Each night at bedtime, I work on a crossword puzzle. I’m not great at it, but crossword puzzles are a good way for me to take a mental break from the day before sleeping. One of my biggest problems when solving puzzles is not thinking about all the possible answers that a clue could be about. clue like “Barker’s common phrase&# for a 3-letter answer made me try to think of what a circus barker might say or what a manager would call out to his crew or what order an officer might yell to his soldiers. Yet I was stumped. MORE >>

It’s my pleasure to introduce David Ariss, President of Ariss Marketing Group , a small, ‘boutique’ direct marketing firm in Denver, Colorado who has agreed to share his insight with you today. Susan Fantle, B2BMarketingSmarts. —————————————————-. As this recession lingers on, more and more of our B2B and B2C clients are asking about using email in lieu of direct mail campaigns to generate leads and sales. We also emailed 30,000 surveys with the exact same messages and split. MORE >>

It’s been a long time since I had to go on a date (thank heavens). But what I do remember is not the dates themselves. What I remember are the endless days after the date wondering if I would hear from the guy again. The guys could have prevented my pain by inviting me to go out again at the end of the first date. That would be something like “Now that you’ve discovered what a fun and charming guy I am, how about trying dinner and a movie?”. In marketing, we call this the secondary offer. Secondary offers are included in the thank-you communication sent after the acceptance of the first offer. MORE >>

The neighborhood I live in does not have any young children in it. Although a few houses have put up a ghost or pumpkin here and there, I am not immersed in the celebration of Halloween, nor do I have a house full of candy (which is a good thing). Unlike my colleague Casey Hibbard , of “ Stories That Sell ,&# an expert on the creation and use of case studies, I didn’t think about writing a blog post related to this ancient holiday. Here are her points that I have translated into how a marketing approach can scare prospects off before they even get to the case study. Be ugly. Ramble. MORE >>

In the short post last week “ Some people are better than others ,&# Seth Godin talked about the value of certain prospective customers over others. He makes a great argument, for instance, that book buyers are more likely to be good prospects for buying a Kindle, not because they read more but because the have “bought&# books. What makes these prospects better is the commitment of money to a particular interest. His example is a consumer one. But his point applies in B2B marketing just as well. Here are three examples of prospects who show the money. Time is money after all. MORE >>