Top Marketing Trends for 2014

I spend a large amount of my time indulging my inner geek and examining, pondering and questioning the latest marketing, web, search, design and social media trends.

So here you have my top 14 marketing trends for 2014.

Marketing

Good customer service is, and always will be, your most powerful marketing tool

Word of mouth still remains the most powerful influencer on purchasing decisions made by consumers; be that in person or via the internet, social media or even your local media.

Customer service that goes above and beyond (or is even just plain old basic “good” these days) speaks volumes for your organisation.

Content marketing

What’s content marketing I hear you ask? At its core, content marketing is creating content that users want or need. It’s not shoving a flyer under their windscreen wiper or spamming their inbox, it’s creating a blog post, an image or a video that users actually want, that they will enjoy and, most importantly, share.

Content marketing has its origins in the need of the customer, it’s about attracting customers, not paying to reach them.

Video

Despite what you’re thinking, video is cheap and easy to do and it can add another dimension to your content marketing efforts. Video marketing builds brand personality, improves customer engagement and boosts your search engine ranking.

With as little as the camera on your mobile phone you can create, edit and share a video. It doesn’t have to be slick but it does have to be informative.

Video ideas include information highlighting the features and benefits of your latest product, webinars and simple how-tos. With the focus on content and the enhancements of Google’s latest update, videos are amazingly searchable content.

Want to see some of the most successful video marketing? Go to Blendtec’s channel on YouTube.

Value never goes out of style

Give your customers something in your marketing and I don’t just mean a groovy promotional item.

Whether it’s an informative “how-to” demonstration, a step-by-step tutorial or simply beautiful images that bring people joy; for your audience to be engaged with your brand, they need to perceive value in your marketing offerings. It’s the notion of “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) marketing.

Web

Responsive design is the only way

Responsive web design is basically optimising your website to be viewed on all manner of devices and screen sizes: smartphones, tablets, etc.

If your website isn’t responsive, you’re annoying a quarter of your target audience as, globally, 19.1% of all global web usage is now done using a mobile phone while tablet usage is 4.8% and on the rise. Smartphone penetration reached 65 percent in 2013, up from 44 percent in 2011 and is expected to continue climbing in 2014; some analysts predict that reach could be as high as 75 percent by the end of the year.

Flash is dead, people

Sorry but Steve Jobs killed it.

If you’re not into web development you would still “know” Flash developed sites if you saw them, they were those jaw-droppingly beautiful sites created in the early-mid noughties that had animated home pages and other visual trickery. I loved Flash, I thought it was stunning but also annoying and invasive as it interfered with the native digital experience.

Basically, they’re the reason the “Skip Intro” button was invented.

When Apple made the decision to ship its iPhones without Flash Player in 2010 it sounded the death knell for Flash.

In this world where search engine rankings are critical to getting your business seen Flash is a massive no-no as Flash content cannot be crawled i.e. “seen” by search engine bots.

If your site is Flash-based, you really should look at redeveloping it. Now!

Visual is king

Sites with crazy mixed-up fonts, mish-mashed, non-intuitive layouts and skewed images make users (especially me) cranky. With larger screens and HTML5, web developers everywhere are developing more and more beautiful sites and if your site isn’t beautiful, your designer isn’t trying hard enough.

Now we’re all a bit more familiar with the interwebs, users are coming to expect stunningly-designed websites.

While it’s not always relevant to create an amazingly-visual site for every brand, it can still be attractive. If you don’t like your site, talk to a designer (and not your friend’s boyfriend who builds sites as a side gig) but an actual website designer.

This doesn’t just apply to websites but all media; advertising, packaging, apps, etc.

Media

Google+

We resisted, we really did, but as a social network Google+ is simply too important to ignore.

With the added search benefits of being attached to Google, many people will be making the move from Facebook to G+ over the coming years and no doubt members of your target audience will be amongst those making the migration. This ship is sailing very soon so get on board.

Paid organic social amplification or “you have to pay to play”

I often cite the statistic of Facebook posts having a reach of 17% to clients embarking on the social media journey. Recently however the team at Ignite Social Media found reach could be as low as 2.5%. Ouch!

