In 2023, brands will need to plan for a global cost of living crisis and customers who are pickier about the products and services they buy.
So, in the coming year, it will be even more important for brands to be honest, think about their messaging, do research, or change their strategy. It also means that marketers need to be aware of future trends so they can plan for and take advantage of any changes.
On our podcast, we talked to experts in the field to find out the most important trends for 2023. This will help you get the year off to a great start. You might also want to watch our Trends webinar to learn about more important things to keep an eye on in 2023.
Read our Blog – 4 Important Content Marketing Trends for 2023
Read on to find out what will be popular in 2023.
- We look at the business side of TikTok, the rise of creators, and SuperApps as part of social media and influencer marketing.
- We hear a lot about the value of video content, how to master social selling, and curated content when it comes to B2B marketing.
- Content marketing seems to be going in the direction of more connections, partnerships between creators and brands, and the constant need to make useful content.
- In 2023, you’ll hear a lot about marketing automation, including tools and the much-anticipated GPT-4.
- Martech will also continue to grow, and CRO will take an even bigger lead. The metaverse won’t go away either.
1. SOCIAL MEDIA AND INFLUENCER MARKETING TRENDS
In 2023, there will be some really interesting changes to social media. In fact, this is an area of marketing that will change a lot, and brands need to keep up with the changes in order to have a presence and use the platforms well.
TikTok keeps getting better and more popular.
TikTok is now a big player in the world of marketing on social media. This isn’t going to change in 2023. The Business of Apps said that TikTok made $4.6 billion in 2021, which was a 142 per cent increase from the previous year. By the end of 2022, the app was expected to have 1.8 billion monthly active users.
TikTok is making progress with more than just users and creators. Focusing on how easy it is for businesses to use and making it easier to target ads will make the platform bigger and better for brands in 2023.
“Next year, one thing we’ll see from TikTok is how easy it is to use business tools. Already, they’re making a big difference in how easy it is for businesses to use their ads dashboard. Alison Battisby, a social media consultant with Avocado Social, says, “I’ve been looking at some of the new ways they can target their ads, which are great.”
Decentralizing social media in order to build a “Super App”
Changes to Twitter have shown how dangerous social media platforms can be. Customers are less likely to want to use platforms run by billionaires and more likely to want to have control over their content and data.
Battisby thinks that “social networks will need to be less centralised in the future.” Mastodon is one of the new and exciting platforms we’re seeing. In the last couple of weeks, a lot of people have downloaded it. And it’s a cool tool because it’s made by a lot of people.”
Other apps are being made, like BlueSky, which is being made by Jack Dorsey, who used to be the CEO of Twitter. More of an infrastructure than a platform, the company calls it “a new foundation for social networking that gives creators freedom from platforms, developers the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience.”
The “Creator Economy” will change and grow.
As brand awareness on social media becomes more important than just getting leads, marketers need to find creators with a voice and a following (small or otherwise).
In a world where people don’t have much time, it can be hard for brands to make content that keeps customers interested. That’s where content creators come in, and that doesn’t necessarily mean people with a lot of influence. It can refer to employees, customers, or even experts in a specific field.
“Since COVID, we’ve seen a new social media culture that focuses not on the number of followers but on the content itself. This is the age of what they call “recommended media.” Neal Schaffer, a social media leader and author, says that he thinks this makes brands want to work with influencers and content creators even more.
With content creator funds on TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch, content creators have a reason to spend time making content that a brand could use.
2. B2B MARKETING TRENDS
People might think that B2B marketing is dull or at least less interesting than B2C marketing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As a business that sells to other businesses, you need to be creative with your marketing and use the channels and tools you have to stand out.
Video
As marketers, we all know that a good video campaign is a great way to share information and build relationships. After all, 86 per cent of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 92 per cent see it as an important part of their strategy (according to Wyzowl research).
