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With Election Day just a few weeks off, attack ads have become the advertising medium of choice for presidential and other candidates. Is it ever wise to openly attack your competition in business advertising? Some companies do it. Read More

Last week a member of our staff ordered a small display banner from an online printer. He reported that ordering the banner was a snap. But as soon as he went to the shopping cart to pay for his order, he reports that “all hell broke loose.”
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Are you sending out your marketing emails too often, too seldom, or somewhere in between? That’s a critical question to ask. According to a recent study conducted by Constant Contact, the leading reason why customers cancel email subscriptions is that they feel they are getting emails too often. Read More

“Born to Be Wild, Aging Bikers Settle for Comfy” by Jesse McKinley in The New York Times on Sept. 13, documents a seismic change in motorcycle marketing. To sum it up, three-wheeled motorcycles – trikes – are rapidly becoming the cycles of choice for tens of thousands of baby boomers.
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I recently discovered a revealing case study about the hotel industry, which was at sixes and sevens in the weeks and months following the attacks. Hotels and all travel companies needed to understand how better to serve their clients. That meant understanding their customers’ fears about travel.
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When many companies want to improve customer service, they analyze what competing companies are doing and try to do just a little bit better. Yet according to Ron Kaufman, author of a terrific new book called Uplifting Service, that approach rarely results in customer service that is exceptional.
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A friend just forwarded me a link to “Nine Successful Low-Cost Promotions to Generate Health Club Leads,” a terrific blog post that Mike Chaet wrote for the FitCommerce.com blog. Chaet is a consultant who helps health clubs recruit new members.
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Effective customer profiling can boost sales and profits in unexpected ways. This case study from Google Analytics describes how a food retailer boosted e-commerce sales 70% in key regions by understanding customers’ shipping preferences.
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The first step in managing a return process is to create a fair set of policies that govern product returns. The second step is to communicate your procedures on your website, in your product materials, and even on your wall if customers come into your physical location. Read More

Above all, focus on what makes you different. Is it convenience, price, speed of delivery, exceptional customer service, or something else? Strive to distill your competitive advantage and trumpet it.
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