Do you own the compelling content on your web site? One of the key things that you want to make sure of when developing a site is that the most interesting information on your site lives on your site. That is, don't have lots of links from your site to other sites. Chances are that you'll never get them back to your site once they leave.

I recently overheard a conversation between neighbors chatting about a local mechanic's shop. The people were complaining about how this particular local mechanic tried to upsell them on additional services and charged them $100 just to turn off their engine light without even fixing the issue. It seems that this mechanic is known in the area for this type of "customer service".

This is an age of smaller budgets and greater expectations. So great that I routinely hear clients talk as if some new marketing program or initiative will save their company. Is this possible?

A hologram contains every piece of image information in every piece of the hologram. Are you trying to do the same thing with your marketing?

Marketing is usually perceived as an add-on to B2B companies. In reality, it should form the core.

Good marketing and branding challenges, pushes, and cajoles companies into action and growth. And this is why companies buy work in marketing and branding in the first place: they want to achieve growth. What most companies don't realize is that operating at this level is much harder than they thought.

With the talk lately on grading leads and/or prospects, the academic in me wonders something. Does lead grading lead to grade inflation? That is, do grades tend to creep upwards in response to outside pressures?

I just talked to a prospective client. He's in a B2C services market and his only marketing or advertising right now is direct mail based on purchased lists. This used to work fine, with decent ROI, but it doesn't anymore. So, he's naturally looking around for other options. How to respond?