Small Business Marketing Trends 2014

Small business owners are in a great position to harness the power of marketing to drive leads and interest in their companies. But deciding where, how and what to deploy their limited resources is a significant challenge. Here are three ideas about the three areas in which we'll see small businesses succeed in 2014. 

Better Social Media: Most small business owners have been pretty overwhelmed by social media platforms as marketing tools. This year they will find ways to better utilize social media platforms to promote their brands. For many of them, the focus will be on the big platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, which each have demonstrated value to consumers and their own unique take on communication. The key is to choose the platform that fits your target audience best and that you can commit to on a reasonable basis.

More Content: This year small businesses will join the trend of providing a significant quantity of content to draw customers in and keep them interested. Blogs, articles, white papers, slide shows, photos and videos are all great ways to attract attention and tell your story. They also help drive traffic to your website because they are search engine friendly.

Authentic Communication: Small businesses will increasingly seek ways to connect with customers using an authentic voice that stays true to the company’s personality. Small businesses are ideally situated to capitalize on this movement because they are still perceived as being run by people, whereas corporations are viewed as machine-like. This gives small businesses significant advantage in today’s authenticity-seeking marketplace.