Digital Marketing Trends 2023?

The last two years saw a pandemic, tensions in the geopolitical landscape, and an economic slowdown in some of the major countries. All these factors fuelled significant changes in the way companies market their products and services. Digital marketing has become more important than ever. In order to gain a competitive advantage and get going, companies need to embrace changes and tune their digital marketing strategies to them.

Popular Digital Marketing Trends

This article aims to explain the top trends in the digital marketing world this year that every marketer should know.

User-generated Content Persuades the Most

In 2023, customers will not be wooed by flashy photos, informative blogs, and impressive facts and figures. What they need is testimony from other customers about your product’s potential. They want to see those real people using your product or service and adding value to their lives.

The content generated by your existing customers vouching for your product is termed user-generated content. It can be a social media post, a video testimonial or even a live stream. Marketers should think of ways to incentivize their customers for leaving a review for their product or service. They can offer a special discount for testimony or a review post.

Less Dependence on Third-party Cookies

Third-party cookies are small codes that determine the online behavior of the users by tracking the sites they visit. Due to privacy issues, Google has been hinting at scrapping the cookie mechanism to collect data. 2023 may be the last year for these third-party cookies. Without these cookies, marketers will have a hard time providing a personalized experience to their customers. Coming up with alternative ways to gain insight into the customers is extremely important. In this context, the first-party data collected by the brands become extremely important. The brands must leverage these data to the fullest.

Social listening is another way to compensate for third-party cookies and dive into the customer’s lifestyle and interests. Social listening requires the brands to be on a constant lookout for any brand mentions on a blog, video comment, or social media post to understand their brand perception in the public.

Sustainability and Inclusivity Will Matter

Sustainability and inclusivity are influencing the purchase decision of consumers more than ever before. More and more consumers are prioritizing brands that represent the marginalized and commit to ameliorating the environmental woes of the planet. The fact that many companies have been striving hard to lessen their environmental impact is proof of this trend.

Therefore, it is time when companies serve a social and environmental purpose, apart from just squeezing profits. It is no longer optional but imperative. Integrating those purposes into their advertisements will help improve their brand perception and hence, the profits.

The Rise of Audio-first Content

The world is witnessing a resurgence of audio-based content after the golden era of radios. Here are some figures which clearly state this. Close to 29 million UK adults listen to a podcast every week. In the United States, the average time spent on audio content in a week is approximately 17 hours.

Marketers need to jump on the bandwagon and incorporate audio into their content and advertising strategy. One of the most significant advantages of audio content is the ease with which this content can be consumed. The customers can listen to them while driving, cooking, or walking. There are different ways to capitalize on this audio-content boom. Promoting the product on audio platforms increases the chance of customers interacting with it. Podcasts are an effective way for subtle brand mentions. With the surge of voice search, marketers can think about optimizing their content for voice search. Targeting conversational keywords can also be considered.

The Metaverse

There is a lot of buzz around this concept and it is only going to increase this year. The Gen Zs and Gen Alphas are already into it. The millennials are expected to be interacting more with this digital world this year. According to Bloomberg, the metaverse market will be worth $400 billion by 2024. Major players like Microsoft, Apple, and Nike are already using this technology to enhance the user experience.

There is a lot of competition in traditional marketing and the chances to stand out are grim. Metaverse can give forward-looking marketers an early mover advantage. Hence, marketers can think of providing a fully immersive and personalized experience of their products and services through the metaverse. For example, a retailer can open a digital store where customers can walk around, observe the intricacies of the product and take an informed decision.

Nothing Over human-generated Quality Content

With the advent of tools like ChatGPT, there have been talks of AI-generated content taking over the jobs of authentic content writers. This is unlikely to be the case.

AI-generated content has its limitations. AI-generated content is the mere assembling of relevant information. It lacks social, political, or emotional context. Hence these contents are not unique. In contrast, every content writer has distinct opinions, diverse experiences, and unique personalities, all of which are reflected in the content. Hence, nothing beats the original quality content created by humans.

In addition to that, sooner or later, these machine-generated contents will fall prey to the ever-evolving algorithms of Google and be penalized. After all, these contents are just shuffling of words and paraphrasing of sentences.

Conclusion

Understanding and capitalizing on the changing behavior of consumers is the essence of successful marketing. At a time when customers are bombarded with myriads of products and services, knowing what they want and where they want it, gives a great headstart to the companies. Digital marketers must be on a constant lookout for any trends to integrate them into their marketing strategy. After all, the consumer of today is both insatiable and capricious. They cannot be wooed by traditional marketing techniques. Their buying behavior keeps changing. Hence, marketers cannot wait for the change to happen. They need to predict the change and start acting.