online marketing

Marketing Lessons From An Accidental Con Man

All business advantage is founded on some anomaly--a unique set of experiences that makes you better than anyone else at a particular skill, a new business model, a pool of talent others overlooked, a patent that sets you apart. But it’s not enough to describe the difference--you need "Reason Why Marketing."READ»

Four Awesome Marketing Vehicles You Probably Take For Granted

The astounding pace of innovation is partly what numbs us to the potential of online marketing vehicles. Why should I bother optimizing a Facebook presence when Google Plus is the new, hot thing? Will Groupon succeed, or be succeeded by something smarter and more powerful? This sort of thinking is understandable, but not particularly helpful, so here's a road map to get started. READ»

How Your Dog Can Teach You To Speak To Your Audience

After many failed, comical months spent teaching my dog to obey simple commands, I finally realized it wasn't working because I was trying to teach her English. Instead, I should have been speaking Dog all along. When it comes to marketing your brand, there's a lot you can learn from Fido. READ»

3 Marketing Insights From My First Driving Lesson

Marketing and operating a manual transmission are both about balancing momentum and leverage. Movement and power. Opportunity and risk.READ»

How Hitchhiking Made Me A Better Marketer

Here in South Africa, my family and I are getting used to relying on the kindness of strangers. With no car (yet), no contacts, and frequently no clue, we’ve gone from reluctantly accepting assistance to actively sticking our thumbs out. In so doing, I’ve discovered a few things about human nature that make me a smarter marketer.READ»

5 Ways To Build Engagement Using Positive Feedback On Your Company's Website

My son and I accidentally climbed a mountain recently; we had meant only to walk up a little way, but two hours later, we were at the top. We couldn’t stop climbing because of all the immediate positive feedback. As a business, the most desired action on your website is your summit. How can you entice prospects to climb to the top?READ»

Best Practices For Online Direct-Response Marketing

Economically, 2011 is shaping up to be a challenging year. Key measures are all trending down, and global equity markets are in retreat. But this doesn’t mean that we stop marketing. Instead, it underscores the need to ensure that our direct-response efforts are as effective as possible. READ»

Discovery Engines: Policing The Riot Of Information Overload

Why can't anyone tame the social stream and just give us the good stuff?READ»

Chi Marketing: Why Marketing Doesn't Have to Be Hard

Inside-out improvement, also known as Chi Marketing, doesn’t begin with a laundry list of possible tactics to improve traffic and conversion. It doesn’t focus on results at all, at least not at first. Rather, Chi Marketing looks at your core form first, so that all the peripheral marketing tactics flow naturally from that core. READ»

How To Market Like A Horse Whisperer

What can online marketers learn from a horse whisperer? How is your Web site like an airport in a foreign country? And what's the relationship between alternate side of the street parking in Manhattan and a pasture in rural Virginia? READ»

How To Make YouTube Part Of Your Social Media Marketing

Small businesses often don't appreciate all the benefits of online video--and especially YouTube--to their social media marketing. Here are some expert tips on how to use YouTube to your advantage.READ»

White iPhone Becomes White Elephant, Report Shows Strong Facebook Sharing ROI, Branson Dives Deep, and More...

The Fast Company reader's essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web--updated all day.READ»

What You Can Learn From a Pooping Sloth

Stella is a sloth living in a rainforest in Costa Rica, and she's one of the laziest creatures on earth, spending all day on a tree limb, languidly chewing leaves and twigs. Stella's not exactly Fast Company. But she's still got a trick or two to teach most businesses...READ»

How to Write a "Cut Through the Clutter" Paid Search Ad

Paid search is the most competitive advertising platform on the planet. All your competitors are there, shouting the same things louder and louder in an attempt to attract prospects. If you want to win, you need a different approach.READ»

Rock and Roll? What Did You Say?

In an age of instant publication via blogs and tweets, where people spew the most inane thoughts without any filter whatsoever, it is not surprising that our "BS antennas" have become attuned to picking up anything with the ...READ»

Chipotle Burritos: Stuffed With Integrity

Integrity isn't the first word that comes to mind when you think of burritos. Chipotle is out to change that with a new marketing overhaul, Food with Integrity. Though they won't be tampering with the tasty (and caloric) burrito ...READ»

• Chipotle: Grass Fed Animals Make Tastier Tacos
• Ode to a Burrito

6 Reasons Small Businesses Need Wordpress

 I have been thinking quite a bit about WordPress lately, because I'm preparing a speech about "The Business of Wordpress" to give at a conference by the same name in Atlanta next week. And in looking through my own blog and ...READ»

Five Rules for Responsible Social Marketing

 “I am baking cream cheese cupcakes this morning.”  A colleague of mine tweeted this and got a message within a few minutes that said something like: “Become a fan of Brand X cream cheese” Now, wait a ...READ»

Dealing With Unscrupulous Customers Online - A True Story

“Nobody answered my phone call. I waited on the line for 20 minutes. Company X sucks.” Wow. This should get the attention of the customer service department at Company X. And it did. This is a sad, but true story of the ...READ»

What is Organic SEO Marketing and Why is it so Important?

Organic SEO Marketing or search marketing, in short, is the function of driving sales through a marketing effort online, and the only real, true competition to driving online traffic versus paid-advertising or pay-per-click campaigns. ...READ»