It is no coincidence that each year’s Super Bowl location is awarded years before anyone knows which teams will be playing. The influx of vacationers and fans is a windfall to the city. The tourism, restaurant, souvenir, and entertainment industries (to name a few) all benefit. Your small business (or any other size, for that [...]

Coupon users tend to have higher income and more education than non-users. And the wealthiest among us are some of the most frugal. Think about it.

Sometimes a formula just isn’t enough. A reader, who recently read the Figuring Break Even Point piece from a few years back, was confused about how to use the CPM formula. I responded, explaining — in words and figures — how to figure the break even point using his numbers. Analytical Bobette was pleased with [...]

When updating your marketing plan, do you imagine the future and take into account how your business environment will change? Throw the current environment out the door, predict what will happen to turn your industry on its head, and plan for that? Perhaps too few of us take that approach. Most (including yours truly) tend [...]

If you had any doubts about the power (or swiftness) of social media, think again. Over the last several days, Johnson & Johnson has felt the downside of this power. Through social media such as Twitter (#MotrinMoms) and YouTube — and blogs across the Internet — moms rebelled at a commercial many saw as patronizing. [...]

Writing and distributing articles can be a high-ROI activity (thanks, Chris Knight, for that post), but the potential marketing uses do not stop there. Any place you use the written word represents an opportunity to “recycle” that content. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing: – Convert part of an article [...]

As marketers and business managers, we always claim to seek the highest ROI, but if you ask me that is not the case. Strategies slip when things are going well. We get lazy when profitable choices abound and go for easy instead of best. We conveniently forget the strategically sound practices of evaluating alternatives and [...]

Over the years, I have noticed that different people interpret the term “Internet Marketing” (or the related “Web marketing” and “Website marketing”) differently. There is nothing inherently wrong with multiple definitions, but it can cause logistical and communication-based confusion when working with vendors or consultants. Wikipedia defines Internet marketing as I do: Interchangeable with similar [...]

I’ve seen this phenomenon in various forms throughout my career (and am certainly not immune to it myself) — whether it be an assumption that the customer understands all the industry jargon, or a blindspot because we’re too close to our own products. We forget, or the thought never crosses our minds, that some part [...]

Read Newsletter Hello Folks – I recently received a request asking my opinion of different marketing planning products. As I wrote a detailed response, it struck me that I’ve never published any planning tools reviews (duh!). Consequently, I’ve chosen to review my favorite piece of marketing plan software as we enter the planning season: Marketing [...]