Congrats! You just made it through another dizzying year of marketing to your audiences amid a turbulent economy and rapidly changing consumer landscape. Whether you count the year as successful or not, chances are you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and perhaps even a little stressed with having to face another year of crafting a winning digital marketing plan.
Setting your priorities now is a great way to limit those emotions as 2023 gets underway. While your goals and benchmarks remain your own, having these general priorities in mind may give you the jumpstart you need to accomplish even more next year.
Nail the Basics to Accomplish More of Your Digital Marketing Goals
Are you nailing your email conversions, but finding it hard to get a good return on your social ad spend? Or, maybe your website is starting to shoot up the rankings on Google, but your conversion rate optimization remains stagnant. Finding the solution isn’t as puzzling as it may seem; the pieces are there in front of you, and now is a great time to put them in place.
Take a moment this month to step back and remember how to:
1) Keep your audience close to you
If you’re blasting emails to one audience and casting a wide net to capture a different one on social media, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Harness the power of lead capturing, retargeting, and personalization to remain top-of-mind with your most important customers. As we should all know by now, it’s much more expensive to acquire a customer than it is to retain one, so continue learning how to keep more of them around for longer.
2) Keep improving your customer experience
We discussed this a little bit in our blogs on designing an SEO-friendly website and considering UX within your overall marketing strategy: While keywords and alt text on images are important for better SERP positioning, providing the most helpful content to your users and optimizing their experience is even more important. It’s also a great way to future-proof your site amid the many SEO changes each year, as algorithms will always be looking at user engagement.
3) Stop making it all about you
We mean this in the nicest way possible. Step back from saying “I”, “us”, and “we” so much, and start letting your most important customers do some of your marketing for you. When designing your digital marketing plan for 2023, leave some bandwidth open for sourcing user-generated content, boosting your referral marketing, and engaging with your users on social media or your Google Business profile.
So, what’s the common thread through each of the 3 basics listed above? That’s right: it’s your audience. Treat them with the value they deserve, and they will return it in kind next year.
Add Some New Trends Your Digital Marketing Strategy
You can never rely too long on trends, especially these last few years. But we’ve identified a few that you’ll be able to add to your digital marketing priorities for 2023 and keep around long after.
- Influencer marketing: While not new to 2023 (93% of marketing professionals have already used some form of influencer marketing), the idea of forming long-term relationships with brand “ambassadors” will turn from a nice-to-have to a crucial element of your marketing. You don’t need a celebrity endorsement, either; there are a wealth of platforms you can use right now to find your next ambassador, or you can promote signups on your website for your own managed influencer program. (Ask us how to do this!)
- The short video phenomenon: Another hot trend that’ll likely only get bigger in 2023 will be the advancement of short-form videos. Get to know the ‘Reels’ format on TikTok or Instagram (if you don’t already) and start posting short videos where many of your customers already exist using social media management tools and schedulers.
- Personalization in a more private world. With the continued phasing out of important third-party cookie data, you’ll need to find creative ways to engage with your customers on a personal level and encourage them to offer you their information up front. Start with preference pages tied to your emails, ask for their interests using forms on your blog posts, and continue targeting your return customers since first-party data (e.g. shopping history on your store) won’t be going away.
- Emphasize social responsibility where you can. Your customers are increasingly factoring values, representation, and inclusivity into their buying decisions, though that doesn’t mean you don’t have to be involved in a large cause to attract them. Consider highlighting involvement in your community, running campaigns that include matches for charity, or heavily promoting the more value-driven elements of your products, whether that’s environmental or in how it’s sourced.
Were you expecting us to talk about artificial intelligence and the Metaverse? Don’t worry—we’ll have more on that as it becomes relevant to your digital marketing strategy in the coming years. For now, focus on adding these easily attainable trends to your digital marketing priorities for 2023, and you’ll be right in the thick of it next year.
Getting Leadership Buy-In on the Importance of Digital Marketing Trends
Your yearly goal of getting your leadership team to buy into any new strategies or trends won’t go away, though there are ways to make your pitch easier this time around.
The good news is that most leadership teams already understand the ways the digital environment is shifting and changing, and they’ll likely be ready to invest in new ideas. Your main challenge will be getting them to focus on the horizon, rather than the easy wins that may be in front of them.
Get prepared by asking yourself these following questions first:
- What are my company’s priorities, goals, or rocks for 2023?
- What were the issues (if any) that led to my company’s new priorities?
- How can I tie in my digital marketing plan with solving my company’s issues?
- How will I communicate the value proposition of each part of my plan using simple language?
- Do I have any current data right now that I can show with regards to maintaining momentum towards a goal?
- Am I able to promise time to set up regular touchpoints and be able to show progress through common KPIs for digital marketing?
Preparation is essential for getting the all-important buy-in (and hopefully an increased budget) for your 2023 digital marketing efforts. If you’re able to answer these questions confidently, getting your leadership team as excited as you about any new trends should be easier.
Stay On Top of Your Digital Marketing Goals with Brandography
This final priority may be what separates you from digital marketing stress to digital marketing success in 2023. We remain passionate at Brandography about staying on top of all the new trends, and we’d love to partner with you on turning another round of goals into reality next year.
Have you worked with us in the past on developing your website or improving your SEO marketing? We’d love to keep it going with ongoing optimization, thoughtful blog creation, or targeted email marketing to provide your customers with the experience they expect in 2023.
If you’re looking for help for the first time, we offer comprehensive marketing plans, website audits, and more to get you started. You can also spend some time before next year looking over our past blogs and case studies to get an idea of how we can help. When you’re ready, don’t hesitate to reach out for a fresh start on your digital marketing plan next year.
