10 Marketing Trends :
Since the extraordinary COVID pandemic broke out in 2022, which is expected to be the first year of normalcy, brands and businesses alike have done all possible to craft a turnaround narrative for themselves. In fact, the majority of them, including those in travel and hospitality, boosted their marketing and advertising expenses on a year-over-year basis in comparison to the longer pandemic days, independent of the business and sector they operate in.
The conventional media, especially the still ubiquitous television, continued to be a crucial instrument in their marketing arsenal even as a wide variety of digital marketing tools and platforms grew more widely used.
What will happen to marketers and advertising in 2023? Find out by reading on.
A bigger footprint for digital marketing
It is quite obvious that brands will use digital marketing tools and its variations on a much larger scale than ever before, compared to traditional marketing tools. Brands will make the most of this opportunity given that customers spend almost seven hours per day using their cellphones and the high engagement rate that results from this.
Brands will be able to tap into the interests and preferences of numerous potential and existing young customers who are anticipated to be constantly present on these platforms as digital advertising spreads to new social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp Business, and Snap, among others. Brands will push for digital marketing even more as OTT platforms, linked TV, and gaming gain popularity.
Video marketing will continue to dominate content types.
Videos will continue to be popular as a highly successful and entertaining digital marketing tool because of their ever declining costs and entry hurdles as well as their sheer efficacy as a medium of direct contact with customers. Videos will continue to be a potent tool in the hands of marketers, used for anything from creating and disseminating product and quality information to creating and disseminating how-to instructive movies in clear, basic language to broadcasting customer testimonials. Particularly, brands will favor short video content as their choice.
A more serious commercial turn will be made in social media
Even while the majority of social media sites currently have a commercial view and are increasingly offering tools for businesses, this year will see more consolidation in this area. Businesses won’t be limited to posting material and following up on discussions about their goods and services. Via live streaming events, games, and competitions, they will try to interact with customers directly in an effort to capture more of their attention.
In reality, brands will use social media as a consumer interface or touchpoint more frequently this year in order to immediately respond to customers’ demands, questions, concerns, etc.
Influencer marketing will gain momentum
Influencer marketing will become widely used as a result of the emergence of a creator economy in which user-generated content (UGC) and individual producers play a crucial role in brand promotion. Celebrity influencers and industry thought leaders will still be important to major brands, but smaller businesses with tighter budgets may turn to so-called micro-influencers because of the high expenses involved.
Micro-influencers may have fewer followers than superstar influencers, but in addition to having greater engagement rates, they are regarded for their knowledge and experience in a particular product or service category. As a result, they will further boost consumer confidence in a specific brand and product.
SEO will gain more traction
SEO will undoubtedly continue to be a vital tool in the arsenal of marketers in the digital world of brands and businesses. As a result, brands will continue to deploy a suitable keyword-based content strategy based on accepted and common terms.
In reality, SEO for brands will no longer be confined to text and become relevant for multimedia, including videos and image optimization for businesses, as Google algorithms change and get more complex and intelligent.
Mobile marketing will get up steam
Brands are likely to concentrate on mobile marketing techniques given that mobile devices account for more than half of all annual online website traffic. Given the rise in customer app usage, marketers will place more emphasis on in-app marketing and mobile phone advertising in addition to optimising mobile web designs for product promotion.
For brands, while mobile offers unparalleled personalization opportunities, phone-based advertising have a better click-through rate (CTR) and often cost less per click (CPC) than desktop clicks.
Social responsibility will play a significant role in brand campaigns.
Given the recent experience with the pandemic and the fact that younger generations are increasingly judging businesses based on the latter’s history of diversity, inclusivity, and social responsibility, brands will include social responsibility into every aspect of their marketing campaigns. The advertising and messaging activities of a brand will also increasingly include environmentally conscious campaigns on a regular basis.
OTT platforms will be taken into consideration for traditional TV marketing.
Brands will not hesitate to target traditional TV, while definitely keeping an eye on cutting-edge OTT platforms, in order to capitalise on the popularity of sports, entertainment events, and fixtures that frequently occur concurrently on traditional broadcast TV, OTT, and video-streaming platforms. Promotional content will therefore be created with both channels in mind more frequently.
More conventional media to maintain visibility
Aside from the continued dominance of television as a promotional medium, FMCG companies will also make strategic and niche investments in other traditional channels, such as print, including newspapers and magazines, radio, and outdoor advertising. This is true even in the face of the increasing acceptance and traction for digital marketing channels. In reality, radio will continue to be a crucial pillar of promotion for FMCG companies by leveraging the popularity of various radio FM channels, which continue to command enormous local reach in the country.
Listening to the radio while driving or travelling has frequently altered customers’ choices and even influenced their last-minute purchasing decisions. This is true not only during holidays and other local and national sporting events and other mass entertainment events. ATL initiatives using print and outdoor media will also be driven by similar trends.
A blend of ATL and BTL tactics would be successful.
With the impending digital disruptions, the distinction between ATL and BTL is becoming less clear, but FMCG businesses will still use BTL strategies and techniques with more specialised messaging for a narrowly focused client base. Direct selling, telemarketing, in-store promotions, trade exhibitions, road shows, postal marketing, and social media marketing are a few examples of these.
Apart from considerations like target audience, stage of client acquisition, overall and ultimate purpose, whether awareness or conversion, and budget, the type of the campaign—whether ATL or BTL—will rely on the particular product being promoted. Most likely, a mix of ATL and BTL tactics increasingly referred to as through the line (TTL) will be used.
In conclusion, while firms will increase their emphasis on digital platforms, they will also retain prepared promotional and branding strategies for TV and other traditional channels as part of their marketing arsenal. An omnichannel strategy that incorporates both online and offline marketing will direct their actions as digitally immersive platforms and experience marketing become more prominent.
