It’s customary for mobile tech companies to show off their new products at heavy-hitter trade show events like the Consumer Electronics Show and Mobile World Congress (MWC). However, mobile phone marketers are increasingly hawking their wares via traditional TV advertising and social media, banner ads, point-of-purchase displays and more.

Marketing execs at Apple, Samsung and Google (to name a few) are feeding hungry consumers their newest models and features with marketing slogans, celebrity endorsements and special YouTube content. The tactics successfully tease potential and existing customers into a state of anticipation for the latest new-phone launch.

There's the upcoming Google Nexus phone, which is enjoying a strong run-up in sales due its increasingly low price point for consumers and its relentless focus on quality. Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering for Google, recently promised on a Google+ thread that the next Nexus phone will have “insanely great cameras.”

And of course, there was the recent launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 on March 14 in New York City. As one of the most anticipated gadgets slated for a 2013 release, the Galaxy S4 is featured in Samsung’s star-studded ad campaigns featuring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan (for Galaxy S4) and Tim Burton (for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0).

In the global mobile landscape, Samsung's “Next Big Thing” campaign appears to be working; according to the Communities Dominate blog, they're dominating worldwide sales of smartphones, with almost 31 percent of the market share. Apple is second with 19.5 percent.

Where Was Apple at the MWC?

At the recent Mobile World Congress, Apple was intentionally absent. Part of the reason is that Apple famously chooses to throw Apple-branded events for big announcements. But even more eye-opening is the very public fact that Apple hasn’t released a new product for six months. Industry speculation points to a possible next iPhone launch as early as Q3 of this year.

There are the ongoing and endless rumors of an iTV launch, though TV/tech enthusiasts will tell you they've been hearing about that one for a while now. Apple investors haven’t been impressed with the brand’s stagnate performance and it’s one of the reasons stocks have plummeted in the last six months.

Samsung Winning the Mobile Race?

It’s hard to ignore Samsung’s constant innovation; they're the tortoise to the Apple’s hare in the adage, “slow and steady wins the race.” The New York Times agrees, writing, "Senior executives at mobile network operators, the companies that sell the bulk of Samsung and Apple phones around the world, said Samsung's rise to the top had not been an accident but the product of a methodical, longterm strategy to offer a more affordable, accessible alternative to Apple.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Mobile Markets Are Big for 2013?

According to BrandChannel.com, Apple, like Samsung and other technology giants, has been seeking growth opportunities in the emerging markets commonly referred to as the "BRIC" countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), contrary to the maturing mobile markets in Europe and the United States.

The Apple-Samsung war is tough going – in India, for example, Apple is struggling to make headway against a dominant Samsung, which was recently ranked as one of India's top three most trusted brands. The other two top brands were Sony and Nokia. Apple has yet to create a solid brand strategy in that notable market.

The mood among the nation's small business owners is picking up.

After the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index plunged 28 points to -11 in November 2012, the most pessimistic level in two years, the most recent index indicated small business owners are feeling more optimistic: The index improved 20 points to +9 for the first quarter of 2013. The survey, conducted Jan. 7-11, signifies increased optimism among business owners about their overall financial situation for the next 12 months. Seventy-one percent of business owners expect the number of jobs at their companies to remain the same during this time, and 17 percent expect to add jobs in the next year, too.

What's the prognosis for your business over the next 12 months? Are you feeling less gloomy about its future, as well? Every small business owner contends with issues surrounding market size, competition and demand, but the internal factors that focus on operations, strategy and leadership are within your control. Smart small business owners know that attention to these areas keep them out of the red:

Price for Profitability

Identifying your profitable price point is key to keeping business in the black. If you find you need to raise your prices, there are several approaches you may take. Roy Rasmussen, author of "Cloud Computing Simplified for Small Businesses," recommends distinguishing yourself from your competition by offering an additional value or bonus that justifies a higher price. Investigate introducing an additional product or service line that you can sell to your customers for repeat business, and consider switching your target market to include a higher-income demographic, such as professionals in a niche market. Depending on the business you're in, a few repeat customers or clients with an American Express Gold card in their wallets can be just the boost you need to maintain a profit.

Staff for Efficiency

Hire people who are passionate about the industry you're in and believe in the product or service you provide. Consider part-time employees and freelancers, as well – according to a recent Elance survey, small businesses are shifting to hiring part-time employees and contracting projects out for specific skill sets. By being open to using these types of employees, small business owners not only save money on full-time salaries and benefit packages, but they won't have to lay off full-time employees should business slow down. The number of full-time employees who quit and turn to freelance will triple in 2013, and that leaves small business owners with many qualified, and oftentimes less expensive, options for staffing.

