Loved up February
By Kim Browne
For as far back as I can remember, February has always been a significant month on the yearly calendar. There are a number of life-changing events (good and bad) that I can personally trace back to February.
Positively, it’s the shortest month of the year, high summer (hot!) and provides a good excuse to eat chocolate and indulge in flowers. More recently at Twisted Toast, February is the last month of our financial year. (We’ve now made it to the two year mark. Yay for us!)
So, as we embark on our third year, what are the significant learnings from the last two years that we intend building on? First and foremost we were right about the significance of the major new trend in marketing. We intend continuing evangelising brand content marketing. South Africa just last week hosted its first Content Marketing Conference (Content 2013) in Cape Town, which we had the privilege of attending. More people locally are starting to speak the same language as we do. This we take as a very good sign of things to come.
Secondly, our previous publishing experience places Twisted Toast Digital in a unique position to deliver a strategically sound, bespoke inbound content marketing package for any client. Enquiries and requests for presentations, proposals and quotes are increasing daily. We’ve had to postpone our own strategic planning session to get client work out the door.
Thirdly and most importantly perhaps, we remain flexible and endeavour to do what our clients want or need us to do. Even if it doesn’t strictly fit into the above. (For example this month we created another above the line print ad for a client.) Classifying ourselves as a hybrid marketing agency allows for this.
A few personal learnings on our journey so far: Simplify, say no sometimes and say yes often.
What are the relevant, new buzz-words for the next 12 months to look out for? The term hybrid agency came up once at the recent Content 2013 Conference. A phrase that didn’t come up, but will be circulating soon, no doubt, is inbound marketing. You heard it hear first! See it as a belated Valentine’s gift :)
As an aside, in typical Toast fashion, we’ve already started planning our 1 000 day party for end January 2014.
We’ll be there because we’re loving it.
March on!
