaches. Also this week, suggest your own answers to the problem: What's the most effective ways to reach teens online?

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It will come as no surprise that customers want it their way (to paraphrase Burger King). Yet many companies don't have processes for figuring out what that means. Take this quiz to assess your customer "IQ" (or "Insight Quotient") and determine the necessary next steps for shortening your sales cycle.

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We are all talking about ways to engage consumers in a conversation. We all seek strategies to stimulate people to talk about our brands, products or services. What's less obvious is what companies should be going to stimulate buzz. And confusion can lead to unfortunate decisions. So here are five common misconceptions about buzz marketing—and what you can do to address them.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Sometimes, less is more. Especially when it comes to content. Many Web sites are too big to professionally manage with the number of staff available. There might be a Web team of four people, yet they have a site that requires at least 10 to properly manage. What happens when you have more content than you have people to manage?

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Your average business Web site has come a long way since its brochure days. Savvy businesspeople have learned a lot about Web site design and usability, especially the importance of designing and testing landing pages to increase conversions. But has corporate America discovered the importance and effectiveness of organic search engine optimization?

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Usability testing may not be considered a mandatory stage in the design process, but without it you are releasing the product blindly. Contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a large budget for simple usability testing.

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Someday in the not-so-distant future, branding as we know it will be thought of as so 20th century. With societal, cultural and technological changes occurring at increasingly accelerated rates, keeping your eye on the horizon of future trends in branding gives your company the advantage. What trends are already reshaping our ideas of branding?

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The human mind has long been considered as a kind of "black box," something which was rather mysterious. We can measure the results of our marketing efforts, in terms of sales, awareness, liking and so on. We understand reasonably well the beginning and end of the process—but not the vital part in the middle. That is, what goes on inside the mind of the consumer. This is all changing with neuromarketing.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: None

There are many reasons for not closing a sale. In today's climate of information and work overload, an increasingly common reason is that prospects don't think of you when they are ready to buy. A critical challenge faced by any company marketing in this environment is how to elevate its message above the clutter and be top-of-mind when customer needs arise.

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Many industries are experiencing major growth, fueled by the purchasing power of the "adventure-seeking woman." This woman crosses all ages, family configurations and fitness levels. She's carving time in her schedule and finding wiggle room in her budget for new adventures that involve everything from rock climbing to Tuscan cooking to snowshoeing. In many cases, she's entering traditionally male spaces with a "do-it-herself" attitude and trying her hand at auto repair, fly fishing and home improvement.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: None

This week, add your two cents to the following: Which marketing efforts and methods works best when marketing dollars are scarce? Join the conversation! Also, read your answers to last week's dilemma: How do you go about promoting a product on a global scale?

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: None

In search engine pay-per-click advertising, the unscrupulous use of a competitor's trademarked terms is a murky business and contentious topic. With a seemingly anonymous perpetrator, it's a relatively easy offense—and sets off a torrent of trademark-infringement concerns for many companies.

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If you're competing on price, you'll never achieve maximum profitability. Instead, everyone's job must become value creation. But are you sure that you're providing value to your customers? Even if your answer is an emphatic yes, you might want to take a closer look.

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No business can survive, much less thrive, without building a plan that spells out revenue and earnings targets as well as the way to achieving them. An effective strategic plan requires an expression of the challenges and opportunities that the business faces. It also requires clarity on the methods and means required to meet those challenges. And there's something else that's mandatory. Without it, all the planning in the world is pointless.

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Here is a behind-the scenes story that reveals how one B2B marketer used a lot of silliness to increase its Web traffic tenfold and generate thousands of sales leads. How did this viral phenomenon go from wacky idea to revenue-generating success?

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: None

Don't choose marketing messages based on whim or personal preference. Educate the product team about the three approaches to formulating messages. Work to identify and hone the messages. You'll find that consistently communicating these messages will help brand your product—and, if your product actually delivers its promised benefits, will increase sales over time.

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You might call it the project from hell, the death march or the one that ended up in the ditch. Most of us have at least one project horror story, though some of us have seen more than our share. If you haven't experienced a project that's gone sideways, consider yourself in the lucky minority. When a project runs aground, it's almost always avoidable—at least in hindsight.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: None

This week, add your thoughts to the following dilemma: If you work in a business that sells in bulk, how do customers responsible for purchases go about finding you and ordering online? Also this week, read your answers to the last problem: How do you determine whether or not a webinar makes a good addition to the marketing pool?

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Marketers everywhere are tasked with finding out about causation: "Is this advertising causing people to buy more of our lemonade?" "Is our new viral marketing effort causing our brand awareness to increase?" "Would having blonde hair cause me to have more fun?" It's virtually impossible to answer questions about causality with absolute certainty. But we can use techniques grounded in science to help us gather strong evidence of causation. Let's talk about designing an experiment to test whether blondes do, indeed, have more fun. *Please note: This article is available to paid subscribers only.*

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The columnist, author of "Writing Copy for Dummies," recently joined forces with Jon Warshawsky, coauthor of the newly published "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots." Together, the "dummy" and the "idiot" attacked their archenemy, Corporate Bull. What follows are five practical suggestions for shoveling your way out of the doublespeak and successfully into the embrace of colleagues and customers.