The Mayans were wrong, we are all still here, your clients and prospects still need you, but
they are increasingly harder to communicate with; grabbing attention is more difficult and
keeping it is even harder.
Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is not only the definition of insanity but
it also means that today you will NOT get the same result, but one that is substantially worse
– you will be going backwards.
For your convenience we have prepared a summary of Hubspot’s 27-page Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2013 and one we have turned into a simple Marketing Action Plan Checklist. 1. Inbound Marketing (Get Found*, Convert, Analyse) will become more important and both
small and large enterprises are dedicating more of their budget to online / digital and away
from Outbound / Traditional Marketing.
Have you established your KPI’s, e.g.: Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Sale
Are you being found by enough new prospects?
Are you getting enough referrals?
Do you have a Referral Strategy?
2. Marketing Communication is moving away from Campaigns to Real Time Communication thanks to Social Media and immediacy of client expectations. Prospects are increasingly contacting / finding (Inbound Marketing) prospective suppliers / sellers and they want answers NOW! Technology will keep driving these changes with new widgets, gadgets, readers and scanners, RFID tags, and of course apps! Gamification will also grow as a marketing tool beyond product placement to improve the delivery of content in a more enjoyable way.
CHECKLIST
Do you have all of your Social Media profiles set up correctly; do they reflect your
company and personal brand?
Do you know which Social Media channels to focus on?
Are you interacting with prospects and customers via Social Media?
Do you have a Content Marketing Plan so that you can be “active and successful” on Social Media?
Have you personally or your company carved out a niche that you are known for?
3. CRM and Unified View of the customer will become more and more important, and some
of the new systems are now integrating Social Media information for their client records.
ACTION
If you are thinking about these issues please give us a call. Choosing the CRM system
(or getting the most out of your existing one) is a minefield and we have access to a number
of world-class experts at qubePartners as well as our own team that can assist you.
4. Mobile Optimisation of Websites will keep growing and become a must have channel for
many businesses.
ACTION
Pretty easy to do depending on what your current website has been built in. Give us a
call and we can provide answers very quickly.
5. Social Media, Content Marketing and Off Page SEO will keep overlapping and merging
and On-Page SEO “tricks of the trade” will play a less important role. Social Search and User
Generated Content with Facebook’s and Google’s focus in this area will undoubtedly
make a big impact!
ACTION
Start treating these practices not as separate channels, but as one part of holistic
process.
Have a Content Marketing Plan for each of the channels and work out how they
should be integrated amongst each other and your website.
6. Smart or Dynamic Content (ala Amazon Recommended for You) will enable you and your
competitors to serve up highly personalised messages to the right audience at the right time.
CHECKLIST
Can you easily segment your database and get insights into the behavior of your
customers?
Can your CRM, ERP, Email Marketing technology / software act on the insights?
7. Story telling will become even more important as companies scramble to be seen more
human (than their competitors) and develop a trustworthy, approachable and caring brand
personality.
CHECKLIST
Do you have a powerful, unique brand with an interesting story to tell clients and
prospects?
Are all your staff singing from the same hymnbook?
Download our Brand Design Questionnaire from our Free Marketing Resources Section (it’s the 4th document down the page) – knowing and acting on the answers in
this document should be the cornerstone of your marketing communications.
“The advent of social media has meant that the world of separate internal and external
messaging has disappeared. If a customer talks to your Customer Service department, they
expect the same response they’d get if they talk to marketing, or sales, or engineering.
Creating a unified external face is critical. If you want to build long-term relationships,
you’ve got to have a consistent, human voice – coming from all levels of your organization.” –
NICK JOHNSON founder useful Social Media
8. Email will not die but become more personalised, relevant and targeted based on real time
data.
CHECKLIST
Are you communicating regularly with your database and is the marketing
communication tailored to different segments?
Are they engaging with your content and offers?
9. Content will remain King and more marketing teams and departments; small and large
businesses will invest into more quality content and attempt to make it go viral or at least
improve the chances of it being passed onto to a secondary audience. With falling production
prices and better and simpler technologies, we see Online Video as the ‘biggest and most
effective mover and shaker’ in Content Marketing. Most small businesses do not have a great
website, let alone reasonable video content, so this area will keep booming.
CHECKLIST
Do you have great content?
Is it promoted sufficiently? No point creating more content if not enough people are
engaging with what you have!
10. “Sites like Pinterest and Instagram prove that visual content is really worth 1,000 words
(or in instagram’s case, $1 billion). Infographics, photos, picture boards, video, and other forms of rich-media will increase over the coming years as humans look to digest more information faster than ever before.” – Hubspot Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2013, p.23.
