It is important for technology vendors and solutions providers to remember that every single customer touch point presents a valuable opportunity to create affinity. And, print advertising is no exception. By structuring your campaigns and strategies with the customer in mind, your organization can leverage your investment in print advertising to build affinity. This, in turn, will lead to the kind of strong, long-lasting relationships that result in optimum client satisfaction and retention, as well as sustained profitability and growth. Download the complete UBM white paper "Print: Building The Bridge To Customer Affinity.

Traditionally, generic domain names such as Vodka.com or Seniors.com were not sought after by established companies because the companies did not understand the benefit of using domain names to extend their brand or web presence. This has changed as companies now have integrated campaigns, using important keywords to drive traffic online. For example, Russian Standard Vodka purchased Vodka.com for $3 million and is now using it for a teaser campaign.

There are a number of reasons why utilizing a generic domain name in addition to the company or brand name can make a marketing campaign more effective. For one, using a keyword in the domain name can help drive traffic through "direct navigation." Vodka.com provides a good example of this, as a web surfer interested in Read the complete article on online...

The guidelines build on region-specific mobile ad guidelines published last year for North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The regional guidelines have been integrated into the global version, which includes new guidelines for text messaging. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

The study, The Rise of B2B Applications-Based Media, reveals that the usage of emerging media among IT decision-makers has increased considerably over the past year, with video and blogs experiencing the most increased usage for work-related information. This latest study is part of TechWeb's ongoing Business Technology Media Engagement Research series.

Key study highlights include:

-- Increased Usage of Emerging Media Applications: business technology decision makers are utilizing emerging media applications more frequently to obtain work-related information, as compared to last year.

-- More Growth Expected: business technology decision makers currently using emerging media intend to consume even more in the coming year - even those who are not currently using emerging media applications.

-- Engagement with Emerging Media Leads to Action: when business technology decision makers interact with emerging media, they continue to look for related information.

For more information on this research, email Scott Vaughan.

The easiest way to obtain behavioral targeting data is through Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

When it comes to image search, 31% of users click image results within blended search, while Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com last month had shares Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

There has been a fair amount of interest surrounding in-text advertising as of late, and Vibrant Media has taken the pole position in the space.

In-text advertising -- for those of you who aren't familiar with it -- is essentially advertising that is embedded within the text of a page of online content. This is beyond simple editorial adjacency for display advertising. It is actually having an ad unit married to a word or phrase on a page, within editorial. The way it works is this: I'm an advertiser of, say, soap. I approach an in-text advertising provider and tell them I want to own the words "soap," "shower," and "clean."

The executed buy will be these words in articles or within content on sites the in-text advertising provider has relationships with all across the web, underlined and highlighted. Every time a visitor to a page -- with these highlighted words or phrases -- mouses over the highlighted text, my soap advertisement will show, popping up in a sort of "talk bubble," like those seen in pop-up video or a comic book.

Some providers of this sort of advertising, like ContentLink, do text advertisements. Others, like Vibrant, will actually run video.

Vibrant Media is the largest provider of this kind of advertising, with more than Read the complete article on online...

And while we've moved beyond the idea that Web 2.0 technologies will replace wholesale what's come before them, marketers more than ever before must remain vigilant about keeping up to date with what's cutting-edge.

Even in the b-to-b world, where the hype bar is set rather high, marketers can't afford to miss the next big thing in online marketing.

So here are the big five Web/tech trends worth watching right now—and what they mean for b-to-b marketing: Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

It is important for technology vendors and solutions providers to remember that every single customer touch point presents a valuable opportunity to create affinity. And, events are no exception. By organizing your presence at trade shows, conferences, and other types of face-to-face gatherings with the customer in mind, your organization can leverage your investment in events to build affinity. This, in turn, will lead to the kind of strong, long-lasting relationships that result in optimumclient satisfaction and retention, as well as sustained profitability and growth. Download the complete UBM white paper "Events: Building The Bridge To Customer Affinity.

If you aren’t getting responses, it is quite likely that your customers view your correspondence as spam, rather than relevant or valuable information, regardless of whether or not they have opted to receive your e-mails. Relevance is key in e-mail. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

The conference drew more than 300 senior marketing executives, mostly from b-to-b companies, who shared strategies for competing in today's challenging business environment.

One of the hot topics was partner marketing, with presentations by several executives whose companies use channel marketing models.

Stephen DiFranco, corporate VP-corporate and channels marketing at chip maker AMD, discussed how the company has leveraged its partner channel to confront rival Intel Corp. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Carol Kurimsky, VP-marketing at technology distributor Ingram Micro, also talked about the importance of partner marketing.

"We don't really go out and market Ingram very much," Kurimsky said. "We are a partner to help our partners sell their products."

One of the key ways Ingram does this is through extensive data mining and analytics that help its partners achieve a better ROI, she said.

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Technology was another hot topic at the Red Herring conference, with marketers discussing applications such as social networks, mobile communications and digital video recording devices.

Mark Gambill, VP-CMO of CDW Corp., discussed how the technology provider is using social networks during a panel discussion on leveraging such networks.

He was the lone b-to-b marketer on the panel, with other panelists representing social networking sites Cyworld, Friendster and LinkedIn.

"We look at it from three perspectives—what are [customers] doing and how are they leveraging these tools; what kinds of content energize those who use social networks; and the third piece, which most marketers haven't figured out, is the transactional component," Gambill said. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Melissa Read, VP-research and innovation at Spunlogic, an Atlanta-based full-service digital marketing agency, believes managers send surveys too often, causing respondents to burn out on the novelty of providing feedback. Eventually, she said, they’ll stop responding.

“Surveys should only go out when you want to understand something about the business respondents,” Read said. Otherwise, “it will become the survey who cried wolf and the next time you really want to know something, respondents won’t be as interested in telling you.”

Paring down the number of surveys is a good start, she said. Read offers these other helpful tips... Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

A bad e-mail address can have a dramatic impact on your ability to market with e-mail. Bad e-mails come in the form of addresses from third parties (list renters, etc.), complainers who have not been removed from your list and dormant addresses—e-mail addresses of people who have not opened your e-mail in more than 90 days. ISPs view all with equal disdain. While it is not illegal to send to these “bad” e-mail addresses, doing so is a sure way to increase complaints and damage your sender reputation. It’s also a good way to waste money.

So how do you build your list and maintain quality data? Consider these tips: Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.