YOUTILITY

Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to your company’s success.

You’re not competing for attention only against other, similar products. You’re competing for attention against everything. To win in this hyper-competitive environment, you must ask “How can we help?”

If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. This is Youtility.

Includes interviews with dozens of companies practicing Youtility, and provides 6 blueprints for building Youtility in your company.

Available for pre-order soon (get up to 7 exclusive bonuses) at http://YoutilityBook.com

Agencies Don’t Turn Your Back on Digital Marketing

Ah yes. Digital marketing. Once a great champion. Now a broken-down has-been, struggling to remain relevant in a changing world. Like Joe Namath, but with a keyboard. So goes the story in many agencies today. In their zeal to jump aboard the social media express, agencies are neglecting to shore up the other corners of [...]

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5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Will Thrive in the Recession

From Dot Bomb to Dot Boom Let’s face it. The economy is taking on the distinctive, sickly pallor of a post Mardi Gras Keith Richards. Generally, recessions hit the advertising business with the ferocity of a rabid wolverine, and the last one trimmed overall ad spending by 9% according to market researchers Veronis Suhler Stevenson. [...]

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The 10 Strengths of the Agency of the Future

Web services giant Sapient recently fielded a national online digital marketing survey of more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketers responsible for managing digital budgets (among other things). Survey respondents were asked about the top qualities they sought in their advertising and marketing agencies in the coming year. Sapient’s Top 10 Wish [...]

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The Alarming Truth About Digital Marketing’s Imperfections

A One Legged Stool There’s no question the Internet has been good to me. The last two jobs I had before getting involved in Internet marketing in 1994 were spokesman for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (prison tours), and marketing director for Waste Management (landfill tours). I prefer this gig as it is smell [...]

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Wake Up Agencies – Digital Shops = Trojan Horse

It was bound to happen, and now it has. A big-time digital agency (R/GA) has opened up a full-fledged brand development arm. And whom do you think they will be competing against with this new branding department? Other digital agencies? Nope. They are aiming for traditional agencies and the branding, media placement, and creative budgets [...]

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Internet Advertising to Grow 20% in 2008

A new report from Bernstein Research says online advertising in the U.S. will grow by 20% in 2008, despite weakness in travel, auto, and financials. Top categories for online advertising spend include: Finance, insurance, real estate – 29.6% of overall spend Media and entertainment – 25.2% Retail – 13.8% Other – 12.9% Auto – 8.6% [...]

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Ad Networks Are a House of Cards – But a Great Deal

A groundbreaking study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Bain & Company shows that ad networks’ share of display ad sales soared from 5% to 30% from 2006-2007. (Read the excellent full report here) It seems the rise in Internet advertising (~20% per year, according to eMarketer) is creating a flurry of new sites, and [...]

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3 New Features for Google’s Ad Planner

Google announced on Friday via one of their blogs that they have added 3 new features to Ad Planner.  (note: for more about Ad Planner, and Google’s long-term plan to totally change the ad agency business, read this post from Convince & Convert’s greatest hits) Impressive that Google has made pretty significant upgrades to Ad [...]

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Agency Advantage Tools #2 – Yureekah

The variety and quality of banner ads online is truly staggering. From the infamous X10 Camera pop-up, to Punch the Monkey, to today’s highly engaging rich media video ads, turning out great banner creative is a universal challenge. For nearly every facet of the creative process, there are libraries that can be used for inspiration. [...]

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Automakers Increase Internet Ads – Why It Will Work

AdAge reports that GM has moved approximately 25% of its total media budget online over the past three years. That’s 25% of a $2 billion+ annual media spend. A current focus for GM’s online initiatives is the new Used Car Ambush program, a microsite and online campaign intended to convince used car shoppers to purchase [...]

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