Admittedly I have noticed my Facebook site stats have been taking a hammering lately and have been wondering whether it’s actually worth my time and it seems that to make headway as a brand on all social networks, this year marketers are going to have to cough up on these previously “free” networks.

I still think it’s valuable to have a Facebook presence but you have to put in more effort to get noticed if you’re not prepared to pay for advertising.

Niche media

Looking for a place to call your own and where you feel at home with like-minded individuals on the internet? Niche social sites have the answer. Whether you’re into music, are of a “senior” age, love books, design, sewing, zombies or cats, there is a niche social network for you!

What does this mean for marketers? Cheaper, more targeted advertising than larger, generic social media networks (see point 9). No matter what your business does, there’s more than likely a relevant niche social network out there.

Search

Deep, fresh content

The latest Google Hummingbird update means that semantic search as opposed to keyword search is the in thing right now. Search engines can now grasp the meaning of a search query in context, i.e. users can search “how does a cake rise”, “what makes a cake rise”, etc.

Keywords used to be the only focus for websites, leaving us copywriters very frustrated by having to focus on keyword density that yielded poor-quality content just to up Google rankings.

Google have designed their last three updates, Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird to stamp out SEO techniques that resulted in poor quality content climbing the ranks.

While I could go into the technicalities but I won’t, basically this opens up the web content space dramatically especially to those of us who love to write (or pay someone who does)!

Longer, more detailed and enriched content is the answer to this so get your content planning hat on!

Online audience optimization (OAO)

If there’s one thing us marketers love it’s a jargonistic acronym.

OAO is the new SEO. It’s is already here and happening!

OAO is basically creating content with the user in mind instead of just search engine rankings. Sounds basic enough? Create high quality, more detailed, enriched content and you’re on your way (see point 11).

Design

Celebrate colour

In case you missed it Radiant Orchid is the Pantone Colour of the Year. What does this mean for you?

Do you recall that scene in “The Devil Wears Prada” where Miranda (played by Meryl Streep) dresses down Andy (played by Anne Hathaway) for not appreciating that her sweater is cerulean (you can read the transcript here)? Well, that’s the importance of the Colour of the Year.

Pantone are the authority on colour and if they say a colour is hot, then it’s hot.

Expect to see a lot more purple across all design in 2014; fashion, interiors, websites, logos, etc.

Other colours that I’m picking to trend (if they aren’t already)? Navy (although Pantone selected Dazzling Blue as part of the Spring colour palette I think navy is easier to use), yellow, grey and lime green.

Ultra brights will be huge too, not fluoros which have been trending in recent years but big, bright, bold colours.

Halftones

Not familiar with half tone? Think Andy Warhol, Pop Art-esque dot images or old school newspaper images that were printed with dots.

I saw a fair amount of half tone design in 2013 and expect it to a lot more of it in 2014 along with any designs that sees cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black) (CMYK) layered to dramatic effect. While we’re talking retro, expect to see a lot more geometric design to go along with the half tones.

Well, they’re my top marketing trends for 2014! What are your favourite predicted and emerging marketing trends for 2014?

5 Points of Effective Marketing Promotions

December is a comparatively quiet time for my business. When I’m not working “in” the business, I take the opportunity to work “on” the business. Business development is something I rarely get the time to do!

I started thinking about ways to promote my business… Hmmm… I’ve worked on a lot of promotions with various clients over the years; the stand out of which is the Gippsland Lakes Ministerial Advisory Committee’s bream-shaped USB (which have recently been recreated as a flathead). The client loves them, I love them and, most importantly, the target audience loves them.

I wanted to create something that ticked all the boxes of what an effective promotion should do:

Be desirable
Be unique
Be share-worthy
Be useful
Represent the business it’s promoting

With promotions, it’s often difficult to strike the balance between usefulness, uniqueness, desirability and, of course, budget!

I have a lot of stress balls, pens and other random items that are useful but these things were well beyond my meagre (read: non-existent) budget.

So I created a calendar. Completely designed and created by Jane McKay Communications, this free 2014 calendar is available as an A4 PDF download.

How does this humble calendar fulfil the 5 key points I list above?

