The world is changing everyday! Don’t miss the latest trends in Creativity, Marketing and Business! We will bring the whole world to you.
By Michael Brenner
What are the most important digital marketing trends we’ll likely see in 2023. I’ve already touched on how we can expect marketing to evolve strategically. In this article, I’ll be looking in more detail at specific trends to look out for.
To make a solid plan for the short term, it’s important to keep an eye on where you’re heading in the long term. Nobody can say with 100% certainty what the future of marketing will look like, but industry professionals can offer useful insights and predictions into some of the possibilities.
Nobody could have predicted how 2020 would change the face of marketing. Those who meticulously planned out their marketing activities based on what they knew at the start of that year found themselves needing to scrap their plan and start from scratch.
We ourselves tripled revenues for our weekly blog content service during the pandemic as more businesses realized that content marketing is the most predictable way to generate a return on marketing.
But some things are certain. The future of marketing and business will be more diverse, inclusive, and connected to real customer needs.
Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so of course, some of these trends are focused around technology. However, there’s also a pushback against the increased digitization and automation of interactions between brands and consumers. Today, there’s a desire to make marketing more human again.
While technologies such as AI and data-driven marketing continue to grow, the overarching focus will be on people, not technology.
Every year is the year of the customer. We’re seeing a massive shift in beliefs about what marketing actually is. It’s no longer about trying to convince people to buy from or work with your company. Instead, the priority has moved towards providing fantastic customer experiences that will keep people coming back for more. When you focus on building a positive business culture and providing great service, the marketing almost takes care of itself.
Not only are customers impatient, but they also want those fish tacos delivered on a silver platter.
Okay, not literally. But they do expect a seamless experience from the first spark of interest to customer service after the sale. From personalized messaging that helps them solve problems to make a buying decision to a customer-focused culture throughout their customer journey, an experience that delivers quality across all channels is more likely to earn their business.
In addition to personalized marketing messages, find ways to listen and respond to their questions. Coordinate your digital marketing team with your sales and customer service teams to deliver quality throughout their experience.
The growth of online content has given consumers more power. They are no longer a passive party when it comes to learning about products. They’re not waiting for you to tell you how great your products are. Instead, they’re going out and doing their own research.
So you have to offer them something more than information. 73% of people say that customer experience is an important factor in their buying decisions, but currently only 49% of US consumers say that today’s companies provide a good experience.
What exactly makes a great CX? Efficiency, convenience, knowledgeable and friendly service, and easy payment options are what people value most in their customer experience. But aspects more traditionally considered as marketing’s domain are cited too: up-to-date technology, personalization, an easy mobile experience, brand image, and design all add up to the overall customer experience.
Building the kinds of relationships with customers that drive loyalty is worth every penny you spend. As the management experts at Bain and Company point out, a mere 5 percent boost in customer retention increases profit by 25 percent.
Can you imagine how your profits would soar if you went the extra mile to deliver the kinds of experiences that build not only loyalty, but qualified referrals as well? When you coordinate your digital marketing strategy with all your teams to deliver those kinds of experiences, you’ll grow your bottom line well beyond even your highest expectations.
In other words, you need to consider CX in every aspect of your marketing strategy. This is how you can provide a great experience in order to keep your customers and attract new ones.
In fact, as you go through this list, you’ll see that every trend is really just one factor of the overall customer experience.
If efficient and friendly service is the cornerstone of great customer experience, how do you ensure you’re providing this? The answer, of course, is in your employees. The previously mentioned research also found that 46% of consumers will abandon a brand if its employees are not knowledgeable, and bad employee attitude is the number one factor that stops individuals from doing business with a company.
I call this employee activation. Your employees are the human face of your brand, so concentrating on interactions between your employees and your customers should be a key part of your marketing strategy. When you’re turning the responsibility of creating a great customer service over to your employees, you need to make sure that they want your business to succeed as much as you do.
The key to this is building a solid foundation of employee engagement and taking steps to ensure every employee understands and is aligned with your brand mission and values.
You can’t expect your employees to care about your customers if they’re not happy at work and don’t really believe in what you’re doing as a business. So achieving a high level of employee engagement is the first and most important step in improving customer experiences.
Employee engagement requires you to make your workplace such an attractive place to work that your employees’ happiness will spill on over onto the customers. Indeed, a smile and an extra effort to please that comes from the heart is one of the most effective forms of marketing out there. In fact, companies that engage their employees outperform their peers by a factor of two.
However, that one giant leap for humankind – walking on the moon – is a piece of cake compared to convincing some companies to treat their employees like valuable colleagues instead of glorified house servants. Taking the next step – employee activation – requires you to treat your employees as your most treasured customers.
When you activate your employees, though, it’s marketing magic. Activation includes a wealth of tools to empower your employees to become walking billboards for your company, including:
Once your employees start sharing the love your company has shared with them, it will pay off. Not only will it pay off in good vibes, but it will also likely make a huge impact on your bottom line.
In fact, leads that your employees generate through social media marketing posts are seven times more likely to convert than leads you generate through other channels, according to Sociabble. In addition, content that they share will enjoy eight times more engagement than content that you share on your official brand channels.
