• Blogger Outreach: A Tactic to Keep Your Strategy Fresh

    Guest post by Kristen Matthews of GroupHigh

    As outbound marketing tactics become obsolete, establishing relationships with bloggers who can promote your brand via word of mouth is becoming more important than ever.

    Now that modern consumers are wired to tune out traditional ads and have the self-empowerment to research brands on their own, marketers and PR professionals are scrambling to fill the internet with good content about their brands and their client’s brands.

    The sweet spot lies in not only producing content that subtly links back to your brand but also establishing a balance of content about your brand produced by others. It all comes down to the fact that humans trust word of mouth recommendations over self-promotional garble.

    This is where blogger outreach comes in ...



  • Schema.org SEO Markup: What Non-Coder Marketers Need to Know

    When the world’s largest search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo! and more, collaborate on an initiative to improve the indexability of the web, marketers should take notice. In June 2011, these search giants did just that, and the result was a new microdata mark-up called Schema…

  • Work Smarter, Not Harder: Creating a Strategic Content Marketing Plan

    Henry Ford and the assembly line. Steve Jobs and the personal computer. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Google’s algorithms.   The common thread among these inventors and innovators is the desire to work smarter, not harder—either through enhanced processes, more powerful tool…

  • 18 Marketing Performance Metrics that Matter

    At the end of the day, how does your marketing impact the organization? Marketing Score examines 18 factors, which, to varying degrees, affect your organization’s bottom line. 

    Metrics such as cost of customer acquisition (COCA), customer lifetime value (CLV), retention rates, lead volume and revenue growth are almost universally accepted key performance indicators (KPIs) for every organization. Supporting metrics, including content downloads, inbound links, social media reach and “owned” subscribers, are critical to showing progress at the top and middle of marketing funnels.



  • Developing Your Marketing Superpowers: Resources for Young Pros

    Batman’s half ninja, half engineer. Tony Stark’s part man and part machine. Today’s marketers need to be hybrids, too. It’s a professional philosophy young marketing pros need to embrace.



  • 15 Skills of the Modern Marketing Team

    Next-generation marketers are emerging today. They are generalists who are proficient in a variety of core marketing activities, analytical, creative, tech-savvy and driven. They push the limits of marketing and tie outputs to measurable results. Here's what it takes to be one, and what skills to look for when building your superstar marketing team. 



  • 15 Business Basics that Impact Overall Marketing Success

    An overview of 15 core areas of your business that can have a big impact on marketing programs, covering business basics, product/service foundations, and team strengths.



  • Is There Room in PR for Content Marketing?

    Guest post by Keith Ecker of Jaffe PR

    The buzzword on every marketer’s lips is content marketing—and with good reason. Never before have brands been able to so easily transform themselves into de facto content creators through the use of affordable publishing and distribution tools, such as blogging platforms, Twitter and LinkedIn. Meanwhile, the definition of what constitutes a traditional media outlet continues to be flipped on its head as websites, blogs and social media sites become go-to reads for consumers and key decision-makers.

    So, what does this shift in the way information is produced and consumed mean for the world of public relations? If audiences are more prone to read a Twitter feed over the New York Times, is it time for all us publicists to hang up our hats and call it a day?

    While it’s no longer business as usual for the PR industry, I’d argue that this is one of the most exciting times to be a publicist. Rather than fight the inevitable changes, I recommend embracing these changes as an opportunity to redefine the profession. Content marketing isn’t making PR obsolete; it’s forcing it to adapt to make itself more effective than ever.



  • Corporate Social Media Law: An Attorney’s Input on Things to Consider

    It’s no surprise that social media has made its way to the business world. As organizations and professionals alike become increasingly active—blending personal and professional personas, time, and commentary—there are many areas for corporate leaders to consider in regard …

  • How to Rank Better on Google and Bing (SXSW Session Recap)

    You will never again hear me criticize teenaged girls for sobbing at the sight of their favorite boy band. I lived an hour in their shoes when Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan), editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, led Matt Cutts (@mattcutts), head of Google’s Web Spam Team, and Duane …