Send your mind back to the launch of the iPhone. Although you may not recall the first App you downloaded – what you will remember is the ease of use or the purchase experience. It’s an experience that has led to the Apple’s Apps Store selling more than $200 million worth of apps every month and unleashing the new app economy.

For those of you still relying on fax machines or hiding behind the Berlin Wall of firewalls – Apps are small software applications designed to be used on Smartphones such as the Apple iPhone, the Blackberry or other mobile devices such as the Apple iPod. And now, the Apple iPad.

If you look past the games, juvenile beer drinking apps or childish farting programs (my 10 year old son loves this App) is a world of nifty little programs that are creating fortunes for entrepreneurs and changing the way we do and can do business.

The success of the Apple’s Apps Store has basically kick-started what is now called the Apps Economy with nearly every producer of smart technologies trying to copy Apple’s business model. This includes some the biggest companies in the world like Google, Nokia and Microsoft.

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The question I get asked by fellow marketers more than any other is: what is inbound marketing? Simply, it’s completely the opposite to the long-established method of broadcast advertising.

Inbound marketing is focused on the idea of being found by people who are looking for you, your product or your service. It mainly consists of intelligent web design, search engine optimisation, social media and conversion strategies with the aim of drawing motivated people to you.

Whereas broadcast advertising is typically focused on trying to influence your buying behaviour and habits by means of commercials on television and radio, printed advertisements in newspapers and magazines and printed directories such as Yellow Pages.

So, rather than forcing yourself onto the poor unsuspecting masses, inbound marketing allows potential customers to find you when THEY are ready. Any time, any place. It delivers motivated, qualified consumers to your door (website) 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.

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Every week, I read and watch lots of business and marketing articles and videos. Most are just good opinions pieces, but every few weeks there is a real corker that I want to share with people.

And this video by Gary Vaynerchuck is a corker. So please enjoy:)

Here’s a blatant promotion on my blog. If you are marketer or CEO who’s organization is struggling to come to terms with the digital revolution. Then, you ought to be interested in our latest news from Sticky Advertising. We’ve dropped the ‘Advertising.’

And, we’ve finally taken the plunge and repositioned the agency as digital with a focus on advanced digital strategies.

Why?  So we can take advantage of a growing need to manage the transition from a mainly offline business and marketing model to a growing digital and social business model. It also means higher profit margins and lower costs compared to advertising’s traditional cash cow of buying media which is now basically a commodity being sold by every Tom, Dick and Mary.

The process of change has been exciting, but at times scary especially for our principal, Craig (Media Hunter) Wilson – it’s his money we are playing with. However, Sticky has quickly scored some big goals by signing up a number of large national accounts. There is talk now of going International.

If you are interested you might want to see our new revamped Sticky and GetSticky sites…

I want to share this little marketing gem. A diamond crusted bit of marketing wisdom from Jack Trout’s latest book ‘Repositioning’ where he says of the current era of marketing change and competition:

If you’re not careful, nothing can kill a company more quickly than change. Like Competition, it continues to accelerate, thanks in great measure to “disruption technologies.

Even the largest companies are not protected from the ravages of change; in fact, the bigger a company is, the harder it will be for that company to survive. Go down and visit the corporate graveyard. You’ll find some once very big companies that are quite dead.

According to Jack Neff, a report due out next week from Forrester will recommend changing the name “brand manager” to “brand advocate,” and fundamentally change marketing organisations in response to the onset of the digital age.

Putting the onus on marketers to change their organisations structures to cope with an increasingly complex world of media fragmentation and rising retailer and consumer power.

Read more of Jack’s article…

According to an online advertising expenditure study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in the UK – the internet has now overtaken TV advertising to become the UK’s single biggest advertising medium.

UK’s Online advertising expenditure grew 4.6% to £1.75 billion in the first half of 2009, overtaking TV for the first time. IAB figures show ad expenditure online up £82m to record market share of 23.5%.

The IAB has declared the UK as being the world leader in terms of market share for online, with the medium accounting for 23.5% in the first half of 2009. The results signal a significant restructure of marketing budgets as UK advertisers follow their audiences online and look to the internet for even more measureable and accountable methods.

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One of America’s biggest advertising & media publications has published an article by Abbey Klaassen that has attacked an Aussie icon, saying “here’s one for the annals of marketer stupidity.”

So what has infuriated Abbey?

Image from Ross Mayfield

Well, it’s the following Vegemite privacy policy statement found on its website.

“no part of this Site may be reproduced on any other internet site, and you are not authorised to redistribute or sell the material or to reverse engineer, disassemble, or otherwise convert it to any other form that people can use. You are also prohibited from linking the Site to another website in any way whatsoever.”

“Kraft’s Vegemite site has perhaps one of the most backward privacy policies known to man and marketer “ writes Abbey.

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I’ve got some great online stats from a recent study by Google.

In June’s edition of BtoB Online, it was reported that Seventy-three percent of C-suite executives use the Internet daily. Google’s research was conducted with Forbes of 500 executives at companies with sales of $1 billion or higher.

Image by DeusXFlorida (I’m a big fan of this photo)

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For your delight, I’ve embedded Ninemsn’s new TV commercial titled “Bing and Good Things Happen.”

It’s part of a bigger marketing campaign that will use TV, print and digital banners to persuade us to switch over to Bing and hopefully boost Bing’s market share. I wish them well, but I hope they’ve got very deep pockets.

Phillip Kotler says “The better the product, the less that has to be spent advertising it. The best advertising is done by your satisfied customers.” Think about it people. Will you change your search habits due to seeing an emotive TV ad?