10 marketing trends you can expect to see in 2023

We feel like the world of marketing has completely changed over the last couple of years! The pandemic naturally shifted the world a lot more digital, but people’s concerns and values have really changed now and marketers have to adapt their strategy to perform.

As one of the top marketing agencies in London, we are under constant pressure to get results for our clients and stay on top of trends.

We’ve been doing some digging into what’s been getting the best results for clients and put together this guide of our top 10 marketing trends that we think we will see lots more of in 2023.

They’re in no particular order…

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

We felt we had to start with this one! With so much talk at the moment about Chat GPT, we thought we’d dig right into this subject immediately.

First of all, we can assure you that this article is not written by AI 🙂

Whilst we find it fascinating, we do not agree with content that’s written by machines, as they don’t truly understand our audience yet. Plus, it doesn’t really go with our “No BS” tagline!

But machines are getting smarter and smarter, and the quality of content they’re spitting out is scarily good.

Our director, Sabrina Chevannes, even suggested that Chat GPT could possibly replace some employees! We haven’t done that yet, but it is a scary suggestion.

While we think that AI tools aren’t good enough to create full copy, they are brilliant at generating ideas! So, if you’re trying to come up with a content plan, then why not ask it for some blog post suggestions? How about some keyword research for your website so you know what to target.

AI can do all of these things, as well as even write you a whole month of social media content in 2 mins! You may want to tweak some of these and put them in your own tone of voice, but wow… AI is really going to be a game-changer for marketers.

User-generated content and influencers

Influencer marketing isn’t a new marketing trend, but it is one that’s still going strong. The creator economy is booming and more and more people want to become a content creator and embrace their entrepreneurial side.

People care more about “real” footage and brands who are not lying to their customers. 90% of consumers say they would rather buy from authentic brands and so picking the right influencer is also hugely important.

Brands are shying away from using big celebrity endorsements as consumers are aware of the paid affiliation and paying less attention to these ads. This is why we think that nano-influencers are likely to be more popular in 2023.

Nano-influencers are accounts with 5-10k followers, but they have a much more loyal following, who believe what they have to say and are more likely to be authentic. 62% of social media users said they trust influencers over celebrities.

Social Responsibility

Just how consumers care more about authenticity now, they also care about social responsibility.

A recent Harris Poll showed that 82% of customers will pick brands that align with their values, which means that brands also need to be showing more of who they are and what they believe in online.

There are now over 5000 B Corps and still a long waiting list, which shows that companies are trying to do more than just make a profit.

Companies who show they are genuinely interested in sustainability, DEI and giving back, will more likely do well in 2023. But the key word here is genuinely – if you get caught faking it, it’s worse than doing nothing about it.

Hyper-personalisation

The world has moved on from Hey [first-name] in emails! There’s so much more now when it comes to personalisation.

You’re probably already freaked out that you could be talking about something one moment and then the next, you see if on your Facebook/Instagram feed.Yup – everyone is listening… in one way or another.

Marketing is going to get hyper-personalised, thanks to the use of AI and there are so many ways that brands can use it to their advantage.

A recent report from McKinsey stated that consumers are 80% more likely to buy from brands if their shopping experience is personalised.

This makes complete sense as we are always talking about making sure you’re talking directly to your customer.

Now, with the use of all this modern tech, there are ways you can do just that, and tailor their experience to their personal likes, wants and needs.

Social Commerce

Again, social commerce is not a new trend, but it is rising again! As the world has gotten so used to shopping online, most brands now have a decent digital presence.

Social media use is still increasing too, so brands are looking for how to increase the user experience (UX), by allowing their customers to check out directly from their social media posts.

This goes perfectly in hand with the UGC element we mentioned, as then influencers can directly tag products and make for a seamless shopping experience.

Virtual Events

While the world has come back to a more normal feel after the pandemic, people’s priorities have shifted. Many value spending quality time at home a lot more and are not attending events as frequently.

In-person events are definitely an amazing experience for many, but they also require a huge budget, a lot of resources and can be very stressful to run.

You can reach an international audience a lot more quickly and cheaper when running virtual events.

Now that COVID made the likes of Zoom and webinars feel a bit more “normal”, it’s a great time to embrace all your options to expand your reach and network by running more virtual events and streaming live.

Use of Video

It feels like we put this in our trends every year, but it just keeps on increasing in popularity!

There’s a reason why we’ve seen a huge popularity in TikTok and YouTube over the last couple of years.

But every social media channel has really started to shift towards promoting video and so there’s even more pressure to produce good video content.

This has caused some of our clients a bit of anxiety as they don’t feel they have the budget to produce quality videos, but luckily consumers like the “raw” video feel where you get to genuinely see what a brand is like.

This can be done easily on a smartphone and minimal video editing is required. Plus, with the native features within TikTok and Reels, there’s so much potential.

Caption: Source = Statista. January 2022

AR/VR

Augmented reality and virtual reality have been spoken about a lot over the last few years and big things have been predicted from them, but not too much has come to light.

This is probably because the technology is so complicated and is largely quite expensive to implement. So, many brands just can’t afford to get involved.

For example, the Metaverse is something that has been spoken about a great deal over the last couple of years, but we haven’t really seen the need to get our clients to invest in it as there just isn’t the audience there.

But brands like IKEA have shown that using AR/VR to create immersive experiences for their customers can be hugely beneficial.

There are cost-effective ways of integrating AR/VR into your marketing campaigns, and we expect to see a lot more of these in 2023.

Storytelling

Storytelling has been a staple of marketing since the dawn of time, so it’s no surprise that this trend is still going strong. But what does storytelling mean in the context of 2023? In many ways, it’s about taking a step back from traditional approaches and breaking out with new ideas to engage customers.

Storytelling doesn’t have to involve fiction—it can also be used as an effective way to communicate product benefits or ideas in your company culture. While we’re all familiar with fictional stories such as books or movies, storytelling isn’t inherently limited to those mediums; you can use the same techniques in your social media content or blog posts for example.

As long as you’re telling stories that resonate with your audience, they’ll be more likely to pay attention than if you just spew out facts without context or meaning behind them (not that there’s anything wrong with facts). This can even help customers who aren’t usually interested in learning more about your company learn something new by connecting them emotionally through their personal experiences rather than just spouting off stats and figures.

Think about the rise in personal branding at the moment – you will see plenty of people “teaching” storytelling now so that individuals can build up a personal brand and really connect with their audience.

Brands can also do this, and connect with their audience on a more emotional level.

Privacy

As consumers become more aware of the value of their personal data, it’s likely that data privacy will continue to be a key concern for businesses in the coming years.

This means that businesses will need to be transparent about how they collect, use, and protect customer data, and will need to ensure that they are in compliance with relevant privacy laws and regulations. By prioritising data privacy, businesses can build trust with their customers and avoid costly fines and reputational damage.

Google even did some research into how their ads performed and those brands who respected data performed much better with their ads.

So, these are our predictions for marketing trends in 2023, but the world of marketing is so unpredictable at times, so let’s see how many we get right!

We will see you back here in a year where we review them 🙂