CHECKLIST
Does your brand have a well developed visual palette?
Do you have a suitable image library? Make sure this is part of your Content
Marketing Plan
———————— Wishing you a healthy and productive 2013. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any assistance in improving your marketing results.
See why Online Video Marketing is 5.33X more effective than text for Content Marketing and why you should invest in Online Video Marketing as part of your Content Marketing Mix
1. Animated videos that explain products and services increase conversion rates by 20%. [source: Unbounce]
2. 36% of online consumers trust video ads. [source: Nielsen Wire]
3. 87% of online marketers use video content. [source: Outbrain]
4. 76% of marketers plan to increase their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2012. [source: Social Media Examiner]
5. 49% of the top 20% of B2B marketers in generating leads through social media integrate online video with social media, compared to the industry average of 32%. [source: Aberdeen]
6. Video ads make up 35% of total online ad spending, up from 27% in 2011. [source: Break Media]
7. 49% of U.S. marketers plan to boost video ad spending in 2012, and 65% have larger mobile ad budgets. [source: eMarketer]
8. Enjoyment of video ads increases purchase intent by 97%, and brand association by 139%. [source: Unruly]
9. 75% of executives watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week and 59% would rather watch videos than read. 65% of those who view videos click through to visit the website of the brand behind the video, while 45% actually contact the company. [source: Forbes]
10. 64% of Website Visitors are more likely to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video and those who view videos stay on average 2 min longer. [source: comScore]
11. 96% of consumers click links after watching online marketing videos and 90% of consumers make decisions after watching online videos. Amazingly 80% of consumers remember where they watched online videos. [source: Forrester]
12. Melbourne Real Estate Group Jellis Craig found that listings with video received 4 times more enquiries than those without. [source: http://www.business2.com.au]
13. An introductory email with video increased Click Through Rates (CTR) to the marketers website by 96%. [source: Implix]
14. When marketers included a video in an email that explained their product or service, CTR increased by 200% to 300%. [source: Forrester]
15. Video in an introductory email reduced the number of opt-outs by 75% [source: Eloqua]
Internet marketing consultants, social media consultants, blog writers and every marketing agency, are all talking about the importance of content marketing in today’s knowledge economy and irreversible shift to inbound marketing.
“Content marketing – creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” [2]
Content marketing is engaging customers and prospects without selling. It is attraction or inbound marketing rather than the old fashioned push or outbound marketing.
Here’s a great infographic that illustrates that Content Marketing is not new and has been around since the late 1800’s.
Content marketing, which has been called by a number of different names, with my preference being “branded content”, is based on the premise that an educated prospect is a more profitable and loyal one and since most service based business are competing online by giving away much of their so called IP you may as well be your IP that is in front of them rather than their competitors!
Unique and valuable content is what keeps prospects on “your online property”, it’s what engages them, and it is what ultimately makes them comfortable in buying from you.
Content helps you get found in Search Engines (SEO) and is the reason prospects come to your website an/or social media profile.
Brand Names are valuable assets, and as a branding lawyer I often get asked to advise if you can register your own name as a trade mark. Trade marks give you ownership over the name and you can stop others from then using it for the same or similar goods or services that it is registered for. Bearing this in mind it’s an important question.
People often wish to use their names as brand names.
Think Elle McPherson, Kylie Minogue, Ian Thorpe, Lleyton Hewitt, Roger Federer, Andre Rieu, Beyoncé and Tiger Woods. All of these celebrities have registered their names as trade marks.
Even a simple first or surname can be monopolised eg SMITHS for Chips.
In the clothing area, Sussan Corporation (Aust.) Pty Ltd has registered the name SUSSAN for clothing in Australia.
Can you use your own name if someone else “got there first”?
The short answer is – someone can register a name as a trade mark and stop others from using it.
However, it all depends on what the brand name is and how close the goods or services are to one another.
For example, even though Gold Coast based company, Mischa Accessories, tried to stop actress Mischa Barton from trade marking her name in Australia she has still been successful and has had her name registered for clothing and back packs. Had they both tried to register exactly the same name (e.g. Mischa) the result might have been different.
The name HARRY POTTER was also the subject of a dispute in the Federal Court. A clothing business based in New South Wales used the name for a line of clothing with 17 stores in New South Wales and Queensland and filed a trade mark application. J K Rowling’s fictitious character was also introduced into the Australian market around that time but in the context of books. Today, the names are registered for clothing by Pretty Girl Fashion Group Pty Limited and also by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. for a vast array of goods and services including entertainment services. It was lucky that the Australian company had applied to have their trade mark registered back in 1998 or the result might have been different.
