To say the digital marketing landscape is evolving is the understatement of the year. Companies are trying to figure out how to disrupt a disruptive consumer and get noticed by an audience whose attention span happens to be shorter than a goldfish. Consumer expectations are high and user experience plays a large part in whether or not we choose to invest in a product or service.
The FMDM team takes a deep dive into the top 5 digital marketing trends likely to crop up in 2023, how to survive the recession, and 2022 takeaways.
- Popular Industry Trends to Disrupt a Disruptive Consumer
- Sustaining an Ecommerce Business in Recession
- What We Can Learn From 2022
Popular Industry Trends to Disrupt a Disruptive Consumer
The digital marketing space changes so frequently and while it’s nearly impossible to predict its future, it’s become an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in this landscape. Take a look at these five trends every marketer or business owner should keep abreast of heading into 2023.
1. Increased Impact of Social Media
Millennials grew up in a world of technological disruption whereas social media and WiFi have been part of Gen Z’s vernacular from birth. With technology so integrated in their lives, both generations tend to be at the forefront of emerging trends. Let’s face it, they know a thing or two about the ever changing algorithm, so leveraging popular social media platforms can help maintain a competitive pace. Social media adds a new dimension to your omnichannel customer service, helps you reach a bigger audience, boosts brand loyalty, and so much more.
Vying for consumers’ attention online can be particularly difficult especially if you aren’t part of the generation of savvy digital connoisseurs who never knew life before this internet explosion. Not to mention, millennials and Gen Z bounce between seven social media platforms per month and you have about 12-8 seconds before their attention span taps out, making it harder than ever to get consumers’ attention. Creating immersive and memorable content across multiple channels to deliver your message makes all the difference. See a breakdown of social media usage for Millennials and Gen Z here.
Experiment with interactive content like a Twitter poll, emphasize eye-catching content, tap into FOMO with time-sensitive posts, showcase your brand’s sense of humour – anything to give your brand a heartbeat and interact with your users. Take advantage of user generated content by creating unboxing videos, makeup reviews, hashtags for branded photos, and more in order to create personal connections and take authenticity to the next level.
2. Social Responsibility
Consumers want curated experiences where they feel seen and heard. Even more, they want brands that stand for something and who aren’t afraid to go left when everyone is going right. Gen Z in particular is becoming a priority audience and they are very much cause-oriented. They, and many others, want to see authenticity and effectiveness in companies.
- 66% of U.S. consumers are willing to pay more for products from brands making their mark on social responsibility.
- 75% of U.S. consumers are concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy.
LAGO is a prime example of a company that aligns with these values. Not only does this brand offer functional, stylish, and comfortable scrubs for our healthcare heroes, but each recycled scrub saves 14 plastic bottles from the landfill. Oh, and the scrubs are responsibly manufactured in fair and safe conditions. Now that’s making a difference.
3. Influencer-Led Marketing
People are tired of celebrity culture and endorsements. Frankly, an A-lister promoting a skincare line when talking about their beauty routines doesn’t cut it when they conveniently fail to mention their access to healthy food, top doctors, and expensive treatments.
Now we’re seeing a rise in micro-influencers promoting products that align with their interests or expertise – think a mom sharing her favorite stroller or a food blogger promoting a meal prep service. This is effective because of the trust they’ve already built with their audience and they can provide a genuine endorsement at a much lower price tag than celebrities. Marketing with influencers that have 10,000-100,000 followers can earn you more value than a celebrity with millions.
One killer example is when Aboslut partnered with several planet-conscience influencers in 2019 for a campaign that lasted more than 8 months. In the end, 95 influencers shared 612 posts that generated more than 8.6 million engagements across social media. Each influencer created content that demonstrated the brand’s commitment to global values and actions. This included the use of efficient farming processes, the recycling of distillation resources, and its support of the LGBTQ community.
