Photo Retailer Holiday Campaigns - Right Out of the Box
PMA
Attracting customers this holiday season is easy and more affordable. Get ad agency-produced materials for a fraction of the cost with the PMA Marketing Toolkit. No need to think about your holiday campaign - sign up for PMA+ services, download agency-created materials, and you're ready to go. Start with the holidays and continue year-round with new campaigns to keep customers coming back to your store.More

Operate Smarter, Leaner Businesses With BI
Integrated Solutions for Retailers
Do you know how effective your promotional campaigns are and what factors determine their success? Are you delivering the best product positioning and the best possible message to the right people, through the right channel, at the right time? In our current economic environment, retailers need the ability to readily access and analyze data to gain comprehensive, accurate, and forward-looking retail intelligence whenever it is needed to deliver the right product and the best message. More

When Is It Time to Keep Your Mouth Shut?
Business Week
A classic interpersonal challenge often seen in brilliant, gifted, successful people is the desire to "add value," especially to other people's great ideas. These leaders are likely to display their brilliance continually by adding their input at the expense of others'.More

Study: H1N1 Could Have Big Impact on Holiday Retail
Retail Customer Experience
Nearly one in five consumers say that their concern over the H1N1 flu will cause them to avoid shopping on traditionally busy retail days during the 2009 holiday season, according to a recent Morpace Omnibus Study. This concern stems from a consumer fear of being exposed to the virus which has been publicized globally over the last 12 months.More

Three Best Ways to Build Business Credit
The Wall Street Journal via Smart Money's Small Biz
Small business owners are in a Catch 22. Obtaining financing for their companies can be difficult without a strong business credit history. At the same time, banks and credit-card issuers have tightened standards and don't want to risk providing loans or lines of credit to small companies that don't have proven track records. The solution, business-credit experts say, is for would-be borrowers to buckle down, keep airtight records and instill new credit-building practices.More

Ten Things Companies Can Learn from Pro Wrestling
Fast Company
Recently, writing about the death of the incomparable Capt. Lou Albano, journalist Phil Reisman with The Journal News wrote: "Somebody once said that to understand America, you have to understand pro wrestling." If we buy into the fact that corporate America needs to understand popular culture to really be able to relate to its audiences and communicate effectively, then what better place to start than pro wrestling?More

It's All in the Presentation
Marketing Profs
At this time of year, food merchants - from purveyors of gourmet treats to large-scale grocers - are focused on one goal: getting customers to add more items to their shopping carts. 'Tis the season of the impulse buy, after all. How can their lessons help you?More

Amendment Could Let Struggling Retailers Claim Billions in Tax Refunds
Retail's Big Blog
In a move that could potentially bring billions of dollars to cash-strapped retailers and other industries, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus are crafting an amendment that would add an expanded operating loss "carryback" provision to unemployment insurance legislation scheduled to be considered this week. The amendment is expected to give both large and small businesses the ability to "carry back" net losses suffered in the current recession in order to claim a refund from taxes paid in previous years when they made a profit.More