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Marketing trend predictions to use to optimize your strategy

Trends: we love them. We hate them. When it comes to TikTok or Instagram, we can’t stay on top of them fast enough (well, most of us). The trends covered in this article are overarching marketing trend predictions for 2023 – not the “Little Miss” or “Spirit Halloween” costume kind. That would be… a little more difficult to predict. Let’s dive in:

LinkedIn will be THE spot to grow your personal brand. 

Why does growing a personal brand matter? Because no one else is you. Whether you plan to grow + stay at your company together or don’t have a plan at all, a personal brand is one thing you can cling to.

It’s why I always recommend having your first+last name as a domain and why I, even more, recommend being a thought leader in some capacity. You just never know where your entrepreneurial journey will take you and you want people to recognize you outside of your brand as well.

The best way to do this in a marketing capacity: is LinkedIn. Linkedin has really caught a rise in the last few years. 

Some fast facts if you’re not convinced (via Kinsta)

• Linkedin has more than 875 million members with over 58 million registered companies
• The US holds the highest amount of users at 194M
• 40% of users access the platform on a DAILY basis (hi, it’s me) with over 1 billion interactions every month 
• Millennials make up over 59% of LinkedIn’s user base with 11M of the 87M in decision-making positions 
• According to HubSpot, LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter

So now that you’re convinced… how to get started? For starters: engage with content. Like, 5-7 pieces of content a day. Consume it, comment on it, etc. Then once you’re comfy (sooner rather than later) start creating your own content. Stop worrying about what your past colleagues or employers will think/say and just start speaking from your beliefs in your industry. 

Paid advertising is going to become even more competitive; as other businesses enter the ads landscape, it’s going to get even more expensive. 

There is so much that can be done with organic marketing. Before diving into Paid Strategies – look at your organic strategies. Are you serving top, middle, and bottom-of-funnel content? Does the ROADMAP of this content make sense? AKA – the way people move from becoming aware of you to invest with you – are there plenty of touchpoints throughout your marketing to nurture? 

If you’re on the fence about what to invest in and are considering paid ads, we encourage you to instead give SEO a shot. What BETTER way to really instill trust in your ideal audience than be ranked high in a search for what they’re looking for? (PS: every marketing trend predictions article we read was rich with SEO).

SEO can be attacked in a few ways: Video Content and Long-form written content in a blog is our favorite. The best thing ever about focusing your efforts on long-form content is that you’re giving yourself a massive bank to create content from. One blog, or even one podcast, can yield a plethora of content across social channels, email marketing, and your blog or podcast.

Make sure you’re going the extra mile and do some basic keyword research or outsource the search engine optimization to make sure you are in the fight to rank for the keywords you’re using.

Customer feedback is going to be crucial to growth as a business. 

Your business probably doesn’t need a business coach. Your business needs to get really cozy with your clients and customers and better understand their needs. 

Focus on it as much as your marketing and client experience and the future of your business will be readily apparent. 

For example, we used to deliver 90 Day Strategies, provide one week of support, and then not check in with the client until the end of the 90 days.   

We found, through customer feedback, that monthly check-ins and project management setup (implementing their strategies into the client’s project management tool with due dates and reminders) actually increased our clients’ success rate with their campaigns SIGNIFICANTLY. We saw less fall-off, more productivity, and clients ready to continue on. We effectively increased the lifetime value of our clients this way.

In the same land of feedback: employee/team satisfaction surveys are more necessary than ever. 

With pay transparency on the horizon, and Gen Z heavily influencing the workforce, businesses should really be focusing on giving their team a platform to provide feedback. 

Anonymous or not, is totally up to you.

Here’s what we’re going to be asking our employees to give you some ideas:

• Would you recommend our organization to a friend as an employer?
• Are you proud to work at Brand Good Time?
• Are you satisfied with your current compensation and benefits? 
• Do you enjoy working with your team? 
• Do you find your work here meaningful? 
• Do you feel recognized for your accomplishments at work? 
• Do you feel like the company is invested in your success? 
• Do you see yourself working here in a year? 
• Do you see a path for career advancement here? 
• Is there anything you would like to share that you find important to your employee experience here at Brand Good Time? 

Lastly, having a strong focus on customer experience is a must. 

A simple ‘campaign’ doesn’t work the way it used to. Consumers want to go through an actual experience and feel like the product/service is really catered to them.

Here are some ideas: 

Don’t just deliver your service, send a feedback survey and then ghost. Check-in with them over the course of the next 3-6 months and offer up ‘consulting’ help – emails are just fine and take, what, 20 mins of your time? This goes a long way and helps them feel supported. Another very simple way to do this is to engage with your buyer on social media. 

Another idea: deliver your final service with an accompanying ‘library.’ For example, if you’re a web designer, create a custom library for your client showing them how to make updates to the website you just created for them. 

For retainer business: have someone dedicated to customer service for your clients. At brand good time, we have a client strategy manager who focuses on making sure projects run smoothly and on time but is uninvolved in the actual strategy or implementation. This allows them to remove any emotions associated with the creative process and mediate any conflict/catch conflict before it arises. 

For product-based businesses, one of my favorite ways to enhance the customer journey (especially if you have a wide array of products spanning different audiences) is to customize the shopping experience to that person’s specific details (this also gives you incredible data to work with for marketing). For example, I was shopping for my kid and it asked: for boy/girl, age, etc and it ‘rolling’ updates with the age advancement of my daughter to give me recommendations for stages and ages. 

Pay attention to your data: we all know Google Analytics, but do you have specific events, goals, and conversion tracking set up? Many users get lost on a website that YOU  may know like the back of your hand. Understanding the journey they’re taking, where they convert, what buttons they click, etc will help your potential customers have a better buying experience to work with you. You don’t want them frustrated with you or the process at any point in your funnel – or they’re least likely to convert. Know your data, make optimizations, and you’ll stay ahead of the game.

Wrapping up marketing trend predictions for 2023

That’s a wrap on marketing trend predictions for 2023. Lots of tactics, and I’m sure you’re brewing with ideas. Need help putting them all together and creating a realistic picture of how you CAN throughout the next few months? Our 90 day plan service might be the right fit for you. Learn more and book a call here.