Best Practice

• BEST PRACTICE: Adwords and bad words

  As digital marketing activity continues to rise, Douglas Mathie, technology lawyer at law firm Brodies LLP, examines the potential legal risks in using keyword advertising

• HOW TO: Manage your brand

  Managing your brand involves proving the value that you are bringing to the business. Richard Bush, MD of Base One explains the most effective way to do this

• BEST PRACTICE: Gaining the eco-edge

  Avoid greenwashing by building a sustainable competitive advantage, says Eliza Clark, principal at environmental and sustainability consultancy, Paydirt

• PROFILE: Atul Vohra, Dell Service's jetset marketer

  From New Delhi to Dallas, Atul Vohra, VP of marketing at Dell Services, boasts an international career. Victoria Paley meets the marketing mogul

• HOW TO: Choose the right B2B agency

  Using examples from both agency and client sides, Julie Constable, head of agency selector at the MCCA, outlines the simple steps businesses need to take when choosing a B2B agency

• BEST PRACTICE: Fair game – How to market ethically

  Every B2B marketer has a duty to market responsibly and there are simple steps to avoid ethical pitfalls says Dr Nicole Dando, head of projects at the Institue of Business Ethics

• Q&A: Carl Robertson, CMO at Colt

  Carl Robertson, chief marketing officer at Colt, on the next big thing in B2B marketing, his favourite ad campaign and a rock‘n'roll dream job

• Profile: HSS Hire's Fiona Perrin

  Fiona Perrin, marketing director at HSS Hire, is not one to shy away from change. Lucy Fisher meets her to discover how she is finally bringing the organisation into the 21st century

• PROFILE: Virgin Media Business' George Wareing

  As head of marketing and strategy at Virgin Media Business, former accountant George Wareing has a significant challenge on his hands to take on BT in the key business broadband sector. Lucy Fisher met him to discuss his strategy

• BEST PRACTICE: Translating offline brands online

  Brand identities inhabit different worlds online and offline, but Lucy Reiter offers practical guidance for traditional brands looking to create compelling web-based profiles

• DIGITAL MASTERCLASS: Protecting your domain name

  Iain Rutherford of Brodies LLP on domain name strategy and dispute resolution - which are increasingly critical concerns as the importance of the web continues to grow

• BEST PRACTICE: Thought leadership marketing: Where do you stand?

  Jim Pennypacker, president and CEO at Dance Communications, presents a simple model for understanding how to improve your thought leadership marketing capability

• PROFILE: Sage's Joanna Elliot

  It's not only consumer brands which have stories to tell, says Sage's head of brand marketing Joanna Elliott: B2B marketers too, must be brave and bold. She met Lucy Fisher

• HOW TO: Make your staff brand ambassadors

  Edward Appleton, senior planner at The Leith Agency, offers 10 tips for getting the most out of employees as potential B2B brand ambassadors

• HOW TO: Conduct a 'brand scan'

  A brand scan gives you a picture of where your brand is right now, its status and its strengths and weaknesses. So how do you go about running one? This article provides practical steps for success.

• HOW TO: Define your brand

  Defining a brand is arguably the most fundamental step in developing and delivering an effective and successful brand strategy. An effective brand is built on three primary pillars: identity, communication and behaviour.

• HOW TO: Deliver a compelling brand experience

  Creating a positive impression of your organisation is an essential but often overlooked element of brand excellence.

• HOW TO: Manage your brand

  It's a complex task to manage and monitor a brand, with tasks including handling agencies, overseeing internal communications; not to mention developing strategy and ensuring this is delivered.

• HOW TO: Sell your brand to your organisation

  Getting the powers that be to understand the importance of branding, and its potential impact on the bottom line, can be a significant challenge. 

• HOW TO: Use your brand as a recruitment tool

  Your brand also has a significant role to play in helping you attract and retain quality employees, but what steps should you take to achieve this?

• OPINION: After Darwin, what have we learned?

  In The Origin Of The Species, which was published two centuries ago, Darwin said a number of things that brand managers would do well to listen to now.

