Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the September Marketing News Snapshot.

Tags: digital marketing, marketing news, facebook, online advertising, social media, trends, cross-channel, pinterest

International Literacy Day was Sept. 8, but we’ve decided to celebrate and promote it all month long with a series of blog posts based on marketing and business books we’ve recently read. Today’s featured title is John C. Maxwell’s "Leadership Gold."

Has rational ignorance impacted your organization’s social media activity yet? Rational ignorance is the decision not to become more informed about something because the perceived cost of the additional intelligence — in terms of both effort and expense — is more than the expected return on the knowledge gained. It’s not a condition you’re excited to encounter if you’re trying to create a lifelong learning environment.

Tags: Twitter, Klout, social media, literacy, leadership, learning, training

Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the August Marketing News Snapshot.

Tags: marketing news, CMO, Twitter, IT, LinkedIn, advertising, email marketing, social media, August, CIO, video, Gmail

“Haha, made you look!” When my kids were little they would taunt me with that phrase. It was intended as a playful insult because they tricked me into looking at something that didn’t exist. With my marketing team, that phrase is code speak for marketing content and messaging that creates a favorable impression catching our target audiences’ attention. But in that situation, no tricks are involved; it’s all talent and by design!

In the world of social media marketing, the “Who's Viewed Your Profile?” module on LinkedIn is, in my opinion, a made you look requirement for serious networkers. This feature is no trick – it’s designed to help you understand who’s been looking at your profile recently and how many times you have shown up in search results. Here are four reasons why you should like this feature and why I want to make you look at it.

Tags: Twitter, LinkedIn, social media, networking, personal brand

While perusing the Internet for new ideas and to keep myself updated on the latest business happenings, I came across this excellent presentation on marketing localization and thought it had some very interesting statistics that make the case for why you need to localize your marketing efforts. The first number isn’t a huge shock, but does lay the foundation for nearly everything I’m about to say: 97% of consumers do online research before making a local purchase. Translation: If you can’t be found locally and aren’t targeting locally, you aren’t going to beat the competition.

So how are companies making their local presence felt? In short, many aren’t. We all know one of the laws of marketing is to be where your customers are. Yet somehow, the fundamental tenet has slipped many companies’ minds. According to ReachLocal, of marketing organizations surveyed:

Tags: branding, SEO, email marketing, MRM, social media, localized marketing, marketing resource management, direct marketing, paid search

There was breakdown in the assembly line and no one on Henry Ford’s staff could fix it. As the story goes, his production lines were down for hours; hours turned into days, and Ford was frustrated. In desperation he called an electrical engineer friend whom he trusted to come to his plant, diagnose and repair the problem. His friend promptly arrived and after about ten minutes the Ford lines were up and running. A most grateful Henry Ford thanked him and told his friend to invoice the Ford Company for the repairs. A few days later Henry Ford received an invoice from his friend in the amount of $10,000. Flabbergasted, Henry called his friend on the telephone and protested, “You only tinkered around for ten minutes! Ten-thousand dollars?!” His friend agreed that he would re-invoice the repairs. A few days later Henry Ford received a modified invoice:

Tinkering…..$10

Tags: branding, facebook, google, Twitter, sales, LinkedIn, Klout, blogging, marketing, marketing strategy, social media, social media strategy

We’ve spent a lot of time on this blog discussing the challenges and benefits of localizing your marketing strategy across both traditional and digital marketing channels, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a marketer that doesn’t see the value in the practice. But there’s one marketing channel where questions about localization remain and answers are hard to come by: social media.

When I was at the Integrated Marketing Week Conference in June, this was a continuing theme and topic of conversation, whether it came up in presentations, questions to speakers or simply conversations among attendees, so it’s clearly an issue of great consternation in the marketing community. That being said, let’s take a look at some possible strategies that can help businesses overcome the challenges of social media localization.

Tags: branding, facebook, Twitter, engagement, LinkedIn, messaging, marketing, social media, localized marketing, local marketing, customer segmentation, SMB, integrated marketing week conference, content, strategy

Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the July Marketing News Snapshot.

Tags: digital marketing, marketing news, LinkedIn, July, multichannel marketing, social media, real-time marketing, local marketing automation

As summer winds down, give some consideration to these multi-channel campaign ideas playing off of some lesser-known August holidays.

Tags: marketing ideas, QR code, summer, ecommerce, health care, creative marketing, multichannel marketing, insurance, marketing campaign, email marketing, direct mail marketing, social media, August, referrals, Medicare, financial services marketing

Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the June Marketing News Snapshot.
Video Is the Next Frontier for Email Marketers
This eMarketer article delves into the statistics behind using video in email marketing. While only a quarter of businesses are currently using video in email, 81% of respondents said they were at least somewhat likely to integrate videos into their email marketing practices. The article breaks down reasons why marketers are not using video in email and also the top benefits of using videos in email according to marketing executives. Read the full article. (6/19/2013, eMarketer)

Tags: digital marketing, marketing news, facebook, google, print advertising, SEO, iPad, digital advertising, mobile search, June, email marketing, social media