2010 was a difficult year for many businesses, very hard work, at times very busy, but on the whole a struggle. With public sector cuts now coming through there is still a lot of uncertainty yet figures show a 17% increase in retail the week before Christmas, so we obviously weren’t that concern ed! But what about 2011?

The press will have us believe it’s still doom and gloom out there and I do believe there is another tough year ahead. However signs are that people are fed up of waiting for things to happen and are getting on with it. It’s what we are good at…

See how marketing trends for 2011 might be able to help your business…

Always in touch

With the explosion of mobile communications we are always in touch. iPhones and Blackberry’s mean that we are online, on email, on Facebook, on Twitter etc constantly. And it’s not just the younger generation. Consider your customers and how you can communicate with them on their mobile devices. Does your website view correctly on an iPhone or Blackberry? Or do you have a product or service that would benefit from an App? If you haven’t considered these options you might need to think about them in 2011.

Over half of mobile phone users (52%) are using their mobile devices to update Facebook and 24% use it to update Twitter.
Facebook traffic surpassed Google’s in 2010!
Skype said it had 25 million users.

Are you social?

The figures continue to grow. 2010 was definitely the year of social media and 2011 will be no different. Amazingly there is still a lot of uncertainty about how to channel social media in your business. And there’ll be a lot of wasted time and possibly money in 2011 trying to find out what works. My advice is to treat social media as any other marketing tool. Does it help you to communicate with your clients? Are your clients using social media and which ones? Once you start, make sure you have a strategy and understand what you want to achieve, don’t just fall into the trap of Tweeting… “having a busy day, going to a meeting now” just to have something to say. Make it useful, interesting and share information, that’s what will get you noticed. Do not underestimate the amount of time you can spend on social media. It can be addictive and eats up a lot of time if you are not careful. Like email you should schedule pockets of time set aside to deal with it. If you find you are reacting to Tweets every time they pop in you will find your day will soon disappear! So do your research in 2011, find out if it’s right for your business and control it and be targeted like any other marketing activity.

We want content

Good, relevant content is still highly regarded by Google. But remember your audience too. Those businesses with websites that make it difficult for us to navigate and find the information we are looking for are doomed in 2011. We want content, but we want it now, faster and with less clicks. We want answers to our questions very quickly. We don’t want to have to wade through reams of text to find it either otherwise we will be off to the next website. Take a good hard look at your website content. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What do they want to know and do you make it easy for them? Or do you hide those benefits behind all that waffle about how good you are and how long your business has been running. Get it sorted, you see a dramatic increase in enquiries or potential sales from your website.

Email marketing end of an era

Email marketing has had a lot of bad press in 2010. Everyone seems to be doing it don’t they? And aren’t we all getting fed up of those newsletters that we get all the time? No, everyone isn’t doing it, and many of those who are doing it, are doing it really rather badly, which gives everyone else a bad name. A very targeted, relevant newsletter is still one of the most cost effective, efficient and timely ways of communicating with your audience. It’s not a hard sell, in fact it’s not a sell at all, it’s a drip, drip, drip reminder that you are there. An opportunity to get your brand out in front of your audience, to remind them about your products and services and how you can help their business. Done badly, it is junk mail, seen as trying to catch you out or get you to sign up to something you don’t want. Email marketing should be part of your marketing mix but you need to do it well.

Protect your brand at all costs

Now there are so many different forms of communicating, on and off line, we have to be even more careful about protecting our brand. What I mean here by brand is not just your logo. Your brand is everything to do with your business. How your business is viewed, what you say, your ethos and your actions. It becomes much harder to control your brand on Facebook and Twitter, the rules are suddenly very different. We have less control and we sometimes forget who we are and that we are talking socially. You are still fronting your business and there are many examples of the ‘wrong thing’ said by business owners or employees that can damage a reputation very quickly. Equally, the way your branding is viewed on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Does it reflect the colours, the language, the fonts etc from your website? You can personalise all of these pages to a certain degree and if you are going to use social media, do it properly and make it look professional. Brand your email marketing newsletters, in fact every opportunity you get to communicate with your customers or potential customers is an opportunity to showcase your brand – who you are and what you are all about – don’t waste that opportunity but equally, don’t damage it either.

If you need help about any of these marketing trends for 2011 give First Impression a call on 01457 857111 or email.