Digital marketing continues to be a vital aspect of business success, and 2023 will be no different.
In fact, the New Year will bring a plethora of new trends and tactics, and if you are not on top of your marketing and keeping up to date with the ever-evolving changes in the digital world, then you you’re at risk of being left behind.
To help your business stay one step ahead of the trends, and your competitors, we have curated a detailed list that business owners, marketers, creators, and managers should follow for successful growth in 2023.
This list has been specifically structured across six pillars, all of which are essential for effective digital marketing:
1. Strategy and management
2. Goals and measurement
3. Media
4. Content
5. Digital experience
6. Conversational messaging
Whether you are an experienced marketer, or just starting your journey, these pillars can help you to take action fast, optimising your strategy and getting it into place for swift and effective results.
1) Strategy and management
We all know the importance of a business strategy as it provides a vision for the future, validates an organisation's values, and sets a framework for impending decisions.
In order to create a strategy for this year, have a look at your business’ performance in 2022. Be as objective as possible. Ask yourself, what were your successes and failures in 2022?
Make a list of each and calculate key performance indicators. This will enable you to establish your goals for the coming year and establish how to devise a strategy to achieve them.
Another important aspect to factor into your strategy is how to further accelerate your digital presence. Without the right tools and technology in place, it is unlikely that your business will manage to keep up in this ever-evolving digital world. Lack of knowledge is one of the biggest reasons why online businesses fail so quickly, and so keeping open minded and looking for the right opportunities to invest in expert advice and newer technologies will make a stark difference.
2) Goals and measurables
When it comes to setting goals, there is one thing you must remember to do – be specific. Vague goals are much more difficult to track and maneuverer, so make sure that you are starting out on the right foot. Recording your goals with a specific deadline will help you to be unequivocally precise, whilst also helping with the visualisation process of achieving those goals.
Additionally, this will also help you to stay motivated, with your goals at the forefront of your mind.
A successful technique to use is the ‘smart’ method. S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. SMART goals are specific goals that are achievable, realistic, and have a set timeframe for completion.
Specific
Your goal should be clear and specific, otherwise you won’t be able to focus on it. The more specific the goal, the better.
Measurable
The goal should be something that you can track and measure progress. This way, you’ll know if you’re on track to achieve your goal.
Achievable
The goal should be achievable. If the goal is too ambitious, you’re likely to get discouraged and give up.
Realistic
The goal should be realistic and something that you can actually achieve. If the goal is unrealistic, you’ll have a harder time achieving it.
Timely
The goal should have a set timeframe for completion.
3) Media
Keeping on top of media trends can be tough, especially as it is a constant treadmill of change. But we wanted to discuss some of those media trends predicted to be big in 2023 so make sure that you take note!
The rise of super apps
A super app combines various features - typically messaging, commerce, booking and payments. This is done to provide a fuller service to users and removes the need to download various apps and instead, give one app, one sign in, and one user experience. Consumers are wanting everything faster and easier, and businesses are needing to constantly be on top of this.
The way we shop is continuing to evolve too. Once upon a time your only option was to visit a shop during the designated opening times. This is no longer the case. Over the past decade or so, we went from ‘going shopping’ to ‘always shopping’, being able to shop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with a mere touch of a button.
Shopping has dominated social and messaging platforms, and 2023 will be no different, with social commerce becoming more mainstream.
Commerce will also start to be seen on TV. The growth of smart TVs means that for many homes, TV now has the potential to become a shoppable device also, rather than relying on a secondary technology.
As commerce becomes ever more present in every service people use, there will be a need for simplification of the process.
Gaming
The gaming community is massive, and with 3.2bn estimated video game players across the world in 2022, gaming is now a mainstream activity. This has not gone unnoticed by technology platforms and media outlets, who are actively working to incorporate gaming elements into their offering as an audience attraction and trend factor. Gen Z has proved that it is possible to make a living promoting, playing, and competing in the world of gaming and as they are the future generation, this is something that businesses can incorporate into their digital marketing strategies, especially if their target audience is of the younger generation.
Responsibility will take centre stage
While some may take the point of view that concern about societal issues can be bad for business, research shows that the public is on board with these principles. The world is becoming more diverse, and people are growing up with a greater appreciation of issues like identity and the environment. Consumers are now more likely to spend more on a brand or business because of its commitment to ethical and sustainable practices.
