Marketing Trends to Watch and Get Inspired By in 2023

Newest marketing trends of 2023

Earlier, we discussed the latest email marketing trends — what about other channels? Let’s dig deeper into some of the freshest, juiciest marketing trends you might need to get inspired by to make your marketing strategy for 2023 more effective.

Social media as a customer service tool

Corporate accounts still share important information and post fun viral content online. However, social media marketing is far beyond posting memes now. Public social media accounts are already aimed at building a community and creating a high customer engagement — why not use this opportunity to resolve issues and improve customer experience?

For example, many brands on Twitter chose an approach similar to Wendy’s. When regular users complain about the service quality, these accounts reach out to them to resolve issues. It’s convenient for customers because they don’t have to spend time looking for support contacts on websites — just tag a brand in your post and they’ll be here to help. And for you, it means a better brand reputation — these convos on Twitter are public, so other users see that you care. To ensure immediate replies, businesses use Twitter chatbots for automation.

Interactive content marketing

Social media and the internet in general allow customers to connect with your brand as they would with any other user — with a click. That’s why not using interactive content in your marketing strategy is a missed opportunity to boost engagement and the public interest in what you have to offer. Interactive content marketing includes polls on Twitter and Instagram, personality quizzes, scrollytelling, and other fun formats depending on publishing platforms.

Emails are interactive in nature — they’re like a mini web page you can click through. So, if you don’t know where to start with interactive content marketing, emails are a great medium for that. There are many cool examples — we like this clickable map by Royal Caribbean International:

Interactions don’t have to be this complex though — look at this email from McDonalds. Here, interactivity is just one click to open the envelope but it still looks cool!

Aside from emails, you can add unusual interactions to your website. Take a look at Mint — this personal finance management app created a grocery budget calculator:

Another interesting form of interactive content is playable ads. These are not a good fit for every business — but if you happen to promote a video game, consider including this trend in your marketing strategy for 2023.

Development of AI marketing

ChatGPT made a lot of noise last year — and it doesn’t seem to stop since the release of an even better technology, GPT-4. But the use of AI is not limited to writing. Here are some great practices involving neural networks that can improve your marketing strategy and more:

• Writing content. Will AI replace copywriters? Not yet! We tried writing a blog article with ChatGPT and the results were mediocre at best. Generative neural networks are not as good as human content creators yet but it doesn’t mean AI is useless in the field. Combined with SEO, solutions like MarketMuse help you choose better topics for articles and get better content briefs. 
• Creating images. With DALL-E, Midjourney, and other text-to-image tools, you can create illustrations for social media posts or references for designers. One great example is the San Francisco Ballet Instagram campaign for Nutcracker.

• Improving customer experience. Using AI-powered chatbots for optimizing tech support and the automation of simple tasks like booking a session will save you money and improve customer experience — it’s a great tactic in many ways.
• Improving analytics. Generative AIs get a lot more spotlight but what about the algorithms that search for patterns in datasets? These can do a lot for marketing — they analyze more customer data much faster. With big data analysis, you can get valuable information and predict your customers’ next moves, which means better personalization and segmentation, and more efficient marketing decisions in general. It’s especially important in the cookieless world where data management and collection will be your responsibility.

For example, Netflix uses AI to get data for creating the most enticing promo artwork for movies and shows on the home page.

Machine learning helps Netflix identify the features of the images for other movies that gathered the most clicks. Neural networks search for artwork patterns depending on the movies’ content — and then the designer team uses this knowledge to create several promo picture versions for the same film. It’s one of the many ways AI can boost the effectiveness of your marketing efforts!

The rising popularity of short video content

We saw a huge transformation of online content in 2020. Now, many social media platforms have a feature for short videos similar to TikTok — YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, to name a few. With over a billion monthly active users, TikTok has conquered the internet and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. For marketers, it means that they have a fruitful format for ads and a way to boost engagement with social media content. In 2021, 52% of US TikTok users found advertisements published on the platform fun and engaging. Even better, TikTok is trusted more than influencers — the last year’s research by TikTok and Material showed that TikTokers are:

• Twice as likely to recommend a service or a product they saw on TikTok.
• 61% more likely to spend more money on your business.
• 25% more satisfied with their customer journey if it includes TikTok.

Take a look at Dunkin — one of the most popular food brands on the platform. In their TikTok marketing strategy, they combine stylish visuals, the authenticity, and the fine art of hopping on trends in a timely manner. Here’s their branded take on one of the latest crazes on the platform.

