Technology plays a significant role in daily life as well as business activities, as companies can leverage it to achieve goals effectively. One of the ways is by using marketing technology, which is a big part of digital marketing.
However, marketing trends are constantly evolving, which is why it’s vital to keep up with them so your business can grow and stay competitive.
To help you stay on top of industry changes, this article will cover the seven marketing technology trends to watch in 2023. We’ll also explain the definition of marketing technology and its various types.
What Is Marketing Technology?
Marketing technology, also known as MarTech,refers to the software and tools that can help businesses optimize their digital marketing strategies. Many companies use MarTech for their campaigns, which has become standard practice.
Aside from convenience, marketing technology can benefit business owners by reducing marketing costs, improving workflow, and providing more accurate data analysis.
Here are several types of marketing technology to consider:
- Analytics. It can give valuable insights into a campaign’s performance and evaluate its return on investment (ROI). Google Analytics is one of the most popular MarTech tools widely used by marketers.
- Marketing automation. It helps to streamline marketing tasks across different channels, such as scheduling email marketing campaigns and monitoring the customer journey. Popular tools include Mailchimp and Salesforce.
- Content management system (CMS). It enables companies to create and manage marketing content on their websites easily. One of the most popular CMS is WordPress.
- Search engine optimization (SEO). It is a practice companies do to make their marketing materials rank higher on search engines. Popular strategies include local search and keyword optimization, while recommended SEO tools include Semrush and Ahrefs.
7 Trends to Watch in 2023
This section will list the seven digital marketing trends that companies, digital marketing agencies, and startups should keep an eye on in 2023.
1. Mobile-First Indexing
In 2019, Google officially launched a new algorithm for mobile-first indexing. It uses the mobile version of your site’s content to crawl and index before determining its ranking on search results.
This practice was implemented because many users today use mobile devices to browse and buy products on the internet. For this reason, developing and optimizing a mobile-friendly website will benefit your business.
To optimize your mobile site, increase its online visibility, and provide a smooth user experience, consider these factors:
- Ensure the content is the same on your desktop and mobile site.
- Use the same meta tags on both desktop and mobile versions of your website.
- Apply the proper URLs for your site’s structured data.
- Implement responsive web design.
- Use the exact image alt texts on both mobile and desktop sites.
Additionally, it’s crucial to optimize your website’s performance to achieve better results on search engines. That’s because Google also uses speed as a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile websites.
For example, WordPress users can speed up their site by choosing the right web hosting with optimized web servers, such as LightSpeed. You can learn more about maximizing website speed in the linked article.
2. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is an excellent solution to scale up business processes and make them more efficient. By leveraging AI tools, you can better understand your target audience through streamlined data collection. It can also help you to personalize the customer experience and optimize targeting ads.
For example, AI-driven tools like Adoric can display product recommendations that are relevant to individual customers. The data helps you identify consumers’ buying patterns and implement marketing strategies that can increase sales.
Many marketers also use AI tools and machine learning to spot new marketing trends early on. Doing so enables them to add value to their product offerings and build customer engagement.
3. Extended Reality
Extended reality (XR) is a type of technology that enables users to experience a new reality by merging the real world with a virtual environment. This includes augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR).
An increasing number of companies are using these technologies to promote their products and services online. Since it is one of the newer digital marketing trends, utilizing XR can boost customer interest and help companies stand out in the market.
An excellent example of companies adopting augmented reality for their marketing efforts includes Lego. The popular toy brand partnered with the social media platform Snapchat to transform its physical store into an immersive virtual experience by utilizing scannable codes, resulting in a unique MR experience for customers.
Some industries like healthcare and education have adopted XR to boost productivity and ensure safety during the training process. Due to its multiple use cases, experts project the XR technology market size will exceed $250 billion by 2028, making it a solid future marketing trend.
4. Video Marketing
Creating video content is one of the best ways to grab the audience’s attention as part of a social media marketing strategy. Many brands have started using short videos to boost brand awareness, drive engagement, and educate their target audience across social media channels.
A primary reason for this is studies show that people prefer to watch videos rather than read articles as they are easier and faster to understand. So, consider creating various types of videos to market your brand, from tutorials and reviews to webinars.
Live streaming is also worth considering as it enables you to engage with potential customers in real time and encourage them to buy products directly. To optimize your video content marketing strategy, consider including calls-to-action (CTAs), transcripts, descriptions, and popular keywords in the video.
5. User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is any content produced by customers instead of brands. This can include website comments, product reviews, unboxing videos, and social media posts.
Leveraging user-generated content can enhance brand authenticity, build brand loyalty, and influence buying decisions. In fact, 90% of consumers decide to purchase products due to UGC. That’s why UGC is considered the modern form of word-of-mouth marketing.
Ensure that you’re moderating all UGC content by setting up your website with a comment filter tool like Respondology. It will help protect your site from comment spam and malicious links. You can also do the same on your social media profiles by blocking certain words or keyphrases.
