2024 — The Vital Trends

We head into 2024 with an unprecedented level of change and breakthroughs in the Entrepreneurial world. But also a year with more than its fair share of potential threats.

Your ability to juggle the two — seizing the opportunities while building protection from the threats — is probably going to be the single biggest factor in the success you experience in 2024.

Furthermore, the urgency of tackling those two tasks is greater than ever. One of the biggest trends I’m seeing is the disappearance of the Entrepreneurial "middle class". Despite my efforts to persuade everyone over the last two decades to engage in leading-edge Marketing, the blunt truth for many years has been that the majority of businesses were able to coast along without doing so. They would rely primarily on referrals, never achieving anything spectacular but surviving nonetheless.

Those days are over. For several reasons, primarily economic but also related to the consequences of your competitors engaging in sophisticated marketing and you not. That middle ground of lazy businesses is being wiped out. You’re either going up — or you’re going out.

So the most important thing you may need to do to engineer success in 2024 is change your thinking and your sense of urgency around the acquisition of customers.

So here are just some of the trends you should be paying attention to in 2024:

1. Artificial Intelligence For Customer Acquisition

Chat GPT is not the most important AI tool for business owners. Your most important AI tool is the AI that drives Google Ads, closely followed by the AI that drives Facebook/Instagram advertising. Using these platforms (and LinkedIn if you’re in B2B) and using them effectively is all about managing the AI.

2. Artificial Intelligence For
Business Efficiency And Increased Profit Margins 

This is where you do want to make the most of Chat GPT. 2024 will be the year of the AI Revolution in business efficiency. Many of the day-to-day tasks your business does, from data work to customer support, will be able to be done for close to zero cost by AI.

The most significant development looks to be Microsoft’s Copilot. This basically attaches the power behind Chat GPT to all of the main Microsoft tools such as Excel, Outlook and Word — plus some very cool customer support options.

If you have a business with over 500k in sales and want to be at the leading edge of all this, speak to our official IT partner Ziptech Services. Contact Jim Simpson [email protected]

 3. Going Offline 

I know. I just told you how AI is taking over the world. So I hope you’re good with paradoxes. I’ve seen a very interesting trend this year amongst very successful businesses, including mine. Increasingly, these high-achieving businesses are finding there’s a limit to what they can do online.

Yes, of course, we want to be in front of people when they search on Google, and we want to market effectively on Facebook, Instagram, etc. But the idea that this will reach everyone in your potential audience is naïve. For many, it’s still the case that to find everyone, you’re going to need to go offline.

Here’s an example for you: a local aesthetic and beauty business that is a Private Client of mine. They’re doing everything on Google and Facebook, backed up by sophisticated Email Marketing. But that’s still only going to reach a proportion of affluent women aged over 40 in their target area — their ideal audience. So we’ve acquired a consumer list of people who meet those criteria and are about to launch a direct mail campaign to that list.

In 2024, don’t just get hooked on the shiny new objects. The future of your business does not depend on you being on TikTok.

4. Multi-Step Marketing Funnels
For EXISTING Customers 

Everyone knows that you need a multi-step marketing system for getting new customers, e.g. Google, website, split testing landing pages, email follow-up, remarketing, telemarketing, etc. Until you can clearly articulate your multi-step process for acquiring customers, you’re not really in the game. But that’s just half the story.

One of my main areas of focus for 2024 is going to be insisting that my Private Clients have a SECOND multistep funnel for selling more to existing customers. For various reasons, including the difficulty and expense of getting new customers, much of your profitability in 2024 is going to have to come from selling more to your existing customers. Yet if you’re honest with yourself, you will be smart enough to admit that your marketing systems for doing that are woefully inadequate.

You’re probably not sending enough emails or doing enough remarketing, direct mail or telemarketing to your customers. If you change your approach, you can still get to Entrepreneurial heaven. But you’d better hurry.

It’s Decision Time

You have two very significant decisions to make about all this. The first decision is important. The second is critical.

The important decision is, are you actually going to do all of this or just carry on as you are? Are you going to make the time now to sort out your Marketing once and for all? The future of your business depends on you getting this decision right.

The critical decision is deciding who is going to implement all this for you. The first decision without the second is just good intentions. It’s ALL about the implementation.

I run the world’s fastest-growing Digital Marketing Agency, and bluntly, you should be using me and my team to implement all this for you because we’re the best in the world — and we’re global, so we can look after you wherever you are in the world. The second reason you should use us is that getting the implementation decision wrong can wreak havoc on a business and take months or years to recover from. With me and the team, you’re in safe hands.

I am in the process of taking on my new Private Clients for 2024. As a Private Client, I effectively become your Marketing Director and my 60-strong team becomes your Marketing team, implementing everything. There are some qualifying criteria, including that the investment needs to be effectively Free for you. This means that the £5000/$6000 per month fee is easily paid for by the huge profit increases we’re going to create for you. If you want to be considered to be a 2024 Private Client, email Hollie at [email protected].