It's that time of year again.

Yes, football is back! (And now it's on your phone.)

And so is budget season.

When it comes to budgeting for your marketing spend, digital likely makes up a big part of your playbook. A vast majority of shoppers are starting their searches online, often checking 10 or more different sources before choosing to do business with you. So you better have a strong presence there, and it better be the kind of message you want your potential customers to see.

With digital, it can be tough to know whether this year's tools and trends will still be hot -- and worth your investment -- next year. Do you need a mobile app? Is Facebook on its way out? Hasn't email been pronounced dead each of the past 14 years? What can we do to get more out of our website?

Of course, I can't make any promises about what the future holds, but here are some of the places our team is looking at as the most important areas to focus on in the year ahead:

1. Mobile

How would you feel if 30% or more of your customers received a poor customer experience the moment they walked through your door? Not good, right? Well, if your website isn't mobile-friendly, that's exactly what you're doing to your online customers. (Google prefers websites that implement responsive design, so I'd recommend starting there.)

What about that mobile app? If you can find a way to deliver something truly useful to your customers (Jay Baer calls this Youtility), then by all means, build it. There isn't any more valuable real estate than the home screen of your customer's smartphone.

2. Analytics

How do you know what is working and what isn't? Which advertising sources not only send traffic to your site, but actually drive the most qualified leads? What improvements can you make to your website to convert more traffic to leads? What content are readers looking for when they get to your site?

Free tools like Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools will go a long way toward helping you access the data you need, but you still need to invest the time in setting these tools (and your website) up properly to get the information you need to make more informed decisions going forward. Set up tracking links for your ad campaigns and conversion goals to know where your leads come from.

3. Visuals

In case you haven't noticed, people have short attention spans. (Are you still reading? Good ... we still have seven more to go.) They're not interested in reading your 600 words of copy about your company mission, history and commitment to [insert value and/or buzzword here]. Look at every major social network right now -- they keep people's attention by providing a clean design and strong visuals that keep you scrolling down the page. (On the web, look to Pinterest. On mobile, Instagram.)

Start by investing in some great, high-res photos of your property. Hire a photographer. Make sure the marketing team has access to a good camera, a current smartphone (Apple or Android) or both. When it comes to editing, if Photoshop isn't your thing, try using apps like Over, PicFrame, and Studio to add text and custom styling to your images.

The bottom line is that curb appeal matters -- offline and online -- so do whatever you can to make your online appearance look extraordinary.

4. Local Search

Of course, you want to make sure your website is optimized for location-specific searches (and Google knows there are a lot of these), but that's just one piece of your online presence.

Invest in claiming your property's listing on local directories, make sure your social media profiles are categorized correctly, and go through all of your property pages on ILSs and review sites to make sure your location information (property name, address, phone number and website) are accurate and consistent.

5. Lead Follow-Up

Yes, closing more leads starts with answering the phone.

Beyond that, it means leveraging technology to assist your leasing team, learn more about your prospects, figure out where they're at in the leasing process and delivering the right message at the right time (to your prospect, to your leasing team, or both) to help close the deal. As far as tools, look at investing in email drip campaigns, social insights, a lead nurturing system and a full-fledged customer relationship management (CRM) tool.

6. Customer Service

Maybe this one doesn't fit perfectly under the marketing line item, but you better be thinking about more efficient ways to deliver customer service online … on your customer's terms. Are you ready to respond to maintenance requests on Twitter? (They're already happening.)

If you're truly concerned about your online reputation, you start by delivering better customer service (not by trying to tweak the volume of reviews). Listen to customer feedback, and give them as many channels as they need to reach you so you know how to better serve them. And if you're paying attention to what your customers are saying, you'll probably find opportunities to surprise and delight them along the way.

7. Listening

If you're doing #6 well, you're probably already investing in this one. But listening can be useful for a lot more than customer service. Are you listening for the people who looking for an apartment right now? With the right systems in place, you can be listening for new leads, potential business partnerships, content ideas worth sharing on your blog and social channels, and a whole lot more. Invest in a social dashboard and make sure you're monitoring for your brand and other topics relevant to your audience.

8. Learning

No, you don't need to know every detail about Vine, Tumblr, or the latest social shiny object du jour. And you probably don't need to learn how to code (although knowing a little HTML always helps).

But you need to know enough about the digital landscape to know what deserves your attention. Invest in learning from those outside the industry. Read blogs, join a marketing forum, spend some time on Quora, attend a marketing conference that has nothing to do with apartments. Find examples from the best marketers in the world, and learn from their best practices to strengthen your own efforts. Take the time to stay informed -- asking better questions will make you a better marketer, and it will push your vendors to perform better for you, too.

9. Experimenting

Things move too fast for your digital marketing strategy to be determined over a year in advance. Go back to #8. If you're watching the data and asking the right questions, you'll learn quickly how to improve upon what you're doing. That's why you need to build in some flexibility to try new things -- whether that's split testing the performance of your website, trying a new social platform, or investing with a new advertising partner.

10. People

The most important area, by far. Take a look through this list one more time -- if you don't have the people on your team who can execute, all the tools in the world won't do you much good. And yes, I mean your team. Your vendor partners are still invaluable in many ways, but there are simply some things that can't be outsourced. As more and more communication moves online, you need to make sure you have the team in place that can respond, communicate your company's message effectively, and get as much as possible out of your property's online presence.

Build a strong presence that addresses each step of the customer lifecycle, from discovery all the way through to renewal.

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For me, it all comes down to building a strong, broad presence that addresses each step of the customer lifecycle -- from initial discovery all the way through to retention and renewal. You might be taking a completely different approach. I'd love to hear about it.

Where are you focusing your marketing efforts online? Where are you investing in digital in the year ahead? Have a question, or just want to compare notes? Leave your thoughts in the comments or message me below … I'm looking forward to seeing what 2014 has in store for all of us.