3 High-Impact Marketing Trends for 2023

What are the top marketing trends you should know about for 2023? How do you use this information to your advantage? Here’s my take on three trends that can impact your marketing and revenue growth in the coming year.?

#1 Impressions Matter Again

Who would have thought? In the B2B space, we went through a period where impressions were basically a vanity metric. The only real metrics were clicks and form fills. Now, impressions are starting to show their value once more. They are making a measurable impact on mind share and priming an audience to buy.?

Here’s an example from the B2B Institute showing a 6X improvement in activation performance for brand building + acquisition marketing vs. acquisition marketing alone.?

In non-jargon, that means the more often people SEE your brand even when you aren't asking for a sale, the more likely they are to BUY when you do ask.

Being seen matters, even if there’s not a DIRECT link to a click or other conversion metric. This is one reason it’s critical to look at your whole ecosystem of advertising and marketing.?

A Critical Lesson We Learned with a Client’s Ad Campaigns

We keep a close eye on ad performance so we don’t waste a client’s budget on ads that aren’t working.?

• One of our clients this year was getting ALL their leads from ads on Facebook and other platforms but NONE from LinkedIn ads.?
• Naturally, we switched off their LinkedIn ads due to lack of conversions.
• What happened next was a surprise. Their conversions across Facebook and other ad channels took a steep nosedive.?
• It turns out, the impressions from LinkedIn were a strong influence in priming the target audience to make a “yes” decision when presented with ads on other platforms.?

It's important to track marketing efforts holistically instead of in silos. Omnichannel, multi-platform advertising and marketing is about building brand awareness AND generating leads. Only diligent tracking and close observation will tell the true story about what’s working.?

#2 Video Is Your Best Friend

It’s not surprising that more than 50% of marketers are planning to spend more money on video in 2023 (see source ).

Video makes EVERYTHING work better. Here are some of the ways I recommend using video in B2B marketing:?

• Video Landing Pages for Google Ads (previews to increase trust & conversion)
• Content for Social Media (tutorials and insights)
• Enhancement for website (customer testimonials and education)
• YouTube channel to attract new visitors (and for SEO)
• Video messaging used in sales process (personalized video emails)
• Ongoing email nurture (trackable videos with CTAs)
• LinkedIn video events (live and prerecorded)

Hear me talk more about video marketing in my latest interview with Dacia Coffey.?

Five Video Statistics You Should Know

• A website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if it includes video. (Insivia )
• Including a video on your landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%. (Unbounce )
• Video increases organic search traffic on a website by 157%. (Conversion XL )
• Adding video to your emails can increase click rates by 300%. (HubSpot )
• On average, people spend 2.6x more time on pages with video than without. (Wistia )

Isn’t video expensive and hard to create?

That’s really up to you. Not all video needs to be studio quality to be effective in driving results and revenue growth. It’s much better to get in the habit of creating and deploying video even if it’s not perfect. Even a simple video shot on your phone will often outperform written content.?

Go here for an example of using video on a landing page: Marketing Plan Template ?

#3 You Will Probably Need to Do More with Less

“We’re cutting your budget, but we expect better results.” Those are familiar words for most marketers, and this time-honored trend of squeezing the marketing budget will get worse in the coming year.?

According to the latest research from Integrate , “Nearly 60% of B2B marketers report current budgets being cut or staying flat and two-thirds of marketers are expected to accomplish the same or more with fewer resources.”

This begs the question, how DO you get more from your marketing budget. Here are a few ways you can start:

1. Renegotiate your marketing technology spend. Some vendors have a LOT of wiggle room in the pricing and packages they offer. You won’t know unless you ask. I’ve seen prices cut as much as 70% for some of my clients, saving them five figures a year.?
2. Reevaluate trade show attendance. If you don’t have a strong track record for QUALITY lead generation from conferences, conventions, and trade shows, consider limiting the number of these events you attend next year. Put more money toward events where you have speaking or workshop opportunities and skip the ones where your brand is just another booth in a sea of noise.
3. Choose a theme and dig in. Creating flagship content around a single, “big idea” for the year can help cut costs by allowing you to create once and deploy everywhere. Repurposing can include social content, email campaigns, live events, podcast guest spots, infographics, video, industry articles, and more.?

For more ways to maximize your marketing dollars, send me a message to request a replay of my recent live event on “Making the Most of Your Marketing Budget in 2023".

Want to talk about what you should start doing and stop doing with your marketing in 2023? Grab a time on my calendar to chat.?

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