Recently our shop went through a rebranding process because we reached a point where our service offerings had greatly expanded and our marketing efforts and client base had grown outside of the Southeast. What’s more when our founder, Larry Jackson, started this place back in ’87 he opened the doors with the name Jackson-Dawson so he could leverage a little equity from the very successful Detroit-headquartered company he co-owned with his partner Sam. Over the years, the name served us well. But now that we had our own very strong legs in Greenville, SC, it was time to rethink our brand.

Q: Why do I love Chick-fil-A?
A: They do a lot more than chicken right.

At this time of year, we always like to push the pause button and take a look at what changes and significant trends industry pros (outside of our shop) are forecasting for the B to B marketing space. We comb through articles, blogs, whitepapers and a few published research studies to see what's being said.

I was recently asked by a magazine editor about the differences between snail mail and email. Is one replacing the other? Is one better or more effective than the other to accomplish my company’s corporate marketing objectives?

If you have any doubt in your mind about the value and importance of internal marketing to build employee loyalty and performance this book will make you a believer! In just under 250 pages this "how to" book covers it all: the benefits of internal marketing; interesting case studies; proper messaging; audience segmentation; appropriate delivery systems; measurement tools; survey samples; recognition strategies and integrated planning timelines.

Over the years, much good "how-to" stuff has been written about the subject of strategic marketing, branding and brand building, with the end game being to help marketers identify new ways to persuade more people to buy and become loyal to a brand, e.g. external marketing. But another very important and often ignored market is even more critical—the internal market—the very employees in a company or organization who can make or break the brand for the customers it is trying to attract.

Here’s a “must read” book that in my opinion, does a great job of presenting how the web has changed things in a big way for us marketers. The full title is The New Rules of Marketing and PR, How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.

In this rapidly changing age of Web 2.0 we all have experienced in some way, the amazing power of social media and its influence on consumer attitudes and behavior regarding the purchase and usage of products and services.

So we've all read about and had direct experiences with social media from an external internet standpoint, but what about inside our companies? Probably not too much going on there other than a simple intranet and emails. That is unless your company is an innovator like Accenture.

Welcome to The Cure for Common Marketing, a blog dedicated to sharing insightful thinking, new ideas, technologies, what-if concepts, success stories, and book/article reviews about light speed changes in the B2B marketing universe. This is a place for those with a passion for B2B marketing and branding innovation to challenge the status quo and download their rant and rave thought streams. We expect a whole lot of chatter around digital media and web 2.0…you know…virtualization, mashups, mobile browsers, tweets, MPMs, etc, but you’re also invited to discuss just about anything to do with integrated online/offline marketing breakthroughs.