It’s desirable. I’m certainly not one to blow my own horn but I think it’s beautifully-designed.
It’s unique.100% designed and created by Jane McKay Communications – it doesn’t get any more unique than that!
It’s share-worthy.When I sent the calendar directly to clients and distributed it on social media I encouraged them to share with colleagues, friends and family and looking at the stats, it’s been popular so far!
It’s useful.This idea came from my own personal need for a calendar. I actually started designing it purely for my own personal use and realised this was something that other people could find useful. Although a lot of people rely on digital calendars, I really need something I can write on and stick on the wall/fridge/pinboard/bathroom mirror to remind me of appointments/birthdays/holidays.
It represents the business it’s promoting.The inclusion of marketing-related quotes is something that I find inspiring in my business and helps to present marketing in a more creative and inspiring light. Some clients see marketing as something that “has to be done” and can be a chore; I’m always working to turn that attitude around to see marketing that is something fun. Not only representing the marketing strategy side of the business but also the design side, the calendar was really fun to create and allowed me to design without a style guide (as much as I love them).

So as you can see, the calendar design process fulfilled a need for me personally (in that, I needed a calendar!) but also fulfilled a need for my business – a promotional item over the quiet Christmas break and a year-long reminder of Jane McKay Communications! It’s the gift that keeps on giving on social media, too, as I can share the images on Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter/Instagram and boost my audience.

If you’re planning a promotion for your small business, it doesn’t need to be budget-breaking but it does need to answer to the 5 points of effective marketing promotions.

Social media is hard. Don’t leave it to amateurs (or interns)

“I have a lot of work to do today,” I sighed to my husband this morning.

“What, like go on Facebook and Pinterest?” He retorted derisively, as if it were anything but work.

In marketing, anything that builds brand awareness and creates opportunities for exposure of your brand to potential customers is work. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy said work but it is work nonetheless.

It’s a tricky balance, in a solo gig, to strike to right balance between work and personality.

My work and my personality are so intertwined that sometimes I find it difficult to distinguish the two. My work is what I do and a huge part of who I am. That doesn’t mean that who I am needs to necessarily be expressed in my work.

Take Pinterest for example. I love Pinterest and have several Pinterest accounts for my personal and professional selves.

But just because I love Lolcats doesn’t mean I’ll be pinning them willy nilly to my Jane McKay Communications “Typography” Pinterest board (the font is Impact, for the record). Nor, because I am slightly obsessed with Typography does it mean humourous graphic design posts will go on my personal Pinterest page.

The rules of the Lolcats example apply to Facebook as well.

When you are creating posts for your business’ social media (or delegating to someone else) be clear about “who” your organisation is and always bear in mind what you post is an expression of your brand.

Your brand isn’t who you want to be, it’s how you are being perceived right now. Edit: Source Katya Andresen

While it’s tempting and easy to combine the personal and professional in your social media I know that my customers, followers and audience care not for my love of Lolcats; just as they care not what your intern may choose to randomly post on your Facebook page.

Social media’s perception as “fun” often diminishes the gravity with which it is regarded.

Stop and think: you have spent years building your brand and reputation. This can be undone in one misfired Tweet and, because of its viral nature, things can blow up very quickly. If you need an example, hark your mind back to the #McDStories campaign McDonald’s restaurants ran last year.

Wouldn’t want to be that social media manager, would you?

Think carefully about every post, pin and tweet and how that is perceived by your audience: is it enhancing your brand? Is it how you want your brand to be perceived? Is it on target for your brand? Is it attracting the right type of audience? Does it have the right tone? Is it on message?

It’s fine to be fun and add personality but always think about how your audience will receive that information and how they will perceive your brand as a result of receiving that information.

Social media managers, copywriters and marketing professionals are paid the (not so) big bucks because they are professionals with years of hard-earned education, training and experience behind them. They take the time to understand a brand and ensure that the messaging is on target, on brand and on message.

Don’t leave it to amateurs (or interns).

Are you faking it on social media?

Now, I’m a big believer in social media. I love what it does for our connections as people, as businesses and as a global community. It breaks down barriers across all elements of society.

Social media is one of the key components of the marketing mix in this day and age and quite frankly if you’re not on board, that ship has well and truly sailed.

I have nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter, 150+ connections on my LinkedIn and 87 likes on my Facebook page.

Why so few “likes” on my Facebook page, you ask (I can feel your raised eyebrows from here)?

