From the monthly archives:

February 2009

The Best Articles We’ve Read This Week: The Feb 27 HitList

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Every Friday The Daily Anchor offers up the best articles we’ve read all week. Most are recent, some are old, but hopefully they’ll all be useful, interesting or entertaining. The list isn’t huge and it isn’t exhaustive, because if it were there’d be no chance you’d read them all.

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All Hands On Deck: 4 Editors on the SF Chronicle Implosion

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Fridays hold a very special place in our hearts, so in honor of our 3rd favorite day of the week we’re going to shake things up a little… From now on, every Friday all 4 Daily Anchor editors will weigh-in on a recent development, event or trend. Our first topic is Hearst’s threat to end the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Fresh Perspective: A 19 Year Old’s Take on Advertising

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This is the first in a series of posts in which The Daily Anchor will bring in fresh perspectives from “the real world,” in an effort to see outside the confines of our media-bubble.

Every marketer and advertiser is inherently prejudiced: we are incapable of divorcing ourselves from our professional perspective, and our notions of what consumers [...]

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Leveraging Personal Connections with InsideView

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As a follow up to my initial high-level overview and review of Insideview’s SalesView application, I’d like to dig a little deeper into a particular key feature that make this a standout product. Also notable is that since reviewing the app, Insideview has secured $6.5 million in Series B funding, which you can read more about here.

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Social Marketing: Who Has the Power, Consumers or Brands?

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Sometimes things are just better left the way they were. Lately, through the thousands of social marketing tools that have entered our world, customers are getting a chance to speak out like never before. Here are a few recent examples of how customers have responded and some questions about what is really going on here.

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The Future of Social Media Advertising

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If social media sites draw some of the highest traffic on the web, why have they had such an awful time figuring out how to generate revenue? Users would revolt and traffic would plummet if sites implemented fee-based membership structures, and traditional banner ads have been an epic fail.

So what’s it going to take to monetize social media?

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Writing Effective Emails: Some Lifesaving Tips

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We live in a tech world and it’s growing more techy by the minute. I know many sales reps who believe the only way to prospect is to pound the streets or make calls, but whether you like it or not, email is an essential tool for reaching clients and prospects. If you write a good email you’re far more likely to get a response than a callback from a voicemail.

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Key Performance Indicators: Paralysis by Analysis

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Some thoughts on best practices for Sales & Marketing benchmarking. What’s essential, and can it go too far?

I’ve had mixed results over the past few years working with both Sales & Marketing organizations that have recognized the need for tracking metrics & key performance indicators (KPIs). As staunch believers in CRM, we have…

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A Little Bit of Good News in a Bad News World

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It seems like every time we turn on the news these days, we hear a glass-half-empty attitude about everything. And for good reason. There are a lot of bad things going on in this world right now. It has gotten to the point where I can hardly bear to watch the nightly news. Lately, I just turn it off, because it can be so [...]

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The Best Articles We’ve Read This Week: The Feb 20 HitList

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This is the second in a series of Friday posts in which we’ll cover the best articles we’ve read all week. Most will be new, some will be old, but hopefully they’ll all be useful, interesting or entertaining.

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The Perfect Sales Pitch: What Would Aristotle Do?

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As a Rhetoric and Media Studies major, Aristotle’s teachings are the foundation of my approach to many aspects of business. What can we learn from his methods of presentation, persuasion and appeal to help boost Sales in a downturn?

If your presentation skills are lacking, then use this as your starting point.

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How to Handle PR: A Lesson From CB2’s Near Disaster

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This week CB2 – by Crate and Barrel – failed to deliver a table to the set of HGTV’s Color Splash because it had neglected to process the transaction. CB2 then botched their chance to make amends by refusing to lend a floor sample to HGTV for 4 hours to film their final segment. In the end CB2 relented, but the damage had been done. Here’s a look at what went wrong.

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Recession Proof Industries: A Few Unexpected Industries That Are Up When the Economy is Down

A while back we wrote about how to find a job in a recession, and we recommended you look into industries that are expected to keep growing despite the downturn. Most of those industries were pretty obvious, though, so here’s a look at some unexpected industries that continue to rock through the recession.

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The Professional Confessional: DIY or Die – Follow Up

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Last week’s Pro/Con column had me left in the lurch by several colleagues and struggling to complete a lengthy RFP on my own. The shit continued to hit the fan, proving to be one of my largest f-ups to date, so I offer this follow-up.

My assessment that only self-reliance would equal success needs serious re-evaluation. I attempted to complete the RFP with just about a week remaining leading up to the due date…

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Groceries: Same Price, Less Product

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In the increasingly critical push to cut costs while avoiding layoffs, some companies are finding a solution in the mantra “same price, less product.” Last night on NPR I heard Michelle Norris interview Ben Popkin of The Consumerist about the recent trend of companies decreasing the size of their products in grocery stores while maintaining the same price, effectively raising prices on the sly.

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WSJ: Best and Worst Ads of 2008

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The WallStreet Journal has released their list of the best and worst ads of 2008, so head on over to the WSJ and vote for the winner [and the loser.] Here’s the short-list…

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85 Twitter Tools

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Here’s a look at some of the tools that have been feeding my Twitter addiction, and some other highly-recommended tools that I’ll be checking out this week. The strength of Twitter lies in its open API and 3rd party tools. If you’re looking to get the most out of Twitter, these tools will help you do just that.

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Behavioral Advertising to Remain Unregulated by FTC

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The FTC has issued only modest changes to a 2007 federal policy on behavioral advertising, the practice of tracking user behavior online and then tailoring advertising accordingly. Behavioral advertising will remain self-regulated by Internet companies, and the report contains only “recommendations.”

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Closed for the Holiday: See you on Tuesday

In honor of the President’s Day holiday, The Daily Anchor is staying in our PJs and taking a vacation day. We hope you’re able to do the same. Tune in tomorrow for more marketing, sales and advertising goodness.

- Andrew, Rebecca, Ella, and Mike

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How to Market in a Recession? Ask Laiola Owner Joe Hargrave

If you’ve been laid off and are in San Francisco this weekend, you’re in for a treat… literally. Laïol restaurant has offered to comp the meal of anybody who has recently been laid off. I think this is a genius marketing promotion.

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