With a new year in swing, it's time again to focus on setting new revenue records in 2011 by investing in the marketing strategies with the highest return-on-investment potential. Small businesses have more at risk than big companies when it comes to capitalizing on new trends, so your timing should follow the old saying, "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
The following list features my top 10 online marketing trends for this year, as well as advice for whether you should be the bird (invest now) or the mouse (leave the trend on the sidelines).
No. 1: Location-Based Marketing
Advice: Be the early bird
Location is so relevant that Google has already started mixing local results and maps with other searches.
Get your business ready for location-based marketing by claiming your spot on Google Places. Make your website more mobile-friendly with clickable phone numbers and maps. Also, prepare for more marketing features to be added to search results, such as mobile coupons, custom tags and logos.
No. 2: Instant Search
Advice: Be the early bird
Since Google decided to make search results and suggested key phrases appear instantly as people type, look for some consumers to abandon their first-choice, shorter search phrases in favor of these more relevant suggestions. For example, a consumer searching "desk lamp" might go with the suggestion "desk lamp reviews." If your business is optimized for shorter search phrases, it's time to evaluate the longer phrases to make sure you aren't missing potential customers.
No. 3: Social Media Monitoring
Advice: Be the mouse
This year, the reality will be revealed that social media conversations conducted by businesses aren't as personal, memorable or profitable as they would like to believe. Spend your time and money building a fantastic customer experience. Then, let your fans do the positive talking as you leverage your social media properties to reach your customers with social marketing campaigns.
No. 4: Social Media Marketing
Advice: Be the early bird
Savvy entrepreneurs are abandoning chatter in favor of running actual marketing campaigns on social media sites. Try a social sweepstakes, contest, group deal or coupon. You can use sites like Foursquare to reward loyal customers who check-in to your business, and services like Wildfire to help you run promotional applications.
No. 5: Mobile Marketing
Advice: Be the mouse
While 2010 showed us that many people use text messaging, email and social media on their smartphones, most consumers still aren't comfortable snapping a picture of a bar code.
If you want to dabble in mobile marketing this year, start by building an application, mobile website or text messaging campaign. If you own a retail store, try an in-store promotion so you can walk your mobile users through the process of snapping a bar code or texting a short code to retrieve a coupon and redeem it at the register.
No. 6: Online Advertising
Advice: Be the early bird
Banner ads may sound antiquated, but display advertising is destined to become hot this year. In fact, it's now easier for small businesses to place display ads on millions of websites by going through a few ad networks that have purchased most of the space available on publisher websites. Those ads can be tailored by geography, behavior and category of interest. It's a great way to boost the results from your pay-per-click budget this year because combining search marketing with online display ads generally increases the results from both.
No. 7: Email Marketing
Advice: Be the early bird
Facebook has announced plans to add a more familiar looking email inbox and social media integration with email marketing tools is well underway. Mobile applications are making email easier to use on smartphones, and the HTML functions on phones are making branded emails look prettier on mobile screens. It's probably time to give your email marketing a facelift.
No. 8: Social Shopping
Advice: Be the mouse
People already share their purchases socially, but newer social shopping technologies, such as Swipely and Blippy, make it possible to share with just one click or swipe of the credit card. If your products stir excitement, or you can offer a group discounts, give this technology a try.
No. 9: Instant Messaging
Advice: Be the mouse
This could be the year when website visitors begin to expect instant answers to their questions. If you have customer service teams or a sales force that are in front of computers or mobile phones all day, consider running an instant messaging test.
No. 10: Online Television
Advice: Be the mouse
Consumers will be able to customize their television feeds, browse the Web while watching shows, watch programs on-demand and even control their televisions with a mobile phone. Online television presents a huge opportunity for advertisers because the targeting options are so much better than traditional TV. However, you may have to wait to capitalize on this trend as the corporate television giants tend to be slow about making changes.
To see my predictions for last year, see "10 Web Marketing Trends for 2010."
Life insurance as low as $14/mo for $250,000 or $21/mo for $500,000 of coverage. Contact MetLife®
Comments:
Hi John, did you do a 2012 list? If so, do you have a link? Location based marketing is huge now and with Google personalizing results, it takes careful attention to detail for businesses to make sure they are capturing the right audience. Even more interesting is how Yelp has used location based information in their review management filters. Before long, geo marketing to bars and restaurants during localized events will take over.