Well, I believe in using social media for the purpose of engaging genuine members of my audience; people who want to receive my content, are interested in what I have to say and may actually engage my professional services in the future.

I think it’s fruitless to participate in “like exchanges”, “like my page competitions” (which up until recently contravened Facebook’s Terms of Use and could result in your being deleted) or vice versa.

I know this is controversial as “like exchanges” can expose your page to potential members of your target audience but then I feel like a nuisance.

I will only like a page if I actually want to be engaged with the brand and want to listen to them and expect the same from my followers and likers. I respect them and their time and I don’t want to waste it.

I don’t appreciate emails saying “I liked your page now can you please like mine?” from complete strangers, it’s effectively spam, people.

Obviously if I receive these emails from businesses in my industry with whom I could collaborate, then that exchange is welcome as that’s what social media is about.

I just don’t see the point in engaging with people who have no interest in your brand just to boost your “like” numbers so you can look popular. What is this, high school? No, it’s business. It’s akin to click farming. It’s bad practise and I want no part in it.

I may as well go and buy 10K (or 220K) likes; these aren’t meaningful connections and won’t, in the long term, grow my business.

*I’m looking at you @TonyAbbottMHR*

101 Best and Most Proven Sales and Marketing Ideas

101 Best and Most Proven Sales and Marketing Ideas (best viewed in 800x600 resolution) includes some marketing gems from the last millennium.

I think it demonstrates how far we've come in terms of technology yet it's easy to see how translatable these ideas are in, well, the new millennium (there's a term you haven't heard for about 12 years!).

So, how do you apply these "Marketing 101" ideas to life in the content-driven, social media age?

I've taken some of Mr. Gerry Robert's pearls of wisdom and translated them, post-Y2K.

7. Send Out 35 Sales Letters Every Week Regardless: Get in the habit of sending out at least that many letters to prospects every week. No matter what, make sure they go out every Friday.
These days we call this LinkedIn: find and make connections that will enhance your business. Remember: 35 a week people!

13. Write A Special Report: If you are in selling, you are in solving. What do you solve for people? Write a 10 pages report, offer it to your prospects for Free and your telephone will ring off the wall.
White papers can establish you as a leading thinker in your industry and garner respect from your peers. I don't know if your telephone will ring off the wall but your Twitter might go nuts.

44. Use Pictures: Pictures of satisfied clients go further than lengthy letters. People are visual and if they see people just like them they will think you are Okay.
Ah Pinterest, how I love thee. Instagram too. Pictures speak thousands of words and us humans are highly visual people. Create beautiful images and they will come. Even if you don't work in a particularly visual industry you can repin images relevant to your sector on your Pinterest boards and people will think you are Okay.

45. Create Your Own Marketing Binder: Put any awards you have in the binder along with photos, testimonial, product information, how you do business, your sales presentation and leave it with prospects, so they can evaluate you.
Your company website is the perfect place to post testimonials, awards and other information to demonstrate how awesome you are at what you do. No one is going to do it for you!

65. Instead Of A Letter Send An Audio Cassette: You may have noticed something called the "jam". Instead of writing a letter, speak your letter into a cassette and they will listen to it in their cars in the "jam".
Quality content is much more likely to go viral in video format than on text-only platforms. With Google's Penguin release video will also increase the perceived quality of your website and also move your site further up in Google’s search results. People can watch your videos on the "tube".

66. Get On Everyone's Mailing List: I love to learn from what people send me.
Follow everyone and anyone who is respected in your industry on Twitter. I love to learn from what people Tweet!

76. Position Yourself As An "Expert And Authority": Even if you are new to your industry you can be perceived as an expert. The way to do it is with information. Write something, research something or print something and you are an instant "expert".
Well look at that, I'm an instant expert. Blogging is an amazing way to express your views or post well-researched position papers that will have you looking like an expert in no time.

91. Keep In touch By Fax: Send a weekly or monthly report or newsletter via the fax machine. Send a positive quotation of the day.
Facebook is the "sometimes food" social media platform for many businesses but don't overlook it in your content plan. Be sure to "send a positive quotation of the day" at least once a week.

What's your favourite of Mr Robert's gems? Are there any translations I have overlooked?

[UPDATE: I just found the original publication of this work in the New Straits Times, July 11, 1995.]