I just finished reading The Cluetrain Manifesto (yes, I know C-2001, I'm a bit behind on my reading). Those of you who've read this book will understand the reference. For those of you who haven't, I'll provide a more detailed response to the book in some future post, but it is well worth the read. Anyway, I had a "Cluetrain moment" last week when I met an extraordinary gentleman named Brad Cleveland, CEO of a rapid plastic injection molding prototyping company called Protomold . I don't know if Brad has read the book or not, but he certainly gets it, and lives it. The company has been using a wide variety of marketing tactics for some time, including search engine marketing / pay-per-click, print, direct mail and email marketing, but decided to hire an outside telemarketing firm to test that tactic as well. On one occasion, one of the telemarketers deviated from the script and upset a customer, who then called a CSR at Prototmold. Brad was notified immed...

Marketing professionals, particularly those focused on online or Web marketing, depend on the latest news from a wide variety of sources to help them stay current on their craft. While there are obviously some excellent news sites available (such as MarketingVOX , ClickZ and BtoBonline ), it's impractical to visit all of them and way too time-consuming to sift through all of the articles that don't matter in order to find the ones that do. But now you can get all of the pertinent content, from literally thousands of online sources, in one place: the new Web Marketing News and E-Commerce News pages on WebMarketCentral.com . I try to avoid being too self-referential here but I'm really excited about these new feeds and I think -- and hope -- that you will find them useful. The feeds are powered by Web content provider Moreover Technologies. Moreover pulls literally tens of thousands of articles from more than 10,000 online sources, categorizes them, and delivers news fe...

The brilliant and entertaining Anne Holland at Marketing Sherpa recently blogged about the proliferation of advertising, and the need for marketers to save themselves through relevant targeting. She mentioned sand-sculpture advertising on the beach and other examples of the "loud shouting" sometimes done by marketers instead of delivering focused, relevant messages in targeted media. I stumbled (or rather, paddled) across another example yesterday. My son and I canoed down the scenic and wild St. Croix river on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. While making our way down river, I occasionally glanced down at my paddle to make sure I was pushing water efficiently. Imprinted on the front side of the paddle was, not surprisingly, the name of the camp where we'd rented the canoe. However, late in the trip, I turned the paddle over and glanced at the back of it, on which was imprinted -- the Pepsi name and logo. What brilliant marketer at Pepsi came up with the idea of putting t...

This week, I had the opportunity to talk to Kelly Allan, founder of and senior associate at Kelly Allan Associates in Columbus, Ohio. Kelly's firm assists companies in a variety of industries with marketing and operations consulting, helping them to streamline business processes and achieve better results. Kelly has been widely published -- and is just a really nice guy. WebMarketCentral (WMC): What did you do before starting Kelly Allan Associates? Kelly Allan (KA): I was a writer, producer/director of educational programs for The University of Michigan Medical Center. Had I stayed, I'd be retired, fat, and unhappy. I had a great boss and great colleagues, but it wasn't what I really wantedto do. Staying would have been a compromise. I tell young people, "Don't sell your life for money. Go take some chances." WMC: How, when and why did Kelly Allan Associates get started? KA: I started the company full time in 1976, at age 24. I was too young to knowany ...

If you market to women, or like reading about marketing to women, or just enjoy exceptionally well-written marketing-related blog copy, check out Yvonne DiVita's Lip-Sticking blog. As a strictly b2b marketer, and a guy, I'll acknowledge that I'm as clueless on this subject as the Hahn beer guy (if you've never seen these videos, you must). Yvonne writes about blogging, conferences, copywriting, advertising and other related topics from her own unique perspective and with her own inimitable style. A great example is "5 Things About Your Website that will send Jane Screaming in Frustration" -- although these apply equally to men. Who's Jane? ***** The portal for online marketing, WebMarketCentral.com Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

WebMarketCentral had the chance to sit down (figuratively speaking) with Jay Lipe, founder of marketing consulting firm Emerge Marketing, to talk about his background and his company, and to tap into his Web marketing wisdom. Herewith, the inaugural WebMarketCentral blog interview. WebMarketCentral (WMC): What did you do before Emerge Marketing? Jay Lipe (JL): My background is pretty much all in marketing. For almost twenty years, I’ve worked to market companies, products, services, universities, cities, even politicians. After I received my MBA in Marketing from Northwestern (Kellogg School of Management) in the 80’s, I worked for marketing powerhouses like General Mills, Novartis and Select Comfort. I went as far as I could on that track, then I launched my own business, Emerge Marketing in 1994. I help small companies (less than 100 employees) gain focus in their marketing. WMC: How, when and why did Emerge Marketing get started? JL: September 23, 1994. On that day I met with a...

First, I noted in my last rant here that "The Web's most popular search engine still won't find all of the words "Bronto Topica Silverpop" on WebMarketCentral, even though they are all listed on the Hosted Email Marketing Services page." Well, I checked again today and -- Google still won't find these terms on the WMC site , but it found my blog post (top spot). Guess I need to keep working on my search engine optimization . Second, one of the most enjoyable things about running WebMarketCentral thus far has been the outstanding people I've been able to "meet" (in some cases, just via email). Kelly Allan gave WMC one its first real links. Jay Lipe, president of Emerge Marketing , agreed to be the subject of the first (of many to come) WMC blog interview (to be posted soon). And just today, Skip Lineberg at the Marketing Genius blog gave WMC a nice endorsement. The opportunity to develop new relationships with great people is one of ...