Digital Marketing Trends for 2023: What’s New?

Marketing has evolved at a rapid pace over the past 12 months. More attention has been paid to giving customers a great experience across many channels. Meanwhile, we’ve also recently noticed a clear shift toward digitalization and more automated ways for brands and customers to interact. In the list below, we discuss our 7 Digital Marketing Trends for 2023!

In the past year, data privacy concerns have increased, and this has led companies to change the way that data is gathered and processed. This includes the replacement of third-party cookies with first-party cookies.

AI technology is another area experiencing a lot of growth. It has made personalization more advanced and saved marketers time when making email campaigns, articles, ads, and landing pages, while also making them more effective.

Meanwhile, SEO has also undergone a noticeable evolution, and machine learning has led to advancements in data processing. For example, as machine learning has improved, Google has started to show more relevant search results.

There are also a number of recent trends that look set for continued growth in 2023, including minimalist design, UGC, influencer marketing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

There are also a number of additional trends in machine learning, advertising, SEO, social media, and e-commerce that look set for success in the months ahead.?

1. AI Content Generation

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more and more important as businesses take their marketing to a new level. AI content generation means that marketers can now save time generating email content, landing pages, video scripts, art and images, blogs, and ads while enhancing their personalization strategies and driving more conversions.

Functional ad content complete with a CTA can be generated in seconds just by specifying the product name, description, and tone of voice.

Another AI feature is blog content generation, which crafts long-form content based on the criteria set by blog writers. You can put blog titles into a tool like Jasper.AI, and it will automatically make an outline of the topic and subheadings.

You can also generate an intro for that blog post as well as the body paragraphs based on each subtitle generated in the outline. Then, once the content is created, you can specify images and apply styling effects before publication.

AI can now create original and realistic images based on text descriptions, and some tools can even add to or improve upon original images.

You can use AI voice generator tools to make voiceovers that sound like people and show real emotions in seconds. Using speech-to-speech technology, you can use tools to change or translate your voice in real-time.

2. More Mature Machine Learning

Machine learning has made it possible for marketing channels to process data in a more and more advanced way. One example of this is?predictive?emailing, which helps marketers determine when recipients are most likely to engage with emails based on previous patterns.

Machine learning has also taken lead scoring to a new level, transforming traditional lead scoring into predictive lead scoring. This option minimizes potential errors that can result from traditional scoring practices. It creates persona profiles based on past and current behavior and helps marketers and sales teams focus on leads that are likely to convert.

Data enrichment is a powerful tool for predictive lead scoring. It gathers lead data from outside sources in real-time so that it can be used with internal data to build a fuller profile of the customer. A data enrichment tool can be connected to your CRM directly or through Zapier.

Machine learning now even includes social media management techniques, including sentiment analysis, emotional detection, and posting time recommendations. For instance, emotional detection works by analyzing followers' emotions to determine whether they might be happy, angry, sad, excited, or scared.

On the other hand, posting time recommendation features figure out the best days and times to post on social media based on how followers have interacted with posts in the past.

3. Reinforced SEO: E-A-T Signals

In 2023, search engines will put greater emphasis on E-A-T, which stands for Expertise - Authority - Trust. E-A-T signals include things like social proof, testimonials, customer reviews, links to websites with high domain authority, and badges.

This comes in the wake of Google's most recent algorithm update, which targets "content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help or inform people."

This update is meant to help content that is natural and useful to people rank higher than content that is made for crawler bots.

To ensure that Google thinks content is helpful, marketers should write content that is tailored to a specific audience, shows expertise and authority, emphasizes trustworthiness and credibility, and meets the needs and wants of real people who use the web.

If you’re taking this strategy into consideration, keep in mind that the best type of page or article is one that includes all the information that answers your target audience’s questions and solves their problems while removing any remaining potential doubts.

4. Short Form Videos

Instagram Reels have 2 million monthly active users, according to DemandSage. Instagram, Facebook Reels, and TikTok offer great potential for creating brand awareness and boosting engagement.

