As the world continues to become more digitally connected, one of the most important aspects of success for businesses in the year 2023 will be staying up to speed with the ever-evolving landscape of trends digest.  Let's revisit some of the trends you definitely need to own this year:

E-commerce Trends

With the growing usage of mobile internet, Ecommerce has taken centre stage in our lives. By 2023, industries will embrace these new Ecommerce trends and will capitalise on the opportunities presented.

• Leverage Social Commerce
• Advance Payment Modes
• Omnichannel Customer Experience
• Eco-friendly Shopping choices
• Rising Presence of AI

Read the exhaustive BLOG here. 

PR Trends

Technology will be a major influence on PR trends in 2023. Keep an eye on the future with the newest PR trends for 2023, which include cutting-edge technology and creative narrative strategies.

• Customisation and Connections
• Focus on Mission & Value-based Storytelling
• Change the Game with Technology
• Rise of Interactive Content
• Metrics and Ratings

Read the exhaustive BLOG here. 

UX/UI Trends

UX/UI trends in 2023 are projected to be more data-driven, utilising predictive analytics and AI technology. Designers will ensure their design decisions take into account accessibility and vision.

• Leverage Motion Design
• Interact with 3D Imagery
• Enhance Typography
• Employ Immersive Scrolling
• Virtual and Augmented Reality

Read the exhaustive BLOG here. 

Social Media Trends

In 2023, social media trends will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with technology. Connectivity and collaboration will be the two major pillars of social media.

• Rise of Nano Influencers & UGC
• Boom in Social Audio
• Expansion of Social Commerce
• Gaming is the New Playground
• Creation of the Human Touch

Read the exhaustive BLOG here. 

Influencer Marketing Trends

In 2023, influencer marketing trends will be driven by the increasing demands of customers and their ever-growing reliance on social media channels to make informed purchase decisions.

• Consumption of Quick Content
• Rise of Nano Influencers
• Employing Influencer Subscriptions
• Power of Live Streaming
• Expanding Influence Genres

Read the exhaustive BLOG here. 

SEO Trends

In 2023, a key trend in SEO will be the continued importance of user experience. A major emphasis will be on page speed and other factors that influence the user experience. 

• Optimising Mobile-friendly Websites
• Answering PAA Queries
• Utilising Various Forms of Content
• Powering AI Content
• Trusting Boring Ol’ SEO

Read the exhaustive BLOG here. 

Marketing Automation Trends

Marketing automation trends in 2023 are predicted to lean heavily on personalisation. With intelligent automation, marketers will be able to tailor their messages effectively instead of sending generic campaigns.

• Embracing User Quality Data
• Emergence of Omnichannel Marketing
• Leveraging Personalised Content
• Generating Lead Capture
• Utilising Conversational Marketing

Read the exhaustive BLOG here.

Paid Media Trends

In 2023, paid media is expected to grow significantly as more companies continue to incorporate digital marketing into their campaigns. 

• Utilising Influencer Marketing
• Leaning on First Party Data
• Embracing Omnichannel Marketing
• Leveraging Meta
• Exploring Pinterest Marketing

Read the exhaustive BLOG here

Social Commerce Trends

Social commerce trends in 2023 will see an increase in social media usage, technology, and better consumer experience. These offerings will drive the digital shopping experience. 

• Utilising Visual Commerce
• Embracing Descriptive Live Streaming
• Collaborating with Micro Influencers
• Selling with AI Chatbots
• Offering Customised Experiences

Read the exhaustive BLOG here

Tech Trends

2023 is projected to be a year of significant technological advancements. Emerging technologies like quantum computing, computer vision, and robotics are set to become more advanced and commonplace.

• Applied Observability
• Digital Immune System
• Edge Computing
• Super Apps
• Robots will Become More Human

Read the exhaustive BLOG here

Content Marketing Trends

Content marketing will continue to be an important part of digital marketing in 2023, and emerging trends will be focused on personalising content and delivering it in the most effective and engaging way possible. 

