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Three Reasons Your Product Launch is Failing

shutterstock_171227993You don’t even need to consult the market research to know that launching a new product is cumbersome, complex and costly. Often a look around at the faces sitting at your boardroom table, or a quick scan of internal team emails reveal the frustration, anxiety and sheer chaos surrounding a new unveil.

But let’s just say you did want to consult the stats. Just how harrowing are they? Well let’s take a look:

  • 66 percent of new products fail within two years
  • 96 percent of all innovations fail to return their cost of capital

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Facebook Emotional Experiment Draws Ire from Users: What’s the Marketing Takeaway?

shutterstock_185616656It was so inconspicuous you could have missed it, particularly if you rarely post Facebook status updates or comb your newsfeed. It was such a minor change that even the most diehard users would not have taken notice.

But now the word is out: in early 2012, almost 700,000 users were randomly selected for a Facebook psychological experiment. The premise was simple. Facebook set out to alter the number of positive or negative posts users saw in their newsfeeds to see what effect this change had on the tone of the posts the recipients then wrote in their own status bars. Perhaps as one might expect, researchers found that moods were contagious: those who were inundated with a series of optimistic posts responded by sharing positivity of their own in their statuses while those who were saturated with negativity expressed the same dejection in their own posts.

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Amongst the Tradeshow Frenzy and Exhaustion, Try Something New with Content Marketing

shutterstock_131742977For those of us who have the privilege (and curse) of getting to attend a sizeable amount of trade shows each year, we’ve learned some of the essential survival tricks:

  • Desperately try to cram all clothing and toiletries needed into a carry-on to avoid checking luggage.
  • Slap a permanent smile on your face from the time you land in the venue city until you take that taxi away from the convention center at the end of a long few days.
  • Dress warm. You may be visiting Vegas in August but convention centers are typically well below 65 degrees.
  • Bring more than enough business cards—chances are you will run out fast.
  • EAT ANY CHANCE YOU GET

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Need Content Marketing Inspiration? Look Around You

shutterstock_161159720As a marketer, we search for inspiration any place we can find it—at our daughter’s dance recital, on the train commuting to work, in line at CVS waiting to check out… the world is full of marketing inspiration. And it often comes when we least expect it.

We are officially at the halfway point of the year, meaning exhaustion and creative blockages are at an all-time high. You may be out of ideas for your blogging platform; you may be struggling with the motivation to finish that white paper; and you may be fearful that your innovation engine is starting to run on empty. So what’s a marketer to do? It’s time to learn from your surroundings. And here’s how to do it:

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Do’s and Don’ts for This Year’s Product Launch

shutterstock_161159720There’s no disputing the fact that you have a product launch on this year’s strategic roadmap. After all, the product market was predicted to reach nearly $221.3 billion by the end of 2013 and industry pundits expect it to surge to $284.6 billion by the end of 2018, according to the 2013 “Antiaging Products and Services: The Global Market” report. But just because your team meetings and budgets are centered upon expansion and great unveils does not mean your launch will be a walk in the park.

Just consider that fact that as many as 95 percent of new products that are introduced each year fail, according to Cincinnati research agency AcuPoll. So how do you break away from the majority and enjoy success this year? By keeping the following do’s and don’ts top of mind:

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The ‘24’ Reboot: What Can Your Brand Learn?

shutterstock_178280834Jack Bauer is no stranger to risky moves. Heck he took down President of the United States Charles Logan in Season 5 of “24”; he has managed to come back from the dead—literally—several times; and he has withstood torture as if it was a part of his job description.

This May, the producers of “24” made a risky move of their own when they tried to resurrect the cult phenomenon—a TV show that ended four years ago after 10 years and eight seasons. On May 5, “24: Live Another Day” premiered, a 12-week mini-series that picks up with Jack Bauer’s life four years after the series finale.

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Three Ways to Stay Current with Content Marketing

shutterstock_171929309There are specific moments in time in which it’s evident that we are on the brink of a massive transformation—and that the best is really yet to come. It came over a century ago when the Wright brothers developed the first flying machine, a fundamental breakthrough that made overseas travel a reality. It came again late in the 20th century with the unveiling of the IBM 5100, the first commercially available portable computer that gave way to the surge of laptops, tablets and smart devices. And it is happening now with the proliferation of content marketing: traditional marketing practices are becoming obsolete as avant-garde content marketing strategies become ubiquitous.

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Hidden Tricks Industry-Leading Content Marketers Keep Close to the Vest

shutterstock_131728910We’ve all been in the company of that individual—you know, the marketer who seems to be able to come up with witty slogans, awe-inspiring website copy and evocative white paper concepts on the fly. That individual who never seems scared or intimidated by behemoth marketing tasks.

He or she seems like a marketing superhero—even a magician—and, in truth, makes you feel wholly inadequate when it comes to your own marketing prowess.

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Five Desk Feng-Shui Tips to Bring Out the Real Marketer in You

I particularly love the Monday morning Twitter stream. From the excessive #DeathToMondays tweets to the downtrodden posts lamenting the arrival of another week , Monday’s Twitter feed can be filled with some of the most slapstick, engaging posts of the work week. This morning, I was pleasantly greeted by a great picture by TollFreeForwarding (did I mention I love pictures on Twitter?). Check it out:

Capture

And it got me thinking how the littlest changes we make on a Monday—like completing a first draft in 15 minutes and accepting that it may not be your best—can be a real game-changer in the business world. So when Monday hits next week, why not take a few minutes to Feng-Shui your desk to bring out the A-marketer in you?

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Three Signs you’re in a Writing Slump

shutterstock_171929309We’ve all been there—staring helplessly at the computer screen, resting your fingers limply on the keyboard and willing words to start magically appearing on the screen. It is writer’s block at its best and it is the evil of all evil for marketers. That’s because our job depends on our ability to put pen to paper, redefine originality and string together a series of nouns, verbs and adjectives in such a way that harmony is struck.

So what do you do when your brain starts to enter the “nothing box?” And, even worse, how do you avoid falling into a writer’s slump without noticing it? Let’s take a look at three tell tale signs that you might be slacking when it comes to your copy creation:

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