Don't Buy Your On-Line Marketing Articles From Article Factories
I was busiy submitting some articles I ghost wrote for a client to some web portals late one night, when I was struck by a message a web site editor left for visitors. I wont tell you the actual site name, or mention the company that they are targeting with their message in order to protect ... more...

Free Credit Reports - How to Maintain Your Credit Profile
Maintaining your Credit ProfileEvery consumer should be maintaining their credit profiles to ensure the highest scores possible. To do so, you must first order your credit reports from the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ... more...

How Does Credit History Affect Car Insurance Rates?
Many personal car insurance companies consider your credit information when determining how much premium to charge for your insurance. So if you are calling around for new car insurance, keep in mind that many insurers are looking at your credit history to determine your car insurance rates. I hope ... more...

Ride The Gray Train To Increased Profits
Something is roaring into the business communitys depot that has been building momentum for years. I call it the Gray Train. On December 31, 2004, the last Baby Boomer turned 40, pushing that train to full throttle. Marketers are missing the obvious and not-so obvious opportunities to grow their ... more...

A Successful Failure
A successfully positioned business sometimes doesn't win a new client. And that, my friend, is the point. Let me illustrate with an anecdote.Recently I was making a new business pitch to a Charlotte area professional services firm. The second meeting took place after I had provided a detailed ... more...

Creativity And You
95 percent of what we know about the brain, we have learned in the last 20 years. So, your beliefs about creativity were probably shaped by faulty information.For instance, many believe that only special, talented people are creative and you have to be born that way.Wrong.The notion that geniuses ... more...

D.A.N.C.E. With Me
Recently, a client asked what he could do to help my business, but I wasnt ready with the answer. A lot of us probably miss these opportunities because we dont think through what we need and how to respond when someone offers to help promote us.Lets take a look at the D.A.N.C.E., a few simple ways ... more...

Are You Newsworthy?
Non-news professionals often have a hard time understanding why their ENORMOUS news announcement, creates barely a ripple in the media.That's not to say a news release shouldn't be done about it. There are audiences besides the media - like employees, customers and trade allies - to whom news ... more...

Six Tips For Perfect Email Media Pitches
Your media pitches can go straight over the plate. With a little forethought, and a few tips, you can throw fewer balls and more media relations strikes.Brevity is the soul of wit. Shakespeare could have been giving media relations tips when he penned this gem several hundred years ago. If you ... more...

Online Search: Small Businesses Level The Playing Field
Seventy percent of US households use the web when shopping locally, and about 25 percent of all searches are looking for local information. As more and more households make the switch to broadband connections, this trend will continue to escalate.Search engines have eclipsed print and TV ads as the ... more...

One-A-Day Marketing Vitamins
Is your business growing, or are you on a plateau in need of a boost to move up? I know that I always tell you it is best to have a positioning statement and a plan. But sometimes, you just need something to get you off square one.Below is my list of 20 marketing vitamins that you should choose ... more...

Now's The Time To Get Christmas Media Coverage
Publicity seekers know that Christmas can provide a bonanza of media coverage. Every media outlet, it seems is cranking out a special edition on gifts for the winter holidays. So, Christmas is the time to get ink for your product.For many of these opportunities you need to be thinking at least six ... more...

Let It Ring
Telemarketing has its place in the marketing arsenal. But telespammers - like their digital counterparts in the email marketing world - really make it tough on the legitimate follow-up telephone call from a company with which you have a relationship.Now, even some companies with a legitimate tie to ... more...

Hook Me Up With A Human
Oh, what has happened to the carbon-based organizational interface? Many organizations have digitized humans aka carbon-based units - out of existence in their customer service operations. Now, I love digital technology as much as anyone, but it is time to bring the people back into their ... more...

Put Your Calendar To Work
It's an October evening and your major reception for donors has just begun. Turnout is substandard and most of the attendees are women. Can you say, "World Series?" Sure, I knew that you could!Every organization should create an annual PR and marketing calendar so that it can avoid the World ... more...

A Creative RIOT
Relevant, original and impactful: thats what my friend Creative Director Jim Mountjoy says that effective creative must be. With apologies to Jim, I have my own acronym because I think ROI is only 75 percent of the way there. Effective creative is a RIOT: relevant, impactful, original and true.Lets ... more...

What Your Customers Want
Your customers don't know what they want. And to assume otherwise is folly. When you begin relying totally on customers to be your product development department, you are asking for serious trouble.I am not saying that you should discount customer input. However, asking customers what they want is ... more...