• Short Form Videos
• Embracing Voice Search
• Strategic SEO
• Leveraging Tech for Creativity
• Powering with Podcasts

Read the exhaustive BLOG here

Digital Marketing Trends

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving field that is quickly changing the way businesses reach and engage with their target audiences. Digital marketing trends are very crucial to maintain a connect with the customers.

• Relying heavily on Data
• Boom in Live Audio Interactions
• Youth-centred Marketing
• Leveraging Pinterest Marketing
• Augmented Reality becomes Mainstream

Read the exhaustive BLOG here Trends have and will continue to shape the future of virtually every industry, from design to marketing, from finance to retail, technology and beyond. Staying informed about emerging trends not only enables businesses to remain competitive but it also allows them to identify and seize opportunities to distinguish themselves from their competitors. 

The impact of digital marketing has forever changed the way companies positioned themselves in the market and communicated with customers. Post the development of computing and business intelligence systems, digital marketing has transformed the way brands communicate with their audience. Artificial Intelligence, Metaverse, Social Media – it has now become central to almost every brand to include them in their marketing and media plans.  The digital marketing trends for 2023 are an essential aspect that brands are watching out for to skyrocket their businesses. From SMEs to large organizations, it is crucial to incorporate the latest marketing trends into marketing strategies to stay relevant and competitive in today’s market.  With continuously evolving tools, algorithm updates, and technologies, keeping up with digital marketing trends can be overwhelming. However, the trick to keeping abreast of trends in the adage is to work smarter, not harder. For brands to stay on top of current and future trends, we have listed down what marketers can expect in the digital space in 2023: 

Relying heavily on data

In the era where brands are engaging digitally with their customers, it is important to use the collected data to make decisions. Data helps businesses determine how well the digital marketing strategies have performed for the targeted population and make required adjustments in areas of improvement. The collected data is valuable for marketing and sales teams to focus on qualified leads and A/B testing of messaging, emails, creatives, and strategies. With the help of marketing automation, brands get real-time insights into user engagement and campaign performance, making their strategies more effective. 

Boom in live audio interactions

Live audio interactions in social media are rapidly evolving. Multiple social media platforms are now making a shift towards active interaction with customers via dialogues. These interactions enable brands to portray their most authentic selves by promoting better empathy and accessibility. With a surge in social audio, businesses must make the most of this social media trend in 2023 by incorporating the same in their channel-specific strategies. Additionally, marketers can also make use of audio interactions for a Tête-à-Tête on brand-specific topics. These discussions will be a new form of UGC, with free-flowing conversations as attendees will be providing all the required content.     

Youth-centered marketing

Gen Z isn’t just the upcoming generation of consumers; they are the current generation, with a solid capacity of purchasing power under their belt. In addition to their impressive power as consumers, Gen Zers are trail-blazing how the audience views and interacts with brands. This generation chooses to connect with brands that truly appeal to them and the way they communicate – they expect brands to be extremely honest, down-to-earth, authentic, and transparent. The younger generation isn’t pro to the feeling of being sold a product; they expect it to be more imaginative or experiential. This generation is more inclined to consume short-form video content, which comprises eye-catching visuals that appeal to their values. Brands need to frame their identity around their tastes. 

Leveraging Pinterest marketing

Pinterest has recently gained immense popularity, with over 442 million active users each month. This visual search engine is an excellent platform for brands to reach out to new target audiences and increase brand and product awareness. Many brands would leverage this paid media trend in 2023 to introduce their brand to new and potential customers, utilizing a distinctive approach to sell their products or services. The ads on Pinterest appear in the same format as a usual Pin on the users’ feed. Consistent pinning of ads will guarantee more engagement for brands. 

Augmented reality becomes mainstream

In an effort to grab user attention and boost sales, more and more brands would heavily rely on augmented reality in 2023. The global augmented and virtual reality technologies market is expected to reach around $142.4 billion by 2023. With the pandemic adversely affecting the stores globally, more and more brands have started to heavily invest in augmented reality to power sales growth. According to Statista, around 1.4 billion users would shift to augmented reality by 2023, which makes it a discernible digital marketing trend for brands. [caption id="attachment_11430" align="alignnone" width="1218"]  [/caption]

The future of digital marketing for brands

There is a lot of room for progression in the digital space. Agencies and brands need to make use of these digital marketing trends in their strategies to secure increased sales, digital followings, and brand loyalty. Brands that get ahead of these advancements in the next year are well set to be ahead of the curve in 2024 and every year to come.     

