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.Personally, I believe that trade pubs can continue to play an important role in the distribution of industry-specifi... Read Full Story

Marketing automation / demand generation software provider Manticore today announced the release of Manticore Technology VII, which includes a fully customizable user interface, email and landing page folders, an email delivery wizard, and drag-and-drop list building functionality. The company made the announcement at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Although the improved UI is the big change, the new version also adds integration with SalesForce.com for AdWords camp... Read Full Story

What two simple words answer almost every SEO question? What common SEO mistakes should you watch out for? How do you create a 301 redirect? Better yet, how can you avoid having to create one? What key trends in search should you be aware of, and how can you adapt to them?Discover the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best articles and blog posts on the practice of SEO so far this year.Blog SEO Tips: Top SEO Mistakes to Avoid by BlogsessiveAlex Cristache details five c... Read Full Story

I recently did a little test to determine whether Twitter or LinkedIn was more effective at driving traffic to a few specific posts on this blog. While the results aren't scientific by any means, they are enlightening.Various posts were promoted on Twitter (with retweeting encouraged) and to three relevant and popular LinkedIn Groups focused on social media, PR and b2b lead generation.The results? For a minimally retweeted post, Twitter drove about twice the traffic of LinkedIn. For a heavily... Read Full Story

How can you utilize rich media ads to take advantage of the coverage provided by Google's content network? Which AdWords reports are the most critical, and how you can take full advantage of the information they provide? How is AdWords Quality Score calculated, and how can you improve that score in your campaigns? How can you calculate the potential advertising value of AdWords before making a costly investment?Find the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best articles a... Read Full Story

Content marketing is all the rage. Check out Joe Pulizzi's Junta42 blog, pick up a copy of Ardath Albee's wonderful new book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale (which builds upon the foundation laid by David Meerman Scott and others), follow @Mike_Stelzner on Twitter—it's everywhere. Marketers are becoming publishers, writing valuable thought leadership and how-to content in order to build name recognition, credibility, and even sales pipelines.Back in the pre-Internet days, trade pub... Read Full Story

Social media, and discussions of its value for PR and marketing, have become ubiquitous. But which social media tool do marketers find most valuable? What's the best tool for social media research and learning? How can you maximize the business value of tools like LinkedIn and Twitter? How can you explain the value of social media to skeptics?Find the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best articles and blog posts on social media marketing from this year so far.11 Reaso... Read Full Story

It seems like so much of what is written about search engine optimization (SEO) assumes that you're writing a blog post, or a news story, or the next great "how to" article that's going to be syndicated far and wide on article marketing sites.Sometimes that is what you're doing, but often writing for the web—and SEO—involves less glamorous pages like product or service descriptions. Of course, such pages are critical: no one will buy anything from you if they don't understand what you offer. ... Read Full Story

Given the continued high unemployment rate and uncertain prospects for economic recovery, marketing budgets will be tight heading into the new year. Most B2B marketers are likely to find themselves with fewer dollars to spend but more pressure to spend them carefully.In this environment, what are the three or four areas where marketers should focus scare resources? One area clearly is organic search engine optimization (SEO). While it isn't necessarily cheap, it's inexpensive in comparison to... Read Full Story

Despite a recent dip in users, Twitter remains a hot social media platform (and arguably a better venue for b2b marketers than Facebook). Bloggers not only use Twitter to promote their content, but writing about Twitter frequently is their content.Want to learn more about how to use Twitter for marketing, which mistakes to avoid, and learn from brand that are using the microblogging platform successfully? Check out these posts, the first of the best from this year on using Twitter for b2b mar... Read Full Story