Marketing can be easily regarded as one of the most transient industries out there.
With newer and more effective customer engagement mediums continually popping up, it can be unwise for marketers to overtly rely on a specific medium or tactic for too long. The industry is always undergoing a cycle of current and upcoming trends that are touted as the most effective when it comes to engaging consumers, converting leads, brand building, and so on.
And as always, the year 2023 has a new list of upcoming, dominant trends that every firm should try to include in their marketing operations.
Let’s have a look at four such digital marketing trends in 2023.
1: Hyper-Personalization over Personalization
Not long ago, personalized marketing was thought of as a marketer’s most trusted ally that could garner tons of engagement for them. But as we enter 2023, the magic of personalized marketing seems to be fading out slowly.
(Image: WebEngage.com)
That’s because personalized marketing, until now, has been all about focusing on one and only one customer touch point, which is of a highly generic nature: It’s been about the previous purchasing behavior or browsing history of customers, putting them into various segments based on similarities, and targeting these segments separately.
The individual behavioral aspects of each customer, rather than a generic group of customers, is something that has been completely ignored. This is exactly why there is a need to hyper-personalize marketing content, as the consumer is increasingly becoming more and more demanding in terms of consuming content that is strictly tailored to their individual preferences.
In fact, an InfoSys study found that 74% of social media users or web viewers feel frustrated when the content is not personalized as per their own individual likings.
Starbucks is one of the brands that have pioneered the use of hyper-personalization tactics. The coffee brand has heavily leveraged AI and used real-time data to send over 400,000 different variations of hyper-personalized messages to their customers.
Every offer made was completely unique to a customer’s preferences and past purchase activity on the app.
2: The Rising Dominance of Influencer Marketing
As per a 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, 63% of consumers say that they trust the information they receive from influencers more than the content that is coming directly from brands. This perhaps-shocking stat is a testimonial to how prevalent influencer marketing has and will become in the coming years.
(Image: Cellunlocker.net)
Nowadays, there are quite a few micro-influencers in almost every field who have been putting out genuine content for their followers over a long time period. The level of trust that consumers have developed with these micro-influencers is something that dedicated marketing content coming from a brand can never match.
When a brand collaborates with an influencer, they expand their customer reach and get the attention of a potentially more dedicated consumer base.
Cultivating podcasts, along with micro-influencers, is also quite a lucrative trajectory.
Podcasts are a highly sought-after content consumption medium nowadays, mainly due to the ease with which they can be consumed and the high levels of personal engagement that can come from an endorsement by a popular podcaster.
Podcasts have more than proven their worth when it comes to persuading the viewer towards finally purchasing a product. As per Convince and Convert, 54% of podcast viewers are more likely to consider purchasing a product promoted by their podcasters.
3: The Increased Prominence of Voice Search
Voice search is undoubtedly the future of mobile-based searches.
Almost 50% of the mobile search traffic in 2023 is predicted to come from voice-based inquiries, with some of the most popular functionality outlined in the image below.
(Image: Voicebot.ai)
So, how can you optimize your web content for voice-based searches?
Voice-optimized content primarily needs to be highly conversational in nature, and therefore, your web content should ideally include lots of long-tail keywords. This is because there is a drastic difference in the way the user types a particular search query, versus when they conduct a search through a voice-based device.
For example, when a voice searcher asks a certain question, it comes out to be something like this:
Hey Siri, what’s the price of the latest iPhone?
However, this same user typing the same query might have simply searched:
“iphone 11 PRICE.”
Other than this, websites should also redesign their FAQ pages in accordance with voice search-based queries, since the FAQ page is where voice-based customers are often the most active. Therefore, websites should reframe their most frequently answered questions section, along with ample long-tail keywords so that they have a better chance of ranking for voice search.
Framing the SEO Strategy:
When it comes to framing a SEO strategy around voice search, you should make sure that you have a highly localized approach. As per MOZ, a voice search has three times more chances of pertaining to something that is based locally.
Localized text-based searches are typically quite simple – target keywords with your city or neighborhood – but when it comes to voice search, the scope increases significantly.
You need to be aware of the voice searcher’s actual intent behind conducting a search. Therefore, it’s crucial that along with long-tail keywords, you include certain trigger words.
By “trigger words,” we mean a set of particular words that a voice searcher frequently uses in their search query, like “How, what, where, when, easy,” and so on. “Where can I get my bike fixed in San Diego?” is a relevant keyword to target, rather than “bike repair San Diego.”
4: Shoppable Posts
Shoppable social media posts is undoubtedly a boon for social media marketers. For ages, social media marketing has had one major challenge: There are simply too many extra steps for optimal lead conversion.
(Image: QZ.com)
In other words, social media posts from a brand have typically garnered ample amounts of engagement in terms of likes, shares comments, and so on, but when it comes to the viewer visiting a product purchase page and actually making a purchase, social media has been much less effective.
“Social commerce,” directly selling goods through social media ads, is increasingly prominent in 2023; shoppable posts are currently the most well-known form. Shoppable posts allow social media users to directly buy a product then and there without leaving the social media app. One of the first examples of social commerce was Instagram’s checkout feature, which was launched in 2019 and since then has gained a good amount of traction.
Shoppable posts are all about minimizing the number of steps the customer has to take to finally purchase the product. The fewer the steps, the lower the chances of suffering a sales abandonment.
Shoppable posts are also quite effective at triggering impulse purchases among social media users. Highly graphical and interactive Pinterest or Instagram posts can easily spur a user to make a purchase on the spot.
Wrapping Up:
Another aspect that will massively drive the marketing industry in 2023 is the robust technological developments in fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain Technology, and so on.
The marketing trends mentioned above and numerous others will offer greater prospects in terms of customer satisfaction, conversion, and engagement when leveraged, along with the technologies mentioned above.
Therefore, it will always be beneficial if firms take a proactive approach in adapting such technological enhancements in their marketing operations. Doing so will award them with an edge over their rivals in the decade to come.
Shaun Williams is a content writer with Goodfirms, a research platform for DevOps and app development companies, among many others. He enjoys communicating ideas and knowledge creatively, hoping to ensure that the readers never suffer from boredom while reading his posts.
