A lot has happened in the past few years. People started shifting towards Instagram and TikTok while Facebook remains the house for millennials.
Newspapers found their way into people’s smartphones with only headlines in view. Even brands started changing their marketing tactics to catch the attention of younger generations.
Currently, you won’t find print ads anymore as digital marketing has taken off. Organizations are focusing on video-based advertisements, infographics, and various other forms of recent trends in digital marketing for the digital world that we are sitting in.
But we know very well that nothing is permanent in the marketing sector. Internet marketing trends come and go within seconds, and marketers must adapt swiftly to maintain their composure and customer satisfaction.
That’s why we are here with some of the latest digital marketing trends that have the potential to become influential and upgrade your digital marketing strategy.
Latest Digital Marketing Trends 2023 To Look Out For
Without further delay, let’s get into the new trends in digital marketing.
1. Leaning Towards The Digital World
Artificial intelligence and virtual reality are no longer theoretical; the biggest proof of this would be Metaverse and OpenAI. These are the emerging trends in digital marketing that will slowly take on the entire market.
When Metaverse came into view, several brands collectively started being present in the virtual world. In simple words, Metaverse became the new pit stop for digital marketers.
Brands were able to showcase their latest services, products, upgrades and even connect with customers on a personal level.
Though Metaverse has not yet shown any positive ROI, it will be a strong point in the future. If you plan on making your business large, then snake yourself present on the Metaverse.
Another current digital marketing trends that has appeared as a boon for digital marketers is OpenAI’s GPT-3 and ChatGPT.
These two AI-powered tools can help marketers in a lot of ways. Instead of spending hours brainstorming, you can use GPT-3 to create a rough outline of your marketing strategy and develop ideas around it.
GPT-3 gives you the freedom to develop “n” number of rough drafts for emails, social media, and more. Basically, this tool can develop a rough template and a whole solid outline, provided you give it proper inputs.
2. Marketing the Gen Z Way
Gen Z currently occupies the highest percentile of the world population. That means, to survive in the marketing field, you need to impress the new generation. How? By adapting to the latest digital marketing trends that are emerging every day.
The best and worst thing about Gen Z is that they have grown on digital platforms and have pretty good knowledge about all technologies. Due to this, you need to devise your marketing strategy as per the requirements of Gen Z.
The current generation wants brands to be more imaginative while marketing their products. They don’t want to feel like someone’s selling them a product or service. Instead, they want the brand to convince them to buy through creative storytelling.
Gen Z loves it when brands connect with them on a personal level. One of the best online marketing trends 2023 that you can use in such cases in conducting interactive sessions.
Whether you are conducting quizzes, games, or simply holding an in-person campaign, the younger generation will get attracted to it.
In simple words, to understand the younger generation and their mindset, you need to put yourself in their shoes.
3. Stand By Your Values
With everything being showcased on the internet, it has become extremely important for brands to stand by their values and vision.
People are looking for socially conscious brands that stand by their morals during the test of time, and not when everyone else’s doing.
For example, when the pandemic came into view, most companies fired dozens of employees due to a lack of business and salaries. But, there were CEOs and founders who cut their salaries in half so that their employees could get full salaries and have a source of income during tough times.
Even if such brands were not big enough, this small gesture increased their brand value tenfold. People started noticing and appreciating them for their thoughtfulness, and the stock prices increased a lot.
This was just one example of how brands should stick to their values in order to gain customers.
Another situation that we can talk about is when brands incorporate inclusivity, diversity, racial injustice, and various other social causes into their campaigns all the time and not when it’s “Pride month” or “Black history month.”
Such differences show the audience that your brand genuinely cares for people and doesn’t just include or talk about these things for promotion or treat them as new trends in digital marketing that they are bound to follow.
4. Humanize Your Strategies
Who’s not a fan of Tom Cruise movies? The amazing action, impossible stunts, and incredible direction. Slowly, marketers started incorporating action movie tactics in advertising to gain people’s attention.
But now, people are not looking for fictional advertising, instead realism is becoming one of the emerging trends in digital marketing.
Consumers want marketers to realize that realism will take them far in this race. Instead of hiring actors to promote your brand, try going for a more realistic medium.
For example, you can hire content creators and influencers or even run a campaign with normal people giving their reviews for your services.
Real reviews and conversations will help you connect with your audience. It would portray that your brand’s products and services are indeed genuine. They might have their pros and cons, but at least the reviews are real, and they will believe that the organization will make the required changes.
Interactive sessions, in-person meet-and-greet, and sample testing for upcoming products; are just a few examples you can follow to provide a realistic approach to your marketing strategy.
5. Planet Over People
The pandemic made it clear that we must focus on making our planet a better place to live. People are looking for environmentally conscious brands that care for the planet the way they should.
But how can brands show that they care about the planet? By including their environment-conscious ways or processes in their marketing campaigns.
