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Whether distributed via email or printed and snail-mailed, newsletters are a cost-effective way for businesses or organizations to keep in touch with employees, customers, prospects or association members. The trick, however, is to come up with a strategy to keep readers engaged and the publication's production and editorial adjustments in line with current budgets. Here are five tactics that you can use to make your newsletter more engaging for your intended recipients.

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Examine your press initiative. Do you know your marketplace, and know how to reach each member of it? Are you continually building trust? Are you delivering only what people need, and only in the way they want it delivered? Or are you shooting words like rock salt from a shotgun—hoping some of it will stick somewhere but resigning yourself to most of it becoming additional unread content on a Web site?

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Existing brand health measures rely almost exclusively on survey data to gather their findings. While surveys are insightful, they are also prone to collection errors through inaccurate recall and distorted response by surveyed consumers. Marketers can do better by creating more-direct and less-biased approaches. Rather than relying solely on survey data, we should find additional methods that seek to analyze consumers' relationship to brands in the field by observing real-world consumer attitudes. We can start with blogs.

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When it comes to optimizing your site for search and the search engines, it's important not to overcomplicate your design and technical approach with things such as Flash, Java, frames and dynamically built Web sites. Here are 11 tips for design that works.

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A consistent problem with the "ranking-centric" mindset is that it doesn't reflect a powerful rationale for getting involved in SEO. Where is the true business case? What tangible results are desired? More and more frequently, people are getting into SEO for the wrong reasons. Achieving high rankings for targeted keyphrases, while an admirable and worthwhile goal, is really only a small piece of the entire online marketing puzzle. Here are a few additional (and vital) pieces.

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This week, add your own two cents to the following dilemma: How do you go about promoting a product on a global scale? Also this week, read your answers to a previous week's question: What do you do when an initial marketing campaign isn't flying?

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Not since 1998 has the banking industry experienced the pace of consolidation taking place across the country today. From national mega-deals to local ones, it seems every bank is in the "great game" as a buyer, seller or interested flirt. Should merging commercial banks care about brand?

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Recently, search engine revenues have rocketed, with pay-per-click advertising providing much of the fuel for growth. The other side of the coin: advertisers have been using PPC keyword advertising to meet their marketing objectives. But even with such heightened competition, there may be untapped, hidden opportunities for online marketers interested in participating in keyword advertising. One of the greatest opportunities may be in the area of something known as keyword breadth.

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How much of our company's corporate overview presentation should you include in a demo meeting? The answer: as little as possible! Many salespeople and technical staff feel comfortable opening a demonstration meeting with a "brief" overview of their company. Most customers refer to this as "Death by PowerPoint." Instead, start the meeting with a "situation slide."

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Web sites run by small businesses far outnumber the Web sites run by large corporations. This means that most sites are produced and operated on a relatively small budget. Each dollar counts, and must be used carefully. But few small business owners are spending enough time figuring out what constitutes an effective Web site before they pour money into the project. Time and time again, small business Web sites waste their resources on the wrong Web site elements.

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Hidden away like some Cinderella before the prince discovered her, online pressrooms do not often attract much attention, much less a second look. But like the fairy tale character, online media rooms can offer a striking example of the power of Internet to transform a humble servant into an essential information hub. Indeed, the ability to harness the power of the Web to market and communicate in new ways is the new competitive advantage—and companies who ignore that fact do so at their own risk.

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There are many approaches a company can take to blogging, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses. A blog written by top management, for example, has the potential of providing news straight from the decision makers. But the downside is that CEOs and senior executives are also wary of stockholders' perceptions and don't provide the bare honesty expected of a decent blog. A blog written by those at the lower rungs of the organization also has its strengths and perils. Here are blogging tips for bloggers at every level within a company, from the top down.

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This week, post your answer to the query: How successful are webinars as a marketing approach? What works and what doesn't work? Also this week, read your answers to last week's dilemma: blog, forum or Wiki? Which format best meets the needs of a small community?

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When you are drowning in numbers from your quantitative efforts, talk to women to gain clarity. Remember: women make or influence over 80% of all consumer purchases. So, they are basically your boss. (You listen to your boss, right?) There are eight traps to beware of during qualitative research. If you hear yourself saying any of the following, you should stop for an immediate reality check.

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Hispanics have recently become the largest minority in the US, and a lot of marketers are trying to tap into this growing market. While many businesses now publish their information in Spanish and advertise in Hispanic print media and TV, relatively few are considering the Internet as a medium for reaching Hispanic consumers. The truth is that the Hispanic community is going online in large numbers, and it's happening right now.

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This week: Past success don't guarantee future success for products. So what do you do when a marketing effort flops? Join the conversation! Also this week, read your advice on: What works (and what doesn't) when an organization wants to invent a brand?

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To have a successful career in marketing, performing well is no longer enough. You need a solid reputation that extends beyond the walls of your company--and you have to be proactive in building it. One of the best ways to reinforce your reputation is through your online identity. In fact, you should be actively building (and managing) your online presence.

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From press releases to event announcements and customer memos, syndicating content with RSS offers a way around spam filters and ensures that interested parties receive your company info. Still, PR and marketing professionals are slow to adopt RSS. Many of you may believe it's too difficult or too technical. Perhaps the information you've read about RSS has scared you away. RSS can be an easy, viable way to publish corporate information. Here are five key reasons for adopting RSS as part of your communications strategy.

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It's always been conventional wisdom that the fastest and most efficient way to research products and pricing is on the Web. But is search engine marketing cost-effective enough to increase profits for B2B marketers? You bet, and here's why.

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Search optimization is about getting links. The more links you get to your Web site, the more likely you are to get into the first page of search engine results. In other words, killer Web content gets killer Web links. Last week, we covered the basics. Here, we continue the conversation.