5 things your marketing strategy needs to include in 2023
2022 has been the hangover year - and no, I’m not suggesting we’ve been excessively raiding the drinks trolley. Despite the persistent political storm, a global recession, an energy crisis and the war on Ukraine, it’s been the first year since 2020 hit that allowed us to have consistent client marketing strategies without pivoting around the pandemic. And it served as a reminder as to how important consistency really is within brand marketing,
As we step into the new year, a year that will be riddled with financial uncertainty, it’s more important than ever before for your marketing strategy to be hyper-focused on the needs of your audience. So what else does the year ahead have in store for your marketing strategy? Let’s break it down.
Video. Video. And more video.
It will come as absolutely no surprise that video content will continue to reign across all platforms, especially Instagram Reels and TikTok. Video content doesn’t need to be shot on a professional camera. In fact, the camera quality on the latest round of smartphones is so good that more often than not, you’ll find it tough to distinguish what was professional and what was shot on a phone! Fun tip: you don’t even need to have footage to create videos! Pulling together a medley of still photography with a narration or music played over the top of it, can be fantastic video content.
Set a process with your team to all collate day-to-day video content and build a bank of usable clips for different scenarios. Here are some ideas you could consider:
Time lapses of projects being put together / the team in the office /
Zoom in on before projects/zoom out on completion
Talking to camera - how to…insert activity / 3 top tips for insert knowledge
Tours of projects / office / your space
A day in the life - snippets of your typical day
Overhead of hands typing on a laptop
Feet walking
Your team waving at the camera
Whilst we’re on the topic of video, we might as well reiterate that TikTok isn’t a channel you can ignore for much longer. It’s daunting because the perception for many is that it’s a platform for younger audiences doing silly dances. In fact, TikTok is fast become a rival to Google. At a conference in July of this year, Google disclosed that a recent study showed that roughly 40% of young millennials and GenZ are now turning to TikTok and Instagram to look for recommendations on where to go, what to do etc instead of Google. We can expect social platforms to lean into this trend with features to make that even easier. Whilst Google still very much reigns supreme, the future definitely looks more competitive for them!
Need some help creating a plan around video content? Want to know how to get started on TikTok?
Prioritise customer loyalty
There’s no beating round the bush this one. 2023 is going to be a financial shit show for most people. With the UK already in deep recession and KPMG announcing it’s likely to last for the entirety of next year, consumers and clients are going to be hyper sensitive about where and how they choose to spend their money. Now I’m not saying you have to create a massive loyalty scheme (though do actively encourage that), but it’s ok to spend the next few months taking your foot of the gas with new client acquisition and instead focusing efforts on nurturing your current audience. 2022 has been a year of shock closures of big businesses, Made.com being the perfect example, and we can learn lessons from them. Acquisition is of course vital to business growth, but if you lose sight of your current audience, they’ll wander elsewhere. This can be brought to life in a variety of ways:
Surprise and delight - choose a metric (e.g. customers that have shopped with you more than once) and reward the customers who fit that criteria with a discount code, free gift with purchase, invite to an exclusive event, preview of a new collection etc. Give them a reason to come back again!
Refer a friend - this is a great one to avoid veering too far away from new client acquisition. Set up a refer a friend scheme with a compelling reward for anyone that does! This will build your email database and give you some clear intel on who your mega fans are
Invite to join your community - whilst creating an invite-only community can be a big beast to fuel, we think 2023 will really require it from most consumer businesses. This can be as simple as an exclusive email mailing list that gives folks extra content, offers and value adds or more established as a members section of your site or a Facebook page. One of the many benefits of pulling together a community for your clients and customers is the ability to lean on them for market research - it’s a permanent make shift focus group of people that are already proven to be your target audience. Winning!
Virtual stamp collection - there are many virtual rewards / stamp cards for each purchase you can utilise now. Much like you would in your local coffee shop, once a customer hits certain milestones, you can reward them.
