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.

Permission-based marketing is now at the heart of relationships between companies and their customers and prospects. People opt-in to receive your emails, like your company on Facebook, subscribe to an RSS feed from your website or your channel on YouTube, or follow you on Twitter or LinkedIn.

But having permission to market to someone isn’t a license to bombard them with marketing messages. In fact, not knowing when to shut up is a classic marketing mistake.

Here’s how over-marketing can kill a customer or prospect relationship and 7 ways to avoid this costly error in your smart marketing strategy.

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers often use such tactics as direct marketing, e-marketing, advertising, trade shows, and web marketing to generate sales leads.

But a smart lead generation marketing strategy goes well beyond the creation of the marketing campaign.

If your goal is to build a relationship with a business prospect, increase your sales conversion rate, and maximize the value of your sales resources, you need a careful plan for what happens after the lead comes in.

Here are the seven steps you should take with a marketing-generated sales lead to achieve success.

If you break into a cold sweat at the thought of walking into a business networking event as a complete stranger, you’re not alone.

Networking is essential to building and growing a business, especially for business-to-business (B2B) marketers who participate in professional associations and trade shows.

But it takes skill and experience to feel confident in a networking situation, and it takes careful planning to capitalize on the value of networking for lead generation.

Here’s what I’ve learned about personal marketing and successful networking at B2B events, and 21 tips you can use to make networking a powerful component of your smart marketing strategy.

Savvy direct marketers know that the list is the most important factor in the success of a direct marketing campaign. That’s why so much time and effort goes into keeping mailing list data current and complete. But too many direct marketers fail to pay this same kind of attention to the cleanliness of their email lists. Case in point: The Wall Street Journal. Here’s how a major marketer’s poor email list hygiene ruined their promotion, and five lessons you can apply to a smart marketing strategy.