HI @rachelagheyisi   — Nice article.

I know the order of the items is random (yes?) but I’d consider #4 to be perhaps actually #1 – then #1 on the list to be actually #2.  After that you’re on your own! 

Programming knowledge (#4) has always been something people need for a web presence.  We’ve seen the rise of self made websites that don’t GO anywhere because the people paying $60 for a year’s worth of website/hosting don’t have a clue as to how to get those website listed anywhere except in free obscure directories and to advertise them via social media.  Plus the templates, although easy to set up may not have all the code necessary to suggest to the search engines what is important and what is not. So SEO must come into play.

Mix clean (good) programming with SEO knowledge you can come up a winner without ever opening a Social Media account. – THUS my OH!pinion that #4 should be #1.

Social Media is here to stay so I elect that dropping that to #2 would be a natural progression.  I have more but wonder what other opinions might be given here by more members first.

Speak up folks – What’s YOUR opinion? 

Eileen

@rachelagheyisi Thanks for the article. I have seen mention of direct marketing on other 2013 lists. I still look through my junk mail before recycling

I see texting/SMS growing along with more second-screen/personalized advertising. The (regular) TV advertisers will soon a plethora of options to target consumers if the technology and privacy concerns pan out. Verizon, et. al. are starting to use the set-up box data to target: http://paidcontent.org/2012/11/30/coming-in-2013-targeted-tv-ads/

Obviously there are probably more but these two seem more eminent to me.

i hate junjk mail….but  when we send   snail mail to our    customers i   dont consider  that junk mail…..   in other words i  havent  given up on  snail mail…. for our  company we think  it    does  work….but it isnt   like  the  data base  you would  buy  …ours is   to   real  people who  have signed up to get our mail…….

Listed below is an article from my blog marketingideasfornewagebusinesses.blogspot.com. You can replace jewelry portal owners with similar nouns like garment, boutique, and so on. The idea I feel is evergreen and can be leveraged for long-term value creation.
An internet marketing idea for jewelry portal owners
As an owner of a jewelry brand, you also maintain a portal that provides World Wide Web visitors with update on jewelry products on sale as well as facility to place order online. You obviously maintain contents of your jewelry portal in same caring way as jewelry pieces that you produce and are proud to sell to your customers.
You may be looking for innovative internet marketing ideas to boost brand visibility of your jewelry products. An out-of-box idea that is suggested in this article is to provide customers a facility to read entertainment-related contents. Such contents can be password protected: meaning once a customer signs in for a particular product, he or she given a user name and password to access. Or, you may start a separate section on your jewelry portal that is focused on such contents. 
You may think of having gradual copyrights of some really rich contents. It will be then your responsibility to protect copyrights of contents for which you have invested and maximize gains.

The content appearing is suggested to be evergreen, meaning they should be as interesting and relevant 10 to 15 years down the line as today. The idea is not to make them related with day-to-day news flow. Going forward, you may think of building a rich library by integrating copyrighted contents with audio-visuals like animation, cartoon, music leveraging technologies and platforms like YouTube. 

Though not directly in the business of jewelry, take the case of Shaadi.com which is one of the leading online matrimonial service providers in India. They have created interesting, content-rich website. The content on this website is the property of ShaadiTimes which affiliates too can use after permission and paying a certain fee.