Tell your story - being a faceless company isn’t going to work in 2023. For people to keep coming back, they’re going to need to get to know you and your team. Let them in to behind the scenes. Who is it they’re buying into? Make sure your website’s about page is looking sharp and don’t shy away from using social media to give people a reason to shop with you or use your services.
Need some help deciding how to integrate customer loyalty to your business?
Pay attention to analytics
Digital marketing strategies will typically focus on one simple goal - conversions. Those conversions can be a variety of things - an online sale, a lead click, an email sign up. It sounds simple enough, right? In fact, what really drives sales and conversions is a complex beast! If you’re solely focusing on sales as a metric, you’re doing it wrong. You have to get to know what brought those customers to you and why current customer’s are converting. It could be that your emails are having a stronger impact than your PPC ads or it could be that your organic video content is converting more than your stills content. Without integrated data, you’re never going to get to the bottom line of what’s working and what’s not.
GA4 (Google Analytics latest version) is being rolled out across all accounts by July. Get ahead here and get your analytics dashboard set up to track all your metrics earlier than that. Spoiler alert: GA4 is more complex (in a good way) than it’s predecessor. It requires a little more work upfront to make sure it’s firing properly but the analytics it’ll provide are far more insightful than before. We can help set that up for you if you need support. Get in touch for more info here.
We recommend spending January doing a deep dive into your analytics from 2022 if you haven’t already - looking beyond sales metrics. What other areas did you see growth in? Can you attribute that growth to a particular activity? These analytics will help shape your marketing strategy for 2023.
Long term influencer partnerships
I think it’s safe to say that (nearly) all of us are able to see through vanity influencers - the kind of influencers that are selling a different product in every single piece of content they post. And I think it’s safe to say, we’re all a bit over it. As consumers, we require connection more than ever before. We’ve become savvy to influencer marketing and can recognise when an influencer is actually invested in a product or service they’re promoting or whether or not it’s just a commercial opportunity for them. Many influencers have built a super engaged fan base. Those fans have gotten to know the influencer inside out. They know them well enough to know what an authentic promotion looks like. So when you’re working on an influencer marketing partnership, lean in to this knowledge.
A flash in the pan, one-off promotion or tag of product in a post isn’t going to work. Build partnerships to last. Create a campaign with an influencer that rolls out over the course of a few weeks/months so that their audience really get to know your business. This will build a greater connection and contribute to a higher ROI.
Some things to consider with influencer marketing in 2023:
Do your research - don’t be swayed to work with someone for numbers alone. Gain an understanding of exactly who their audience is and what makes them tick. Most influencers will have this information - nobody knows their audience quite like they do so spend time finding the right people to work with. An influencer with 500k of the wrong type of followers will provide no ROI whereas an influencer with 20k of the right followers, can have a big impact on your business.
Work with them on the brief - giving them a loose brief of what you want to achieve by working them is a starting point but open the door to them to discuss what else they’d like to add to the mix, knowing that they know what will make their audience tick. Collaboration is key here.
Micro not macro - size doesn’t matter when it comes to influencer marketing. Micro influencers working in a niche still works better than a macro influencer with a broad spectrum of followers/content.
Shit hot SEO
This isn’t new. We’ve been banging this drum for a good few years now but it still blows our mind how many businesses come to us that have never invested in an SEO strategy. SEO should arguably be the central point for your entire marketing strategy. If you’re yet to do so, you need to have a keyword analysis done - this highlights all the keywords in your industry that need to be incorporated into your content to make search engines take note. Keyword analysis needs to be the first step on your SEO journey. Content strategy is the next piece. This will give you structure for blog posts (and if you don’t have a blog or news section on your site, add that to the to do list too), social content, landing pages and even your digital advertising. Implementation is next up. And once it’s implemented, it’s analysis - what’s working, what’s not?
SEO doesn’t need to be tracked daily - once you’ve reached implementation stage, give it some time to bed in. We recommend quarterly SEO audits to review your analytics and build out the following quarter’s content strategy using that intel.
Our SEO audits are priced from £1250 +VAT per quarter and are arguably, one of the best investments you can make.
