2022 is quickly coming to an end, and 2023 is just around the corner. Typical to the industry, a lot has happened in the marketing sphere in the last year, with new trends emerging and shaping the way brands reach their audiences.

If being a marketer has taught us anything, it’s that the way to succeed is to stay agile and prepare for anything. We know that can be close to impossible, especially when you have a small team. So, in an effort to help set you up for an excellent and successful 2023, we’re sharing the top online marketing tactics that will define 2023. It’s time to be prepared so you can stay one step ahead of the curve. Finally.

Let’s jump in!

1. Influencer Marketing

Growing steadily from $9.7 billion in 2020 to $13.8 billion in 2021 and projected to reach $16.4 billion this year, what started as a social media fad has now become a sought-after marketing strategy for numerous brands and businesses.

Influencers are individuals on social media platforms with large, engaged, loyal audiences and followers. Due to the effort they have put into growing their presence by engaging users; they can affect the purchase decision of their audiences. Influencers build their following by engaging actively in a specific niche to develop:

• Authority
• Knowledge
• Position
• Audience relationship

You should include influencer marketing as part of your marketing mix for 2023. Below are some ways you can easily incorporate it into your overall marketing strategy:

• Research the top influencers in your niche and identify the ones that are a good fit for your business.
• Catch their attention by mentioning them in some of your posts. You can then invite them formally for discussions on possible partnerships or learn more about their processes.
• Ask for an interview. Ask to do it live on your social media pages, where their followers can watch. Or, request to publish the interview in your email newsletter, which they can share with their followers.
• Invite industry-specific influencers to speak at your events and webinars.
• Pay for a sponsored post if you have a product to promote and the influencer has the right audience for it.

Influencer marketing, when done right, can get your business massive visibility and allow you to grow your audience and conversions.

2. Helpful, Purposeful Content

Content marketing is an invaluable tool and component of your strategy. There’s virtually no type of marketing that doesn’t require content in some way, plus it’s extremely effective when it comes to generating leads and fueling your inbound funnel. It’s popular, too. Over 79% of companies use content marketing to generate leads.

However, gone are the days when cookie-cutter content was enough. Now that audiences are inundated with content just about everywhere, you need to focus on helpful, engaging, and unique content to make your business stand out from the crowd.

Long-form content has its place and use. But people are constantly searching for quick information and may not be patient enough to read thousands of words you’ve just published on your blog. Don’t get me wrong, long-form content should still be part of your strategy. However, rather than solely creating long and thorough posts, focus also on creating succinct content filled with actionable tips and solutions your audience can start implementing almost instantly.

This means exploring different forms of content as well. For example, the success of TikTok demonstrates just how popular simple and easy-to-follow video content can be with your audience.

When shifting your focus to helpful, purposeful content, consider the following formats:

• Video – Simple how-tos, tutorials, or demos of your products.
• Infographics – Visuals showing a process or breaking down steps of a confusing concept.
• Guides – Content that outlines how to do or understand something.
• Blog posts – Articles will always be crucial to your content strategy, especially ones that discuss ideas your audience is interested in.
• Guest-written articles – Consider bulking up your content strategy by adding guest content to it if you haven’t already.

And to make your life easier, employ content marketing tools that will help you create, optimize, and share the content you create.

3. Responsiveness and Real-Time Messaging

Brands that are excellent at making their customers happy bring in 5.7 times more revenue than businesses that don’t. With the boom in social media use, how responsive your business is to instant messages plays a vital role in how your customers feel about your brand.

Customers want to be able to reach out to brands and businesses and get responses almost immediately, so how you prioritize improving your business’s responsiveness to inquiries and customer complaints is crucial.

Now, we’re not saying that you need a team working around the clock, ready to answer any questions or needs of site visitors and customers. Instead, all you have to do is invest in tools that make your business as responsive and available as possible. Chatbots, for example, are a great tool worth investing in that will ensure you’re as available as possible for your customers.

With chatbots, you can set predefined questions and answers based on frequently asked questions from previous customers, prospects, and your website inquiries. The goal is to provide information customers need whenever they need it, even if your team isn’t readily available. Doing so can help increase conversions and keep customers happy so they’ll remain loyal.

4. Analytics Growth and AI

With all the AI-powered analytics tools available to us, businesses are able to make more objective, data-driven decisions. And these decisions are more informed, leading to better results. Companies that adopt AI have competitive leads over other businesses in the same industry and improve their revenue.

AI has several uses in business marketing. If you want to access the competitive edge associated with using AI-powered tools, you should consider the following:

• Using marketing automation to automate repetitive marketing tasks, freeing up time and implementing effective strategies at scale.
• Tagging your contacts based on identifiers so you can easily segment your email list and send personalized content to each customer and prospect.
• Create optimized customer profiles from your data by analyzing your ideal personas, key customers, and past customer interactions that enable you to deliver targeted content and ads.
• Analyze previous marketing campaigns to identify the most successful approaches so you can improve future marketing campaigns and enhance customer experience.

5. Email Marketing (Still)

Email marketing has been around for a while. Which is why some businesses may look at it as an old-school marketing method.

However, remember when Meta (previously Facebook) experienced a seven-hour outage that affected all its connected services, including WhatsApp and Instagram? Its three billion users suddenly lost reliable communication and engagement platforms, which can be pretty upsetting.

What does that mean, and why does it matter? In a time when social media appears to reign supreme, the simple fact is that email marketing is the only marketing channel that is not affected by changes in algorithms. It’s reliable and consistent, and it offers businesses the opportunity to market at scale.

Investing in building your email list will be one of the most valuable marketing efforts you do. Your email list is essentially a list of people that want to hear from you and that want your marketing. And with email marketing, you’re able to reach them directly with your messaging.

Once you have your list, you can focus on how to write emails that motivate your subscribers to take action. Maybe you want them to download a whitepaper, sign up for your webinar, or purchase your products. Whatever it is, email marketing gives you the chance to send personalized messages that will resonate with an engaged audience.

Make sure you use a marketing automation tool like BenchmarkONE. Our tool comes with a CRM (customer relationship management), allowing you to keep track of each important contact and send them automated campaigns for effective email marketing.

2023 will be an exciting year, not just for your business but for marketing in general. Give your business a head start at hitting your marketing goals, and keep these five trends at the forefront of your strategy.