What’s in store for ecommerce and digital marketing in 2014?

We're seeing increasing investment being made in cross-channel ecommerce and m-commerce. Providing seamless customer buying experiences across multiple channels and platforms means making your products and services available wherever your customers are buying. While it is relatively easy nowadays for smaller online retailers and business to initiate an ecommerce store front, establishing a cross-channel business will be the new challenge to embrace in 2014.

Whilst there is a growing divide between big and small businesses, we will see more and more businesses investing in ecommerce. Whether it's splitting out separate brands or new product opportunities, businesses have solutions such as Magento community and Magento multi-store front to choose from. Whether your a business just starting out or an existing business looking to enhance your online performance, Magento is a secure, robust and scaleable platform on which to build your retail business.

In terms of digital marketing, a holistic, planned strategy is needed ahead of a more ad-hoc approach. Planned content strategy including an integrated approach to blog writing, link earning, outreach, social media management, and PPC are all instrumental in affecting a website's ability to rank highly in the search engines. In addition to content strategy, marketers will be putting more focus than ever on improving website's conversion rate in 2014.

Finally a word about paid media. Opportunities to pursue targeted online advertising will become more of a consideration next year. Done well, targeted advertising will allow companies to reach specific niche audiences with highly relevant messages. Micro-targeting new leads through particular niche publications, both online and in print, will become more of a priority for digital marketers .