The same research showed that businesses use video for many different reasons. Explainers, social media videos, and presentations were the top three. YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram are the top three channels that companies use.
Video can be a big part of the sales and marketing process for B2B companies. This is especially true on LinkedIn, where the video is becoming more popular and can be used to connect with and persuade customers.
“LinkedIn has turned into a place where people can easily make their own content. Different people do it in different ways. Your mileage will depend on how you live and how much money you have. But I think it has given that platform a lot more personality and made content easier to share. Stephen Walsh, the co-founder of Kineo with Anders Pink, says that video is a great way to be a “maven” or “connector.”
Read “9 Ideas for Social Media Videos” on our blog to get some ideas for your video campaigns.
Give teams the ability to use Social Selling.
Social media is a good way for companies and their sales teams to reach out to customers. This is especially true for B2B companies that have longer sales cycles and rely on digital channels to provide useful and relevant information.
But there is a difference between posting content that tries to sell something and using content to get people interested and build relationships. Julie Atherton, an expert and author on social transformation, thinks that will be the key to business success in 2023.
Atherton says, “I think there will be a clear line between businesses that give their teams the tools and support they need to use social media to build relationships well and those that see social media as just another way to push sales messages.” “Some organisations are afraid of letting go of control or letting people show their personalities.”
A Desire for Carefully Chosen Content
Companies put a lot of effort into making their own content, but it can also be helpful to share content that has already been made.
If the content is useful, it can start conversations and show that your company wants to solve a problem or share information, not just sell.
“It doesn’t matter too much if you made the content or not if you’re sharing something helpful and interesting. I think (curated content) can be a good way to show that you’re a trusted person who can add value and teach people something. “It can be a very effective B2B strategy,” says Walsh.
You can share the following types of useful content:
- Third-party research in the news
- Releases or announcements to the press
- Interviews (video and blogs) (video and blogs)
- Detailed parts
- Podcasts
3. CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS
The Content Marketing Institute found that 78 per cent of marketers have a plan for managing content, but only a little more than half have a written plan for content management. In today’s content-hungry world, that’s a bad idea.
Make use of Content to Drive Connections.
As marketers, we know that content can be used to provide information and solutions at all stages of the marketing and sales funnel. But content can do a lot more.
In 2023, you should use content to build communities and connect with people. As customers become more interested in the value and purpose of brands, companies that build and look for connections will be the ones that do well.
“Social media and email marketing still have their place, but the majority of my sales come from communities. People want to belong to a group. Kate Toon, the founder of Stay Tooned, says, “They want to reach out and get help from other people.”
“It’s also very important that the people in charge of these communities all have the same ideas. People want to feel like the companies they buy from have similar values to their own.
Refine and define Partnerships between Creators and Brands
Online, there is a lot of noise, which means there is a lot of content. Some of the content out there is great, but a lot of it is aligned with the wrong influencer or isn’t aimed at the right audience. This is where a good partnership between a content creator and a brand can come in handy.
In 2023, many people who make things want to grow and expand. This means they are looking for brand partnerships, not just sponsorships, that fit with their content and make their posts feel natural. Companies should not just leave them to their own devices, but offer advice and help.
Deloitte research shows that for many creators, it’s not just about the money. Other things matter, too.
“Brands should rely more on influencers and user-generated content to help them break through the noise and be seen. Neal Schaffer says, “Not from their own voices, but from the voices of others.”
Make sure your content is a good mix of Selling and giving Value.
In recent years, Marq’s “Content Effectiveness” report found that over half of marketers said that the demand for content has grown a lot. But it’s not enough to just have more content. It has to be content that prospects and customers will find useful.
“I think you need to make your own content and have your own voice. “People don’t realise how much-curated content can help you balance your content marketing budget,” says Stephen Walsh.
“It shows that you’re aware of what’s going on in the world and that “our ideas are the only ones” or “it always has to come from us.” It also shows that you’re paying attention to trends. That shows buyers that you are part of a group and that it’s not all about you, you, you,” says Walsh.
