Sweat the Small Stuff: A Counterintuitive Approach to Professional Success
It might sound counter-intuitive, but "sweating the small stuff" is actually a recipe for success. In fact, it can be one of best weapons in your business arsenal.

Maximizing Lead-Generation Marketing ROI, Part 3: Measuring Effectiveness
How do you know whether your lead-generation program is working and delivering a good ROI for the company? You may be doing some lead tracking to understand conversion rates and customer profitability, which is great. But the sales team will inevitably let Marketing know that (1) Marketing was just a small step in closing the sale so the sales team deserves the credit; (2) the sales team would have found and closed those leads anyway, so there is no incremental value; or (3) the leads are fine, but there is just never enough. We need reliable measurements to both prove and improve our marketing effectiveness.

Use Search Queries to Save Money and Increase Conversions
Search queries, the exact word or phrases a person types, are a vital clue into the objectives of the searcher and how valuable that person is to your business. Is each searcher relevant to you? Are all the search queries equally valuable? Can you write a single text ad that matches the intent of each of those queries and inspires searchers to click and convert? The answer, likely, is no. Yet, search queries don't play as prominent a role in paid-search management as they should, especially with Broad-match and Phrase-match campaigns.

Marketing in a Recession: What Do the Studies Really Tell Us?
Have you heard this one? "All the research shows that companies that spend on marketing during a recession come out ahead of the competition as the economy rebounds." It's a catchy buzz phrase—and if people believe it, even better. But here's the thing: What research, exactly?

Retail Survival Tips in a New Economic and Customer Environment
Retailers did everything possible to attract buyers over the holidays. From educational sessions to discounts and coupons, and special offers, retailers used their ingenuity and marketing smarts to make the best of a dismal season. Nonetheless, numbers were down and every indicator pointed toward an even gloomier 2009. Perhaps the very profile of the retail environment has shifted as consumers settle in for what may be a protracted economic change. Here are some smart, manageable tips on how to survive through the second half of the 2009 buying season and keep your business on track.

Avoid the Five Routes to Strategic Failure
Disconnects are a big cause of strategy failure. You think you've communicated well, then find out you have—just not to your target audience. Or maybe at the end of a long research session, you realize that input from colleagues in the company's Ohio office was critical to your strategy, yet was overlooked in favor of input from more-assertive colleagues in the New York office. There are five major disconnects that consistently trip up strategy implementation.

Put Your Site Search to Work and Improve Your Targeted Marketing, Part 1
If you're like most online marketers, you may not realize that some of the technologies that power your website can be critical tools for improving the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. For example, did you know that you can use data from your site-search solution to create emails with lists of popular products that match your customers' preferences? The result: stronger brand visibility, higher conversions, and a more engaging customer experience.