Today my  article on Content Marketing was published on the Genius.com blog, and I wondered whether I could visualize how Content Marketing is different from traditional public relations and advertising. came up with two low-fi sketches. I’m interested to hear your opinion on these visualizations. The OLD Situation. This visual reads from the bottom up: as a marketing manager, you hire a PR agency and an Ad Agency. You give them a briefing, and they create press releases and advertisements that tout your products. This is blasted out to a mass audience. The NEW Situation. Black and White. MORE >>

There were days in my lead gen life where I could have easily left for lunch and not come back for four hours. MIT data shows that that might have been a good idea! Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power just highlighted last year's MIT / InsideSales.com study of outbound prospecting lead conversion. The report details such information as the right time of day to call, the best day of the week, how the response time to a lead impacts conversion, etc. It got me thinking. For many reps, unless territory comes into play, lead gen exists in a three-time-zone map. Target West Coast 11 am - 1 pm. MORE >>

Dan Schawbel has put together a first-rate magazine about personal branding called (of course) Personal Branding Magazine. The latest issue includes an article from yours truly, which I've included below. also included one of my PowerPoint presentations when I do in-person workshops on personal branding (this article was based on that presentation). If this topic is important to you, I suggest you check out Dan's magazine ( get the free trial issue here ). Developing your personal brand will help you: Grow your company. Drive your career. Shorten sales cycles. Become more fulfilled with life. MORE >>

Recently on ClickDocuments, I contributed suggestions for choosing a white paper syndication partner. Here I expand a bit on that post. Not familiar with white paper syndication? Syndication makes your white paper available to mass audiences. Think of it as you would a syndicated newspaper column. If you write a column for your own newspaper (e.g., website), only your subscribers will see it. But if your column is syndicated via hundreds or thousands of other newspapers around the country, it will be seen by many more people. Plus it can be a great way to build up an in-house list. MORE >>

How to Get Started on Cheap and Powerful Customer Studies. Unless you understand your customers, you risk painful marketing missteps. Because we know that effective content marketing depends on a thorough understanding of your customers, regular research should be a core component of your content marketing strategy. Of course, it’s possible to do way too much research. That’s when you wind up with the paralysis by analysis situation. But, most small to midsize companies suffer from too little research and too much gut feel. That’s when some very bad decisions get made. MORE >>