The upside is that the days of marketing to the so-called "cherry picker" are fading - customers are placing higher priority on value versus price alone, which provides a great opportunity for both B2B and B2C businesses to redefine their brand USP. Brands and businesses have developed new ways to take their social media initiatives to a whole new level, delivering content to their customers in hyper-relevant contexts. Can we call 2012 the year of digital? eMarketer. has predicted a 14.4% increase in U.S. online ad. spending over the next year, and there are. marketers. Relevancy. MORE >>

More than just a simple auto-responder email to a visitor who has filled out a form on your website, welcome campaigns present a fantastic opportunity for marketers to keep their business top-of-mind for those visitors who recently engaged with them. Think of this way: have you ever met a like-minded professional at a networking event, felt excited about making a new contact in your industry, and then not heard from them, only to see a random email from them 8 months later, asking for your help in securing a job at your company? Roll Out The Welcome Wagon. Lead Scoring. MORE >>

Timeline's focus on images and telling a true story will really help most brands get a better page out of the service.". Some businesses and brands might benefit directly from the potential change than others, namely those that offer tangible products that lend themselves to "scrapbooking" or gallery-style visual representation. If Timeline is eventually opened up to businesses, it will become necessary to evaluate whether or not the new layout will provide real value to your customers. Some have argued that the move will inevitably " revolutionize" brand pages. MORE >>

We came across a very useful blog post today from Daniel Burstein on the Marketing Experiments Blog about the need to zoom out on your marketing and sales organization to fully optimize your business in 2012. Thinking of the marketing and sales process helps to emphasize the fact that value and relevancy are driving forces behind a prospect's journey to becoming a customer. Every marketer is familiar with the funnel - historically, it's been the dominant metaphor used to represent the sales and marketing process. Is the most valuable content served at every stage? Literally! MORE >>

This week’s web marketing digest post has another TED talk video on making connections and an infograph on designing a social business capability. This infographic from the Dachis Group shows how you can help to design a social business capability for your organization. This video , which features Sebastian Seung , a computational neuroscientist, discusses the ways in which our brain makes connections between events and interactions. It really raises the question of how well you’re relating and connecting with your customers: are you impacting their lives? MORE >>