Resources for starting a new business, ideas for naming that business, mistakes to avoid, lead generation strategies to embrace, how to apply some of Warren Buffet's wisdom to online marketing efforts.find all of that and more here in this final collection of the best posts on strategy and branding from the past year. What's in A Name? by MediaPost Online Publishing Insider Kory Kredit explores the inexact science of business naming, from descriptive ( AdBuyer.com ) to ont-quite-real words ( Aquisio ) to misspellings ( Personifi ) to WTF? Jivox, xy3). MORE >>

So again: banner ads are branding, not revenue or lead generation. They may very well have a role to play in your marketing mix, but it's important to understand what that role is. ** technorati tags: MarketingSherpa, banner ads, click through rate, average CTR, branding, conversion rates, lead generation del.icio.us 2) Click-through rates are pathetic regardless of ad size, so don't use CTR as the primary metric for evaluating banner advertising. In the words of MarketingSherpa, "Online ads are branding tools. Direct clicks are simply a happy byproduct." MORE >>

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. Lead Generation Form Optimization Tips and Tricks - Google Analytics by VKI Studios Darcy Foster explains how to use Google Analytics and Omniture for conversion rate measurement, then provides tips for testing different approaches to improving conversions. Here are a few of the best posts about SEM landing page design from last year. 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). Leaving your content open may actually produce more leads in the long run, but you have no way to measure that with any precision (or even know for sure if that's the case). Printing it? Passing it along? MORE >>

Design and implement effective lead follow-up programs; without proper follow up, you're wasting money. A previous post here covered average click-through rates for email newsletter advertising, email campaigns and website banner ads. As noted, DoubleClick provides fairly reliable data across those media. It's surprisingly difficult, however, to get meaningful data on the average click-through rate (CTR) for Google AdWords ads. This discussion on Webmaster World reports various experiences: 0.6%-1.2%, 1.2%, 1%-2% and 3%-5%. Write compelling, carefully targeted ad copy. MORE >>