Step Up the Tech

To be a smart and effective small business owner, you and your team need to step up the technology game. We're not talking exclusively about posting Facebook updates or Twitpics; we're referring to utilizing advanced technologies and software to maximize their potential and increase income for your business. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends investing in select technology services such as:

Accounting software. Accounting software enables you to see your profits and losses at a glance and can help you design and maintain a budget for your business.

Planning software or tools. There are many online planning systems that help you keep your calendar organized. Find a system that meets your business needs and stick with it.

Time-tracking software. A time-tracking program helps determine what tasks result in a profit and what tasks do not, and therefore can be eliminated, outsourced or improved. For software that requires a fee, ask for a free trial first to make sure it’s right for you.

In addition, there are a variety of data tracking systems for people who don't like Microsoft Excel or whose business has outgrown spreadsheets. It may be time to investigate if one can help you save money and time.

Expand Your Focus

Don’t preach to the choir; there is no need to continuously focus your marketing efforts on those who are already invested in your brand. Find new fans. While it is important to remain loyal to your customers, do not disregard the importance on focusing on those who haven’t experienced your brand. Jason Rzepka, vice president of public affairs at MTV, told tedxpresidio.org, “If you always target the converted user, you're not reaching the audience that you could if only you thought more broadly.”

Think Outside the (American) Box

In today’s global economy, small to midsize businesses are encouraged to research and engage in foreign markets. The middle class is emerging strongly in developing nations, with many looking to do business with Americans. According to the SBA, nearly 96 percent of the world's consumers live outside the USA and two-thirds of the world’s purchasing power is in foreign countries. When considering a global business, Carolita Oliveros, an attorney who specializes in international business, told indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com, “One of the first steps in preparing your business for foreign markets is to assure the protection of your intellectual property, and it begins in the planning process… establish your business in the form of an LLC or a corporation and make sure to file for trade names and patents.” She also suggests businesses develop a business plan that includes some consideration to all aspects of exporting their goods or service across international borders.

By the Numbers, Email is King

When it comes to digital marketing, email communication is as classic as it gets. When done effectively, email marketing can drive a significant amount of traffic to your business; consider these numbers, courtesy of the 2012 Channel Preference Survey, conducted by the digital marketing group ExactTarget:

• 96 percent of online consumers use email at least weekly
• 66 percent have made a purchase after receiving an email marketing message
• 76 percent prefer email over all other channels for customer service messages
• 66 percent of teens (ages 15-17) prefer email over all other channels for permission-based marketing
• Email marketing drives more consumers to make a purchase than Facebook and text messaging combined

To put the popularity of email into context, this helpful graph from GovDelivery shows the breadth of users across various communication platforms.

• If Facebook were a country: Population: 850 million. It would be the world’s third-largest country, bigger than North and South America combined
• If Twitter were a country: Population: 200 million, bigger than Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan
• If email users formed a country: Population 2.9 billion. It would be an empire.

Email marketing is untouchable because of its immense user base and the way it brings targeted messages into users’ most personal digital space – their personal inbox. There are variances in email approaches and strategies and new advancements in email marketing software that aid in this process, and here are some tips to get you started:

Use a catchy subject line. No pressure, but the fate of your email rests in the 50-something characters used in your subject line. Avoid spam-friendly language such as “free,” “act now” and “limited time” – these words will send your email straight into spam purgatory. Never use all-capital letters (why would you yell at a potential customer?) and cool it with the exclamation points (ditto – why are you exclaiming? It! sniffs! of! overstatement!). "Reminder” is another word that usually causes users to click “delete” right off the bat.

Make the design user-friendly. Your email communication must be both responsive and scalable. Users must be able to take action, whether they are viewing it on their mobile device or desktop computer, so scale your content to be viewed on multiple platforms. “For all the sophistication of mobile devices, email marketers see the most success with layouts that have as little noise [i.e., graphics, photos and video] as possible and the call to action visible without scrolling," Dean Levitt, chief of culture at email marketing software provider Mad Mimi, told CIO.com.

Value the importance of permissions marketing. Because your customers are highly valued and have opted to receive messages from your brand, it's important to communicate with value. Your emails should offer relevant substance and value to your readers. Bring news, brand insights, customer survey information and more to the table. Avoid puffery and pumped up nothingness in the body copy. Have your readers see the effort of substance that your brand is putting forth, and how you are staying true to your company’s brand and mission statement.

Make the user want to read your email. What motivated people to sign up for your emails in the first place? Knowing this will help you understand them as a community and facilitate delivering what they want. Are they looking for discounts? Do they want something to do? Provide them with relevant content other than your featured promotion. In return for their time and loyalty, engage with them to inspire their curiosity.

