As the business world sits on the cusp of saying goodbye to 2022 and ushering in 2023, it will be prudent to understand how digital marketing has evolved in the past year and the lessons that can be learned moving ahead. If anything, the past is the mirror that reflects how things will shape up […]
As the business world sits on the cusp of saying goodbye to 2022 and ushering in 2023, it will be prudent to understand how digital marketing has evolved in the past year and the lessons that can be learned moving ahead. If anything, the past is the mirror that reflects how things will shape up in the future. Therefore it is necessary to understand and adapt to digital marketing trends for better brand visibility and leverage its indisputable dominance on the business success.
The year 2022 saw the economy coming out of the grip of the pandemic. The digital marketing ecosystem came into the limelight when the world shifted from offline to online information consumption mode. There was a noticeable surge in the budget spent on marketing efforts by brands. The infographic below highlights the increased revenue allocated for marketing in some leading industries.
Very early into 2022, companies realized that digital-first consumer behavior mandated a digital-first marketing strategy. There was a marked increase in social media marketing and influencer marketing by businesses of various stages of growth and operations. Global Digital Marketing Ad spending is estimated to be around US$650 billion in 2022.
The accessibility of digital platforms made it easy for all to either share or consume product/service information. The originality and uniqueness of marketing efforts for various brands became a differentiator in a sea of competitors. The challenge to be on top of the digital marketing game has opened up a gamut of marketing tools and strategies. However, due to a lack of knowledge or time, companies have struggled to employ a digital marketing strategy aligning with their objectives. In sum, 2022 was a mix of hits and misses for brands concerning their digital marketing efforts, with the average marketing spend increasing from 6.4% to 9.5% of company revenue across almost all industries
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Navigating through the myriad of digital marketing tools and techniques will need continuous study of the trends and a deep understanding of own objectives and above all a degree of expertise in mapping the trends to the objectives. As customers become more discerning about the brands they engage with, businesses must stay ahead of the curve to capture their audience.
Let us try to further understand what strategy brands need to embrace for their digital marketing needs in the coming year:
Irrespective of the nature of your business or the platform you use, highly informative, relevant, and captivating content will be the key to driving organic traffic to your brand. In addition to supporting marketing departments’ attempts to generate revenue, it establishes your brand’s thought leadership. There is more emphasis on deep research blogs, industry news, press releases, white papers, Interviews, Podcasts, etc. as brands curate their content for their intended audience. As per a report, 66 percent of marketers anticipate higher growth in their content marketing expenditure in 2023 compared to 2022.
There has been a tremendous surge in short-form videos on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. The challenge lies in creating compelling and inspiring stories that will instantly align the audience to your brand and the value it provides. The appeal of visual stimuli through short-form videos is projected to gain the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy at 30%
The past year has been anything but an indicator of how brands have realized the significance of each marketing variable and the need to maximize them with a consolidated and comprehensive strategic marketing plan. Given the multitude of social media platforms that have their own set of unique audiences, the need to form an omnichannel digital impression will be the key to increasing the market share for businesses. As new platforms emerge, existing channels have also re-engineered their efforts to create better marketing interfaces like Reddit for Business.
Brand loyalty, customer retention, and customer acquisition will not only be the function of the value of the product or the service a brand can deliver, but will also heavily depend on the personalization of the content, the communication channels designed to delight the customer and the responsiveness of the customer-brand interface. Conversational interfaces like AI-driven Chatbots (GPT-3) and immersive technology of AR/VR(Metaverse) will redefine performance metrics as Brands will have to reconfigure their marketing endeavor to capture the next generation of customers. By the end of 2022, spending on cognitive and AI systems is likely to have reached $77.6 billion, with a stronger projection to increase in 2023.
Brands need to meet their customers where they exist the most in the digital world. With more than 7 billion people having access to mobile phones/tablets, brands need to ensure that these users can easily access all their website content. Implementing accelerated mobile pages to make their load speeds faster can help improve user experience.
As a professional networking platform, the relevance of LinkedIn as a powerhouse for B2B marketing will continue to grow accounting for 25% of B2B advertising in two years. It provides a great opportunity for businesses to accelerate their growth while increasing relevant professional connections.
Search engine optimization has always been at the helm of attracting organic traffic toward brands. An informed understanding of google analytics (GA4) in its new avatar will give the necessary pointers for both on-page and off-page SEO. However, small and medium-scale businesses focused on the regional audience must sharpen the Local SEO metrics to meet their objectives. According to HubSpot, 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information. Therefore, Local SEO will help brands in targeting marketing efforts towards the right community with a relatively higher ROI.
Digital transformation is a dynamic environment where performance metrics keep changing at a faster pace. Digital Marketing cannot remain immune to these changes and will constantly require course corrections and upgradation to adapt to these changes. A simple act of abolishing third-party cookies has altered the entire marketing analytics for brands and has forced them to put in additional efforts to meet their objectives. There are numerous similar changes in platform architecture, customer expectations, and market behavior. But the basics of marketing remain the same. Organic and insightful content will always find acceptance amongst the audience. But to make the brand story more impactful, one needs to get creative, compelling, consistent, and customer-centric.
We surely hope 2023 will be a successful milestone in the journey of our readers and partners. At 1729 Digital, we look forward to collaborating with you to script stories of success and growth as your trusted digital marketing partner.
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