Marketing Trends 2011

Trend #1:  Small businesses are confused with too many marketing tactics to choose from.  With so many choices, small business marketers are confused about what marketing approach, or combination of marketing tactics, will work best.  Typical questions:  can I stop doing anything?  What new marketing approaches should I be trying?  What really works?

TIP:  Best Small Business Marketing Advice - Here's what we think is the best return on your time and money.

Trend #2:  Small businesses focusing their marketing on a few tactics to look like a bigger fish in a smaller pond.  Many small business marketers are choosing to focus their marketing mix on just a few marketing methods (email marketing, Twitter, Facebook marketing, direct mail marketing, catalog marketing, search ads, natural search, blogging) to gain traction. These tactics "level the playing field" and make it easier for small businesses to compete.
 

TIP:  Advice on how to create the most effective Marketing Mix

 

Trend #3:  Experimentation.  Trying, learning, adjusting, trying again.  Marketing has become more and more like a big science experiment because most of the new tactics are very nimble and fluid. 

TIP:  Learn about the pros and cons of different Marketing Techniques and How to Measure Marketing ROI

Trend #4:  It's still (and always will be) about how to get customers, keep customers, and get customers to buy more.  Marketing in small business is all about sales!

TIP:  Check out our many articles on How to Increase Sales

Trend #5:  Email marketing isn't working as well with so many people getting email on their smart phones.  It's important to adjust email newsletters and email alerts to make sure they'll work for people who are seeing your message on a very small screen.

TIP:  Learn How to Increase Your Email Marketing Response Rates

Trend #6:  Mobile marketing.  Lots of new companies and services are emerging to help marketers connect with people to attract them to come in to your store.  Foursquare was one of the first.  Now there are many other companies. 

TIP:  MarketingZone's articles on Mobile Marketing review all of your options.
 

Trend #7:  A love-hate relationship with deal-a-day coupon services like Groupon and the 400 other knock-offs.  They work to attract a lot of people quickly but they aren't profitable and can cause bad customer service problems if you're not prepared. 

TIP:  Learn about the pros, cons, costs and realities of Deal-a-Day Coupon Sites before you participate. 

Trend #8:  Branding isn't just for Coke and Starbucks.  Small companies want to establish and build successful brands too.

• Branding and Integrated Marketing 

Trend #9:  Low and lower response rates on search advertising unless you are giving away something for free.  (Also mis-clicks on search ads with more people using search from their phone and hitting something they didn't mean to.  This is resulting in higher bounce rates for small businesses using search ads).

TIP:  Promotional Offers To Attract Profitable New Business and How to Generate Qualified Leads

From our experience:  there are a lot of ways to drive website traffic beyond search ads.  How to Increase Website Traffic and Retail Store Marketing Ideas will help you think of what else you can do.  

 

Trend #10:  Trade shows and seminars = undivided attention of customers and prospects (if you can get them to your booth, demo or event).  People are at these events to learn and network and they're not multi-tasking as much as they do when they are on a conference call or webinar. 

TIP:   Learn how to attract visitors to your booth and nurture leads afterwards.  How to evaluate which shows to attend.  How to host a seminar or webinar.  Trade Show & Events Marketing

Trend #11:  How to get the press to cover your business?  Get to influential bloggers.  Become an expert.  Speak at conferences.  Be visible on social media.  It's way more than sending a press release. 

TIP:  There are lots of new techniques and approaches and tools/services like HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to learn about.  PR Public Relations

Trend #12:  How to save money on marketing.  For a small business, it's the owner's money.  If it doesn't go for marketing it can be spent for a vacation or to hire a new sales rep.

TIP:  It takes a lot of time to research costs and who the top suppliers are for marketing products and services.  Big companies have agencies and purchasing departments to handle that.  Small businesses have MarketingZone articles on Budgeting & Costs for Marketing

 

Trend #13:  LinkedIn works for B2B networking.  Search ads on LinkedIn may be an effective new way to attract new clients. 

TIP:  Marketing Yourself & Your Business on LinkedIn

 

Trend #14:  Facebook Fan pages and Facebook advertising.  Lots of potential and optimism.  Not much buzz about how effectively it all works for small businesses. 

TIP:  Facebook Marketing

 

Trend #15:  Social media marketing.  Over-hyped.  Needs to be used much more strategically.  It's free so lots of small businesses are trying it. 

TIP:  Our how-to guides on Social Media Marketing include articles to give you ideas, help you craft your strategy, and help you with how to measure social media marketing activities

Know this: The companies that seem to be making all the money during this social media revolution are the "infrastructure people", the companies that make tools and offer services to monitor social media.  Learn about Social Media Monitoring as a new way to listen and learn what your customers are saying online about you, your company and your competition. 

• Top Suppliers for Social Media Monitoring

 

Trend #16:  Referral marketing.  More and more consumers and B2B buyers are saying, "Please let a trusted friend tell me what I should do."  And small businesses are responding by learning all they can about how to get more referrals.

TIP:  How to Get More Referrals

Trend #17:  Advertising still seems to work if you have enough $$$ thanks to the media-multiplier effect of seeing an ad on TV, hearing a spot on the radio, seeing an ad in print and online.  But what small company can afford that type of ad campaign? 

