Matt Travers is a Campaign Manager at Reload Media, Sunny Media’s digital marketing partner. Reload and QA work together to ensure that clients have an integrated marketing strategy across traditional and digital mediums. If you find this article useful, please share on your preferred social channel.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

What do you need to know about digital marketing in 2014? Well, there definitely is a world marketplace for more than 5 computers; in fact by the end of 2014 the number of personal computers in use is expected to topple 2 billion.

Take in to account the number of internet connected smart phones, tablets, watches and toasters (I wouldn’t be surprised) and you get yourself a great deal of consumer touch points if you’re a marketer.

In order to establish what you need to know about digital marketing in 2014, we need to take a step down Google lane and see how the industry has evolved so far.

Major milestones include the extreme growth of Google AdWords, display advertising and the uprising of mobile internet use.

So what can we expect this year?

Content marketing has already taken shape as one of the most important activities that your site/brand should be undertaking.

2014 will see content marketing not as an add-on to your digital marketing activity, but a necessity. If the Google search results were a mountain and your website a car, you better hope your filling the fuel tank with the premium unleaded 98 version of content; that provides value and helps your target market. Once your fuel tank is full, it’s all about how you drive it to ensure you reach the top of the mountain.

Mobile continues to grow rapidly, with search advertising on mobile devices expected to grow by 76% in 2014 and mobile banner advertising expected to grow by 100%. Mobile is a piece of the digital marketing pie (it’s a big pie) that you can’t ignore!

Social media is another hot topic when it comes to digital marketing. From a recent survey, 100% of business decision makers use social media for work purposes, 79% of marketers have integrated social media into their traditional marketing activities, and 33% of consumers cite social networks as a way they discover new brands, products or services. Social media is proving to be a great introduction piece to your marketing. Is your business utilising social to it’s full potential?

Driving a well-planned content, mobile and social strategy is all well and good…from a micro perspective. Making sure you look at the bigger picture and try and gain as much leverage off each channel is really what 2014 is going to be all about. Marketers will be looking to gain as much leverage as possible from offline channels to the online world, which, as proven by Google, is where the majority of consumer research is undertaken when looking for a product or service.

So don’t be surprised if more and more TV/radio ads plug specific URLs instead of a phone number or if a newspaper offer is redeemable purely online rather than in store.

So in short, what you need to know is leverage, leverage, and leverage. Visualise your marketing plan on a cork board and connect the dots if you have to, because chances are that there are consumer touch points you are missing out on due to placing your marketing activity in silos.

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Matt Travers, Campaign Manager, Reload Media