Amy Gottesman left a very successful career in fashion to take care of her very young children. But then she started missing the income and found herself with time to spare when the children were sleeping. Thus started her journey as an entrepreneur, initially she tried out traditional marketing like mailing out coupons and advertising in local newspapers but that did not work out and she decided to try out Google Adwords.

Online survey firm Zoomerang and GrowBiz Media has come out with a report after surveying 751 small firms which reveals that about 89% of these firms which have less than 25 employees will be allocating most of their marketing funds to traditional websites and email. Only 10% of the respondents planned to spend a minimum of 30% of their marketing budgets on social media. Furthermore it revealed that most small businesses get and maintain their customers through traditional in-person networking.

Read on how General Motors, Gap, MSNBC, American Apparel, The Democratic Party failed spectacularly in their rebranding efforts.

Source: MLive

Check out this anatomy of a weirdly creative and successful ad campaign featuring gubernatorial elections in Texas and hair grown with cow poop!

Earthjustice, an environmental law firm has used Foursquare, a social networking site which lets users inform their network of followers about their location by ‘checking in’, in a very innovative manner to help spread awareness about an endangered animal. The ads ask people to ‘check in’ the Earthjustice ad at Foursquare, every time they do that an Earthjustice donor would donate $10 for the protection of the animal. These ads have helped Earthjustice raise $50,000, and also created considerable interest among commercial marketers.

Jay Goltz owns five small businesses in Chicago and in this article talks about how he came to a decision about whether to charge less for his framing services in these financially unstable times or to advertise more. He describes the process in brief but insightful detail which would be very useful to any business.

Source: NY Times

Companies spending significant resources designing, branding and packaging their products for products now have one more need to take care of – the way their product smells. This is what the Ford Motor Company embarked upon – it is on a mission to identify a specific scent that would become a part of Ford’s brand identity around the world. The company has employed five engineers with remarkably sensitive noses for the purpose.

Marketers have used a variety of experimental strategies to successfully harness the power of Internet marketing but most of these experiments have failed as consumers have adopted digital technology the way they see fit. Companies that have realized this are now gradually making digital interactivity the center of their marketing strategies. In the process they are making radical changes in their processes and skills, and also rethinking their priorities and budgets.

Marketers spend millions of dollars every year on advertising campaigns but what really inspires a large number of consumers to buy a product is a simple word-of-mouth recommendation from someone they trust. In fact word of mouth is the driving force behind 20 to 50 percent of purchasing decisions. Moreover, digital revolution has boosted the power and reach of word-of-mouth recommendation like never before with customers consulting peer reviews and forums before making purchasing decisions.

Imagine having an advertising system in which your advertisements appear before customers who have expressed interest in your products or services. That’s what retargeted advertising is all about. It is not based on some latest technological marvel, but is just an innovative way of using existing technology. Companies that are involved in retargeted advertising use cookies to track customers who visited their websites but left without making any purchases.