If your business is not transparent in its environmental commitments, this could be detrimental to your business’ future.
Developing an Environmental Social Governance (ESG) policy, for example, or openly communicating your businesses efforts to supporting the environment, charities or other causes via social media and blogs, can be a key marketing tactic for 2023.
4) Content
The world of content marketing is constantly changing as dominant trends come and go, so it is vital to stay current on what is popular today if you want to remain one step ahead of the competition. But what will content marketing look like in 2023? The dominance of content has grown massively over the past few years and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
In fact, 92% of content marketers view content as a vital business asset.
With that in mind, we have detailed key content marketing trends that you should know for the coming year:
Short form video
The general consensus between marketers is that any video under 60 seconds is considered short form (around 3 minutes for YouTube). As we are all leading busy lifestyles, these types of videos are ideal for people that want/need to consume content quickly and easily. And for marketers, they are more shareable than longer videos, making them ideal for social media.
User generated content
This is where information is published that an unpaid contributor provides regarding your business. The information might be a review, a before and after photo, a picture, video, blog post, poll response or comment made through a website or social media platform. UGC can be incredibly useful, as it can be used as content offering different perspectives of your business and helps build trust within your brand.
Humanising the content experience
Humanising content means tapping into stories within your marketing and using them to build a relationship with your clients and community. People have a subconscious desire to relate to others, and that isn't created by chance. It's through personal experience and good storytelling that boosts relatability in a piece of writing or content creation.
Repurpose
This is such an underrated method of marketing. You will often create vast amounts of content full of advice, offers or information that could connect with your ideal client, but the way it was worded or the pictures that were used didn’t quite resonate first time. Going back to older pieces of content not only saves time by not having to generate fresh content from scratch, but it also gives you more opportunities to keep delivering your message, each time offering it in a different way.
Real time engagement
Every study into this space has shown that getting real-time engagement right leads to high engagement, high customer satisfaction and high conversion of sales, and this is the beginning of the era where real time engagement is set to become ‘as standard’. This, for example, will be via apps, websites, video calls, chat bots etc.
Trends in content marketing move fast and are always shifting the nature of the digital world. Innovation and creative thinking are huge assets to any content marketing approach, and when it comes to generating new content strategies and campaigns, there’s sometimes no such thing as ‘too much’. In fact, to get the best results, it can often be beneficial to be creative and push your limits. After all, if you don’t, your competitors may well just pip you at the post.
5) Digital Experience
It is no surprise to learn that consumers are wanting better digital experiences. In an increasingly online world, these digital experiences are often the most important interaction users have with your brand.
The experiences users have with your digital touchpoints create a lasting impression, so you must get it right and be open to continually evolving.
Some of the factors that affect a user’s digital experience include:
Availability: Is the touchpoint available to the user when the user wants to use it?
Performance: Is the interaction as fast and effortless as possible, or does the user have to wait to achieve their desired goal?
Errors: Are there any errors or broken components conflicting the user from interacting with the touchpoint?
User flow: Did the user achieve what they want to do? Was their operation successful?
Usability: Are the needed functions easy to find? Is the functionality fluid to use?
6) Conversational messaging
Conversational messaging is also going to see a huge increase in 2023. Businesses are finally realising that talking ‘at’ their customers, instead of ‘to’ them, is no longer going to cut it if they want to continue building trust and loyalty. Consumers have been pushing for more ‘real-time’ conversations for a long time, and 2023 marks the beginning of more meaningful and personable business-consumer conversations.
Consumers want to be the ones who initiate conversations. They also want to feel as if communication is truly going both ways, and that their voices are being heard.
Conversational messaging is a one-on-one conversation between a business and a customer that occurs on any messaging platform. Unlike live chat, where customers await an agent's response and the history of the discussion isn't saved, conversational messaging offers a more personalised experience and will engage with consumers through dialogue that puts the focus on interactions with the consumers through two-way communications in real-time conversations.
Conversational messaging between brands and consumers on preferred channels, combining the personalised care of in-person experiences with the accessibility of e-commerce will be a gamer changer in the digital world and will become the ‘norm’ sooner than we think!
Are you ready to kickstart your 2023 digital marketing activity?
With a wide range of new digital marketing trends to perfect, which ones will you be looking to utilise to grow your business in 2023?
If your business needs help moving into 2023 and implementing any one of these trends, get in touch with our specialised digital team today!