Investing in proper disposal methods, making their products vegan and cruelty-free, and ensuring that whatever services they provide do not cause any harm to the planet.
For example, thrift shopping is currently one of the recent trends in digital marketing that shopping brands are following.
Major clothing brands are currently dropping the idea of fast fashion and encouraging their customers to go thrift shopping. It is well known that fast fashion causes lots of water wastage, electricity, non-renewable energy, and more.
By opting for thrift shopping, brands, and people can lower carbon emissions and take small steps to reduce waste.
Several brands also provide gift coupons and reward points to customers who submit recyclable bottles to them. Encouraging such gestures makes your brand one of a kind and lets people realize that shopping from you is a wise option.
6. Micro Influencers All The Way
Gone are the days when brands invested heavily in celebrity endorsements to promote their products. Currently, consumers are looking for people who can give them real reviews without bias. In simple words, influencer marketing is the latest digital marketing trend that organizations are following.
Creators and influencers on Instagram and TikTok gained popularity for the reasons above. People want to know how effective or ineffective the product is from real human beings.
Brands investing in influencer marketing have experienced a rise in their sales along with a good percentage of customer retention. Influencer marketing is going to remain and will provide better results for organizations.
But, before approaching a particular influencer, you need to research about them. Understand the type of content they create, their target audience, and whether they will be a good addition to your marketing campaign.
Once you have gone through the process, approach them with your pitch and devise a proper marketing strategy they can follow.
You need to remember that the reviews influencers provide should be completely honest and don’t feel like they are selling a brand.
As stated above, the current generation does not like it when someone sells a brand to them; instead, they want creativity. And influencers provide them with video-based reviews that show real-time results that viewers highly appreciate.
7. Doing More With Less
To get good returns, you need to invest smartly in marketing campaigns. But wouldn’t it be great if you get profit without any or low investments? Yes, we are talking about using customer reviews and images as a marketing tool.
Did you know that Starbucks saves a lot of money by misspelling their customers’ names? Yes, they knowingly misspell their customers’ names so that they will post the same on their social media handles. By doing so, Starbucks gets its share of marketing without spending anything.
This is just one example of customer marketing. There are several other ways you can make use of customer mentions and use it to your benefit.
For example, when customers mention your brand or use your hashtag, you can mention them directly on your feed. However, make sure to take permission from customers before using their images for your brand’s social media handle.
RankWatch’s website analyzer helps you discover the keywords and trends for which they are ranking. You can use this information to design appropriate marketing strategies that will bring good results for your business.
8. No More Cookies
A cookie-less future is one of the online marketing trends 2023 we are preparing ourselves for. The trend slowly started catching up when Apple removed cookies from its OS.
Google will remove third-party cookies by 2024, meaning digital marketers need to find different ways to collect customer information.
There have been several cases of data leakage from FaceBook, Whatsapp, and other social media apps. Users are very concerned about their privacy after such leakages come into the scenario.
It is well known that almost all websites use third-party cookies to gather information about their users, which is later used for designing marketing strategies. With a cookie-less future coming into view, the above is quite difficult.
Due to this, organizations need to opt for other ways, like surveys, quizzes, and other interactive programs where customers can willingly provide information and get rewards in return.
Some enterprises provide coupons and rewards to customers who submit their receipts on the website. The customers get coupons and rewards based on the number of receipts they submit. In this case, the users are willing to provide the information on the receipts in return for the benefits.
You can also use AI tools to gather information about users who crawl your website or things they are looking for and subtly show them relatable ads to promote your services.
Besides, RankWatch’s backlink analyzer can help you understand the total number of websites that link back to you. Whether it’s from a referral, paid, or organic, the analytics section will show you the total percentage, the websites from which they visit your site, and so on.
9. “Shop Local” Will Remain
The “shop local” trend started in 2020 when the pandemic came into view. Big eCommerce websites were slowly killing local shops, and people started realizing this. To make sure that small indie stores do not die, people made a lot of efforts to save them, and have succeeded in it.
But how can “shop local” help businesses improve their marketing strategies? Brands can directly create marketing campaigns connecting them with local stores and producers to gain traction.
If you want to spread your franchise throughout the state, you need to design and formulate your content and services as per the local demands and needs.
You cannot simply place a pricey product in an area where people are used to buying affordable and good quality products. Here you need to tone down the price without compromising on the quality of the service so that you can gain the locals’ trust.
The best way to make this happen is by collaborating with local stores and combining your services for better sales.
Summing Up…
Digital marketing is seen as a difficult task, but once you understand the norms, it becomes easier to handle. One of the major things that you need to keep in mind is to remain updated on future digital marketing trends. Brands that are always on edge and remain ahead in every trend are the ones who can succeed in this race.
With RankWatch’s help, you can always keep an eye on your competitors, view your website’s performance, get your hands on trending topics, and much more. It is one of the top SEO tools that provides a 14-day free trial period that gives you access to all premium tools to decide whether the tool is valuable for your marketing tactics.
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