If you market to marketers and want to get the word out about your products or services -- or in your quest for marketing knowledge you just want to assure that you aren't overlooking important but obscure sources of information -- check out the new directory of Advertising and Marketing Trade Publications on WebMarketCentral. The genesis for this page was some client research on publications that target direct and catalog marketers. I figured there would be one place on the Web where I could find all of the publications in this category. Instead, I found nearly a dozen directories of marketing and advertising trade publications -- none of them comprehensive or helpfully categorized, and all missing important publications while including dead or inappropriate links. On some projects, you do the best you can in the time available, accepting imperfections (hmmm, several releases of Windows come to mind). On others, you try to take as much time as you can to get it right. I tried to...

This post has been moved to How to Write an Effective Email Newsletter on the Webbiquity blog. ***** Terms: effective newsletters, successful newsletters, how to write an email newsletter, customer newsletters, prospect newsletters, reducing unsubscribes The Internet marketing business portal: WebMarketCentral.com Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

The professional services marketing experts at RainToday will be hosting a valuable Webinar on " How to Lead Masterful Sales Conversations " October 5th and 10th. The seminar is designed to help sales and marketing professionals engage in productive conversations with prospects, avoid common mistakes, and move the conversation forward toward new business generation. Shifting gears, the selection on the Top Marketing Books page at WebMarketCentral had been getting a bit stale; it has now been completely updated with new titles such as Blogwild! by Andy Wibbels and (gotta love this title) How to Sell to an Idiot by John Hoover. There is also a new Web marketing store on the site where you can shop for useful Web marketing software and cool hardware. More content I think you'll find interesting will be added to the site soon, and posted about here as soon as it is up. ***** Terms: RainToday webinar, How to Lead Masterful Sales Conversations, Blogwild!, Andy Wibbels, How...

According to this post on Workz.com , blogging "has risks that should not be ignored." Author Sharon Housley contends that, due to the danger posed by cyberstalkers, "Females, in particular, should be cautious when circumnavigating the blogosphere." What does she recommend? Tactics such as not posting an online profile or photo, posting anonymously, and avoiding any personal or identifying details. Hmmm. While there are dangers in virtually any aspect of daily life, Housley's paranoia about blogging seems a bit overblown. The flaws in her argument should be obvious -- if she follows all of her own advice, how do we know that her post really was written by Sharon Housley? How do we know that she's really a marketing manager for a software company, or for that matter, that she's really a woman? Blogs are given credibility by their authors. If readers know nothing about a blogger's background, they have no way of assigning credibility, or skepticism, t...

Fans of Marketing Sherpa or RainToday will be probably be familiar with these excellent marketing-related blogs, but just in case, here are four blogs recently added to the recommended blogs list on WebMarketCentral: Email Marketing Best Practices : Chris Baggott is CMO and co-founder of hosted email marketing services provider ExactTarget , and an expert on email marketing. Chris shares his knowledge and thoughts on email-related topics such as database marketing, list building, and *spam*. It also appears that we have similar tastes in reading (though I spent my 4th of July weekend expanding my kids' treehouse). Buzz Marketing for Technology : buzz marketing guru Paul Dunay shares his innovative ideas for technology marketing. In his own entertaining and informative style, Paul addresses topics like mobile ads, effective (and ineffective) tech ad campaigns, video ads, blogging, and viral marketing. He's also a prolific industry writer and speaker. Small Business Bloggin...