Give a call to action above the fold. Provide a link, special promotion or other eye-catching tactic on the initial screen, without no need to scroll down. A clear call to action drives the reader to take the next step toward conversion.

Finally, before you click “send” … Make sure your address list is accurate before you send your email. A recent Experian survey found that more than 90 percent of companies suspected that up to 25 percent of their data is inaccurate. Look at the number of bounce-backs or routinely un-opened emails.

Remember, your marketing emails are sharing valuable real estate with consumers’ personal messages. Consistently give them something they want. To ensure deliverability, research how users like to receive updates (all posts, limited information, etc.) and determine what day and time are the most effective when it comes to open rates and click-thrus.

Among these, maybe the least surprising is a postage hike. According to Pitney Bowes Small Business, a price increase on postal rates of 2.75 percent went into effect on Jan. 27. If you rely on postage as an integral part of your business or use postage for marketing purposes, you will see price increases.

Small business owners can be more creative in their use of postal services to help offset the increase. Others may finally switch their print-mailed campaigns efforts to email marketing campaigns. In any case, these new increases can run into thousands of dollars for high-volume shippers.

There are three important things small business owners need to know about the 2013 postage increase:

* Low-cost shipping solutions are being eliminated.

* Retail shipping rates are rising an average of 5-10 percent.

* The Intelligent Mail barcode will give business owners and customers more power when it comes to tracking their items.

Here are details of the 2013 USPS postage increase:

New single-piece First-Class Mail pricing includes:

Postcards: 1-cent increase to 33 cents.

Letters (1 ounce or less): 1-cent increase to 46 cents.

Letters over 1 ounce: unchanged at 20 cents per ounce.

Letters for international destinations (1 ounce or less): $1.10.

New domestic retail pricing for Priority Mail Flat Rate products include:

Small box — $5.80

Medium box — $12.35

Large box — $16.85

Large APO/FPO box — $14.85

Regular envelope — $5.60

Legal envelope — $5.75

Padded envelope — $5.95

The good news? The "Forever" stamps offered by the USPS continue to be true to their word. A one-ounce letter mailed using a Forever stamp can be used anytime in the future regardless of postal price adjustments. However, newly purchased Forever domestic stamps will have a 1-cent increase to 46 cents. An international Forever stamp that allows for world-wide mail will now cost $1.10.

Why the increase?

Each year, the USPS is allowed to raise rates if the proposed rate increase falls within the rate of inflation. What does this mean for small business owners? If small businesses export a lot of shipping, especially standard mail that is less than a pound, owners will be looking at overall price increases that could negatively impact profit margins or customer satisfaction if not properly handled.

What can small businesses do now to mitigate the impact?

1. Incur your shipping and mailing in-house

Postage meters are one of the most pragmatic and effective steps you can take to streamline your mailing efforts. The built-in postage scale ensures accurate weighing, and the meter’s printer quickly prints proper postage and postmark details on  envelopes or eliminating trips to the post office. Postage meters can receive automatic updates from the USPS, meaning most small business postage meters will never need to adjust their internal rates to USPS standards. All postage meters are licensed and registered with the USPS so they are leased rather than purchased.

2. Embrace Intelligent Mail barcodes

Intelligent Mail barcodes increase the ability to track individual mail pieces and provide business owners and customers with greater visibility into the mail stream. Intelligent Mail barcodes effectively incorporate the routing zip code and tracks delivery. These barcodes improve deliverability and overall efficiency. This improvement helps customers feel that they, along with the USPS, have accountability over individual mail pieces.

3. Purge your contact list of incorrect information

The correlation of databases to Intelligent Mail barcodes enables small businesses to track back data such as incorrect addresses to the original source.  By ridding your database of wrong addresses, you will be using your mail system more efficiently while eliminating wasted postage costs.

4. Explore new formats

When postage is essential to send materials to customers, the USPS Express and Priority mail options can save significant postage funds. These options have commercial base discounts – 36 percent and 19 percent savings, respectively.

Small businesses that use post mailing for promotional and marketing reasons may want to shift from mass mailing to more homed-in, targeted email marketing. The segment is growing, even if people's inboxes are getting overrun. Email has nearly three times as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined – 2.9 billion – and that was in 2012, as reported in BtoBonline.com.

Through email marketing systems, business owners get direct feedback on the effectiveness of their campaigns. Campaign Monitor and other email marketing systems provide insightful analytics in real-time reports. These tools show the sender who opened it, what they were interested in, who they sent it to and what links were clicked. These findings can help business owners refine their email campaigns and target ideal engagement.