4. Increase in Personalized Experiences & Experiential Marketing
Welcome back experiential marketing. If you’re unfamiliar, this strategy engages consumers using branded experiences that inspires them to share with their friends both online and offline. This can help humanize your brand through events, samplings or demos, tours, festivals, ways for brands and customers to do social good together, etc. Below include some impressive examples:
- AirBnB, Will Smith, and the owner of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” house teamed up for the show’s 30th anniversary to offer $30 per night. While it only lasted for a handful of nights, the media coverage surrounding AirBnb and the popular ‘90’s show was extensive.
- Tinder put up a 30-foot “Pride Slide” representing the 30 states that didn’t have anti-discriminatory laws protecting the LGBTQ+ community. For each person that rode the slide, Tinder donated $10 toward passing the Equality Act.
- JetBlue created the ultimate icebreaker in the dead of a New York winter in order to promote their new direct flights from NY to Palm Springs. They placed a number of summer accessories in ice blocks and told New Yorkers anything was up for grabs.
Moreover, we may see more businesses collecting data on customers to create customized marketing campaigns as opposed to one-size-fits-all sales pitches/coupon codes. “Hyper-personalization” is no longer enough because consumers now expect brands to know everything about them and personalized experiences are becoming more commonplace. Considering incorporating virtual reality and augmented reality can help you surpass your consumers’ expectations. These strategies allow you to tell your story, create more memorable experiences, showcase your products in a new light, and more.
Virtual reality is when the viewer’s present reality is cut off and replaced by a virtual, computer-generated environment. Got time? We recommend following the TOMS team to Peru as they chronicle a visit to a school of children about to receive new shoes. This is part of the previous “One For One” campaign that donates one pair of shoes for every pair purchased to poor children in different parts of the world.
Augmented reality uses technology to overlay sounds, graphics, and text over the real world. Ikea created an app called Ikea Place that allows you to scroll through more than 2,000 products, hold up your phone, and use your camera to place digital furniture around your home. Overall, VR and AR are breaking into the mainstream to allow companies to bring their products to life in ways we’ve never seen before. This buzzword is sticking around to create immersive experiences for their customers. Additionally, it doesn’t take a brainiac to realize people miss interaction and as a result, mental health is taking a hit. Brands are having to work more to create engaging content, across multiple channels and in some cases meet their customers offline.
5. Resurgence of Long-Form Content
Blogging quickly became a phenomenon in the early days of the internet with people sharing their lives, advice, recipes, travel adventures, and more. Many of the influencers you follow today likely started out as bloggers. Once new forms of sharing came along, blogging expectedly died a quick death as the owners shifted to Instagram, TikTok, vlogging on YouTube, etc. However, it wasn’t laid to rest for long because we’re starting to see blogging, newsletters, white papers (hi), press releases and much more coming back to life.
The best way to run a successful evolving blog is to invest in video content that complements your written content, build an email list, and you guessed it – be a better copywriter.
Everyone knows long-form content requires time and research in order to earn credibility, authority, and a positive brand image. That’s why creating evergreen content is key – and the opportunity to backlink is invaluable.
Additional trends to keep your eye on:
- Track new ways for audience targeting. Invest resources in analytics to find out as much information about your customers as possible.
- Overall design shifts to improve UX such as a simple and intuitive navigation system, minimalist design to avoid overwhelming users, use of voice-activated interfaces, and more.
- Don’t forget audio marketing as people head back into offices!
Sustaining an Ecommerce Business in Recession
The prep for a forecasted recession continues and the value of employee retention seems to have plummeted, creating an ever frustrating tech employment spectacle. This is a saga we all hope to leave behind us in 2022; however, a whopping 98% of CEOs are bracing for a recession in the next 12-18 months. Cue the circus music!
We’re breaking down how to best navigate these muddy waters before and during a near-inevitable recession.
Gear Up to Recession-Proof Your Market
Our first and most important tip is to invest in your employees and maintain team morale. Yes, this means building a people-first workplace because if you don’t take care of your top-performing employees, your competition will. A whopping 8.6 million people quit their jobs in January and February ‘22 alone. Address their personal and professional needs, prioritize their wellbeing, and provide them with flexible benefit options. Additionally, instead of adding more clients to juggle, you should secure a deeper partnership with your existing ones. This will prevent employee burnout and who wants a half assed relationship-anyway?
