Marketers Find Web Chat Can Be Inspiring

International Business Machines and a handful of other major marketers, including casino operator Harrah’s Entertainment and software giant Microsoft, are experimenting with developing ad campaigns based in part on what consumers are chatting about on the Web.
For decades, advertisers have relied heavily on sometimes-dated consumer surveys and focus groups to provide grist for their ads. [...]

Marketing Small Businesses With Twitter

For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy [...]

Mobile Marketing & Advertising 2009 Report Highlights

When compared to other forms of advertising (print, Internet, TV, radio, direct mail), mobile is likely growing at a much faster rate because it is considered more cost effective, personalized, and results-driven. Mobile Marketing & Advertising 2009: Challenges and Opportunities examines the current mobile marketing and advertising market, evaluating methods companies are using to effectively [...]

Godiva Goes to the Supermarket

In 1926, a Belgian boutique began selling smooth, indulgent chocolates in a luxe gold box. The upscale approach has worked well: Godiva has grown into a $500 million product sold at more than 10,400 stores around the world. Now the chocolatier is going mass market. While adhering to its original recipes, Godiva is selling lower-priced [...]

Three Best Ways to Win a Corporate Client

In this challenging economy, Corporate America is hunkering down and limiting spending on products or services that don’t address critical needs. That’s made it more difficult than ever for small businesses to attract and land corporate accounts. They’ve had to do even more prospecting – more calls, more networking, and more seeking of referrals, says [...]

Three Best Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation

These days, a great danger lurks just a few clicks away: the online review. By Googling your company’s name, anyone can read and track your business’s performance – including missteps, poor service or less-than-stellar products.
Protecting your company’s reputation is now a 24-hour vigil. Negative reviews – whether they’re merited or not – can turn away [...]

Northern Kentucky’s New Incentives

Northern Kentucky Tri-ED aggressively markets our three-county region (Boone, Campbell and Kenton Counties) as part of the Cincinnati metro area for starting, growing and locating new primary industries. We have fostered a strong business climate in attracting, starting and keeping a good mix of companies like Fidelity Investments, Wild Flavors, dbaDIRECT and Mazak in [...]

Do You Need Your Own Web TV Show?

Independent Web shows can attract advertisers, sponsors, and thousands of viewers, but marketing and profiting from them is a challenge (by K.E. Klein, BusinessWeek, September 29, 2009).
Yana Berlin dabbed on a product sample for a new perfume and liked it O.K. But when her three grown daughters got a whiff, they had one reaction: “You [...]

Negate Competition by ‘Owning’ Your Space

Rules to help entrepreneurs with specialized visions become unique providers—and rule their turf as long as they care enough to maintain it (by C. Guillebeau, BusinessWeek, September 22, 2009).
Competition is one of the most studied aspects of business strategy. Conventional wisdom holds that companies should seek to outmaneuver, crush, and obliterate their opponents. An alternative, [...]

yUnderstanding Your Credit Report

There has never been as much emphasis placed on credit scores as there is now. Therefore, it’s extremely important you are aware of the items appearing on your own personal credit report. Credit scores are impacted by many things and in order to get the best credit score you need to make [...]