IYKYK: 2023 Marketing Trends

The start of every new year brings a sense of refreshment that can only come from feeling like you’ve been given a clean slate. The chance to keep all that’s good from your past and step forward into your future. With the rise of new technology like ChatGPT, AI-driven ads, automated content creation, and so on, businesses must constantly look ahead. You need vision that sees around the curve to adapt to a marketing landscape advancing at THz speed. To help, we’ve compiled a Top 10 List of marketing trends we recommend you incorporate into your strategy this year.   

Here are the Top 10 Marketing Trends to watch for in 2023:

#1 Personalization

Personalization is key to building customer loyalty and driving conversions. By tailoring your content, offers, and messaging to specific segments of your audience, you can create a more relevant and engaging experience for your customers. Addressing someone by their name when having a face-to-face conversation has a very special effect on the vibe. People feel seen, known, honored, and comfortable when you know their names. The same is true in digital communication. Cleverly inserting someone’s name, personal interests, important life events, and so on is one of, if not the best, way to build strong relationships with your audience.   

#2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): AI and ML are becoming increasingly important in marketing, from automating tasks and analyzing data to delivering personalized content and experiences. By now, you’ve likely heard of emerging AI like ChatGPT and Jasper. Understanding this new tech and how and when to deploy it will be invaluable going forward. The most important recommendation we can make if you’re going to jump on this tech train is to ALWAYS make your AI-generated content your own. Remember, AI is only as good as what has come before it. It is not designed to be “creative.” Creativity is a technology that remains exclusive to the human brain. While you can expect to see more businesses leveraging these technologies in the coming year, you’ll stand out from the crowd when you add a touch of YOU to the mix.

#3 Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has become an effective way for businesses to reach new audiences and drive conversions. Businesses can tap into their influence and credibility by partnering with influencers in their niche to promote their products and services. Viral Nation, Captiv8, and Obviously are some of the fastest-growing Influencer Agencies in the U.S. Yup, Influencers have Agents. For all things Influencer Marketing, we recommend a virtual visit to the Influencer Marketing Hub. 

#4 Interactive Content

Incorporating interactive content, like polls, quizzes, and games, is an effective way to make an impact and leave impressions. Not only is interactive content memorable, but it will help your business drive engagement and gain valuable insights about your audience. Use this data to improve your targeting and personalization efforts for extra credit with your fans. For example, if you run an e-commerce beauty brand, conduct a poll on your audience’s springtime color of choice. Next, segment your audience into the responses received. Then create content for those individual groups. If one group chooses electric blue as their must-have spring color, design that group’s sales email, so it speaks to that interest. Hook them with a catchy subject line: “Don’t take my blues away.” Inside include all your electric blue must-haves; eyeliners, eyeshadow, colored mascara, and so on. Get the idea? It works for every brand in every industry!  

#5 Micro-Moment in Marketing

Micro-moments are short, highly-focused moments in which consumers turn to their devices to take action on something they want or need. In other words, micro-moments refer to critical intent-driven touchpoints within your customer journey. They are the moments when your audience turns to their devices for information, guidance, or inspiration. Micro-moments are best described as the “I want-to-know,” “I want-to-go,” “I want-to-do,” and “I want-to-buy” moments. By understanding and catering to the needs and intent of customers during these micro-moments, companies can build trust and provide a seamless customer experience, ultimately leading to increased conversions. Here are some detailed examples of micro-moments and how to follow up on them. 

Examples of Micro-Moments Include:

1. “I want-to-know” moments are those times when a consumer will research a product before making a purchase.
2. “I want-to-go” moments happen when someone is searching for a local business or store.
3. “I want-to-do” moments shouldn’t be confused with the urge to do something active like hike, bike, or take in a festival. These moments are better filed under people searching for tutorials or how-to information.
4. “I want-to-buy” moments are pretty straightforward. These are the times when you begin searching for and comparing product prices.

How to Follow Up On Micro-Moments 

1. Create Mobile-optimized content to provide fast and relevant answers to customer queries. Spend some time gathering your business’s FAQs, then deploy the answers to the places where your customers are searching for them. 
2. Try your hand at location-based advertising and offers to drive foot traffic. This applies if your business has a brick-and-mortar, like a coffee shop, nursery, or boutique, etc.  
3. Pack your website (strategically packed, but not jam-packed) with interactive content, such as videos and interactive tutorials, to engage customers. Seeing your product in action is a great way to cultivate the “take my money” vibe. If your business is built on the Golden Rule of business (be a problem solver), then you have something great to offer, no matter what your business is. 
4. Personalize, Personalize, PERSONALIZE! Take your notes from tip #1 and create relevant offers, like email campaigns, SMS alerts, and retargeting ads, to drive better conversions and stay on top of your audience’s mind. 
5. Meet your people where they are. Be your customer’s digital bestie and provide them with an omnichannel experience. Your goal should be to make it easy for your customers to continue their journey with your brand across multiple devices and channels.