Next up – strengthen your brand identity. A strong brand lays the foundation on which everything else is built. If you want to ultimately become a lead in your pipeline, then you need to create a strong impression and build your uniqueness before attempting to attract new consumers or spike awareness.Finally, establish a risk register to identify and track risks and assess their likelihood. From there, you need to decide who will deal with these risks and create a remediation plan. Oh, and never ever cut your marketing budget and here’s why.
What We Can Learn From 2022
The year of the tiger has seen a continued impact of an inflation surge, causing businesses to take blow after blow. If you survived the pandemic and the change in everything we know about ecommerce from layoffs to supply chain, the hard lessons don’t stop there.
- With numerous industries struggling from the economic shocks, we’ve learned that expanding your revenue streams has become an important component in recovery. This may seem like a monumental task but it doesn’t have to be. Some of the simplest and best ways to increase revenue include adding services to existing product lines, creating membership tiers, collaborating with related brands, targeting a new audience, and offering incentives for referrals.
- As social media ramps up over the next few months, don’t try so hard when it comes to creating polished pictures and videos. This past year has shown us that consumers want real, relatable content and heavily filtered, shiny images aren’t getting them excited anymore.
- If anything, don’t be afraid to experiment. Test, refine, and apply results to improve your campaigns and drive results.
One thing’s for sure, the groundbreaking shifts we’ve seen create a fresh slate for innovation.
“If you’re not failing, you’re not innovating.”
Nik Stephney, Senior Digital Strategist
Commitments to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)
Last, but certainly not least, Fullmoon’s top priority is nurturing an inclusive culture where all people we work with feel represented, championed, and embraced both personally and professionally. We strive to celebrate the multifaceted identities of our employees and clients who come from all walks of life.
An organization is only as good as its culture, and this responsibility doesn’t only fall on HR. After a year of turbulence and tumult, companies have begun looking inward at their own policies (or they should) to drive meaningful changes in the workplace. It’s about much more than publicly broadcasting your efforts. In order to see real change, you need to implement specific DEI initiatives and measure their impact.
What Exactly is DEI?
These three distinct terms shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable. Understanding the terminology is a crucial step in order to successfully implement DEI and destroy the barriers or obstacles to fairness in the workplace. Let’s break it down together.
Diversity – Diversity is the presence and representation of people of differing races, religions, ages, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, socioeconomic groups, and additional characteristics that inform a person’s perspectives and experiences. Creating a diverse environment is the first step of DEI. Without it, equity and inclusion cannot be achieved.
Equity – Equity includes implementing a fair distribution of opportunities and resources based on needs. In order to produce equal results for everyone, we must take into account the historical disadvantages some groups have experienced.
Inclusion – The last piece of the puzzle is inclusion; however, equity must be in place before inclusion is achieved. An inclusive environment means all groups of people have access to beneficial programs, systems, and power, and no one feels discouraged accessing them simply because of their personal characteristics.
“A healthy transformation doesn’t happen overnight.”
Derek Chew, Founder & CEO
DEI is an ongoing process with milestones and even setbacks at times. A good first step towards creating a progressive environment where all talent can thrive is to start by setting goals. And meeting them! As a society, we’re beyond dipping our toes into this culture and an inclusive work environment is not just “nice-to-have” – it can make or break a company. It’s now our duty to bring about sustainable cultural change within our organizations to create companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Utilizing DEI as a strategy broadens your reach to countless potential clients and invaluable talent.
With 2022 wrapped up, the marketing industry is buzzing about what to expect next. Business owners are constantly reshaping how they operate and lucky for you, the Fullmoon Digital Marketing team knows just how to stay ahead of the curve. At FMDM, we help you create and showcase content in a way that boosts your visibility, web traffic, clicks, ROAS and more. How? By working tirelessly from the ground up to study your brand and audience, create the content you need to reach them, and leaning on our experts to keep your content showing at the top of search again and again. Discover more about our process here.
