Tegardless of whether you like Cupcake wines, there’s much marketing wisdom to be learned from their example. They know their audience and have smartly crafted everything from their labels to their Web content to appeal to it.

Forrester's look at the biggest and best mobile marketing companies has one big problem: it looks only at the biggest and best. This enterprise-focused approach is the wrong one to take in a world where dozens of innovative startups are tackling the idea of mobile marketing with fresh ideas and eager teams.

The ad in this photo is technology-centric, marketing-focused, and customer-indifferent. It's a multilayered example of some dangerous business thinking.

According to the results of a survey of women small business professionals, there are six mistakes businesses need to avoid when marketing to women. You know your brand should target women; here's how not to mess it up.

The big CMO dilemma today includes such questions such as: What about measurement of all these new platforms? What does it mean that Coke has 36 million Facebook followers? Mobile phones seem to be creating a rebirth of discounting; how can I avoid that? With all the data we have these days, I think we should be finding answers to some of these questions. But we're not.

Advertising is a means, not an end. As such, ad agencies either make advertising, which is a service that can be displaced; or they help businesses solve business problems with creativity, which will remain an ongoing need as long as there are businesses.

Clear strategic thinking is essential for any manager in any setting; unfortunately, most companies think they have a strategy when they don't. The author of this article worked with Michael Porter, the world's leading authority on competition and strategy, to develop a concise, practice-oriented guide to his work--and came away with 10 new insights.

Through trial and error I think I've discovered what it takes to build and market a successful business. The following five lessons are what I think to be the most important.

Product is the key, at the very center of building a business. And by implication, marketing is so 15 minutes ago. Marketing is for products unworthy of passionate advocacy, a crutch for nice-to-have startups who invest in sprawling websites and launch parties.

The lessons to take from the wildly popular vampire saga aren’t so much about the story itself as the brilliance that went into building the brand and how marketers turned it into a money-making success. In keeping with the fact that this is the fourth movie in the series, here are four marketing lessons that small businesses can take away from the Twilight saga.

Although marketing possibilities on the internet are myriad for those who have the time and budget to exploit them all, small businesses should focus mainly on organic search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising, web site content creation (which is actually a subcategory of organic SEO), and social media marketing.

People often operate what I call "Garanimal" cause marketing. (Garanimals are children's clothes that are easy to match because different animals show you what goes together.) They like things to match, including their cause marketing. But just because something matches doesn't mean it's a good fit.

Conventional wisdom says that content marketing should take the approach of informing without overtly selling. This is pretty much gospel in the B2B marketing world. But the mass of marketers do things differently. It’s prudent not to keep content separate from marketing, even if it is supposed to be "journalistic," and here’s why.

If all you're doing is asking for "Likes," there are millions of brands now on social media pretty much saying the same thing as you. What's a better way to build your social footprint? Stop asking and start giving.

Empowering local stores seems to be a growing trend with national chains. This autonomy will extend to cause marketing as local stores of national chains try to tap into regional sentiment and win customers' hearts and wallets with cause marketing. But will your nonprofit be ready when they come calling?

Few people ever comment on how my couch looks, but they comment on how comfortable it is -- how "floppable" -- all the time. In the world of marketing, we could benefit from being more floppable.

Executive skepticism about social media seems to be rooted in the remarkably persistent idea that it is not worth their time, a fad, or not for serious business. I'm here to argue that their position is not only foolish, but also irresponsible. Here are three common misconceptions that I encounter with almost all new clients.

Marketers can’t learn anything from Justin Bieber. Or Lady Gaga. Or that kid who got his 15 minutes of fame for pretending to be in stuck in a weather balloon.

Integrated marketing has absolutely nothing to do with how many things a marketing department does. It has more to do with developing a fluid plan on how to best achieve the strategic intent of the organization, usually with a set of priorities. Does anyone appreciate the difference?

Everyone has an endless To-Do List, and for many businesses social media marketing is on the list. But add, add, add doesn’t work -- you need a "Stop Doing" list to figure out how to make room.

Make no mistake: the time for the Revenue Marketer has arrived.

Marketers shouldn't think of attribution as an end goal. What marketers need to embrace is the concept of Connected Marketing, within which attribution is just a part.

If we're constantly changing our voices and identities, where does that leave our brands? Are brands changing us, or are we changing them? Universal brands like Facebook, Google and Twitter are changing the basic tenets of marketing.

According to an investigation by Time, there might really be no Olive Garden culinary institute. The restaurant’s representations seem exaggerated and are unlikely plaudits for truth in advertising.