And here’s solid proof that their strategy works wonders!

Using live streaming for promotional content

By 2030, the global live streaming market is expected to reach $534 billion with a steady 29.3% CAGR. The popularity of the format has been driven by the pandemic — since offline events were canceled, both viewers and entertainers switched to live streaming as a replacement.

Live streaming platforms are basically the interactive cousin of traditional TV. For marketers, it means one more opportunity to communicate with the audience and demonstrate a product or a service in great detail. It doesn’t even have to be Twitch — similar to TikTok’s short videos, many social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have the live streaming feature.

One effective marketing tactic for live streaming in retail is live hauls. For example, JCPenney has a whole series of streamed events where fashion and lifestyle influencers share what they bought from the brand.

Promoting users over products

Consumers see user-generated content, or UGC, as the most trustworthy type of content. What is even more interesting, many people use social media as a search engine to discover new brands.

For marketers, it means that running UGC campaigns leads to more sales, more new customers, and a better brand reputation online. With such campaigns, you also save money since you don’t make visual content yourself. Evergreen or short-term, if you’ve been looking for a sign to start a social media flashmob under a corporate hashtag, 2023 is the year for exactly that.

One of the most successful ongoing UGC campaigns of all time is Apple’s #ShotOniPhone. It started as an outdoor advertising project and grew into a social media flashmob designed to show how great iPhone cameras work in low light. Now it includes a photo contest and even short films on Apple’s official YouTube channel. 

Even better, when TikTok users started parodying iPhone ads, it still worked in favor of the brand — more people learned about the original hashtag.

Optimization for mobile devices

91% of American consumers from 18 to 49 years old and 45% of global consumers use smartphones for shopping. It implies that not optimizing your website or promotional content for mobile devices robs you of many potential customers. Optimizing includes responsive design, mobile payment options, increasing download speed, simplifying the customer journey, and tweaking your marketing content for a better perception on smartphones.

One way to optimize your business for mobile devices is to launch a separate mobile app that improves customer experience. These apps come in handy for loyalty programs, extra features for better in-store shopping, refill reminders for regular customers, and many other things. We know this one is a bit overused but Starbucks Rewards is a great example of how businesses can use mobile apps to boost engagement and sales.

Virtual Reality (VR) And Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual reality headsets are still a fun novelty thing. But if you’ve ever played Pokémon GO or used an Instagram filter, you already know what AR is. Both technologies are still relatively new. However, their use cases go beyond new forms of entertainment — marketers can hop on the trend too!

One of the most popular AR use cases is virtual try-ons in retail. Many clothing and makeup brands use this technology — for example, L’Oreal did it on Instagram.

Buying makeup products online can be a hassle. Using virtual try-ons in this case vastly improves the online shopping experience — and, of course, drives sales.

Prioritizing social responsibility

1 in 4 Americans boycott businesses for political disagreements. The customer groups that are most likely to stop spending money for these reasons include younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z, and consumers with six-figure salaries. And, according to the same survey, the most common reasons to boycott the company are political donations, workplace policy, and the company’s stance on current social issues. 

The takeaway is, customers want to make the world a better place by purchasing — or not purchasing from the brands whose values don’t align with theirs. That’s why social responsibility marketing is a trend to hop on in 2023. This type of marketing includes campaigns that promote socially responsible initiatives run by your business.

Social responsibility marketing means that making a statement on social media or posting a YouTube video is not enough — you actually need to contribute to something. For example, Slack’s Next Chapter project helps formerly incarcerated people to start a career in tech. The program currently has 15 corporate sponsors, and Slack also released a playbook so other tech companies can start training and hiring formerly incarcerated people too. 

Final thoughts

So, what is in store for marketers this year? We’ve listed a lot of marketing and advertising trends that seem very diverse but most of them can be reduced to these patterns:

• New technologies = new formats and mediums. If a new type of content or a technology makes its way to the market, it means you have a new format for advertising and a new way to engage with your audience.
• Interaction is everything. The current digital marketing landscape is all about directly communicating with your customers and engaging them instead of making them passively watch ads.
• Authenticity is the key. Your brand’s online presence should have a human face. 
• Automation for customer experience. Chatbots, AI, and social media as customer service — not hopping on this trend is a missed opportunity.

Should you hop on all the trends we’ve listed? Not all of them are suitable for your industry and your brand personality. However, considering these three general tendencies is a great tactic for everyone. So, keep an eye on trends but incorporate them wisely, be human, don’t be scared to engage with your customers, and good luck!