Zmags launches its Creator tool for marketers who like it fast

Boston-based Zmags is today launching its Creator platform to help satisfy marketers’ taste for speed.

The platform, emerging from a beta for existing customers, enables the drag-and-drop creation and straightforward deployment of interactive content to a web page on computers or mobile devices.

Aside from ease-of-use and rapid implementation, a key selling point is that marketers do not need to deal with code, except for one line of Javascript that they drop into a web page’s header. For marketers, fast, easy, and codeless can save time and avoid IT when there are content updates.

The resulting new content gets overlaid as a layer called from Zmags’ platform. Brands, however, still need a content management system (CMS) to create the site framework, with Creator working on top of it.

Originally founded in Copenhagen in 2006, Zmags’ other product — Publicator — helps marketers convert PDFs into online catalogs and brochures with added links, images, animated transitions, and video. The company cites Audi, Neiman Marcus, and Dyson as some of its Publicator customers.

Similarly, Creator offers basic tools for readily turning images and video, text, links, and animated transitions into web pages. It also has some collaboration tools, plus localization so that specific content can be deployed in specific geographical areas.

CEO Brian Rigney told me that Creator has enabled clothing retailer New York & Company to quadruple its output of new pages because it can create and upload pages in minutes. However, the retailer had been using Oracle’s Endeca as a limited CMS and an outside developer for site builds, requiring at least two hours for any updates.

Zmags also says Creator has led to increased page views and conversion rates, because of the capability to quickly test different approaches.

Although it is billed as a content marketing tool — because it allows marketers to quickly update content without coding — Creator is stronger on the content side than on the marketing one.

As with marketing in general, content marketing is designed to generate leads, turn them into customers, and retain existing customers. Creator helps with the conversion task by integrating with leading e-commerce platforms, like Magento, Hybris/SAP, and IBM’s Websphere.

It also has basic analytics — like page views and visited links — through integration with Google Analytics and other external analytics solutions, plus there’s A/B testing.

But the platform does not offer personalization or specific engagement tools, which are often needed to nurture a visitor into becoming a customer or to tailor a content experience in support of existing customers.

Without such tools, for instance, a site visitor who has previously visited a fashion site looking for designer jeans has the same content experience the next time she visits. Once on the site, she again has to find jeans, instead of having content personalized around her last visit.

Comparing Creator to some of the capabilities in Adobe’s Experience Manager, Rigney said that Creator is simpler and quicker. Pricing for Creator starts at $10,500 annually, with higher tiers based on page views.