A recent study, carried out by Marketing Management Analytics, Financial Executive and Ed See, makes me think that more senior marketing executives should double-check the shine on their resume and perhaps consider a few more networking lunches in the near future. A very brief summary of that report found in Ad Age frightens me and brings to mind a few courses of action that you can take today, if you find yourself in a similar situation.

What's the value placed on a social media marketing campaign by the marketers that develop the campaign? It's hard to tell, because one typically can't get access to the key metrics associated with the campaign, particularly sales attributed to the effort and ROI. I was intrigued by a new social push by Sony Ericsson for the Z750a flip phone, created by their agency, Iris. The campaign is titled "Bringing Purple Back."

You plan for offensive operations, while you prepare to play defense. You'll find this concept in both warfare and sports, and it's applicable in business as well. I much prefer playing offense, because that's where you score and generate revenues. A strong business offensive plan also limits the amount of places you'll need to prepare to play defense, freeing up more resources for--you guessed it--playing more offense.

My experience with L.L. Bean today shows that customer service, when done correctly, isn't an expense. It can be your #1 marketing tool and put a wide moat between your business and your competitors. L.L. Bean is the standard against which your phone support should be measured.

I've been working on a list analytics project recently and that's resulted in me thinking of, among other things, universes. I've started to think about model performance and how the changes to the economy might be impacting marketing results. However, I wasn't tempted to write this post until two things happened yesterday. First, [...]