Thinking About Your Marketing in 2014? Have You Caught Up to 2013 yet?

 by Ryan McMullen

 Hopefully you’ve already sat down with your company’s brain trust and laid out the best multifaceted marketing strategy that the small-business world has ever seen. Of course you have, right? For those of you slackers who haven’t and are starting to scramble or even panic about how you are going to grow your business in 2014, let’s take a step back and see whether you’ve even caught up to 2013 yet. Here are some of the hottest and most effective marketing trends this past year brought us.

Mobile, mobile, mobile. You cannot get any closer to your consumers than you can through that little device that is permanently attached to their hips. The way consumers search for a place to dine or shop and the way they find a service have forever changed. How dare we wait to get home to look online or, in some rare cases, in the phone book to find a business? In the time it takes me to get from the office to my car, I can research the best local pizza joint, get driving directions, set up my phone’s GPS and be on my way there for dinner. Guess what? If I don’t see you in my search, you don’t exist.
Videos. No matter what your business’s message, video drives home the point better than any other medium we have. After three days, an average person will retain about 10% of the text he’s read, 65% of an image he’s seen and 95% of a video he’s watched. There’s a reason that every man can quote every line from “Caddyshack” – video is really, really effective. Obviously, put videos on your website, but also create a YouTube channel and share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. (Hint: Google owns YouTube, so it’s easier to get higher rankings in the search results.)
Mobile credit card reader. This piggybacks slightly on my previous topic about mobile, but it is a different animal. The card reader I’m referring to is the type that plugs into your mobile device and accepts credit cards through the provider’s app. That means you can accept payment from customers anywhere. In Apple stores, salespeople use them so that when you are interested in buying one of their modestly priced items, you can’t change your mind during that long walk to the register. You make your purchase on the spot. I try not to drink too much of the Kool-Aid, but if Apple is doing it, so am I.
As you sit down and lay out your plans to make 2014 “My Year,” don’t get distracted with the new shiny marketing objects; instead, start with the strategies that made 2013 “Our Year” for so many small businesses.

Ryan McMullen (ryan@stlouismarketinglab.com) is the owner of St. Louis Marketing Lab.