Many marketers have figured out that David Meerman Scott was right in The New Rules of Marketing and PR : buyers are interested in information that helps them solve problems, not marketing brochures. Last week I asked the question: will content marketing kill trade publications ? Gordon Plutsky seems to answer in the affirmative, contending that marketers need to set up their own content distribution channels , bypassing the trade media. Ted Bahr, on the other hand, not only won't concede the death of trade magazines but isn't willing even to give up on print versions of them. Research. MORE >>

12 PPC landing page tips by Econsultancy Graham Charlton presents a helpful set of tips for improving landing page conversions such as writing relevant, scannable content; giving visitors enough information to make a purchase/registration decision; and limiting navigation options. Once you've optimized the list of keywords in your search engine marketing campaign, tweaked the bids and crafted stellar ad text to bring visitors to your site, landing page design is critical to converting those visitors into sales or leads. clutter) from good (a clear call to action among other attributes). MORE >>

They also know that their audiences are early adopters of technology to receive, consume and communicate information to each other. Note: this is a guest post from Cece Salomon-Lee , social media relations expert and author of the PR Meets Marketing blog. Cece has previously guest-posted here on best practices in PR and blogging outreach. Virtual events have received a lot of attention recently as an effective way to communicate with your audiences without the costs associated with an in-person event. The same goes for social media technology. And they did it for FREE. MORE >>

It's a widespread and persistent quandary for marketers, particularly B2B marketers who use white papers as a lead generation incentive for response : on the one hand, if you place a contact form in front of your content, you'll get a very low conversion rate (on average, 95% of visitors will simply leave the site, and one-third of those who remain will enter bogus information). On the other, if you leave your PDF content open, more people will download your materials but you get no information: who are these visitors? Are they actually reading your content? Printing it? MORE >>

No contact information: The vast majority of blogs enable readers to comment on posts, which is great. The flipside of the ten P's of blogging previously covered here are the attributes or characteristics that should be avoided in creating a successful business blog. Like the seven deadly sins in Christianity, these vices can relegate a blogger to the underworld of the blogosphere though the judgment of readers. Gluttony: Avoid the "it's all about ME!" syndrome in blogging, where every post is about ME, MY company, or MY product or service. It rarely pays to make enemies. Oh gag me. MORE >>