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When my husband and I recently bought a new car, we began our search not by wandering from dealership to dealership, but by conducting several hours of research at home. We read dozens of reviews and recommendations, paying particular attention to those that examined the features and safety ratings important to us. We were just as interested in reading case studies about why buyers selected their cars as much as were in the experts’ reviews. We searched industry publications like Consumer Reports and Car and Driver, consumer and car enthusiasts’ blogs, and social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube. By the time we walked into the dealership, we had basically already made up our minds. The salesperson merely helped to validate our choice.

There is an unwritten commandment to marketing, PR and sales … “know thy customer!” Knowing who the customer is requires a holistic view based upon good research and solid facts to ensure that what you deliver in the way of content, messaging and features meets your customer’s needs.

Editors at TechCrunch and ReadWrite say they’ve seen more poorly written contributed articles cross their desks recently than ever before. The editors at GigaOm are so tired of promotional articles being submitted for consideration that they are now refusing to consider articles submitted by PR and marketing professionals.

Blogging once a week is one of the most helpful SEO practices a marketer can do. You need to feed the Google monster and it survives on a diet of fresh content. The more blog posts you create the more chances you have to boost your search ranking for a variety of keyword phrases. More quality posts mean more quality traffic.

I’m a word nerd. Proper grammar, spelling and punctuation make me happy. It’s surprising that I didn’t become a copy editor. I have a love for my red pen (and its successor: track changes in Word) that some may find disturbing.

“I love you but I will never admit it in public.”

What is one of the most effective ways companies can become better known in their industry? The answer lies in an effective thought leadership program. But first, what is thought leadership?

When was the last time you watched a movie about a crisis or disaster? Given the popularity of the genre, it probably hasn’t been long. I’ve noticed that when disaster strikes, screen writers take one of two approaches: Everyone runs for the hills or they come out guns blazing.

Keep the heat dialed up.

Declare victory and stay home.

I was asked recently by a long-time friend how our organization has been able to establish such a loyal client base. A significant portion of our business is comprised of repeat customers – what we call serial clients. As clients are acquired and contacts move on, many come back to Connect. In truth, there is no greater compliment than a repeat customer, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to work with our partners anew.

Effective marketing requires crisp differentiation. Define a unique market segment and be the best in that segment. Simple enough, but be careful – it is not product differences that define your segment, but rather buyer differences. Segments are defined by unique buyers with unique needs and desires.

I saw two great movies last week. The first – The Sapphires – was an independent film with unknown actors. The other was Iron Man 3, starring Robert Downey Jr. You couldn’t find two more different movies in terms of star power, production values, and overall polish.

It was Mark Twain who said “if we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.” In the context of business communications, truer words were never spoken. Over the past 20 years of my career I’ve come to realize that “listening” truly is an art form and an important skill for any marketing professional.

The fish did not want to go near my bait. I had put out what I considered the ideal fly and perfected the cast – hoping for the “catch” I had been promised by the guide. No bites.

Yogi Berra famously said “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” You never knew what Yogi was really talking about, but in this case he may have been talking about choosing your marketing targets carefully. Here are three things I’ve learned over the years about choosing your marketing targets:

Creative and out-of-the-box are two phrases I tend to hear quite often when talking with clients, friends and colleagues regarding marketing and PR related topics.

A couple of years ago I was skiing with a group of general partners from top Silicon Valley venture firms. At dinner one of them was raving about Facebook. I mentioned it didn’t seem like a good fit for our B2B clients who sold to CIOs and senior IT staff. He assured me that was changing – that Facebook was refocusing on business. Skeptical, I mumbled something like “we’ll see.”