#6 Voice Search Optimization

As voice search becomes increasingly popular, businesses need to optimize their content for natural language search queries. Optimizing your marketing and website for voice search involves making changes to your strategy to ensure that your brand can be easily found and interacted with through voice-activated devices, such as smart speakers and virtual assistants. This includes ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly and that your content is easy to read and understand.

Here are some tips to optimize your marketing and website for voice search:

1. Use conversational language: Voice search queries tend to be in the form of questions, so make sure your content uses conversational language that matches the way people ask questions.
2. Focus on long-tail keywords: Voice searches tend to be longer and more specific than typed searches, so focus on optimizing for long-tail keywords that accurately describe your products or services.
3. Optimize for local search: Voice search is often used to find local businesses, so make sure your website and marketing materials include accurate and complete information about your business, including your location, hours of operation, and contact information.
4. Use structured data: Structured data, such as schema markup, can help search engines better understand the content on your website and provide more accurate results for voice searches.
5. Optimize for mobile devices: Many voice searches are performed on mobile devices, so make sure your website is optimized for mobile and loads quickly on all devices.

By implementing these optimization techniques, you can make your brand more easily discoverable and accessible through voice search and increase the chances of being selected by voice-activated devices.

#7 Video Marketing

Video marketing is a powerful way to connect with customers and build brand awareness. In 2023, businesses will need to focus on creating engaging and shareable video content, such as live streaming and short-form video. Here are some examples (below). We’re sharing video marketing examples for a restaurant, but you can use them for inspiration no matter what your business does or offers. 

Here are some examples of video marketing for a restaurant:

1. Food Preparation and cooking demos: Showcase the culinary skills of your chef and give customers a behind-the-scenes look at how your dishes are made.
2. Menu Highlight videos: Create short videos that showcase your most popular dishes, highlighting the ingredients and cooking process.
3. Virtual Tours: Give customers a virtual tour of your restaurant, highlighting the atmosphere, décor, and ambiance.
4. People Highlights: Put your spotlight on customer testimonials & employee profiles. Showcase positive feedback from satisfied customers and share their experiences with your restaurant. And introduce your staff to customers by creating short profile videos that highlight their experience, background, and passion for food.
5. Daily specials and events: Promote daily specials and upcoming events, such as live music or tasting menus, through short and engaging video content.

#8 Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Chatbots

IVR and chatbots can help businesses improve customer service and provide a more seamless experience. Businesses can improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs by automating routine tasks and providing 24/7 support. Did you know that 42% of consumers would prefer to provide contact information via chat – the highest of any lead gen channel? In fact, chatters are 2.8x more likely to convert than other visitors. And 53% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a business they can message directly. MelloVision proudly provides a 24/7 website-based live chat service that is designed to capture and convert more qualified leads for your business. Our industry-trained agents can chat with your website visitors in Spanish and English. The best part? Not only will you be shocked at how affordable it is to implement this tool, but you ONLY pay for leads that are qualified to do business with you. That’s right. For example, if you’re an attorney who helps people who have been in a car accident and you receive a lead from someone who needs a worker’s comp attorney, you pay 0 for that lead and still get to keep the contact info. We know. That makes us say, “WOW,” too.  

#9 Social Media Listening and Sentiment Analysis

It’s not a new thing, but it is an increasingly emerging and important thing. Social media listening and sentiment analysis can help businesses understand how customers feel about their brand and what they say about it. Businesses can use this data to improve their targeting, messaging, and customer service. Social media listening and sentiment analysis can also help you understand what customers are saying about your brand and industry so that you can identify opportunities to increase conversions. 

Here are some examples of how to use social media listening and sentiment analysis to increase conversions:

1. Monitor brand mentions: Keep track of all mentions of your brand on social media, including both positive and negative feedback. Respond to positive comments to build customer loyalty and address negative comments to resolve customer complaints.
2. Track customer sentiment: Analyze the sentiment of customer comments and feedback on social media, and use that information to inform your marketing and customer service strategies.
3. Identify customer pain points: By tracking customer feedback on social media, you can identify common pain points and use that information to improve your product or service.
4. Monitor industry trends: Keep track of trends and conversations in your industry on social media, and use that information to inform your marketing strategies and stay ahead of the competition.
5. Engage with customers: Engage with customers on social media by responding to their questions and comments and participating in relevant conversations. This can help build customer trust and increase conversions.

#10 Privacy and Data Security

With data privacy and security becoming increasingly important, businesses will need to focus on protecting customer data and being transparent about their data practices. This includes implementing robust security measures and being transparent about data collection, use, and sharing. If you don’t have the “This website uses cookies” pop-up on your website or your Privacy Policy in your site navigation – best to get on that! Privacy matters. How much? Millions of marketing dollars much. Companies are spending huge portions of their marketing budgets to focus on the message that their audiences’ privacy matter to them. Check out these campaigns from Apple and Duck Duck Go. 

Okay, Ready? Breathe in, and hold 1. 2. 3. 4. Breath out 1. 2. 3. 4. You are not overwhelmed by this. You’ve totally got this! Take it one step at a time. Try incorporating one strategy every month, and by 2024, your marketing will have those pink flamingo in a world full of pigeons vibes. And don’t forget, we’re always here to support and answer your questions.