Cool Marketing Stuff is partnering with UPrinting.com to giveaway 250 business cards with free shipping (in the US) to the two individuals who leave the best comment in response to the following question:

What is the best marketing career advice you have ever received?

I'll choose the best two comments by September 25th, 2010 and contact you.

You can learn more about UPrinting.com's creative business cards here.

Giveaway Details:
250 Die-Cut Business Cards for Two (2) Winners
2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.75 x 3.5” (slim card)
Die cutting options available: Rounded Corners, Leaf, Rounded One-Corner, Half-Circle Side, Circle
Paper Type: 14pt Cardstock Gloss, Matte, or High Gloss; 13pt Cardstock Uncoated
Color: 4Color Front, Blank Back; 4Color Front, Black Back; 4Color Both Sides
Limited to US residents only 18 years old and above

Learn. Rank. Dominate. These are the three words presented first in the homepage introduction on SEObook.com. Highly appropriate words considering SEObook.com’s purpose, to help anyone dive past the basics of search engine optimization and into a broad mix of advanced tips and tricks sure to drive higher search engine rankings.

The homepage of SEObook.com contains a mixture of material. A large portion of the copy is dedicated to selling a sign-up to their training program. The training program carries a $150 per month price tag. It comes with a large variety of initial material, as well as access to SEO book’s subscriber only community of search engine optimization professionals. A member tour explains the features of this course in greater depth for the unsure customer.

For marketer’s looking to obtain a maximum amount of information with little or no upfront investment, the main page of SEObook.com also contains a free search engine optimization course titled “7 Days to SEO Success.” The course is listed as a $57 value and comes with a few free tools (a firefox add-on that provides search engine ranking information as well as a firefox toolbar and access to the SEO book Keyword Suggestion tool). The individual “lessons” in the course are delivered via e-mail. Signing up for this course generates a login and password to be used during future visits to the site.

Anyone who accesses SEObook.com, whether they have signed up or not, can read the SEObook.com blog. This blog is a very good resource for tips and tricks on testing the waters of search engine optimization and increasing rank. On various pages throughout the site, a browser will also find a host of embedded YouTube videos created by SEObook.com. Some of these videos highlight the tools available to subscribers while others discuss basic features available through search engines like Google. While SEObook.com is designed to steer marketing professionals into signing up for the SEO book training program, a host of useful search engine optimization information is available to any user. Taking advantage of what the site has to offer free of charge, including the “7 Days to SEO Success Course,” should help decide whether a monthly subscription would be beneficial.

If you are looking to learn the basics of search engine optimization, I recommend the book The Truth About Search Engine Optimization by Rebecca Lieb because it provides a solid foundation of SEO fundamentals.

There is also an excellent free webinar recording titled SEO Crash Course to Get Found by Hubspot's Inbound Marketing University.

One of the reasons that people avoid and dislike advertising is because it can be annoying. Like Microsoft's latest ad campaign which used the previous Lois and Clark star, in a blasphemous way.

This definitely makes me want to punch Dean Cain in the face and I like Dean Cain. There is also an ad in this campaign in which a lady vomits on her husband after looking at his computer screen. Although it has received 800,000+ views and is extremely memorable, it does not make you think very highly of Microsoft.

Click here to be redirected to the list.

The latest episode of Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders has a panel of musical artists who discuss how the new digital landscape is affecting the music industry. I was pleasantly surprised, although I probably shouldn't be, about the marketing savvy of MC Hammer. He discusses how digital marketing is empowering artists to cut out the middle man and dramatically cut marketing costs for a new album launch. He also comments on how twitter can be a tremendous tool for artists because it can instantly reach thousands of loyal fans.

img source b_d_solis'

One of the best PR stunts of all time. Hilarious.

Great speaker, great message.

Adtech is a digital marketing conference held all over the country and all of their speakers presentations are available for download on their site for free. I wish more conferences did this. TED is one of the premier conferences in the country and that costs thousands to attend, but they give all of their content away for free on their website. On the Adtech site you can listen to presentations by the CMO of Kodak, panel discussions by experts in digital marketing, and a hundred other presentations.

www.ad-tech.com

Inconspicuous Consumption The Atlantic

Does the idea of a weak economy scare you? It shouldn't! Drew's Marketing Minute

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business by Chris Anderson Wired Magazine

Cool Apps for June
Splashup free flash based graphic design and photo editing. Think Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop clone.

280 Slides free online Powerpoint clone that allows you to download files in the Powerpoint format

I would have loved to have been in the marketing meeting when the Frito Lay team decided to transmit a 30 second ad to a solar system 42 light-years away.

"Being first to market often results in category leadership. If we can be the first in the minds of the aliens near Ursa Major, we can capture a majority of their planet's market share!"

More likely this is a publicity stunt to get people to generate buzz. Peter Charles, head of the project said “We are constantly looking to push the boundaries of advertising and this will go further than any brand has gone before." The ad was pulsed out from high powered radars from the EISCAT European space station in the Arctic Circle. The user generated ad that is being transmitted is titled "Tribe" and features a tribe of dancing chips that sacrifice one of their own to the god of salsa.

Scientific American asked the question we are all thinking. "How will ETs know Earthlings aren't a bunch of dancing little edible triangles?"