• VOX POP: Which brand could set up a business banking arm?

  Which brand could set up a business banking arm?

• DIGITAL MASTERCLASS: Animating your site with avatars

  Heather Richards, VP professional services at Transversal, looks at how B2B brands are using avatars and offers tips for successful deployment

• PROFILE: Ricoh Europe's director of corporate comms Javier Diez-Aguirre

  Former molecular biologist Javier Diez-Aguirre thinks marketing needs to become more sustainable. As Ricoh Europe's director of corporate communications, his objective is just that, says Lucy Fisher

• DIGITAL MASTERCLASS: Manage your online reputation in real time

  Janet Parkinson, head of operations at BrandsEye, examines the importance of controlling your online reputation and explains the steps required to manage it

• BEST PRACTICE: Top tips on using celebrities for your B2B brand

  Hamish Pringle, director general of the IPA and author of ‘Celebrity Sells', outlines three ‘F's of using a star to promote your brand

• BEST PRACTICE: Why brand managers should not be scared of social networking

  Chat Moderators director Rob Marcus gives advice on how can businesses can harness the real benefits that UGC has to offer while still protecting their brand

• BEST PRACTICE: Maximising employee engagement

  Maintaining dialogue with your internal audience in times of economic upheaval can inspire, motivate and help deliver your brand promise says Peter Bell of The Brand Union

• PR: No news is bad news for business

• BEST PRACTICE: Customer service

  There's a saying that the customer is always right, but what is it that keeps someone coming back to buy your products or services? Lucy Reiter explores the issue of customer experience and what it means to the B2B marketer in the 21st century

• HOW TO: Protect your brand with website moderation

  Encouraging user-generated content on the web can prove highly beneficial to a company's reputation. However, there are risks involved. Tamara Littleton offers six tips on how to protect your brand online

• BEST PRACTICE: Finding your way through the IPO maze

  Stephen Rogers, CEO of Strategic Fusion, offers advice on how to boost your brand during the IPO process

• BEST PRACTICE: Industry awards

  Winning an industry award can give you and your team a huge morale boost, but with so many to choose from, how do you decide which to enter? And once the application form falls though the letterbox, how can you enhance your chances of taking home that coveted prize? Sue Norris reports

• BEST PRACTICE: Winning awards

  The process of entering awards may sound tedious, but winning an award for your business efforts not only improves morale amongst the whole team, but is a symbolic mark of success – one that lingers for much longer than a moments glory up on stage. Sara Goodwins explains

• BEST PRACTICE: Annual reports – More than just a numbers game

  Keith Bamber, director at 35 Communications, says companies write-off the annual report as a boring statistical document at their peril: its potential as a highly effective marketing and communications device is huge, and easily exploited

• HOW TO: Suceed at brand partnerships

  A brand partnership is a cost-effective and creative way of enhancing brand image, creating lead generation and improving ROI. Camilla Mair, MD of Mediator, advises on how to make it work

• BEST PRACTICE: Seven deadly sins of B2B graphic design

  B2B marketers must learn by heart the seven deadly sins of graphic design in order to make best use of their marketing material, says Andy Laurillard, director of Neale Network

• BEST PRACTICE: Colour and brands

  Think that successful printed communications are all about the layout and typography? Think again, says Oki's colour psychologist, Angela Wright

• HOW TO: Develop corporate values

  Rik Burrage, managing director of Grass Roots Group, says defining a set of corporate values can be key to developing a high performance culture for your business

• HOW TO: Square the circle between ROI and branding

  All too often branding and ROI appear to be mutually exclusive objectives in B2B marketing activity. But it doesn't have to be this way, argues Alec Rattray, director of Henrion Ludlow Schmidt. Here, he offers a practical guide to squaring this circle

• BEST PRACTICE: Company values

  Transparent company values can boost the happiness and productivity of a marketing team, and this can be sustained through a more sophisticated approach to recruitment, says Claire Owen, MD of Stopgap