2023 is a year to watch in terms of digital marketing. The year 2022 saw a handful of changes in digital marketing. The changes included an increased inclination toward leveraging social media marketing. Consumer behavior also counted as a noticeable change in 2022.
In 2023, digital marketers must keep tabs on the trends that can help businesses stay afloat and operate competitively. What are some of these trends?
Let’s explore them.
General Digital Marketing Trends
Personalization
We are in an era of information overload. People are always busy searching for solutions tailored to meet their tastes and preferences. For this reason, businesses must customize their offerings to match what their customers are looking for.
How can businesses meet this goal? One of the strategies they can employ entails the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies enable businesses to gather and analyze customer preferences and behavior data.
Voice Search
Recently, the use of voice-activated devices has been on the rise. These devices include Google Home and Amazon Echo.
Given that this trend will continue in 2023, digital marketers must optimize their content to make it voice-search-friendly.
How can they do it? Using long-tail keywords is one of the strategies marketers can adopt to optimize their content for voice search. The other strategy entails clear and concise information.
Video Marketing
Video content is taking the marketing industry by storm! Videos are tools that keep audiences engaged. Also, videos can drive conversations effectively.
In 2023, expect businesses to start streaming live marketing videos. Also, businesses will use interactive videos to connect them to their customers in real-time.
Influencer Marketing
Influencers have proved to be a powerful marketing tool. Not only do they help businesses reach out to their audiences but also they create trust between businesses and their customers.
In 2023, expect businesses to partner with micro-influencers. Such influencers have a small following but keep their followers highly engaged. So, micro-influencers will be a focal point in digital marketing in 2023 for several businesses.
Social Media Advertising Trends
Internet-enabled gadgets are becoming a must-have significantly. This is one of the factors that have increased the use of social media. Businesses continue to leverage social media when it comes to digital marketing. In 2023, this trend will continue unabated.
To optimize social media marketing, marketers and businesses must target and retarget their appropriate audiences at the right time. This move facilitates reaching out to the most potential customers instead of employing random campaigns that result in low-quality outcomes.
To be more specific, the following are some of the trends to watch out for in 2023 regarding the use of social media marketing:
Increased Use of TikTok
Admittedly, TikTok is a major player in the social media marketing arena. It dominated the marketing realm in 2022 and will continue to dominate in 2023.
In 2021, sales affiliated with TikTok marketing were $4.6 billion. In the following year, the sales forecast indicated that these subject sales would increase by 142%. Given the said significant anticipated growth, we should expect a sales outburst in 2023.
Notably, TikTok creators are not the only reason this platform performs well in the marketing realm. The platform also capitalizes on usability for businesses. Also, the platform is improving targeting advertising options. If the platform continues to improve, it will become bigger and better for several brands in 2023.
In 2023, expect to see simple TikTok business tools. Currently, the platform has improved its ads dashboard usability. So, expect to see new targeting options on this platform in 2023.
The Creation of a Super App
In 2023, expect to see a decentralization of social media in a quest to create a super app. The recent changes on Twitter show that social media platforms are becoming vulnerable.
Notably, customers are no longer willing to use billionaire-led social media platforms. Instead, they want to have control over their data and content. This factor has seen the development of exciting social media platforms.
New platforms, such as Mastodon, are experiencing large download volumes within a short time after their launch.
Such platforms boast of being an infrastructure rather than a social media platform. They seek to give creators independence from platform control. They also seek to give developers the freedom to build and users a choice of experience.
Growth and Change of Creators’ Economy
Brand awareness continues to be a social media point of focus. For this reason, social media is no longer a tool for pure lead generation.
Given the need to use social media as a brand awareness tool, marketers must find creators with a fan base and a voice. The fan base can be small or otherwise.
Notably, brands find it hard to create an engaging content ideal for consumers in the current time-starved world. To overcome this challenge, brands are turning to creators for help. These creators do not necessarily need to be popular influences. They can be subject-matter experts, employees, or customers.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a change in social media culture. The number of followers is no longer moving people. Instead, they are focusing on the quality of social media content. For this reason, brands must partner with content creators and influencers to thrive.
B2B Marketing Trends
B2B marketing seems to have a lower note than its counterpart, B2C. However, it is equally important. If you are a B2B company, you must use creativity in your marketing activities. Also, you must use the channels and tools that can make you memorable.
In 2023, the following are some of the trends to watch regarding B2B digital marketing:
Team Empowerment to Use Social Selling
B2B companies, especially the ones with a long sales cycle, must leverage social media. It is a way of connecting brands and their respective sales teams with customers.
Importantly, posting content to push sales messages differs from posting engaging content that creates connections. Brands and providers of digital marketing services must capitalize on the latter content to achieve success in 2023.
Posting engaging content requires brands to empower their sales teams to facilitate effective social media marketing. However, it is impossible to achieve this objective if brands keep fearing giving control to their sales teams and allowing the team members to showcase their personalities.
Increased Appetite for Curated Content
Curated content is relevant. It drives conversations to demonstrate that a business is not just selling but providing a solution or sharing information.
What kind of curated content can you share as a B2B company? It includes the following:
- In-depth features
- Industry news
- Interviews (video or blogs)
- Podcasts
- Press releases and announcements
- Third-party research
Content Marketing Trends
Do you know that 78% of digital marketers use a strategic approach when managing content but only half have documented content strategy for reference? Now you know.
Let’s explore some content marketing trends to look out for in 2023.
Use of Content to Drive Connections
As a marketer, you should know that content can do more than apply in all stages of sales funnel and marketing. In 2023, use content to build communities and create connections.
Interestingly, customers are always on the lookout for the ethos and value of brands. For this reason, your company must seek out and foster connections to thrive.
Even though email marketing and social media can drive sales significantly, communities outperform them in the same cause. You must understand that people are always looking out for other people for support. For this reason, people buy from companies with values that align with their values.
Refine and Define Brand/Creator Partnerships
Currently, the online arena is flooded with all sorts of content. However, some content matches the wrong influencer. Also, other content targets the wrong audience. To fix this problem, it calls for the establishment of a content creator and brand partnership.
In 2023, creators will be yearning to grow significantly. For this reason, they will be looking for brand partnerships rather than sponsorship. Such a partnership will facilitate the creation of content that feels natural. To meet such an objective calls for brands to guide the creators rather than leaving the creators to come up with the content alone.
Notably, most creators are not after money only. They are also after several things, including their content’s impact.
Create Balanced Content That Offers Value
Digital marketers are nowadays after content that provides value to customers and prospects and not just sells. Even though you can create content that has your voice, you need to balance it with curated content. Such a move factors in your budget and it also helps you create content that aligns with what people are looking for.
Marketing Automation Trends
Automation tools offer a solution for undertaking repetitive and routine tasks. Such a solution features scalability as a business grows. What are some trends to watch out for in 2023 regarding marketing automation? The following is one of the trends:
A Move to Signal-Based Marketing
In 2023, there will be a shift from technical-based marketing toward anticipatory marketing. The move will enable marketers to anticipate the needs and wants of their customers and feed the information to automated processes. This move equates with the quest to employ personalization in digital marketing.
The Bottom Line
Yaddly, a revenue-focused marketing agency, believes that 2023 will be a year to watch for digital marketing trends. The increased and sporadic evolution of digital marketing strategies, tools, and techniques leaves everything to time.
It is difficult to tell what will happen next, but being on the lookout for the listed trends will facilitate your market relevancy in 2023.
