How To Prepare Your Marketing Strategy for 2023

You can usually see some decent results from engaging in well-known marketing activities, but if you want to get more impressive results, the key is to use strategic market planning. Strategic market planning involves putting together a marketing strategy and calendar that really outlines and aligns with your brand’s goals and objectives. This is done by carefully analyzing and researching your market and your target audience rather than just simply using general marketing tools. This is vital since the marketing arena is always shifting.

Essential aspects of a 2023 marketing strategy:

Put your brand on video

Now you’re officially missing out on potential buyers and followers if your business is not on video. Written marketing content is extremely useful, but videos are the ultimate key to good marketing in 2023.

Check out these stats on video marketing from consumers themselves:

1. 76% of responders said product/service explainer videos help them make a buying decision.
2. 69% of consumers said that video testimonials/reviews help them make a buying decision.
3. 62% of responders said that they find a landing page with video more interesting than one without.
4. 59% of consumers spent a quarter or more of their time on social media watching videos.

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From marketers:

1. 50% of marketers said that video helped them get new customers.
2. 59% of marketers said that video marketing showed a positive ROI.
3. 65% of marketers said they wanted to build awareness for their brand and 64% said that video helped them achieve that.
4. 55% of marketers said they wanted to increase engagement and 60% said video helped with that goal.

There are a variety of ways to work video content into your marketing plan. Here are some to consider:

YouTube

YouTube has been around for quite some time, but it remains a great avenue to reach an audience that you probably otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach. From educational videos to explainer videos about your product or service, YouTube is an essential part of any video marketing strategy plan.

Instagram Reels & TikTok

Instagram Reels and TikToks are bite-sized videos that can help you reach potential customers. Stories are a fantastic way to increase engagement with your existing followers in a casual, authentic manner, but TikToks and Reels are better for getting more views and higher levels of engagement on social media since these may potentially be exposed to new consumers who have never heard of your brand before.   

Podcasts

While this doesn’t necessarily count as a video, podcasts are another great tactic to reach a wider audience. While you will release episodes on audio platforms like Apple Music and Spotify, podcasts can also be captured on video and uploaded to YouTube for viewers who may not come across the podcast on audio platforms. Podcasts are not only a great way to discuss your product and/or service, but also talk about other issues and topics within your industry and even feature other experts as guest speakers to amplify the content and make it more interesting.

Live streaming

The best way to engage with your audience in real time is through a live stream. It allows current consumers and even potential consumers to interact with you and learn more about your product or service in a casual manner. You can talk about it, showcase a demonstration about how it works, answer viewers’ questions about it, and convince your viewers to make a purchase. This is a perfect opportunity to give people all the details you wouldn’t be able to include in other more fixed forms of content marketing, and it’s even better that your consumers will meet the person behind the brand and feel more connected to them.

User-generated content

This is defined as content created by users on an online platform. This is a great way to let your audience know that you care about their experience with your product or service after they pay for it. Very popular among business to consumer markets, a few examples of user-generated content include:

–   Have customers share photos and videos of how and where they use your product or service.

–   Put together campaigns that incentivize users to submit content, like contests or giveaways for user-generated contributions.

–   Create surveys or ask questions on different social media platforms to gather insights and data, highlighting the most relevant responses.

–   Repurpose user review content into blog content or testimonials.

–   Ask customers to submit success stories with your product or service in their own words using pictures and videos.

Cohesiveness

Consumers like to know their voices and needs are being heard. The easiest way to do this is through a personalized customer experience. It won’t help to use a campaign-only lens because customers will be interacting with your brand through a variety of channels during the buying process. This means that you need to understand the bigger picture of a customer’s journey and complete experience with your brand, not just within one campaign or platform. Cohesiveness is based on consistency, which is achieved when you make your marketing strategy the base of all of your brand’s promoting platforms. This means consistency in aspects such as tone and visuals throughout the consumer experience. One way to ensure cohesion is by creating a customer journey map, which is a visual representation of how a customer acts, thinks and feels during the purchase.

Good UX design

Also known as user experience, UX refers to how a customer thinks and feels when interacting with your brand and the products or services you offer. Good UX design means your product is easy to utilize, is visually appealing, accessible, satisfies a need, and is credible. This will increase customer loyalty. UX can also refer to the experience a consumer has while navigating your website or app. Make sure your site or app is easy to use, navigate, has a simple and clean layout, and an appropriate amount of information on each page so that it isn’t overwhelming. Another huge plus is to make your website or app mobile-friendly since most users nowadays use their smartphones to browse websites.

Privacy

Regarding privacy and security, it is important to ensure that your audience feels that their personal information and data is protected at all costs. Consumers want to feel secure when they are providing you with their information given the privacy controversies and past cyberattacks. One way to do this is by upgrading your brand’s privacy software and make sure users know it has been upgraded.

Conclusion

The last two and a half years have ad a profound impact on marketing trends and techniques. That being said, now it’s more important than ever to make sure your marketing strategy matches today’s criteria and audience expectations, which are higher than ever before.