Businesses can no longer ignore the social media explosion. For CMOs, success boils down to seven habits.

The digital landscape is confusing. Anybody who has viewed the Terry Kawaja Display Landscape slide knows this. Despite that, we have the opportunity to do the targeting we've only dreamed of before.

If I don't know you, I won't read your email. Unless what you have to say appeals to my puerile sense of self-interest. If you aren't a friend or trusted source of international cycling news, I won't look at your tweet — no matter how clever. I'm a marketer's nightmare.

The turn of the calendar year inevitably incites end-of-year reflections and New Year resolutions. Many times, to welcome in the new, we've got to let some things die. As such, I've been contemplating the evolution of our industry and begun questioning the shelf life of a traditional "campaign" model.

CMOs face an impossible challenge: how to distinguish one brand from the next in a market where price, quality and convenience are at parity. The answer is passion. That's the "x factor" that every company wants.

Direct marketers may dominate the digital display advertising market, but most of these marketers are getting as little as one-third of the return they could.

For a marketing department to succeed in 2012 and beyond, marketers need to be analytical, focused on return on investment and deeply embedded in the data that makes their programs hum. When it comes to email, many marketers focus on all the wrong things.

Data opens the door for marketers to connect with customers at a personal, emotion-charged level. But this portal to customer-centric marketing remains locked for many organizations — both client-side and agencies

The fur is flying and everyone is yammering now that the US Postal Service is taking steps to rationalize its network. In August, USPS served public notice of its intent to close underperforming retail 
locations.

Like many of you, I hear people in marketing say things like "Direct mail is dead," "No smart marketer uses direct mail these days," and "I don't need direct mail anymore — I use email now."