People’s eyes view print marketing pieces in a Z format and on-screen marketing content in an F. Why should you care? Because if your most important information – e.g. your call to action – isn’t strategically located on your page or screen, you will get less than optimal results from your marketing. Years ago an ad agency guy told me about the “Z” scanning format for print pieces. We were implementing a marketing program for a software company that included print ads and a print newsletter. information in the middle of a piece. MORE >>

You only have a moment to get someone’s attention when you send them an email. Why do so many emails get deleted by the recipient? There is no business or person’s name in the email From field. There is no subject line. Your subject line is irrelevant to me. Your first sentence in the email is boring and/or irrelevant to me. You do not include a call-to-action, so I delete the email. You include a call-to-action but don’t repeat it at the end of the email. Your email is too long. There are too many links, graphics, and headlines in the email. see no address or I.D. MORE >>

Tweet. Now is the time for B2B Marketers to invest small amounts in marketing programs - by doing research to find new or validate existing market opportunities, confirming or updating marketing messaging, or identifying new marketing technologies and media that  might offer better or more cost-effective results. read a great HBR blog post by Stephen Wunker, Five Rules for Innovating in a Shaky Economy. Then this morning when I saw my colleague Lisa Anderson ‘s post on LinkedIn referencing an Industry Week article about 1,000 U.S. Wunker wrote about Rule #2. ” So, U.S. MORE >>

I have a “strong suggestion” for you entrepreneurs, start-ups, spin-offs, R&D folks, developers, CTOs, CEOs, COOs, CMOs, PR and crisis communications peeps – well, everyone involved in getting the word out about some “new thing.” ” Connect strategically now. Online, Online, strategically, on LinkedIn, Facebook,  Twitter and more. Now , when the product idea is just a seedling in your brain and soul. Now , when the client tells you about the inkling of a  community initiative that you know may need support in the future. 5,000? 50,000? Engage them. MORE >>

Tweet. Marketers who want to get found online have a dilemma: they need to write for the search engines and for the readers, their prospects. Unfortunately today I see both good writing that clearly won’t work for the search engines, and really bad writing that has keywords and phrases in all the right places but doesn’t speak to the reader. One reason for bad writing is that too many marketers leave their website content up to their web developers. So, someone has to fill the gap, and that person may not even understand the site owner’s business. MORE >>