The From Line

If you’re not creating content, start! If you are, create more!

These days marketing success goes beyond banners, email and search engine marketing. With the proliferation of digital channels and the screens that support them, marketers need to invest more in content development that entertains, delights, educates and moves their customers to buy. In the past decade, the quants overtook marketing departments at the cost of creativity, resulting in a sea of mediocre content.

Since the demand for content is growing to a louder beat, balance is gradually being restored as companies rush to strengthen their customer bonds through videos, blogs, social media and games. Contrary to the trend, effective content development doesn’t require big budgets. In fact, small to medium sized businesses in particular can master content marketing without blowing their creative budgets and in a way that adds value to their brand.

Almost a year ago, we wrote about the value of a strong content marketing campaign in our post “Giving Content Development High Priority”. Back then we stressed its importance as a foundation for marketing automation. However, today the value of quality content goes far beyond that. Tony Quin, CEO of IQ, a full service agency said in a recent post for Marketing Daily that “compelling content is the currency that buys your customer’s attention and affection long before they reach the stage of comparing features and benefits.” Knowing this, its obvious that every business CAN and SHOULD be a publisher. There is an immense amount of marketing clutter out there for businesses to compete with. Creating content that adds value to your brand will be what separates you from the competition.

iPad passes Mac computer in sales. The tablet is the new frontier.

It’s official. Consumers are tablet crazy; so much so that they are choosing the mobile devices over computers. It’s that time again marketers, just when you’ve finally optimized for mobile…

A look into Apples record breaking year provides an impressive example of the tablets’ rapid rise in popularity. In 2011, the company sold over 156 million iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch), 55 million of which were iPads. To put this in perspective, in just one year combined sales of these mobile devices have exceeded the 122 million Mac computers ever sold. Since it was first available for pre-order in March of 2010, the sales trend of the iPad has blown all other Apple products out of the water (see figure below). CEO Tim Cook commented “This 55 is something no one would have guessed. Including us. To put it in context, it took us 22 years to sell 55 million Macs. It took us about 5 years to sell 22 million iPods, and it took us about 3 years to sell that many iPhones. And so, this thing is, as you said, it’s on a trajectory that’s off the charts.” There has been buzz for some time of the possible upcoming announcement of the iPad3, and today we have verification via Mashable that Apple has sent out invitations for an event on March 7th. The invitation states simply “We have something you really need to see. And touch” and according to Mashable is "superimposed on what is almost certainly an iPad". Knowing this, it is more crucial than ever for marketers to take to heart the magnitude of this trend. It has been rumored that the newest generation iPad will have a full operating system, providing the user with a full blown hand held computer, and conceivably further intensifying this trend. Yes, Apple is just one example, but I think it’s safe to say they are usually ahead of the trend. Assessing how we communicate via tablet will be paramount. 

For the widest audience reach, HTML 5 is your best bet.

Normally in Trends & Takeaways, we don’t discuss geeky technology topics. After all, this is a marketing blog. However, HTML 5 is emerging as a technology that marketers need to be mindful of when developing mobile and email strategies. HTML 5 has been around since 2009, and is the Web’s 5^th generation markup language. Only recently, however, has the standard become widely adopted. In particular, this new markup language includes features to handle multimedia and graphical content on the web without the need for proprietary plugins such as Flash.

Bacon of the Month Club for Valentine's Day? Or Panties of the Month?

Regardless of what you sell, your company may just have a big opportunity gift right under your noses. Continue reading for more on what the publishing industry did right and what we can learn from subscription-based business models...

Trend: The Return of Subscription-Based Business Models

Established by the publishing industry with magazines and Book of the Month Club, many retailers looking to break into an already-competitive market are turning to the subscription model. Rather than selling a single product and hoping for the customer to return for more, ecommerce sites such as Panty by Post, Men are Useless and Blue Bottle Coffee Company are hoping larger single receipts through subscription packages are the answer to bigger returns.

Latest Marketing Trend:

According to Forbes Insights, the research division of Forbes magazine, “video is becoming a critical information source for senior executives,” with more than 80% of executives watching more video online than a year ago. This trend isn’t surprising with executives continually facing information overload they are turning to video to help cut through the clutter and aid with decision making.

After watching video content, executives are more likely to:

• Visit a vendor’s website 66%
• Conduct a search for more info 53%
• Call a vendor 22%
• Make a business-related purchase 26%
  Source: Forbes Insights, Dec. 2010