In 2021, businesses will have to move past their losses in the year 2020, and come up with robust digital marketing strategies for long-term benefits. They will have to ensure that their approach is all-encompassing and functions smoothly across all platforms and channels. Several industries have already started taking the required steps to ensure that the evolving needs of their customers are well looked after. Last week in Digital, we discussed digital marketing trends that will pick up the pace in 2021. This week, in the third and final part of ‘Digital Marketing Trends of 2021,’ we will talk about the radical innovations that will change how digital marketing functions. Related Article : Digital Marketing Trends of 2021 - Part 1

The rise of Virtual Influencers

The audience connects with influencers authentically and organically which encourages the trust factor. Businesses will definitely use this as a key advertising strategy to communicate their messages to the target customers effectively. Brands will leverage technology to showcase their products and services by giving lives and personalities to the said influencers. In fact, influencer marketing campaigns are going to be a big thing in 2021. Micro-influencers and nano-influencers will be pulled in to reach out to the smaller and unreachable segments of the audience. It is being said that with influencer marketing, the engagement rates will go three times higher in the coming year. However, brands will have to be vigilant and take proper measures to ensure that their audience is not being misled with false information.

The upcoming era of blockchain marketing

Blockchain marketing will lead to certain kinds of small scale contracts that ensure transaction settlement only when the conditions of the agreement are fulfilled. This will help maintain transparency with work and also create a drive to fulfil tasks and achieve results. Google’s monopolisation in the ad world will decrease because brands will now be able to advertise independently on online platforms. It will also get easier to analyse the metrics of advertisement, which will help reduce cases of ad frauds and increase the return on investment. Further, fake accounts and spambots will be traceable, and consumers will be in proper charge of their data.

Instagram lite to take over regional marketing

To offer a core and legitimate experience to people, Instagram is testing the launch of Instagram lite for all those people who miss out on it due to poor network issues or just low phone memory. To make things more exciting and to bring in the sense of involvement, they are rolling it out in some major Indian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. The main motive of launching Instagram lite is to integrate a clean, responsive, and fast experience for its users. This will also give direct competition to other apps like Chingari, MX Takatak, Trell, and so on.

The makeover of branded content ads

Branded content ads will receive some interesting makeovers and tweaks, as Instagram will enable advertisers to create branded content ads without the need for creators to post it on their own. The creators too, will have higher control and hold over giving approval or withdrawing it with respect to any ad that is published from their handle. Brands will have more flexibility and will face lesser bottlenecks while making and running branded ad campaigns. The promotion process will become much more smoother with the options of adding product tags. Also, brands will be able to extract higher value from the content as it will allow people to shop directly from the creators. Additionally, ads will also have tappable elements like hashtags, mentions and locations - both on IG reels and stories.

Multi-touch attribution model with data

Artificial intelligence will enable marketers to keep a close tab on all touchpoints of a consumer’s digital journey. This will be achieved via increased data accumulation and higher behavioural (online behaviour that the consumer exhibits) tracking - from jumping websites to comparing price points, to viewing competitor’s sites - everything will be taken note of for later analysis. The consumer’s journey will not just be analysed at the first and last touchpoint but will be captured at every step of the way. The information thus collected will be used to optimise websites for a more enhanced user experience and create content that will receive better engagement. Change and innovation are two things that are ever-constant in the digital marketing field. To be in sync with these changing trends is critical because they will help with that competitive edge over others in the market. Right now, online is where the customers are, and therefore, that is precisely where businesses should be reaching out to them. Download the PDF version Related Article : Digital Marketing Trends of 2021 - Part 2

Over the years, the digital marketing landscape has undergone several transformations for easier communication and better experience with the audience it targets. It is a continuous evolution process, and it brings in the much-needed change to keep pace with the trends. To expand their creativity and boundaries, businesses need to harness and use these new technologies, techniques, and innovations. Last week in Digital, we spoke about the fundamental digital marketing trends that we can expect to see in the upcoming year. This week, we will talk about those trends that will pick up pace in the year 2021 and are an absolute must for your businesses to adopt so that performance is at its best.

