One of the most difficult marketing challenges is differentiating a service business from its competitors. One strategy is to market the knowledge and experience of the firm’s employees. Another is to focus on how the firm’s employees make customers feel. Case in point: Tom, my UPS delivery guy. Here are 5 lessons in how to create loyal customers from a UPS driver in Cleveland.

Promoting a professional services firm is one of the most difficult challenges in marketing.

Whether you’re selling legal services, marketing services, accounting, IT, insurance, benefits, payroll, or consulting, it can be tough to create a marketing strategy that differentiates your company from everyone else who does what you do.

Here’s the usual approach: “We have great capabilities and we deliver great service.” No offense, but you must, or you wouldn’t still be in business. Plus, all your competitors say the same thing.

Is that really what makes you stand out? Is that the reason clients choose you?

The real value professional services firms sell is their expertise and their ability to use that expertise to solve clients’ problems. Here’s how to create a smart marketing strategy for a business-to-business professional services company by selling your smarts.

Did you see the recent article in Adweek about efforts by major consumer marketers like Disney to establish brand preferences in children ages 0-3? The Next Great American Consumer by Brian Braiker provides a fascinating look at this development. Braiker says branding at birth is “a trend—fueled in part by the growth of digital devices—toward aggressively targeting a demographic that didn’t exist, in marketers’ eyes, until recently: infants to 3-year-olds. By getting their logos and iconic characters in front of babies—even those with still-blurry eyesight—they hope to establish brand-name preference before she or he has uttered a word.”

Is this a smart marketing strategy? Or is this the scariest thing you’ve seen all week? The answer to both questions is yes. Here’s why.

If you’re a business-to-business (B2B) marketer, sponsoring your industry’s trade show can deliver high visibility for your brand. But trade show sponsorship can be a big investment. Sponsorship packages for some national shows are topping six figures and even smaller sponsorship options can be costly. Before you spend valuable marketing dollars on a trade show sponsorship, here are 10 guidelines for choosing sponsorships that are worth the marketing investment.

Are you marketing to business decision-makers? Here are my top 10 recommendations for developing a smart business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy, based on the tried-and-true principles of B2B marketing and my experience as a marketing strategy consultant.

There’s more to effective product branding and marketing than putting a logo on a label or box. Telling a brand story through well-crafted marketing copy can capture the essence of a brand. And building those brand messages into the physical product itself can reinforce the brand’s value proposition every time the product is used.

Here are three consumer product marketers who are doing this brilliantly, and some branding advice for your smart marketing strategy.

Blogging is one of the most powerful ways to market your company. But only a few of the 156 million people who are publishing blogs achieve a big following.

One is Chris Brown, owner of Marketing Resources & Results, a full-service marketing consulting firm in Northeast Ohio that helps companies attract new customers.

Chris has published the blog Branding & Marketing since 2006. She’s written more than 900 articles on marketing strategy, marketing tactics, branding, social media, and market research. Last week, she reached a major blogging milestone: 10,000 subscribers.

In this interview with Smart Marketing Strategy, Chris shares how she has used blogging to build her marketing agency and offers some lessons from her success.

Every smart marketer knows the importance of branding. A strong brand differentiates your company from competitors, conveys the highest value you deliver, and serves as an implicit promise to your customers of what your organization stands for.

But what’s the difference between a good brand and a truly great one? How do you create a brand identity that’s so powerful, it becomes one of your most valuable assets — and the centerpiece of a smart marketing strategy?

Here are six factors that separate the best brands from the rest, and examples of marketers who are using these factors to set the bar for branding success.

You’d expect marketing agencies on Madison Avenue and Michigan Avenue to be producing world-class work for big companies. But how about marketing agencies in Cleveland, Ohio?

Major marketers can choose agencies anywhere in the world, yet more and more are selecting marketing teams in Northeast Ohio.

Top executives from three regional agencies and a large Midwestern bank explained why global brands and other market leaders are “Choosing Cleveland” at a NOCA (Northeast Ohio Communications Advocates) Forum at the Cleveland Plain Dealer on April 27.

Here’s how these local firms are landing prestigious accounts and helping national and local clients create smart marketing strategies.

Are you getting a good return on your investment in marketing? Could it be better?

One way to find out is to conduct a top-to-bottom review of your entire marketing plan to determine what’s working and what isn’t.

This process is sometimes called a marketing audit. I’m often asked to guide audits as an independent marketing consultant and I recently shared advice on how to do an audit effectively.

What specific factors should you assess in a marketing audit? Here are 40 questions I recommend for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing and developing a smarter marketing strategy.