All Marketing Articles
  • Should your business have a podcast?

    Catherine Iste Marketing

    More than 50% of Americans over the age of 12 have listened to a podcast. For businesses selling goods or services directly to consumers, this confirms that podcasts are mainstream. Does this, however, mean they are a good way for us to focus our time, energy and marketing dollars? Perhaps. Here are a few things to consider before starting a podcast.

  • Survey: Almost one-third of workers have left a job due to lack of flexible…

    Terri Williams Business Management, Services & Risk Management

    Flexible work used to be a “nice-to-have” benefit, but it is rapidly becoming a requirement for workers. In fact, according to a recent survey by FlexJobs, 30% of workers reported leaving a job because it did not offer flexible work options. The survey findings were not a revelation to Sara Sutton, founder and CEO of FlexJobs. "I wasn't necessarily surprised because so many of the people we help every day are in that exact situation — they're working in a job that lacks the flexible work options they need or want, so they're in search of a better way to work."

  • Dominant Facebook supports net neutrality, political ads

    Michelle R. Matisons Science & Technology

    Imagine the kind of hegemonic influence Facebook founder and multibillionaire Mark Zuckerberg has, what with his company supporting 1.5 billion daily active users. That massive data stream is a constant, along with the controversies swirling around Zuckerberg’s indirect and direct political influence. By virtue of the platform’s popularity, Facebook’s ability to shape public consciousness and debate produces a vicious cycle whereby people debate the legality of Facebook’s utter social media dominance on Facebook.

  • United pushes economy-class travelers away with new frequent flyer program

    Linchi Kwok Travel, Hospitality & Event Management

    United Airlines recently revealed massive changes to its MileagePlus Program. How much a traveler spends on tickets is the only thing that matters in the airline’s new frequent flyer program. Not long ago, United quietly switched from a distance-based rewards program to a fare-based frequent flyer program. Now, the airline wants to take a big step further to (only) reward those top-spending travelers as their elite customers. The new MileagePlus Program makes it much more challenging for most economy-class frequent travelers to achieve any elite status.

  • Quality of work begins with quality of life

    Lloyd Princeton Business Management, Services & Risk Management

    Two of the biggest challenges employers face today are retaining employees and keeping them engaged at work. To address these challenges, firms have sought to incentivize employees with additional financial rewards, such as profit-sharing and commissions. They also have increased their benefits offerings to include wellness programs, financial counseling and assistance with student debt. But what most employees really want is a better quality of life.

  • Basketball backlash: China, Hong Kong, business and the NBA

    Seth Sandronsky Sports & Fitness

    Who could have imagined the shake-up ahead when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted support for Hong Kong street protests against the Chinese government’s power in the former British colony on Oct. 4? We know now. Chinese firms ended NBA sponsorships and cancelled the airing of televised preseason games, including ones played inside the country between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets. Chinese basketball fans in the hundreds of millions mean growth for the NBA. Its investors and players count on the financial benefits of that trend. Still, many questions linger.

  • 5 ways to avoid the dangers of viral marketing

    Lisa Mulcahy Marketing

    When your brand or product goes viral on social media, you're in a win-win situation, right? Not always. Viral marketing is a lot like the Wild West — when you navigate it the right way, it can do incredible things for your visibility and sales. But you need to know that a lot of its mechanisms are out of your control. Viral marketing is, at its core, consumer-based — that means your campaign and approach can succeed or fail based on the whims of your audience.

  • Achieve success by planning for decline

    Catherine Iste Business Management, Services & Risk Management

    Research and experience have shown that becoming more comfortable with the idea of death reduces the negative stress associated with dying. Like death, most of us also are either in denial of or avoid thinking about our professional decline. It is, however, hard for any of us to argue that we anticipate continuing to excel indefinitely in our current endeavors. Like becoming more comfortable with death reduces our anxiety about it, embracing the idea of the end of our success can help us deal with it. Here are a few ways to achieve success by planning for our decline.

  • 3 consulting hacks leaders should adopt

    Catherine Iste Business Management, Services & Risk Management

    It is very fun and easy to pick on consultants. They show up, charge us to tell us about our problems and then charge us more to fix them. While the animosity may be rooted in our envy of that savvy business model, there are things we can all learn from the consultative approach. Here are three consulting practices leaders should adopt.

  • 4 reasons every church needs a thread

    Mark MacDonald Religious Community

    In our loud world, we know most are choosing what to listen to and what to ignore. The louder everything gets, the more we block what we perceive as nonessential. The way we decide what’s nonessential is based on how we perceive something. And we know that most people are wanting to make decisions quickly because they’re so busy. The solution? A thread: three to five words that describe what you’d like your perception to be. You need a thread! Here are four reasons why.