Hello Reader,

I'm still working on refreshing my 2024 Holidays Calendar for gCal. If you haven't subscribed, go here. For those of you who already subscribed to 2023, I'm going to leave the link the same. In the meantime, here are my predictions for 2024.
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Small, local businesses will activate creators and work with influencers

Small budgets welcome.

Local businesses that thought they had to pony up $1,000 for an influencer to vlog about their product or service will realize they can do this on a smaller scale. This means setting aside a budget to pay others to make content, likely UGC videos or sponsored content.

Building relationships.

Using digital platforms to interact with your customers, as if they were right in front of your storefront or office. There is only so much AI can do for you. Until you can build a M3GAN for customer service, word of mouth marketing, and influencer outreach, you're going to do this yourself. Customer service is #1. What can you do to build a reputation of a good product/service and good customer service?

Slow and steady is OK.

Email marketing remains important.

I always say social is being on borrowed land. You want a "place" that you own, where you can collect email addresses and phone numbers, and be able to contact your customers if needed. SMS marketing works, especially if you sell products; promotional and transactional texts are helpful. This young generation prefers to text, so get ahead (or catch up) and text.

You can segment your email lists and create different types of emails based on interests, purchases, and so on.

Keep them simple, easy to read, and add a great subject line.

If you haven't started, get yourself an account on Mailchimp. Or Flodesk. Or my email service provider (ESP), ConvertKit.

Paid Ads reconsidered.

Paid ads like PPC (pay per click) on Google search results pages, social ads like Pinterest pins or sponsored influencer ads need to be considered in 2024. Take the approach of going at it at both ends: social side and the web/search side. I would seriously consider Google Ads next year.

Facebook, as much I cannot stand their constant changes to Business Manager/Meta Business Suite, is still a strong ads platform for many small, local businesses. TikTok might be a contender, if your audience is there. Pinterest is still that low-lying superstar that, maybe in 2024, will have a larger footprint in the news.

Relevant content.

If you know your customer well, then content creation and marketing shouldn't be a big struggle. You know their pain points, you know their triggers, you know the language that perks up their ears. What do customers value?

Use that to your advantage on digital content, just as you do when you are speaking to a customer face-to-face: website content, social media, email, SMS, influencers, press, and so on. By using words and phrases and questions that customers say or think or write, we're optimizing the content to also be found on search.

What do you think is going to get big next year? Let me know your predictions.

• ​I'm glad to see this, but I'm bummed it's growth in the pod machines bc of the waste it produces. I'm a proud owner of a second-hand espresso machine.
• ​Old people creators are some of my favorite creators. They were late in the blogging game but on social, they give no fcks.
• This couple's Spice Girls lipsync makes me grin so hard. 🕺🏻🕺🏻You may remember them from this Reel/TikTok.
• For those of you looking for jobs, please be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. I repost roles when I see interesting ones for creators, social media folks, and marketing leaders.

I want to know...

What is one thing that was overhyped this year?

One more email is coming to you next week. I'll update my calendar and be sure to blast to you all.

Have a wonderful week and happy holidays.

Chris

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