BASEMENT TO BOARDROOM  

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service e-mail marketing, event marketing, online surveys, social media, and direct mail solutions empowering small businesses to create, manage, and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. The company has more than 100,000 customers and was ranked No. 2,802 on the 2012 Inc. 5000 list. Janine also blogs for the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog for Small Business. @janinepopick


Why Give Away Free Service? Because It's Worth It

Sometimes it makes good business sense to give away a product or service. Here's how it worked out for Zane's Cycles.  Read story

Tiger's New Nike Ad...Too Soon?

The new Nike ad proclaims "Winning Takes Care of Everything." But does it? Is this ad too much, too soon?  Read story

Make Your Website Rock: 3 Tools

These three tools will help you get more more subscribers, better engagement, more useful content on your website.  Read story

Just Say No to Micromanaging

Micromanagement could have a huge long- and short-term negative impact on your ability to be effective as a manager.  Read story

Customer Inertia: How to Get Past It

Getting customers to try a new product or service can be a challenge. Here's how to get them on board.  Read story

The 30 Minute Meeting

Here are six ways to keep meetings short and sweet.  Read story

How to Be Best in Show at SXSW

With so many companies clawing for attention at conferences, here's how some managed to stand out from the crowd at SXSW.  Read story

The Deadly Cost of a B-Player

Here's how mediocre employees can take down a business. Don't let it happen to you.  Read story

Rewrite That Boring Job Description

Want to attract the A-players to work for your business? Here's what needs to be in the job description.  Read story

Help Your Employees Get More Done

If you want happy employees, then help them do their jobs faster and better. Here's how.  Read story

The Case for More Office Parties

Take a day each month to show your employees the appreciation they deserve.  Read story

Stellar Customer Experience: 4 Tips

Take a cue from other businesses that have excellent customer service and learn to incorporate those strategies into your business.  Read story

4 Reasons You'll Fail at Entrepreneurship

If you're starting your own business for these four reasons don't do it.  Read story

Content Your Customers Actually Care About

Offer expertise and knowledge to help customers--don't just sell to them.  Read story

Photos Are Social Media Gold

Here are five ways to use images to grow your follower base on social media.  Read story

Help Your Business Get Social: 3 Free Tools

Get a lot of bang for no bucks with these free business-oriented platforms.  Read story

5 Easy Steps to Get Started on LinkedIn

If your customers are other businesses or have specific industry interests, you might want to give LinkedIn a second look.  Read story

3 Types of Poison Employees

Here are three types of employees that drag your company down, and how you can stop their bad behavior.  Read story

Create an Awesome Welcome Email: 7 Tips

That first email is like the all-important first impression on a hot date. Here's how to pique your customers' interest.  Read story

Someone Is Taking Credit For Your Idea! Now What?

Giving credit where credit's due is essential to business success. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen.  Read story

Why Your Shipping Policy is Losing You Business

If you're a small retailer, you've got it hard enough; don't lose a potential customer because of bad customer service and annoying store policies.  Read story

First-time Managers: Don't Micromanage

If your company culture is all about empowering employees, your managers need to know how to step back and just listen.  Read story

3 Ways to Establish Your Company's Voice

Having a unique personality can help you stand out from your competitors. Here are some tips to spiff up your brand voice.  Read story

3 Easy SEO Tools to Improve Your Website

These companies can help take the mystery out of SEO and get your site on its way to ranking higher in Google.  Read story

How to Get and Cultivate Customer Advocates

Instead of climbing onto a rooftop and shouting, why not have everyone on the street singing your praises?  Read story

5 Things Not to Do in the New Year

Getting rid of old habits and old ways of thinking is just as important as committing to new ones.  Read story

Don't Think You Need Change. Think Again

Just because something's working fine, doesn't mean it can't be even better.  Read story

6 Ways to Spread the Holiday Spirit

Aside from a holiday party, there are lots of creative, inexpensive ways to bring your "office family" together.  Read story

Why You Need to Market to Your Employees

Marketing a new brand and product internally to your employees could be more important than what your customers will ultimately see.  Read story

How to Land a Customer for Life

Here's how one recent experience cemented my loyalty to a chocolate company.  Read story

Proof For Skeptics: Cyber Monday is Huge

Here's the backstory on Cyber Monday and what this year's statistics mean for retailers.  Read story

2 Tools That Turn Customers Into Cheerleaders

Incentivizing current customers to buy more and bring in new business is a huge opportunity you can't miss.  Read story

3 Basics of Facebook Analytics

You've got a few months' worth of Facebook activity under your belt. Now's the time to dig into the data and see what's working.  Read story

Infographics Are Hot, Your Boring Data Is Not

Turn your boring piles of stats, data and other information into an eye-catching infographic using these three steps.  Read story

Where CEOs Spend Their Time (& Money) on Social Media

A new survey shows that more small business owners are not only using social media but they are willing to pay for help.  Read story

5 Baby Steps Toward Going Global

Doing business abroad doesn't necessarily have to take a Herculean effort, especially if you sell your products or services online.  Read story

How to Make Your B2B Content Sexy

Don't dismiss the power of great content. You could be missing tons of new traffic to your website and the sales it will surely produce.  Read story

The One Drawback of Going All Digital

For productivity and collaboration, using digital tools to jot down notes is great. But there's one thing that will surely suffer.  Read story

5 Tips Before You Go Global

Expanding abroad isn't just about changing the language on your website and accepting foreign currency.  Read story

3 Tools That Make Busywork Suck Less

There are lots of apps and software that make administrative work a little easier. Here are three that rise above the crowd.  Read story