Digital marketing tools have evolved over the years. 2022 was a year that was defined by its uniqueness. Even for seasoned digital marketers it was a year that stood out. For many, 2022 was the first year since 2020 that was not defined by the pandemic. This left digital marketers looking for new techniques and trends that would stick. Here are the trends that did stick…and what that tells us for 2023.
Acceptance of AI (Artificial Intelligence):
Artificial Intelligence has long been touted as the coming doom of a multitude of industries, including marketing. But as this year has shown, artificial intelligence can exponentially improve the lives of marketers and professionals alike. In addition, consumers are delighted by user interface-friendly AI. Some companies like MyHeritage are using AI in order to attract new leads. Their AI Time Machine, where users upload pictures of themselves in order to see AI generated artwork of themselves through different periods in history, was a huge success on social media. AI has a wide range of uses, and marketers are really starting to embrace it. This will, without a doubt, continue into 2023.
Email Segmentation:
Email browsers have recently made new security and privacy changes, which has caused some adjustment pain for digital marketers. Segmenting email lists into different lists based on their observed or assumed traits, would help to get the right emails to the right inboxes. This trend is going to continue as email browsers become even more strict in their policies. If you don’t know how to even start segmenting emails, look into this concept called “buyer personas” which is when you create personality types for your customer base. This trend will continue as email browsers will likely become even stricter in their privacy policies. A company that does email segmentation well is Netflix, a streaming service. Netflix has the ability to collect a lot of data from its customer base due to the product/service it provides. It uses this information to send segmented marketing emails to users as well as leads who have completed a free trial. They recommend shows and movies based on previous streaming choices-- leading to users opening marketing emails more because they actually want to know what Netflix recommends for them.
Adjusting your brand for each marketing channel:
Each channel has its own character, brand, and style. Brands who can match that style with their marketing are shown to be favored and boosted. For instance, each social media channel has a sort of communication that is unique to its users and platforms. When advertising or promoting marketing content on your social media platforms, savvy brands will alter their messaging according to the unspoken rules of each channel. For instance, Twitter will prefer attention grabbing, shorter, punchier tweets over longer tweets that don't get to the point right away. It is also a platform that encourages not only engagement, but controversy as well. On Twitter, brands try to get attention. And while they usually look for positive attention, on Twitter, neutral or even slightly negative attention is rewarded. As the reward, they “trend” on twitter, which means that many people are tweeting about them. While this may work for twitter, other social media platforms require a different approach
If you have ever spent time on Instagram, Linkedin, and Facebook you will know they all greatly differ from one another, and the platforms promote posts that best reflect the platform’s engagement metrics. So, your posts should also differ from platform to platform. Many brands make the mistake of posting the same copy for each social media platform. But going into 2023, as 2022 has shown, these social media platforms are continuing to define and separate themselves from one another.
Adjusting for shorter attention spans: perfecting the short form.
Americans have a shorter attention span than ever. Gen-Z has an average attention span of about one second. That means marketers need to grab attention faster than ever, and make their point before audiences lose interest. The best examples of this are brands using TikTok, Snapchat, and instagram stories to catch the interest of younger people. These platforms allow users to upload content that is only a few seconds to a few minutes long. How are they doing it? They are not doing a short and fast sales pitch, that would likely lose the interest of gen-z, instead they are closely observing the trends of each platform. They are mimicking user created content that feels more organic for users. In fact this content is designed to engage and delight, and it's often successful. In 2023 expect to see more, in fact even shorter forms of marketing are on the horizon. If you want to create short form marketing content, start by really narrowing down who you are, what you do, and what you provide. Having this in writing in only a couple of sentences, can really guide the messaging of your content without going off the rails.
There were many marketing trends that popped up during this unique year, but these are the trends that we think are going to stick into the future. Following every marketing trend could eventually be detrimental to a brand, but these trends signify a greater change coming to digital marketing as this decade progresses. Digital marketers are tracking these trends closely, and implementing them carefully into their overall strategy.