TIP:  Best Free and Low Cost Advertising Ideas

Trend #18:  Mini catalogs that are sent to very targeted lists and promote the equivalent of in-store end caps with the best items and promotional offers to get someone to go to the retailers website. 

TIP:  How to Create and Print Catalogs

 

Trend #19:  Mobile marketing.  Mobile advertising.  Mobile-friendly websites.

Know this:  Many small business websites don't work for someone on a mobile phone.  That means missed sales! 

TIP:  You'll find how-to guides written by marketing experts on how to create a mobile website, how to create apps for phones, how to advertise on mobile cell phones, social media tools and services for mobile phone users and more.  Mobile Marketing

Trend #20:  Article marketing doesn't work so well now that Google changed their search algorithm to penalize "content farms."

TIP:  Get more ideas on How to Increase Website Traffic

 

 

Trend #21:  Word-of-mouth.  It's never been out of fashion. 

It's now just called something new like Viral Marketing and online it's called Social Media Marketing. 

Trend #22:  Printing innovations that increase relevancy, save money and are even good for the environment

• Digital printing
• Print on demand 
• Printing on your color office printer
• eBooks
  
• Book self publishing 
  
• Self publishing a magazine

Trend #23:  Direct mail postcards

• Bigger is better and so is getting them done through a one-stop online service. 
• Direct Mail Postcards How-to Guide
  

Trend #24:  Business networking and getting out of the office.

TIP:  learn how to be more effective at Business Networking, along with all the new tools to help you meet people in person and online

 

Trend #25:  Focus on reputation management online.  What to do about negative posts on blogs, Facebook and Twitter? 

TIP:  Lots to learn about.  Reputation Management How-to Guide and How to Handle Negative Comments on Blogs, Twitter and Facebook

 

Trend #26:  Google.  Google. Google.  They own ~70% of search volume.  Their tools are great and free.  They index new content 10X faster than other search engines.  They're offering free coupons for $75 and $100 to try their search ads. 

TIP:  Learn about all of Google's Tools for Marketing, along with the pros, cons and alternatives

Trend #27:  Choosing a marketing strategy of extreme targeting and relevance or spray and pray for a 1% response rate. 

TIP:  How to Develop A Winning Marketing Strategy that will give you a competitive edge for your small business.

Trend #28:  Market research, especially qualitative-quantitative.  That's research that has the benefits of a 1:1 interview or focus group (qualitative) and is conducted with enough people (quantitative) to make the results statistically valid and projectable.  

TIP:  Learn about all the different Market Research Methods, along with the pros, cons and costs.

Trend #29:  Tools and services to make it easier to monitor (eavesdrop on) social media conversations on Twitter, blogs, Facebook.

TIP:  Social Media Monitoring How-to Guide

 

Trend #30:  Reducing spending or eliminating reliance on printed Yellow Page (and ll the knock-off) directories.  Creating listings in online directories. Same strategy.

TIP:  Since half of small businesses don't yet have a website, many companies are offering a way to get listed online without having to have a website.  Clever.  Best Free and Low Cost Advertising Ideas

Trend 31:  Newspaper advertising in the local small town newspapers

Small businesses, especially retailers, realtors and restaurants, still continue to rely on ads in the local town newspapers like the Palo Alto Weekly (vs. the San Jose Mercury News).  These small town local papers have loyal readers and ad sales teams who work with small business owners in person to help them create and place ads.  These newspapers cover the news other papers don't:  pee wee football, high school sports, reporting on local education, town hall and city government.  They have "happy news" and feature stories about good things local people are doing and they mention as many people as possible in the paper each week.  Their readers tend to be the most involved and engaged people in town.  This combination of the paper's reporting and their high-touch sales consulting for advertising continues to work well.  Too bad these trusted local newspaper ad sales reps can't sell small business other means of reaching their target audience. 

Know this:  Readership of these local newspapers tends to be about 50% of the residents and not everyone reads the paper each week so if you're a small business that wants to reach people in a town, you'll need to do more than advertise in the local newspaper.  

TIP:  Get advice on Newspaper Advertising to make your small business ads more effective. 

 

Trend #32:  Starting a blog and then realizing it's too much work to post 3X week and drive traffic and run your business.

Know this:  with article marketing becoming less effective at driving website traffic, more people seem to want to learn about Blogs & Blogging

 

Trend #33:  One-stop online services.  They're now offering direct mail lists, websites, coordinated marketing brochures with flyers, promotional logo wear.  (No, we didn't get paid to mention them). 

TIP:  Top Printing Suppliers

 

Trend #34:  Getting paid to recommend something (also known as affiliate marketing).

• When we asked a blogger who shall remain nameless to include a link to MarketingZone, we heard back, "The companies that I list as 'alignment of interests' are the companies that I advise and have either an investment or options in."  Now that's taking affiliate marketing to a whole new level. Get stock to recommend a company or service.

Know this:  We don't get paid by anyone to mention or recommend any company or product on MarketingZone.  Top Marketing Suppliers

Trend #35:  Templates and tools to make marketing easier for novices.  It's not as easy (yet) as a cake mix but it's getting there.

TIP:  How To Use Templates for Marketing explains what templates are available and explains the pros, cons and realities of using them

 

Trend #35:  Hiring marketing freelancers and specialists and marketing consultants instead of full-service marketing agencies. 

TIP:   Find Marketing Experts to Hire

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