Rules of digital marketing remain more or less the same. But tools and techniques have changed, turning imaginative concepts into a norm. From highly personalised customer experiences to automation, these new techniques, tools, and channels help marketers move towards experiences instead of simple brand awareness or product exposure.
How will these digital marketing trends unfold in 2023? Will brands continue to focus on experiential marketing? Which marketing strategies are here to stay? What will be the defining digital marketing trends? Let’s find out.
Digital Marketing Trends Worth Watching
1. Digital Marketing Agencies
Since 2015, Google searches for ‘digital marketing’ have increased by nearly 90%. As digital marketing evolves into a specialised technology-enabled and data-driven customer outreach marketing technique, digital marketing agencies will continue to play a major role.
Agencies have boutique approaches allowing them to address needs of big brands. Their customised marketing strategies are a great asset for smaller niche brands. That is because digital marketing agencies possess required expertise, tools, and strategies that help businesses outshine their competitors.
These are things agencies can do for your businesses:
- Recognise, create, and employ critical marketing strategies
- Create comprehensive reports and track your campaign progresses
- Identify marketing strategies and campaigns which drive your revenues
- Generate web traffic, leads, and sales
2. Performance Marketing
When platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Pinterest engage less customers and drive less conversions, businesses continue to look for alternatives such as performance marketing networks (PMN) which include MediaMath and The Trade Desk.
Be it affiliates, resellers, or online publishers, companies will focus on leveraging these channels to emphasise outcomes instead of pointless metrics like impressions. More businesses will adopt this data-driven approach to digital marketing in the future.
3. Real-Time Messaging Platforms
Customers craving instant gratification need their messages and questions responded to the moment they arrive at your doorstep. That is the reason real-time messaging platforms will continue to be popular and important in digital marketing. Frontrunners to watch out for are:
3.1 Video
Video marketing has flourished in the last 15 years. About 82% of online streaming content is now video. This trend will continue and impact content marketing in two main ways:
- Video is an excellent way of increasing online visibility, generating lead, and supporting customers. Most popular video content continues to be Q&As, guides, and reviews. Tip: include CTA in your videos to direct customers to your websites, landing pages, or other channels you can convert them.
- Live selling on social media platforms and apps, like Facebook Live and YouTube, is another way video is shaping digital marketing. With most businesses currently doing 40% of their sales on Facebook Live, the number will only increase in the future.
3.2 Hybrid Chatbots
Studies suggest 68% of consumers like chatbots because they answer quickly. This evolving technology will continue to play an important role next year. Although AI has made great progress, chatbots are still have a long way to master the art of communication. They are as intelligent as they are programmed. Anything beyond that is off limits. Therefore, brands will become more interested in hybrid models. Chatbots will work together with human to create a balance between efficiency and personalisation.
4. Creative Approaches
Over 50% of business communications are already through digital channels. To cut through the noise, your marketing campaign must be creative. That means more brand personalities and out-of-the-box marketing with easily shareable content. Some of partly evolving creative approaches include:
4.1 Leveraging User-Generated Content
In 2020, Getty Museum asked its followers for artworks recreated with everyday objects to celebrate its anniversary. In response, users set out to generate authentic and organic content. This kind of strategy lies ahead for digital marketing. Crowdsourcing will generate more ideas for outreach. It could be a forum, blog, link building with influencers, testimonials, referrals, and etc.
Tip: steer and focus on positive feedback by using social media monitoring software, and provide social proof. However, do not ignore neutral or negative responses. They allow you to continually tweak your products or services to address changing user demands.
4.2 Lines Between B2B and B2C Digital Marketing
B2B is taking a page from B2C’s playbook in the future. This is because B2B customers also want convenience and immediate responses, which are norms in B2C marketing. This trend will continue next year. Even SaaS companies provide free demos and trials of their software to increase their outreach.
4.3 Using Native Advertising
You rarely come across people who love watching their favourite channel interrupted by ads. Everyone hates ads. That has been the biggest complaint against display advertising. It is thus unsurprising that the average bounce rate for such campaigns is between 50-90%. They are also expensive. You cannot afford to waste money when marketing budgets are still below pre-pandemic spending levels. A better alternative? Native ads.
Native ads offer a convenient solution. They are tactfully embedded in the content and do not interrupt viewer’s experiences. Think of movie product placement. Although it is not new, businesses will have to find ways to switch to native advertising in coming years. It will circumvent ad blockers. And, if implemented properly, it will appear as a seamless organic part of the content.
5. Big Data and New Technologies
Technology will be at the forefront of digital marketing as businesses learn to harness its power to increase ROI.