Interestingly, companies have started acquiring leads using short videos. There are many ways to generate leads using reels, such as posting educational content, making product tutorials, tagging products from Instagram shops, giving away freebies, answering FAQs, and highlighting customers' pain points.

Within the 60-second duration allowed on Instagram and Facebook, try to grab your audience's attention and earn their trust using educational posts or instructional videos, and at the end of the clip, show a CTA button to subscribe to your email newsletter or redirect your customers to your website or landing page to sign up.

5. Marketing in the Metaverse

Marketing in the metaverse is still a new trend that can help businesses stand out from the crowd. It gives you a virtual experience and shows what the brand is like in a way that traditional ads can't.

One of the best ways to invest in this field is to build your own metaverse application. Businesses can create a game or virtual world to virtually showcase their products. One example is Shopify, which launched its AR/3D shopping experience and is working on its NFT (Non-Fungible Token).

The NFT marketplace that Shopify is working on allows ecommerce businesses to launch a token-gated shop and create an immersive experience for customers (token holders) where they connect wallets to their stores. Token holders can gain access and shop gated merchandise, events, and more.

To reach buyers wherever they are, ecommerce stores can also set up token-gated shops on mobile devices.

Furthermore, according to Brand Essence Research, the digitized real estate world is expected to grow to $3.6 Billion in revenue in 2025, up from $358 million in 2020.

Companies can also use their digital assets to advertise their products, organize virtual product launches, and create a unique customer experience.?

Another way marketers can take advantage of metaverse space is through native advertising, such as billboards on a virtual street or product placement. Coca-Cola and Samsung, for instance, have virtual billboards in the metaverse.

A recent strategy within the advertising field that brands have started doing is Gamevertising (in-game advertising), which is a great method for effective targeting, interactions from audience players, and increased revenue.

American rapper Wiz Khalifa advertised his 2050 dynamic ads in a number of games for the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles.

6. Live Commerce

Customers buying habits have changed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, so brands now need to reach customers online and give them an all-in-one experience.

In 2020, shoppable social posts gave way to livestream sales and shopping. TikTok has since announced the launch of live shopping in the U.S. This feature, called "TalkShopLive," lets customers interact with brands by asking questions and choosing the item they want to buy while watching live.

Instagram also offers shoppable live streaming. What’s great about this feature is that the?live video can be saved so future shoppers can purchase the tagged products even if they aren't?able to attend live.

Influencers can use live streaming to promote their own brands and the products they love in a way that is interactive. Examples of this include two-way live video and chat functionality.

7. Zero-Party Data

With the death of third-party data and the rise of privacy laws, marketers have begun using opt-in forms, landing pages, or pop-ups to generate leads.

Following the increased emphasis on first-party data and customer privacy last year, the practice is expected to evolve with zero-party data in 2023.

Beyond forms, landing pages, and pop-ups, gathering information through zero-party data is done through communication preference centers and interactive surveys. The table below shows the difference between first-party data and zero-party data.

Online marketing has changed a lot in the past few years, especially since the pandemic in 2020. The need to provide a great experience for customers across all marketing channels has become more important than ever.

It's not just about using the internet to find information or look for a product or service before deciding whether or not to buy it. It's also about living the experience as if that product or service has already been bought, giving customers the best value, and preventing any disappointment that might happen after the purchase.

Also, the improvements in AI and machine learning have made it easier for marketers to better personalize their interactions with customers and create content in a variety of ways that save them time and help them achieve better results.

What’s also really important is that the common element across all these practices is the importance of transparency and the protection of customers' data, which led to the death of third-party data and increased reliance on first-party data.

This is expected to evolve to zero-party data in 2023, giving customers the opportunity to provide data intentionally and proactively even before the company collects their personal information.

Hopefully the information above is useful for your business and will help you prepare for the upcoming year!

By Georges Fallah