Tim Copp says, “May is my favorite time of year. In Indianapolis, it means everything is in bloom, Memorial Day is around the corner, and you can literally smell the burning rubber from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! In my house, it also means it’s time to fire up the grill. I must have had marketing on the brain during my last cookout because... [Read more]

Tom Tate says, “On this episode of Ask Me About Email Marketing, we chat with writer, podcaster, speaker and brand strategist Nick Westergaard to get his take on the current landscape of digital marketing. Nick shares with us actionable insights on how to build a strategy, connect your digital dots, and get the most out of your limited time and... [Read more]

Brian Westnedge says, “It is no secret to digital marketers that email delivers business value. 72 percent of customers rate email as the most preferred method of communication and for every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. Unfortunately, the most valuable marketing channel is also the least secure. Every day, marketers pay a hidden... [Read more]

David Dekel‘s list building process, which he says was built on a loophole, led to his building a huge mailing list of over 45,000 people in just 4 months. He shares his process in Stealth List Building Formula. But his process goes beyond building the list. He also discovered how he could earn the most money from his list by strategically choosing... [Read more]

Brian Carrol says, “We have more digital marketing channels than ever before, but it’s become even harder to connect with customers. In my role as chief evangelist for MECLABS Institute, MarketingSherpa’s parent company, I get to talk to marketers and thought leaders daily. One thing’s become clear, that there is a growing divide between... [Read more]

Rohan Ayyar says, “Content, or social media? Deciding where to put your investment—of money, time, and effort—isn’t easy. And the ROI of both is notoriously difficult to measure. Moreover, social media and content marketing are often presented as the same thing, which muddies the matter even more. So how do you decide where to put your... [Read more]

Larry Kim says, “What is the most important ranking factor? Ask 1,000 SEOs, and you’ll get a wide variety of answers. Getting links and creating great content would definitely be two of the more popular answers, and for good reason. After all, that’s what Google says are the two most important ranking factors. But there’s one other factor... [Read more]

Here's a new strategy for Amazon affiliates. If you get an early warning about what is going to be a hot product on Amazon, you can be the first to advertise that product. And that should give you an advantage in the search engines and in sales... [Read more]

Jennifer Johnson says, “Trying to go viral? It seems like everyone is these days. That’s because having a post take off can benefit your brand’s reputation tremendously — just look at how the blue and black dress (or was it white and gold?) affected BuzzFeed’s traffic. While the success of a viral post often hinges on chance,... [Read more]

Duncan Jones says, “I’ve recently been studying what a customer-obsessed operating model means for Purchasing functions and the software they use. I’ve concluded that Purchasing needs to transform its approach to visibility and control, due to the tradical impact that Mobility has on procure-to-pay (P2P) processes. I’ve been warning... [Read more]

Kelly Exeter says, “Halfway through the writing course, our instructor — not known for being one to sugar-coat — threw out a challenge: “Send me a favorite piece of your writing and I’ll critique it; I’ll tell you whether or not it’s any good. The only catch is, I’ll be critiquing it in front of the entire class.” A surprising... [Read more]

IM NewsWatch had server problems a couple of weeks ago. We were down for a week. It was a miserable 10 days. Why the long delay in getting it back running after the break-down? Well, we had out data backed up, but our software that runs the site had not been backed up and it it had to be re-built... [Read more]

Andrew Chrysostom says, “It’s been a busy month at Facebook, and that’s before it got accused of censoring certain political views. Let’s look at some of the biggest changes recently. Since the F8 conference in April, Facebook has been rolling out tweaks to its products on a weekly basis. Obviously this means that brands will have to adjust... [Read more]

Bridget Randolph says, “Mobile search as a topic has changed a lot over the past few years. When I first started looking at this, back in 2012, there was already a lot of discussion happening around the topic of mobile. And back then, the big question everyone was asking was, “what should my mobile strategy be?” Even then, things were shifting.... [Read more]

Ginny Marvin says, “With the news that over half of the trillions of Google searches happen on mobile, Google announced Tuesday that it will soon change the way advertisers set bids for targeting ads by device type in AdWords. Other coming changes announced at Googler Performance Summit in San Francisco include an update to Google text ads on... [Read more]

Cindy Donovan Bettye has been hard at work, turning out useful software for people and companies who market their goods and services online. One of her latest and best is 'StickyPost'... [Read more]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Which types of information do B2B technology buyers value most at different stages of the purchase funnel? Do buyers of different ages prefer different content formats and sales approaches? To find out, Arketi surveyed 262 business technology buyers from three generations: Baby Boomer (31% of respondents), Generation X (30%),... [Read more]

Microsoft is recommending that users of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) (called Windows Defender on Windows 8) look elsewhere for their future antivirus needs. Originally, it was a top-tier antivirus product, but over time, Microsoft has reduced support for it and have said that they are providing all the virus information they find to 3rd-party... [Read more]

Jennifer Johnson says, “My mom owned a small business for over 20 years. This meant that growing up, our family vacations had to be planned around “off business” seasons. I often woke up in the early morning hours to hear her problem-solving unexpected challenges over the phone. Nowadays I think about the headaches she could have avoided if... [Read more]

If you invested in Walt Bayliss's 'RunClick' software, you will want to be aware of this update he is making. RunClick turns Google Hangouts into webinars, with registration, reminders and other important tools for marketing webinars. This software makes professional webinars available to any marketer; no deep pockets are needed... [Read more]

Kerry O’Shea Gorgone says, “As an attorney, I regularly get asked legal questions by my friends. Of particular concern among marketers and PR professionals are copyright and fair use, because those concepts apply to content marketing strategy. I get asked some variation of the same 10 questions on a regular basis, so I’m going to answer... [Read more]

Matt McGee says, “Your tweets are getting a little more breathing room. Twitter has confirmed plans to stop counting media attachments and @usernames (in replies) against a tweet’s 140-character limit. Links, however, will still count toward the limit. This should be very welcome news for both Twitter users and advertisers. It means more room... [Read more]

Ann Smarty says, “Early this year, mobile technology company Blackberry released a survey that claimed 26 percent of the entire world population was using mobile social media. To put that into perspective, there are currently 7.125 billion people on planet Earth as of a census done in 2013. Let’s round that down to an even seven billion.... [Read more]

Jayson Demers says, “When you decide to pursue a social media campaign, it’s natural to get a bit excited. You’ve been thinking about the potential returns of social media marketing for a long time, and you want to start earning the rewards as soon as possible. For this reason, many new entrepreneurs and marketers jump in without thinking—and... [Read more]

Daniel Burstein says, “Marketing and advertising are distinct majors in college. Most agencies are advertising agencies, and most departments inside companies that promote the sale of product are marketing departments. Why the distinction? Are these two words synonyms, or is there a real difference? A high-level, ephemeral topic like this isn’t... [Read more]