{"id":19720,"date":"2016-01-08T15:40:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T15:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/08\/the-5-marketing-and-branding-predictions-to-guide-your-small-business-in-2016\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:32:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:32:51","slug":"the-5-marketing-and-branding-predictions-to-guide-your-small-business-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/the-5-marketing-and-branding-predictions-to-guide-your-small-business-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Marketing and Branding Predictions to Guide your Small Business in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s that time of the year again. Marketers and business owners, alike, are clamoring about, trying to compile and analyze the data that will map out the trends we should all be following for the new year.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And though there is an onslaught of trend prediction blog posts and articles, finding the trends that are applicable to your business specifically will be far from an easy task.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is mainly because there are so many facets of marketing to talk about. There\u2019s inbound marketing, design, social media marketing, enterprise marketing, technical marketing, and small business marketing &#8211; just to name a few.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How are you going to cut through the noise and clutter to find some actionable tactics that will help you start the year off with a solid marketing plan?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019ve decided to pull our resources and research to give you a simple list of some actionable trends to look out for this year: <\/span><\/p>\n<p>1) Having conversations. <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The days of one-sided monologues are over. In order to gain credibility with potential customers, you need to be able to have a conversation with them. This means being active on social media, paying attention and responding to comments, and engaging with your audience regularly and genuinely. The reason why having conversations is projected to still be important in 2016 is because\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.business2community.com\/social-media\/why-social-media-listening-is-key-to-your-marketing-strategy-01244017#vkrjGZF9O6TKjxq5.97\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">there\u2019s so much value in adding it to your marketing strategy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Consider employing social listening and nontraditional social media tactics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>2) Content marketing.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This has almost become a buzzword in 2015 and<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/marketinginsidergroup.com\/content-marketing\/20-content-marketing-predictions-2016\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2016 will be no different<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; except now people will have measurable results from its success. If you do not have a content marketing strategy in 2016, you will most assuredly lose out on potential customers. Why? Because marketing in 2016 will be all about lead nurturing and relationship building. These tactics can best be put into place by a solid content marketing strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>3) Human imagery<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. What do we mean by human imagery? Well, the trends are moving away from the overly staged, stock imagery visuals.\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/contentmarketinginstitute.com\/2015\/06\/create-authentic-images\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People want to connect with real images<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. So the next time you\u2019re looking for images to use in your branding, <a href=\"https:\/\/groomandstyle.com\/inner-photographer-making-most-your-camera\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" aria-label=\"(Opens a new window)\">consider some authentic images<\/a> of your company and operations or make use of infographics and video.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>4) Mobile optimization.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you haven\u2019t optimized your online presence for mobile use,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/3qdigital.com\/seo-2\/7-seo-predictions-for-2016-social-local-and-mobile-optimization-are-king\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">you\u2019re falling far behind<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2016 will likely be the year that mobile usage surpasses traditional desktop usage in all aspects including information search, social media access, and email access. In order to ensure that you\u2019re abiding by this trend, update your website with a responsive design and make sure it\u2019s easy to click-through to your content via mobile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>5) Engaging, genuine and consistent branding.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Again, potential customers want to connect with something real so the times of smoke and mirrors in business are over. Full visibility in business is going to be a requirement in the years to come. In order to make a strategy of full visibility work well, you must have consistent branding and a consistent message. This means having the same message on your website that you have on your branding stationery, your sales pitches, your social media marketing and all other aspects of your online and offline presence.\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/online-brand-strategy\/brand-development\/offline-brand-communications\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Offline branding also comes into play with this trend<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The way you present yourself is going to be huge for small businesses and you\u2019ll need to create an experience that\u2019s memorable. Consider creating an engaging and genuine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/step1\">logo<\/a> that you can use to connect all aspects of your business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We hope you were able to use this post to identify some actionable tactics that will help you devise a solid plan for 2016. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s imperative to have a solid marketing strategy for 2016 and for small businesses, it begins with engaging and consistent branding.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To try an online\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/step1\">logo maker<\/a>, or purchase <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/business-cards\/start\">business cards<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/promotional-products\">promotional products<\/a>, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\">www.freelogoservices.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s that time of the year again. Marketers and business owners, alike, are clamoring about, trying to compile and analyze the data that will map out the trends we should all be following for the new year. And though there is an onslaught of trend prediction blog posts and articles, finding the trends that are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-offline-promotion"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The 5 Marketing and Branding Predictions to Guide your Small Business in 2016 | FreeLogoServices<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We pulled our resources and research to give you a simple list of some actionable small business marketing trends to look out for this year.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/the-5-marketing-and-branding-predictions-to-guide-your-small-business-in-2016\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 5 Marketing and Branding Predictions to Guide your Small Business in 2016 | FreeLogoServices\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We pulled our resources and research to give you a simple list of some actionable small business marketing trends to look out for this year.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/the-5-marketing-and-branding-predictions-to-guide-your-small-business-in-2016\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FreeLogoServices\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-08T15:40:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" 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