If you’re still grumbling about joining Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, know this: Social networks are good for business. “It’s very well documented that businesses that focus on marketing during tough financial times can actually improve,” says Karen Quintos, a vice president at Dell.

Digging your company out of this recession will probably require some unconventional thinking. Most small businesses can’t simply play it safe and expect to thrive, let alone survive. Ira Blumenthal, author of Ready, Blame, Fire: Myths and Misses in Marketing, points out 10 common business myths that small business owners are too quick to believe in.

What difference does empathy make in business? The answer is most visible in the tales of two major product launches from the same company: the Xbox and Zune from Microsoft. What led Microsoft teams to deliver a great performance in one case and a dud in the other?

There are proven techniques you can use to increase any ads pulling power, whether your main goal is inquiries or image. Here are 31 techniques that can work for you.

Here’s a question I’ve been curious about: should marketers add blogging to their arsenal of marketing tactics? Or is it — as I suspect — an utter waste of time? A pure vanity publication that won’t pay you back for your effort?

A guide to writing successful brochures, incorporating several professional perspectives.

Marketers gain the most mileage from their corporate brochures when they focus on the reader — and on how the company can solve customer problems.

Successful direct mail doesn’t depend on fancy, four-color design or “creative” copy.

How do you drive traffic to your Web site without burning through your available cash in a couple of weeks? Here are 8 cost-effective ways to get hits to your site.

My monthly e-zine, including copy and layout, takes me just an hour or two per issue to complete from start to finish. I want to share the formula with you, so you can produce an effective e-zine of your own.

“...How do I get traffic to my site?” one client asked recently. “And if I want to sell... using e-mail marketing, who do I send the e-mails to?”  Here is one online marketing methodology that has been proven effective...

I’ve started working on a major long-term project. The book, tentatively titled The Persuasion Manifesto (the name a copycat of the pretentious Cluetrain Manifesto), is a compilation of the most successful persuasive communications techniques ever developed.

People frequently ask me to recommend my 10 favorite marketing books.  Here they are.

Here’s one Yellow Pages advertising technique that may work for you.  I learned it from my dad.

To define what constitutes good print advertising, we begin with what a good print ad is not.

In a recent DM News column, I apparently offended a segment of the blogging community by suggesting that perhaps blogs might be “an utter waste of time … ” Here’s what all the hoopla has taught me so far:

Why does one ad make a lasting impression and sell merchandise, while another falls flat and doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay its own cost?  Virtually all persuasive copy contains the eight elements described in this article.

Perhaps the oldest — and most widely embraced — rule for writing direct response copy is, “Stress benefits, not features.”  But even this sacred commandment doesn’t always hold true.

Your DM copy must work hard to build the credibility that will get the reader to trust you enough to order and rely on your information. Here are some techniques copywriters use to establish credibility quickly in their mailings:

The majority of professional practices are unsuccessful with direct mail — largely because they do not understand how it works or how to use it.  Following are some suggestions on how to successfully use direct mail for consulting or professional services.

Short letters — one or two pages — usually work best.  Executives don’t have time to wade through a lengthy sales pitch.  Exceptions: subscriptions, seminars, and some other mail-order offers.

I recently read an article that advised repeating keywords on your site as often as possible, so search engine “spiders” can find them. But friend and fellow copywriter Nick Usborne says this advice is not only wrong, but actually harmful.

If a person can’t write a lucid, clear, correct report, he or she shouldn’t be in this business. Jargon, double-talk, and weak, watered-down prose proliferate in advertising, but are nowhere more prevalent than in business-to-business marketing.

With direct mail response rates continuing to decline, telemarketing impeded by the Do Not Call list, and CAN-SPAM controlling e-mail marketing, direct marketers are constantly exploring channels to find the magic formula that will work for them.

There are two types of marketing in the world today: (1) “Traditional” marketing with its relatively larger budget and reliance on standard methodology and mainstream media, and (2) “guerilla” marketing, which is reliant on non-traditional tactics...