MIT Sloan Management Review

It’s difficult to start a venture that gains traction with paying customers, but it’s even harder to grow beyond certain levels of sales. The original business model must deal with new products or markets. Early leadership behaviors are often no longer viable. Moreover, different customers come with different transaction costs for the seller. This article discusses the importance of customer selection and how intelligent opportunity management can help companies scale their selling initiatives.

The growing number of chief marketing executives reflects the increasing importance companies attach to marketing. Yet the average tenure of a chief marketing officer (CMO) is three and a half years, well below that of the typical CEO. Both the prevalence of the CMO position and its precariousness give rise to the question,“Has marketing realized the vision to which its adherents have long aspired?” This article asks if that question is an important one — and where marketing goes from here.

The science of how we develop habits is used by companies both to mold consumer preference and to shape company culture. Details from Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit.”

Yes, recommendations from friends are effective at creating viral campaigns. But research by Sinan Aral and Dylan Walker shows that automated messages are surprisingly effective, too.

PwC has perfected the art of content manipulation: turning one survey into over 30 reports, videos and data sets, customized for differing audiences.

In the new Summer 2011 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, marketing scholars V. Kumar and Denish Shah report some intriguing findings from a study they conducted linking certain types of marketing techniques -- those aimed at increasing customer lifetime value (CLV)  -- to stock price increases.�

When consumers encounter negative information about a company, its reputation for corporate social responsibility can help — but only sometimes.

MIT Sloan School of Management Dean David C. Schmittlein, in an interview with The Huffington Post published earlier this week, made an interesting observation about how society's expectations of businesses are changing in important ways.�

Are your customers in a concrete or abstract mindset as they think about purchasing your product? The answer can affect how much they buy.

When bad things happen, companies need the right strategy for talking their way out of a mess and avoiding a calamitous pummeling of their corporate image. Choosing the best response can spell the difference between a brand’s survival — even enhancement — and its irreversible tarnishing.

Marketers and sellers hate product returns, but smart companies aren’t passively accepting them as bitter pills to be swallowed. They’re managing product-return policies to maximize future profits.

Courtesy of New York: Basic Books.

Marketers have increasingly recognized that their world has been changing from “push” to “pull.” Traditionally, they could push advertising and other marketing content toward potential customers to tout new products or services.

Courtesy of Citizens of Humanity

Stimulating consumption has become a key ingredient in the global effort to revive economic growth.

A new article in MIT Sloan Management Review argues that mass customization could make sense for most businesses.

Strong brands are often seen as an important corporate asset. But what happens when user communities—connected by the Internet—start to create their own brands? That question was explored in an intriguing August 2008 working paper, “Costless Creation of Strong Brands by User Communities: Implications for Producer-Owned Brands.” The paper suggests that companies with traditional brands would be wise to pay attention to this emerging arena.

Most companies can benefit from mass customization, yet few do. The key is to think of it as a process for aligning a business with its customers’ needs.

Companies now have unprecedented access to data and sophisticated technology that can inform decisions as never before. How successful are they at helping forecast what customers want to watch, listen to and buy?

Assessment tools for better-informing decisions have proliferated. Here’s an insider’s guide to prediction and recommendation techniques and technologies.

The discipline of marketing hasn’t kept up with the rapid changes facing 21st-century businesses. New scholarship doesn’t have enough management relevance, and practicing marketers are too often forsaking rigor. Here are seven strategies that can make marketing both relevant and rigorous in today’s world.

Many executives may feel that they have a pretty good grasp of the reasons why people make or purchase counterfeit goods. In effect, these senior managers rely on their own values and their understanding of business models to form conclusions about counterfeiting and to develop strategies to combat it.