Gathering data the right way
2023 digital marketing trends starts with privacy. The POPI Act and Google’s changes regarding gathering of cookies as data to use for personalised marketing are having a significant impact on how businesses gather data from consumers. But, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because the solution is obvious: aim for more strategic engagement and human connection with consumers.
You can still gather data from consumers by looking at their engagement with your social media content, and of course by using incentivised forms and surveys for them to complete. With a bit of creativity and humour, you can easily make these feel more like a fun quiz — quizzes get excellent results when it comes to generating new leads and adding more subscribers to your mailing list.
Collecting customer data through WhatsApp
Another way to collect customer data is through instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Mobile contact with your customers is about as personal as it gets! With a few clicks, customers can answer three simple, yet very useful questions around new product launches, developments, customer experiences, after-sales support, and more. It’s powerful!
As instant messaging apps mature and develop into data-gathering/-holding tools in their own right, it will become a crucial source of invaluable information on your customers.
More creativity in digital marketing
Consumers have seen what can be done with a level playing field on platforms such as TikTok where content creators are bored with perfectly produced aesthetics and simply show up as real and relatable. It has sparked fantastically unique collaborations between different creators, creating new communities in various niches and industries. They expect to be marketed to in a similar way — relevant, honest, relatable human connections. Hard, old-school ways of selling are off-putting by comparison!
While older businesses may be a little intimidated by the consumers’ need for more creativity, it presents a new opportunity for brands to present more of their human side. This means giving employees more room to play and to bring their ideas to the table — a trend that’s well overdue! The crux is that there is more room for radical creativity than ever before, and the chances of achieving success by trying something different are higher too.
More chatbots on websites
It may seem counter-intuitive to bring up chatbots right after talking about relatable content and creativity, but chatbots (when used correctly and strategically) make the sales journey much easier and faster for both consumers and businesses. Consumers get quick answers to their frequently asked questions, and business can focus on the interactions that are more crucial.
Tools that can help businesses automate various tasks are cost- and time efficient, while improving quicker customer satisfaction. If you’re not using chatbots on your site yet, it’s time to investigate how this can make a difference to your sales team and the time they spend on customer support versus generating sales.
More bots (AI) in general
A chatbot is only one form of useful artificial intelligence. Other bots can be used for tasks like:
- Mapping your customer’s typical navigation of your website, sales pages, online stores, etc.
- Helping customers complete their transaction if they’ve abandoned their carts
- Assisting customers immediately when they are on your website with a particular question in mind
- Automated setup of consultations with clients
Another cutting-edge tool that’s going to become a marketer’s right hand for automating various tasks, is GPT-4 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4). It’s a text-generation tool that you can train with online content and then use it generate ideas, translation, questions and answers, etc. Social media content generation tools are also in progress, making it even easier and faster to create and post your social content.
More shorts (aka reels, stories, brief clips) — not pants
Short video clips are not going anywhere soon. Can you say #shortattentionspan? It’s not just about attention spans (though that’s a factor today thanks to all the pandemic-induced stress and trauma, thanks2020), but the appeal of bite-sized pieces of useful content.
Short reels, stories, and video clips can help you
- illustrate a product’s value
- explain a relevant topic
- provide entertaining marketing that’s memorable,
- get your point across quickly, and more.
Additionally, the beauty of shorts is that you don’t necessarily need to spend a ton of production effort to produce something very polished. Polished videos can be fun to make for variety now and then, but for the most part, “scrappy content” is completely legitimate.
Again, it’s about relatability.
Capitalize on the low cost and low effort needed to make videos that get seen by more people than you think, especially on TikTok. You can use free tools like Canva to compile something that looks more than good enough.
Combined with strategic influencer marketing, creative skits, and fun collaborations, using shorts is a no-brainer. This should take up a major chunk of your marketing budget because the ROI is totally worth it.
More native ads that blend in
More brands will be experimenting with “native” ads, ads that are more subtle and blend in with the rest of the content on one’s social media feed, exposing new consumers to it that would otherwise not have come across it. Ads land among similar user/follower posts, as opposed to the more traditionally disruptive method. Google search ads and ads on Instagram and content recommendation platforms (the ones that tell you to “read more” at the bottom) are excellent for this technique.
On Adbot, you don’t need to be a Google Ads specialist, and you don’t need to hire an expert to do it all for you at the cost of an arm and a leg either. Our platform uses AI to learn what works well and makes it easy for you to quickly improve, test, setup, and monitor your ads. In other words, for effective ads that are affordable and powerful, Adbot is the perfect intelligent yet user-friendly ad tool.
LinkedIn as a B2B powerhouse
While some may think this platform is truly a bit old to still be around, let alone powerful, it’s not going anywhere! If you serve a B2B audience and you’re not using it, you’re missing out on lots of potential business. It’s popular for sharing explainer videos and user-generated content where you can add your voice, expertise, and opinion to an ongoing conversation in your field.
Use videos to connect to people and build your network. Be strategic in including use of this platform in your online content marketing. It will pay off as the platform continues to develop more opportunities for businesses to grow their audience.
Technology, strategy, and opportunity
In conclusion, successful digital marketing in 2023 is all about a carefully curated combination of technological developments, automation tools, marketing and communication strategy, and playing into the opportunities that open up. Assess what can work the best for your business and your target audience.
Take risks, try something different, and don’t be intimidated by the ever-changing playing field. Your online marketing success is not entirely subject to the tyranny of the algorithms! Everyone is in the same boat, exploring what’s possible, just like you, and in the end, marketing is always about people, no matter what trends and tools you use.