With these tips, it’s important for small business owners to integrate the postage increase into their current pricing. Revisit current product pricing to mitigate any surprises that could show up months down the road.

Many businesses will put this added cost onto customer shipping fees. This may seem like the most logical solution to keep budgets intact, but it’s important to analyze the situation strategically and think long-term. Some small businesses may want to absorb that cost and see what impact it has on customer service before inflating prices on customer-based costs such as shipping.

Will 2013 be the year in which streaming digital TV goes mainstream? The numbers are in, and it doesn't look good for traditional cable TV.

A 2012 study by the ISI Group confirmed that American viewers continued to ditch their cable TV subscriptions in favor of accessing high-speed streaming services. Instead of flipping through “whatever's on TV” every night, these cord-cutters are hooking up their smartphones, laptops and tablets to traditional TV screens or gaming devices and accessing their programming via the Internet.

Cutting the Cable Cord

If you peruse cable.TV, you'll see an average cable package that includes 100-plus channels runs about $70-100 a month. Experience shows that most viewers regularly watch only four or five. What streaming digital TV offers is the ability for viewers to watch the content they want, when they want it, using much-cheaper (starting at about $8 a month) services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Apple TV, Roku and Slingbox. This may spell doom for cable operators, who are coming up with their own initiatives to prove their worth to current and potential subscribers.

They'd better hurry up. According to businessinsider.com, three of the nation's major cable TV players lost a total of 621,000 subscribers from 2011 to 2012. The ISI Group study projects that cable will decline into just one in three homes by 2017.

Younger Viewers Change the Tide

Not only are subscribers jumping ship from cable TV, but many of today's young Americans never had it in the first place. As Credit Suisse analyst Stefen Anniger told hollywoodreporter.com, the numbers for new cable subscribers are down, while the number of occupied homes in the U.S. is increasing.

Anniger called these viewers “cord-avoiders” and "cord-nevers," adding they may be the downfall of cable television. "

With younger viewers having grown up with alternatives to paid television, they are accustomed to beating the cable system with online streaming, DVDs, YouTube and other content enticements,” he said. “They are growing up in an Internet-based video culture, in which the mantra of 'Why pay for TV?' and 'Pay TV is a rip-off,' develop."

In Cable's Corner

One thing cable TV has going for it is its ability to bring live sports and local news to American living rooms. For sports fanatics and average Joes and Josephines who want their local nightly news, cable is still their best bet, and cable providers are the first to point out that streaming television lacks these two elements.

Some streaming services offer select national news programming such as CNN International, CBS News and BBC International, but cable companies know Americans like their local news via cable TV. Plus, hardcore sports viewers will likely opt for a providers' premium sport packages, which streaming services can't complete with, at least not yet.

Another way cable operators are boosting their numbers is with Internet broadband packages. Online streaming services require consumers to have a broadband Internet connection to access to their services, and these connections are provided by local cable companies. As a matter of fact, while pay TV numbers are down any which way you look at it, BusinessInsider.com reported that Time Warner Cable saw an increase of 59,000 Internet broadband subscribers in 2012.

Cable Fights Back

To prevent viewers from jumping ship, premium pay networks like HBO and Showtime are insisting on exclusive content. By refusing to offer their mega-hit shows to streaming services, fans of their shows must continue to subscribing with their local cable company. Access to hit shows like “Game of Thrones,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “Homeland” are reason enough for some viewers to stick with cable TV.

In addition, cable operators have stepped up to the challenge by offering on-demand services to supplement live television offerings. Comcast starter packages include most cable networks (think Bravo, ESPN, FX, HGTV and TNT), but the company now offers Xfinity On-Demand to subscribers through a premium subscription. Xfinity On-Demand offers programming outside their allotted networks, such as DIY and OWN.

More Trouble Ahead

While it may be too soon to label cable obsolete, there's a battle brewing between content creators and cable companies on costs and access for programming that doesn't bode well for the old guard.

Last year, a well known satellite company dropped network programing by AMC. This was followed by another major company dropping 26 Viacom channels. The dropped channels included fan favorites like Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. Again, this was a battle over costs, due to AMC and Viacom’s demand for increased rates to access their channels.

Time Warner Cable dropped the low-performing and pricey network Ovation, and recently warned subscribers that there's no guarantee it will continue to carry channels whose contracts expire soon. That means mainstays E!, Lifetime and Starz are candidates for the chopping block. This action is part of Time Warner Cable's CEO Glenn Britt’s platform to rationalize the company’s bloated channel offerings, according to The Wall Street Journal.

What's Next?

Is this the end for cable TV? It's too early in the game to call it quite yet – remember when they thought video would kill the radio star? – but it is obvious they'll have to evolve to survive. Stay tuned.