| Nick Usborne Say Something Worth Talking About Where is the really exciting writing? Where are people writing in a way that is unexpected and surprising? When did the text on a commercial Web site last make you smile or laugh? Sure, it’s scary to write that way. But as soon as you do—as soon as you say something worth talking about—the network will begin to hum and word will spread. This is the Net—and if the words aren’t interesting, they won’t spread. Get the full story. |
Tamara Halbritter and Hank Stroll SWOT Team Spies on the Competition What's your single best source for competitive data? This week, the MarketingProfs SWOT team is seeking advice for spying on the competition. Also this week, read your replies to the previous dilemma: which should come first, branding or sales? Get the full story. |
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Roy Young Making Marketing Matter: Winning Decisions f you are a marketer with line responsibility today, you are likely facing increased pressure to produce results. You are likely producing results with a reduced budget. And you are likely reminded frequently that favorable results require speed-to-market. Given these pressures, it’s understandable that you strive to take action decisively and quickly. But before you take action, have you stopped to make sure the decisions you are making are addressing the most important issues? If not, you may be trying to solve the wrong problem. Get the full story.
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![](https:////marketingprofs.com/newsimg/06_11.gif) | ![](https:////marketingprofs.com/newsimg/b.gif) | ![](https:////marketingprofs.com/newsimg/b.gif) | A Note to Readers In the Know Hello, discerning reader! Today’s issue brings you another excellent MarketingProfs article by Roy Young, the fourth that he has penned since he started writing for us in July. Back then, he proposed a three-part series on making marketing matter to the CEO of an organization. “Sure,” I said. “Sounds good.” He penned. We published. And surprise, surprise! Roy’s summer miniseries struck a chord with many readers, who asked for more. <
p>This week, Roy enters another installment in his “Making Marketing Matter” series. Be sure to check out his piece on making decisions.
But wait—there’s more. Roy, never one to sit still for long, is also working with us in a new capacity—as the new director of our online seminar series. In this role, Roy is charged with creating a series of practical, affordable online seminars that will make you more effective in your work. The MarketingProfs Know-How Seminars will give you a solid grounding in several critical subjects, with an emphasis on the best ideas and tools. These valuable courses will be led by the most qualified (and engaging!) instructors, some of whom you might recognize from these very pages. It’s an easy segue for Roy, who for more than 25 years as a consultant and researcher has advised and guided marketing professionals to help them increase the influence and impact of marketing within their organizations. The topics for the five seminars—the first kicks off October 13—were in fact hand-picked by you when you told us in a recent subscriber survey that you’d most like to learn about branding, return on investment, e-metrics, agency-client relationships and customer loyalty. See more information about the MarketingProfs seminar series—including the nuts and bolts of the course work and registration information here, and click on the “Learn More” link after each course description. As always, your feedback is both welcome and encouraged. Until next week, Ann Handley ann@marketingprofs.com MarketingProfs.com
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| Gerry McGovern Think the Way Your Customer Thinks One of the biggest challenges an organization faces is to stop thinking it’s the center of the universe. Actually, your customers think that *they* are the center of the universe. Customers come to your Web site to get their needs fulfilled. They will think you are great only if you meet their needs efficiently and cost-effectively. Get the full story.
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Kristine Kirby Webster The Whys Behind the Brand Buys In this day and age, a marketer is both a direct marketer and a brand marketer. Frequently, repeat purchases are based more on the intangible assets that a brand offers, and any direct contact with the consumers is an opportunity to shine and strengthen the brand-relationship bond through deliverable intangibles (such as service). Direct response shoppers are more loyal, share more—and are more demanding, too. Use the direct channels to find out more, and deliver more. Not to be trite, Kristine writes, but knowledge really is power when it comes to helping determine the strength and success of your brand. Get the full story.
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Suzan St Maur How to Write Right to Your Customers’ Hearts Very often what gives you the emotional, hit-it-right-on-the-nose tools you need for successful writing are small nuances. All it takes is some little, subtle, even nonverbally communicated quirk picked up from members of a target audience—and bingo: there’s your eureka moment, and the key to a great copy or content message. Get the full story. |
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Eric Anderson The Online Marketer’s Secret Weapon: A Site that Works Every Web marketer knows that success in the online channel is a game of inches: it takes a rigorous process of campaign testing, optimizing, aggregating and retesting just to get the tiniest incremental improvements in user response rates and conversions. But while the industry focuses on squeezing every dollar of value out of acquisition strategies, billions of dollars are being left on the table by campaigns that drive users to sites they can’t use. Get the full story.
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![](https:////www.marketingprofs.com/newsimg/fp_top.gif) | ![](https:////www.marketingprofs.com/newsimg/spacer.gif) | Contact Publisher:Allen Weiss amw@MarketingProfs.com
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