With the explosion of smart speakers and voice search in recent years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that “readable” content is more important than visuals and design these days.
In fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While advancements in voice search are certainly influencing the way that we’ll create content now and in the future, you shouldn’t neglect visual content and the basic elements of brand storytelling.
Research has shown that people prefer visual content to plain text. You just have to look at the growth of image-focused platforms Pinterest and Instagram to see the proof of this.
Google, Pinterest, and several other companies are also investing in visual search technology. Images are already returned for 19% of searches on Google, and 62% of millennials say they are more interest in visual search than any other new technology.
Visuals are also easier to remember than written content. Adding data visualizations, infographics, images, and videos to your text not only makes it more interesting and attractive, but it can help your message to be absorbed better too.
Two things are driving the emergence of push notifications as a digital marketing trend. First, the email marketing landscape is becoming so saturated that it’s only getting more difficult to truly connect with your audience through that channel. Second, people are increasingly using mobile phones for all types of online activity — including brand search and online shopping.
It makes sense, then, that brands are turning to push notifications as a more effective way to capture customer attention. Today, more than half of consumers are allowing push notifications on their phone so brands can get in touch with them.
There is a fine line, though, that brands must be careful not to cross. Industry research has found that across industries, push notification unsubscribe rates stay under 1% when the number of daily pushes is low. Once it hits a certain threshold (around 10+ pushes) those unsubscribes begin to spike.
When done correctly, however, push notifications drive open rates, conversions, and overall audience engagement.
Will 2021 be the year of the rise of the robots? Maybe (but hopefully not in the Terminator-style of dystopian science fiction movies!)
We’ve already seen huge advancements in AI over the last few years, and a great increase in the number of businesses using AI-powered technology and automation to assist their marketing efforts.
AI is one of the major technologies behind voice search and smart assistants. It’s also made chatbots possible, which are now popping up on more websites than ever before.
AI technology and automation are helping to take some of the grunt work out of marketing so brands can concentrate on strategy and crafting a fantastic customer experience.
Remember, the human aspect of marketing is still important (perhaps more important than ever before), so the idea is to use this technology to enhance your marketing efforts, not replace the real people behind them.
Big data, supported by AI and predictive analytics, is also helping brands to learn more about their audience and customers. It’s enabling hyper-personalization of customer experiences and marketing messages at scale.
Research by Cisco found that video accounts for 82% of all online traffic. Videos are 53x more likely to generate first-page SERP rankings than other SEO tactics. Today, 84% of consumers have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a video.
Not to mention that nearly all digital marketers — 93% — say that video is currently a core part of their content strategy.
The takeaway? The future of content marketing trends lies in video. Brands must integrate video content like product demos, webinars, and live video events (more on those shortly) to keep their content fresh and aligned with what consumers are looking for.
The live video industry is expected to be worth over $70 billion by 2021. Live video is incredibly popular with consumers, and people spend three times longer watching live video than they do watching pre-recorded video.
Video is also the most popular way for consumers to learn about new products.
When the live element is added, this makes video more engaging as the audience feels they’re a part of it and can influence the content, rather than just passively watching.
Live video is great for grabbing the attention of your social audience on Facebook or Instagram. These types of videos are so attractive to viewers because they tap into “FOMO” or fear of missing out. When you’re not sure if a live video is going to contain a tidbit of information that you can’t get anywhere else, or it will mean you’re the first to find out about some new and exciting news, you’re going to want to watch it.
Physical stores with little online presence have been struggling more in recent years. For many businesses, the 2020 pandemic proved the final nail in the coffin, with the last six months seeing an unprecedented number of store closures.
Conversely, many online retailers and digital brands have thrived. Massive numbers of consumers have shifted to moving more and more of their purchases and everyday activities online.
However, physical stores are not doomed to become a relic of the past. Consumers still prefer physical stores. But brands must adjust their marketing strategy to take advantage of this increased digitalization.
In the future, stores will be more than just a place to do your shopping. They will be a place where brands can really engage with their customers and improve the customer experience.
Moreover, VR and AR technologies will bring more of the shopping experience to the home, improving the online shopping experience. Ikea already has an augmented reality app that allows customers to see items of furniture in their own home and several fashion brands have launched apps enabling shoppers to virtually try on clothing before they buy.
More and more brands are jumping onto this trend. For example, Nike has launched a number of “retail experiences” in recent years including terminals with product information and online ordering functionality, integration with customer smartphones, social media walls, interactive augmented reality installations, and more.
Now is the time to start planning your 2023 marketing strategy if you haven’t already. Make sure you start the New Year with a clear plan of your goals and how you’re going to achieve them.
While marketing trends come and go, the basics of success remain the same: understand the needs of your audience and communicate with them clearly and consistently. That’s why customer-focused content has always been the best way to establish solid relationships with your audience. It goes without saying that content marketing will continue to dominate the digital marketing landscape for some time to come. Most of these trends rely on content in some way. To have success in them you’ll need to have a solid base of quality content across all your marketing channels.
The world is changing everyday! Don’t miss the latest trends in Creativity, Marketing and Business! We will bring the whole world to you.
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