Thanks for sharing this very useful post. Can't wait to read your top 10 Trends for Online Marketers this 2012.
Good article. Just remember these are all tools that you can use one or all of them . Master one and move on to the next.
wow thank you for all the insight i appreciate what you do for us. I also engage in blogging activities everyday. please any advice would be extremely beneficial to me. please check out my blog. http://crazygoodbloggs.blogspot.com/ thank you.
I fully agree with your predictions but the hardest part is trying to educate local businesses of the potential they have through Google Places (most haven't even heard of it!). Online television, now there's an interesting one - will definitely be keeping a very close eye on that one!
This is very useful information. Thank you for sharing
Great article. It is a rapidly changing market and if we ignore the new trends we do so at our peril. Thanks.
Fab article most informative I am going to try mobile marketing my http://www.myfreeshoppinggenie.co.uk business using this method and see what response i get
We were amazed to see our commercial painting site www.millspaintcontractors.com rank very high in the SERPS after adding Facebook's "like" button to to the homepage and getting a few "likes". Its the first time we've seen search engine results based partially on what our friends like. social media and website integration - be the early bird.
mobile marketing is the wave of today. The public is on the move It's time to catch up! http://giftsrollup.com/?id=wealty1up
Thanks for the insight John, Mobile Marketing is going happen in a year or two, it is coming. From PC screen to 'little' screen - it has happened in Japan and the rest of the world will follow. Living in a third world country, not many have a PC but when it comes to mobile phones whether modern or old nearly every household has one. Messages will get through whether you are on an old cell phone or a newer one if you set it up to use text effectively and efficiently. Keywords and short phrases!
Great Points of View. Just like most here have agreed Mobile Marketing is an eye opener. Due to this we will start testing this with one of our perfume clients www.worldSfragrances.com and depending on its effectiveness, we will move to the rest of our clients' list. Thank you!
You're very kind, thanks Prjkeith!
I'm glad you've become aware of the mobile marketing trend!
Mobile marketing is going to be huge! :) This is a fantastic list and hopefully they'll all catch on even bigger than they have been.
Great tips, opened my eyes to mobile marketing.
Instant messaging could be huge! I know there was a guy named Ari Galper who was selling a software program that allowed to set up on your site a chat box where people in the heat of the moment could get answers to questions they needed. He got the respect of some very respectable business people like Dan Kennedy who's an author under the Entrepreneur Press label. Anyone interested in this concept might want to google the name Ari Galper.
really good info... Good article.... nice to see someone who seems to do the job well.. bit of a rarity nowadays... thanks
Thanks for your comments, Ridho. Mobile is growing fast everywhere!
Mobile marketing is definitely the biggest opportunity that will be available for online marketers. Right now in Indonesia, mobile internet users grow faster than ever. Thanks for sharing John.
You're right Daniel. In fact, instant search is already working on some smartphones. Internet TV is going to involve "3 screens" - TV, Web, and Mobile, so #10 relates to mobile too. You're smart to see that mobile will be a dominant media channel soon.
Great article! As an Ohio Virtual Assistant and owner of buckeyeva.com I have helped local business owners get online. I just wished more offline business owners would see the value of an online presence...maybe after reading your article, they will!
John, Great article! Your first point "Location Based Marketing" will be a huge factor for Online Marketers in 2011. You'd be surprised how many Local Business Owners don't even claim their listing on sites like Google Places, so they are unable to take advantage of all of the benefits and make sure their address is accurate. chatmeter offers great tools to help Business Owners and Online Marketers
Sitetalk,com with their site, sitetalkmall.com is one of the pioneers in Social Shopping .
New technologies are what make building an online business exciting and always changing. A great way to keep up with changing technologies is to work with a group of entrepreneurs who share their strengths with each other.
Thanks John, very good article. It is clear that we need to be thinking "Mobile" on every marketing campaign. Points 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all related to Mobile, while point 2 is only available on desktops (not for long I believe), and point 10 relates only to TV. But you can see how "Mobile" is dominating the marketing scene. Daniel O. Ecommerce and Email Marketing Consultant www.ShoppingCartsForWebsites.com