There are a bunch of traditions here at Green Umbrella Marketing, and they all appear this time of year! There’s the article I write as we begin the final quarter saying, c’mon guys… it’s time for the last push. The article that says if you haven’t got your Christmas campaign sorted, you’re falling behind, and a few more (that are still to come before new year’s eve), including this one… the one that is probably the most read of all our articles each year! My predictions for next year. So let’s get on with it then; what are the marketing trends for 2023 that I believe you should be paying attention to?

(FYI – not sure if you should pay attention to my predictions? I’ll be writing next week on whether or not I got THIS year’s predictions right or not!)

The power of community

Community is everything, and for years this has been a recurring trend in various formats. For example, 2021/2022 was all about free Facebook groups! (Anyone else need a Facebook group cull?)

So, there are two parts to this…

Firstly, as I just kind of referred to… we’re all a bit tired of those Facebook group invitations, and so there was a migration to WhatsApp groups. However, we’re all now groaning a little at the thought of another group chat over there too! Look out for these types of communications moving over to new platforms and more options popping up in 2023. If you want something interactive, WhatsApp is working on a communities function, and so are Instagram, I heard a whisper about TikTok doing the same. (I should mention Twitter have had their own for a while, but no one ever paid attention to it there and who knows what the future will bring for Twitter anyway!)

We’ve seen decentralised community options appear using things like discord- but it’s always felt clunky to a non-gamer like myself. What I’m really expecting to see more of, though, is the shift from free for all communities to broadcast communities. What do I mean by this? WhatsApp and Telegram (Telegram is the one to watch here) offer the ability to create group chats where only the admin can post messages. Group members can engage by way of adding a reaction to the update – but that’s all. So if you’re a member, notifications are limited, and you’ll never find that things are lost in the feed, as the admins will intentionally keep things to a minimum. Community without the interaction sounds weird, right? But couple this with the free for all Facebook group or WhatsApp chats, and maybe we’re on to a winner?

Secondly, and most importantly, in 2023, I believe the real trend will be built around activating the communities that you’ve built online in the offline world and truly leveraging the relationships made within them. Where have you built loyalties? Who are the micro-influencers you’ve not yet tapped into? The opportunities of strategic partnerships that you haven’t even thought to bring into the real world… this is where online and offline marketing tactics will meet and become most profitable. It takes time to build relationships online – it’s time to see the ROI, folks!

Social Media Engagement Brings ROI

If you want to be successful and meet all your goals next year – you are going to need sales. If you’ve seen me speak, you’re probably familiar with my questionable sketches of how your funnel should be working in order to get the leads to make the sales! Reality is, nothing works if you’re content isn’t being seen – that’s true whether it’s on LinkedIn, TikTok, or via an email in someone’s inbox! With the changes we’ve seen in algorithms and human behaviour over the last 2-3 years, it is clear to me that as the marketer in your business, you need to be focused on increasing engagement so the rest of your funnel works. We can measure engagement at every step, meaning we can figure out what’s broken or inefficient and fix it.

We have to embrace AI

I just mentioned in the last point that algorithms have changed… I want to go all geeky right here on this, but I know I’ll scramble it… essentially, AI will be deciding what you want to see based on what you engage with. So it’s time for us to make sure we give you the stuff you need to educate the AI! intrigued?… keep reading!

Shopping On Social Media

Service businesses can learn a huge amount from eCommerce. Social platforms understand this and have made huge developments to create, improve and perfect how this works. Don’t have a physical product? Perhaps it’s time to create a digital product that you can sell via the likes of TikTok! Not sure what digital product you could create in your service business? I think I know someone who could help you with that… wink wink!

Visibility 

Every year there’s a word we marketers ruin for everyone… this year, it’s ‘Visibility’. How do you become more visible? Implement a PR strategy and leverage your personal brand. This is nothing new, it’s just had a polish and been wrapped up in a new bow!

I’m probably being a bit of a misery saying that – but here’s the thing. Visibility is one of the big trends, even though it shouldn’t be. We should all be leveraging the brand we were born with to create the presence that brings the PR opportunities!

Internal marketing

This is arguably more relevant for bigger brands, but SME businesses should take note. As we move further towards what is likely going to be a tricky time, we need to ensure our teams are engaged. I use the word teams as it’s possible you have a team and zero employees! Making sure everyone in your business is engaged will strengthen your position, and this will have a positive impact from a customer service perspective.

Investment in brand

Ok, this trend is one of vanity. I am 100% convinced we’ll see more businesses investing in brand-building exercises. In uncertain times, some will want to prove they’re not going anywhere when market share shrinks. Any cash spent on brand is an investment and a long-term play, and I absolutely encourage this tactic… with one big caveat. You must have structure and stability in your business to support this strategy. Without it, spending money on brand alone will potentially be short-sighted and leave you with a cashflow problem. Nobody wants that!

Marketing strategies designed for retention 

It would be ridiculous of me to suggest that you hadn’t heard that saying about how it’s cheaper to retain a client than find a new one… we all know it’s true. But how many of us have active marketing strategies that are designed to retain clients? Tough times are coming and every marketing penny will count… you could be getting more pound-for-pound thinking about retention and increasing the value of your current clients in 2023.

Interactive/personalised lead magnets

Quizzes, assessments, calculators… it has never been so easy to create this stuff! I have a not-so-secret weapon that makes creating highly gamified, highly personalised lead magnets super easy to create and share with the world. Your prospects will love you for sharing high-value content that’s all about them and not generalised. If you haven’t looked into this, you need to jump on a call with me!.. SERIOUSLY!

And this list’s me just getting started!

You can hear the rest LIVE!!!

I haven’t spoken about the biggest thing yet… I’m saving that for a couple of weeks’ time as it will need its own article. Plus, there’s so much more I want to add to this list!

So what I’ve chosen to do is run a live session where I’ll put more meat on the bones on everything I’ve mentioned here, plus some other trends I’m super-excited about and my ONE BIG THING FOR 2023!

I hope you’ll join me there!

Fill in the form below to book your FREE place!