5.1 Artificial Intelligence and Analytics
The computational approach to marketing designs and strategies will continue in the near future. As AI and analytics determine what users find most informative and useful online, businesses will rely on these inputs to make data-driven decisions. A 2019 report shows that 28% of marketers already use AI for product recommendations. 26% use it to optimise campaigns. Using these data-enriching methods will continue to increase efficiency and profits as well as the adoption of marketing automation.
5.2 Mobile and Progressive Web Apps
On 1st July 2019, Google launched mobile-first indexing for new websites. New websites would be ranked on factors which enhance their mobile usability. Why? Because people go to mobile devices first. It is a fact that will remain unchanged for a long time.
Increase in mobile usage also impacts business webpages. Progressives Web Apps (PWAs) is an upcoming trend in app development. PWAs are webpages that behave more like an app. They can function as standalone applications, and sometimes can also be installed. Netflix, Yummly, Facebook, Hulu, and Twitter are good examples. With fast, reliable, and immersive experiences from PWAs, your businesses must leverage their power to keep up with this new technological trend.
Tip: to switch your webpages to PWAs, you need to:
- Implement HTTP on your websites
- Integrate Web App Manifest
- Run service workers
5.3 Augmented Reality and User Experience
If PWAs provide seamless experiences of your content, augmented reality (AR) creatively engages them, and is the heart of experiential marketing. With AR, users can insert digital objects into real-life video capture. In coming years, businesses will integrate AR into marketing to boost engagement and help customers in the right marketing channels. Tip: Whilst AR is evolving, ensure that you integrate it into your omnichannel marketing strategies.
5.4 Voice Search
Every time Siri turns on the lights, it is the sound of a future marketing trend – voice search. The past five years have seen a growing market for smart speakers and voice-enabled devices. Smart speaker ownership is estimated to reach 55% in the US this year. With voice accuracy surpassing 95% threshold, the use of voice search is still growing that it has become another channel for voice commerce.
Tip: optimise your content for voice search. In addition, to provide more useful information to your customers, use automated transcription so you rank well in voice search results.
6. Influencer Marketing
Two types of influencer marketing to keep an eye on in 2023:
6.1 Social Influencer Marketing
The power of influencers is like a touch of a magic wand. It can make or break your products. So, when top influencers complain about Instagram trying to become TikTok, its parent company rolls back changes without a problem. It is not just the power of influential celebrities, but also micro-influencers (people with 1K followers). The latter generates almost twice more engagement than those with 100K followers.
There are two reasons:
- Their engagement is active and personal.
- They tend to have more friends than fans. Statistics show 84% of consumers trust recommendations from friends more than ads.
Ensure you harness these influencer networks by following omnichannel approaches ranging from video content to real-world experiences.
6.2 Podcast Marketing
Podcast marketing is another influential world limited mostly to the audio. With almost 70% of the American population familiar with this term, and 63% of its listeners researching or buying products/services mentioned on podcasts, it is another untapped digital marketing space. Podcasts are ready for brand placement as it is a niche space with a community of followers. You can leverage its potential by creating your own podcasts, becoming guests in popular ones, or through product placement.
7. Omnichannel Marketing
Today, customers hop, skip, and jump across multiple channels at the same time. They talk to customer support over the phone whilst tweeting about it simultaneously. If customers can be so nimble in their uses, why not businesses? Staying nimble requires you to develop and incorporate omnichannel marketing. Omnichannel marketing helps create consistent brand personalities across channels, keeping you in touch with your customers where they prefer. It applies to customer services, products, services, and marketing communications.
Tip: use CRM platforms and help desk solutions to monitor and engage across channels seamlessly.
8. Experience Over Impression
Experiential marketing is the new marketing mantra for upcoming years. With 10.45% CAGR, its value is expected to reach 12.51 billion dollars by 2023. But what is it exactly? Experiential marketing supplements the world of digital marketing with real-world events and promotions. For B2B businesses, doing live events provides them with extra outreach and competitive edges. You can get more information from your target audience during the events and find creative ways of engaging with them. In addition, it builds on customer’s positive experiences when they are reminded of real-world events.
Tip: ensure your customers are connected through your channels.
9. Virtual Events
After the pandemic, businesses are evaluating their approaches to events and promotions. In March 2020, the first month of pandemic lockdown, there was a 50% increase in virtual events. This trend will continue in the form of virtual or hybrid events whilst people still hesitate about travels.
10. SEO
SEO games in 2023 is going to be hyperlocal. Your content’s international rankings will be irrelevant if your products and services do not appear in local searches. If you run physical stores, you need to optimise your local search to increase visibility amongst your nearby customers.
You can also do more online listings to increase your local searches and optimise the same for voice searches. In addition, ensure that your business names, addresses, phone numbers, and websites are consistent across all your listings.
Summary
The future is big and bright for digital marketing in 2023. However, you need to decide which approaches fit your organisations. Your marketing goals should reflect your ROI first. Integrating these trends will make you a leader in the game.
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