E-Mail Retains the Title

While digital marketing always seems to have its own version of the “It Girl” each year, one thing has remained constant for nearly 30 years: E-mail is still the new sexy. According to a barrage of studies released during the past year, e-mail marketing still surpasses all others in the digital realm when it comes to return on investment (ROI) and increasing sales. And companies still see e-mail marketing as a stalwart when they’re looking to hang on to customers, build loyalty and increase website traffic.

With the Right Demographic, a Potential Boon

Businesses with a significant demographic skewed toward “hipper,” generally younger tech users—people who like to stay on the edge of what’s happening digitally—should take a serious look at QR-code marketing. Most of us have come across a QR (quick reach) code in our travels. It’s that framed square of hieroglyphic-like symbols that we flip to in a magazine, which triggers our smartphones to reveal a company website when scanned. Or it’s on that advertisement we see at an airport or train station that, when scanned, conjures up an electronic coupon on our tablets that can be used at a coffee shop, often only steps away.

The Latest Tools for Getting the Most From Your Web and Social-Media Marketing

Businesses looking to evaluate the return on their efforts in web and social-media marketing can take heart: There are scores of analytical tools available that can precisely show them how well their campaigns are doing.

In social media, those just getting started in analytics would do well to check out Hootsuite. A powerful social-media dashboard that allows users to manage all of their postings and other activities on all the major social-media networks, Hootsuite is also packed with a wide variety of analytical tools that show how well you’re doing on social media.

For Many, a Bitter Pill

Businesses smarting over Facebook’s decision to severely limit their ability to communicate with people who like their business pages on the social network recently got an explanation from the web titan about the policy change. But many aren’t buying it.

“Facebook wants us to pay for real estate that we used to get for free,” said Leslie Nuccio, creative strategist for Meltwater, a social media monitoring and press relations firm.

While negative online reviews can be completely unsubstantiated, businesses must face a hard truth: The Internet never forgets. Without a detailed strategy in place for dealing with negative reviews, a thumbs-down from a customer—or a series of customers—can stay on the web forever and consequently erode profits forever.

Indeed, according to a Harvard study released in 2011, a simple one-star ratings increase of Seattle restaurants on Yelp spiked a...

Even Easier With a New Crop of Tools

With technology’s relentless evolution, businesses have a fresh crop of digital tools that they can use to pinpoint hot recruiting prospects in cyberspace and grab la crème de la crème before they get away. Social-media sniffers, mobilized career websites and video interviewing have all received major upgrades in the past year, making it even easier for businesses to snag prime candidates.

Businesses Still Using Windows XP After April 2014 Courting Peril

Businesses still using Windows XP after April 8, 2014, will be courting peril, according to countless IT experts. All Microsoft support for the operating system ends on that day, leaving XP forever vulnerable to new security breaches.

“The importance of upgrading from Windows XP cannot be overstated,” said Tim Rains, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. “We truly want people to understand the risks of running Windows XP after support ends and to recognize the security benefits of upgrading to a more modern operating system.”

A Whole New Way for Companies to Promote With Hashtags

Companies looking to join highly specific conversations happening on Facebook now have an easy way to get there: Facebook hashtags. Essentially, Facebook allows users to categorize a conversation they’re having on the social network by using a simple hashtag (#) and keyword in their post. For example, log onto Facebook and type #InternetMarketing in Facebook’s search box, and you’ll be presented with all the posts on Facebook coded with that hashtag/keyword.

Not Always a Genius Move

While often ballyhooed as a panacea for the wide variety computing screen sizes company websites must accommodate, one-size-fits-all websites are actually a trade-off that often end up being more trouble than they’re worth.

The problem: these “responsive websites,” as they’re known—or sites that auto-sense a device’s screen size, and then respond by reconfiguring text and graphics to fit that screen size—often render on desktop PCs with ridiculously large text and other over-blown features that are tedious to wade through.

Vulnerability Awaiting Plunder

Rogue employees working with sensitive company data in public cloud services are regularly wreaking havoc at workplaces, triggering the loss of company secrets, the defacement of company websites and the loss of control over the cloud accounts to competitors and hackers.

“Enterprise IT is rapidly losing control of corporate data,” said Andres Rodriguez, CEO of data-storage company Nasuni. “It’s a risky proposition that IT needs to be in front of and not behind.”