So – what does all of this mean to you?
When choosing a new brand name, it is really important to make sure that no one else has prior rights to that name – even if that brand name happens to be one’s own name. If you are already using your own name as a brand it is wise to consider trade mark protection.
On 8 June 2012, Justice Jagot of the Federal Court of Australia held that Australian Health and Nutrition Association Limited, trading as Sanitarium Health Food Company (Sanitarium), could not enforce its trade mark registration rights over the word “GRANOLA” against Irrewarra Estate Pty Ltd, owner of Irrewarra Sourdough Bakery.
This case demonstrates the importance of ensuring that a registered trade mark does not become generic over time. This is where advertising and branding agencies can play an important role as the way a brand is marketed has a big impact on whether a mark can remain protected.
What happened in the case
Since 1921, Sanitarium has been the owner of the Australian registered trade mark “GRANOLA”. In August 2010, Sanitarium initiated legal proceedings against Irrewarra Sourdough Bakery for infringing its registered trade mark for the word “GRANOLA” (covering “preparations made from cereals”) after the bakery sold packets of toasted nut, seed and oat mix labelled “ALL NATURAL HANDMADE GRANOLA”.
The bakery also owns its own trade mark, pictured below in relation to breads and baked goods:
Sanitarium argued that Irrewarra had infringed its “GRANOLA” registered trade mark by using it in that way.
While Sanitarium conceded that the word “GRANOLA” has been understood in the US to denote a crunchy toasted cereal and was in common use there, it argued that in Australia it has a more “boutique” meaning associated exclusively with Sanitarium-branded breakfast products.
In response to this, the bakery argued that the word “GRANOLA” merely describes the contents of the product and pointed to a list of Australian dictionary entries for the word “GRANOLA” to support its case that the word is now common.
The court’s findings
The judge took the view that the words used by the bakery: “ALL NATURAL HANDMADE GRANOLA” refer to a product consisting of grains, fruits and nuts, which may be baked or toasted into large clusters. She observed that since 2004 the word “GRANOLA” started appearing in Australian dictionaries and has “percolated” into the “consciousness of Australians”.
Thus, the bakery was using “GRANOLA” in a descriptive sense rather than as a trade mark (that is, to indicate the origin of the good) and therefore, Sanitarium could not establish trade mark infringement.
Lessons
An important lesson that flows from the decision is that brand owners should take steps to prevent their brands from becoming generic. This means that while an invented word may be validly registered as a trade mark at the outset (as Sanitarium did with its “GRANOLA” mark, from 1921), its ability to stop other traders from using the brand could be limited if the word becomes used in common language.
A good tip is to use trade marks as adjectives rather than nouns.
To do this have the common descriptive name (ie the noun) of the product or service follow the mark at least the first time that the mark appears in your marketing material.
Tip 1:
Correct: Buy CADBURY chocolate.
Incorrect: Buy CADBURY.
Correct: Use SAVLON cream.
Incorrect: Use SAVLON.
Tip 2:
If you take the trade mark out of the sentence and it still makes sense – that will be good trade mark use.
The Rollerblades example
For example it is well known that the Italian-based company, Nordica S.p.A. actively enforced its “ROLLERBLADE” trade mark rights against various retailers around Australia when they used the word “rollerblades”. As a result, the trade mark is still registered (Trade Mark Number: 480323) and traders now use other words such as “inline skates” instead.
In some situations, a trade mark that has over time, become generic, could even be removed from the Register.
Disclaimer – The contents of this article do not replace tailored legal advice
*Sharon Givoni is an intellectual property lawyer with 16 years and has clients across all industries.
We are passionate, energetic and committed Communication specialists. Our area of expertise is in Talent Placement, Media Training, Public Relations and Crisis Management.
We are passionate, energetic and committed Communication specialists. Our area of expertise is in Talent Placement, Media Training, Public Relations and Crisis Management.
2. Marketing Communication is moving away from Campaigns to Real Time Communication thanks to Social Media and immediacy of client expectations. Prospects are increasingly contacting / finding (Inbound Marketing) prospective suppliers / sellers and they want answers NOW! Technology will keep driving these changes with new widgets, gadgets, readers and scanners, RFID tags, and of course apps! Gamification will also grow as a marketing tool beyond product placement to improve the delivery of content in a more enjoyable way.
![The History of Content Marketing [Infographic] – Corporate Storytelling is Not New](http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CMI_CM_History_medium.jpg "The History of Content Marketing [Infographic] – Corporate Storytelling is Not New")
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