Playing catch-up with MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs consistently provides some of the best and most practical how-to marketing articles out there. Unfortunately, I've been less consistent in passing along the highlights to you. The following are the MarketingProfs articles I recommend putting on your to-read list:

Marketing via Stories: The Selling Power of Narrative in a Conceptual Age
The author emphasize the importance of story telling to stand out from other marketing communications. She notes that stories provide context, common ground, brand intersections, increased relevance, and future chapters. Interestingly, she advises that marketers look for stories before they need customers' attention. I would have liked to hear more about this...

Twelve Tips for Conducting Effective Surveys
There's nothing earth-shattering here, but those of you who are new to survey methods will find this brief checklist useful.

Starbucks at the Crossroads: Disruption Junction
Insightful summary of how and why Starbucks became derailed from its core values. The author discusses disruption and how SBUX left itself vulnerable to the next disruptive innovation. It's a cautionary tale of what can happen when an organization loses its focus. (Note: Paul at Idea Sandbox has been writing great posts that suggest solutions to SBUX's problems).

Two Ways to Engage Prospects Online
Read this! And also read the LifeHack article it mentions to learn more about how to use the right social media for the right jobs - it's definitely an article to save!

How to Market on YouTube
Many librarians are dipping into the YouTube waters, and this article features lots of examples that are a great source of ideas on how to get started, even with a modest budget.

Eight Ideas for Revitalizing Your Blog
Sound advice.

Segmentation in a Web 2.0 World - And Beyond
Fascinating! The author argues in favor of more refined and detailed segmentation given today's social technology stating, "Giving a user control to tell you what matters to them will be the key in the future. Over the next 10 years, this will be the key source of marketing power-getting to the point where we can derive ways and means to let the customer tells us who they are, what matters to them, what features they want, what things they need solved, and how we can best be of service."

Creativity at Work: Why It's Important and What it Takes
Creativity is a crucial competency of the librarian-marketer. This article is a good introduction to what it's all about.

I hope this summary helps you keep up with the excellent writings from MarketingProfs by highlighting the stuff that's most useful to librarians. I'll keep pointing them out for your convenience in my Shared Items.