AI will induce hyper personalisation

In 2021, Ad creating platforms and software will drive hyper personalisation with their advertisements. Personalised things will become hyper personalised as brands will use more and more information about the customer by analysing their profile data, purchasing behaviour, location, demography, real-time behavioral data, and so on, to make recommendations and suggestions that best suit their time and requirement. Customers today are very technology-friendly, but they also face a time crunch owing to their busy routines. With hyper personalisation, this will become easier because AI will enable them to see the right content at the right time. AI will further help analyse written content for hyper-targeting customers keeping the readability score in mind. Customers will feel that the brand really cares about them.

Online shoppers will adopt voice-based search

Many businesses will tap into the e-commerce market because it is lucrative, and most of the millennials today prefer shopping online. Soon enough, rather than typing the words, they will be giving voice commands to their AI voice assistants to complete a purchase for them. The power of voice search can already be seen making its presence felt, and it is assumed to become the in-thing in 2021. It will personalise the user experience by maintaining a record of the individual’s preferences, save time, and will also make it much easier for the user to find a product online. The SEO game, too, will change accordingly so that voice-based searches can provide optimum results. Furthermore, customers will be more likely to give feedback, thanks to voice-aided typing.

Interactive ads will take over static ads

Static ads will receive a fine-tuning to turn into something more dynamic, that is, interactive ads, and thereby, become more engaging for the customers. Interactive ads will enable customers to see content that is relevant to their interests and needs. Rather than passively consuming an advertisement, they will now actively participate in its presentation. The usual redirecting to websites and apps will be avoided, and this will also help improve brand recall. People today prefer interactions and, therefore, look for things in an advertisement that will add value to their lives. Static ads will not be able to cater to this requirement, but interactive ads, on the other hand, will provide them with that immersive experience. Furthermore, it is said that interactive ads can increase customer engagement by 47 percent compared to traditional ads.

AR & VR will have new Avatars

AR and VR techniques can be used effectively by both B2B and B2C businesses for their marketing and sales strategies. It is expected that more than 61 percent of consumers will buy from their retailers via augmented reality services or virtual reality services. This particular trend will receive all the more hype owing to the Coronavirus pandemic. By trying on things from the comfort of one’s home, conversion rates will be much higher. Virtual reality will club action and experience together, thereby making the purchase process wholesome - providing this kind of digital experience can become a game-changer for many brands and businesses. Not just this, but AR will also help with a brand’s promotional events, and this aspect will receive a big push in the coming year.

Employees as the brand’s spokesperson

The year 2021 will see employees engaging positively with their brands on social media. Working remotely has led to the invention of several new methods. Employees will help spread the word and the brand message by being socially active, and this will have a much more significant and far-reaching impact. Brand videos featuring employees will receive the required traction because they will be speaking as internal members of the brand to the external audience - a massive boost for building that trust factor. After all, the information will be raw and unfiltered, making it more believable; and also add authenticity because the information is not coming from the company but in real-time from its people. This method will help bring in a quality talent pool for the organizations and further highlight its goals and values. All in all, these are some of the digital marketing trends that are expected to give your brands the much-needed makeover in the year 2021. Keeping track of the changes and adapting these methods will help get the brand across to the masses in both an efficient and effective manner. Download the PDF versionRequest Consultation