4. MARKETING AUTOMATION TRENDS
As companies collect more data and need to do more tasks to run effective marketing campaigns, automation tools offer a way to automate routine and repetitive tasks at a large scale.
A move to marketing that is based on signals
In 2023, there will be a shift from marketing that is based on technology to marketing that is based on anticipation. This will let marketers guess what customers will want and then put that information into automation processes.
This new way of thinking will not only make things more efficient but will also make it possible to customise things. This is true for platforms like Google Ads, and it looks like this is also where Facebook and other social networks are going.
Why Automation Tools are Important
Gartner says that by 2024, the customer experience metrics of companies with IT teams that understand customer needs will be 20% better than those of other companies.
Automation tools will be used for internal processes and to improve the customer experience. These include marketing tools for CRM, social media, advertising, lead management, and email.
“One trend for 2023 is the increased use of tools for automation and personalization at a large scale. It’s hard to do that unless you know what data you have, put it into a tool, and use that tool to automate your communications with customers. Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, says that this could include automating things like “the next best action” based on what customers have done in the past and what they might do next.
The launch of GPT-4 and the development of AI
You may not have heard of GPT-4 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4), but it is a cutting-edge tool that can help marketers automate many tasks.
It is a next-generation deep learning model that was made by OpenAI and is trained with online content. It is used for questions and answers, text summarization, machine translation, classification, code generation, and conversational AI.
Clark Boyd, a Digital Strategy Consultant, says that it could give marketers new ways to make money. “We’ll start to see specific business applications” (with GPT-4). There is a lot of money going into startups that are trying to build things like tools for making content for social media. So, you could just type in some information about your brand, and these tools would give you 50 content ideas. You could then drag and drop the ones you liked best.”
You can find out more about how AI affects content marketing by listening to our podcast, “The Art of Copywriting.”
5. MARTECH TRENDS 2023
Software is used to create, run, manage, and measure the success of online and offline content, campaigns, and experiences. This is called “martech.” It’s a good way to make customer journeys more efficient and run omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Martech spending will keep growing
According to eMarketer, spending on martech in the U.S. will reach $20 billion for the first time in 2022, which is a 15 per cent increase from the previous year. Companies are investing in technology that will help them collect and store data, use this data to make decisions, and put those decisions into action. This spending is a result of these investments.
Surprisingly, more than 30% of this money is spent by B2B companies, and this share is expected to grow slowly over the next few years to reach $8.5 billion in 2024.
CRO won’t be about trying things out anymore.
Every online business wants to increase the number of people who buy from them. This means more people will visit, buy, and pay, right?
Many marketers have tried different things with conversion rate optimization (CRO) and used many different ways to test. Chris Coomer, on the other hand, thinks that the time of just waiting to see what happens is coming to an end because it’s not enough to just chase the result.
“I think CRO has been looked at as a separate thing. It’s how we get from point A to point B. He says, “I think people are starting to look at things more as a whole, and clients are getting smarter about what they want to see.”
“As an agency, we’ll do something and get a better conversion rate, but how does that affect the client’s bottom line? How does that affect how users feel? The questions we’re being asked force us to move towards that bigger picture.”
Growth in the Metaverse is slow, but brands will still take part.
The metaverse caused a stir in 2022, and it will continue to do so in the years to come. However, growth has been slower than expected because profits are falling and costs are going up.
Alison Battisby thinks that brands will start to think about their strategy for this new era of immersive virtual communication in 2023.
“One of the clearest signs (of a new era in social technology) is Meta’s dedication to the metaverse and how hard they are working to build these virtual domains and lives. People will need years to change their habits and get used to this new service, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see some interesting new ideas in the field.
“Nike just said that people will be able to design their own sneakers and sell or wear them in the metaverse. “Next year, I think we’ll see a lot of big brands commit to the metaverse,” says Battisby as he wraps up his talk.