The Coronavirus pandemic has furthered digital marketing by a considerable margin in the past few months. Not like it wasn’t popular before, but now, it is possibly one of the go-to methods that people are using to get their brands across to people. The new normal has definitely changed the way businesses function, and with employees working remotely, everybody is putting in constant efforts to adopt new ways and techniques, so that their organisations function as smoothly as they would, prior to the pandemic. Since work from home is expected to be a key takeaway from the year 2020, businesses are gearing up to target, engage, and retain their customers apart from also generating new leads - all this in the light of the fact that almost everybody has had to do away with the traditional methods of marketing. Even digital marketing for that matter has changed and continues to evolve. People today are buying all sorts of things online - medicines, clothes, sanitisers, food, etc. With the changing consumer behaviour, digital marketing is also changing to adapt. Therefore, to continue making those bucks, here are some interesting digital marketing trends that will take over in the year, 2021:

Power of voice-search

Using the voice-search based method, people can talk to their devices, ask questions, seek information, and do a variety of other things that does not require the traditional text-based or typing-based search. Google, Alexa, and Siri are famous and common examples of voice assistants that people know of today. They are rather fascinating and convenient to use as well.  Conversational interfaces are expected to take over and this might make CaaP (Conversations as a Platform) an actual thing. NLP or Natural processing Language will start trending soon, owing to its intuitiveness and personal touch. Further, it is quicker, and it replaces typing and keyboards.

Learn more - How Voice Search Will Change The Future Of SEO

Tell a story with a video

The attention span of people in general has become quite small. They want content that holds their chin in place but also does not drag on for too long. Videos are a good way to achieve both. They are very commonly used  for marketing and advertising purposes as well, but the main challenge is to make it full of content and information, yet condense it. Due to the pandemic, the trend that has set in is that, videos and ads have left the television space, and are moving on to computers, tablets, smartphones, Youtube, Social media handles, etc. - so we can expect to see a lot more of virtual reality, animation, live videos, 360-degree videos, and so on, in 2021.  As the world advances, people are becoming more and more tech-savvy, and they are on some device or the other, trying to catch up. These new methods will keep them further hooked.

Checkout 15 Smart Ways to Promote Your YouTube Videos

Influencer Marketing Revamped

The switch from offline to online will continue to happen for the foreseeable future. Though brands and businesses continue to find and apply new digital marketing strategies, adapt to new trends, and get their message across, loud and clear, they still want to organically connect to their audience. This is possible through influencer marketing, and brands will start giving that importance to this concept and use the influencer community to get their products  and brand message across to the unreachable segments. A healthy relationship between brand marketing, product marketing, and influencer marketing is expected to take over.

People believe more when they see and hear someone speak - visual and vocal reassurance is very personal and impactful, therefore, much more engaging.

Pocket your local audience with SEO

Increasing the search visibility for local businesses is definitely the in-thing these days, and it will start booming in no time. Hypertargeting allows for bringing in customers from communities or areas that are geographically restricted. By ranking higher on local searches, visibility is improved, plus credibility also increases. People are always looking for quick fixes. If something is not available at the nearest store, it is preferable to walk down to the next nearest. Hypertargeting allows people to do exactly that. It is time-saving from the customer’s perspective, and from the business’s perspective, it is beneficial because the online presence fetches them the required attention and audience.

Growth of in-game advertising

With people staying in, e-watching of sports has become even more common, and consequently, this has led to a spike in in-game advertising. Apparently, Gen Z indulges in a lot of esports, and because of the lockdown, others too are doing the same. The lockdown has contributed heavily to a rise in smartphone gaming. Mobile gamers ( around 57 percent) are okay with in-game advertising as long as they are allowed to play the games free of cost. Television is going down and online streaming is becoming more popular than ever. This exponential increase in the number of viewers has led to a healthy bond between gaming and advertising, and this is allowing brands to interact with the audience successfully.

It is interesting to note that all these trends have been fairly around for sometime now, dilly-dallying between becoming ‘generally known’ or ‘popularly used.’ The pandemic has helped with that super-nudge, thereby making these more popular than before, and also putting them on the path to becoming extremely popular. Had this been a choice, maybe the growth would have been a little slower; but with social distancing and lockdown, digitalisation is the need of the hour. Everything is happening online and therefore, people must know how to navigate through this world of digitalisation. The sooner, the better.

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