Opinions expressed by owners are their own.
A marketing strategy is "a plan that defines the marketing goals and objectives for selling a particular product or product line and how to achieve these goals in the available time." Remember, before implementing your marketing strategy plan, you need to consider the following three pillars:
- Key audience demographics
- Pricing and marketing budget
- business purpose
The following seven marketing strategies are essential for connecting with your audience, achieving your marketing goals by promoting products and services, building brand awareness, and connecting with your audience through multiple channels.
1. Email Marketing
Email marketing is an old concept that will be very relevant in 2023. Having audience lists with a different email structure for each audience can give you a great "cheap" way to showcase your business and sell your products.
Here are three examples you can apply to your email marketing. The first is to increase the interactivity of your email. People are used to social media and the tabs that can come from reading or watching content. Add videos, sliders, games and image carousels for users to scroll through.
Second, it uses stories in your email copy. People want to connect with brand values and one of the best ways to do that is to tell your brand story. Tell them your core story, show them your personality, your culture and your company team. Use videos, quotes and memes to connect with your audience.
Last is customization. Customizing the body of an email can increase your open rate by 13% and your click-through rate by 28%, while reducing your bounce rate by 18%.
Email is still evolving because you are in control of how to target your audience based on your marketing goals without being bound by the rules of the platform you use.
See Also: Why Email Marketing Is Better Than Social Media For Your Business?
2. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is here to stay and we need to find the right platform to create content, connect with our audience and showcase our skills or products. This will be determined by your target demographic and where they spend most of their time.
It should also be noted that there will be specific platforms that can be used for business models of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. For example, LinkedIn for B2B and TikTok for B2C. Remember that your audience may switch to another platform later.
One thing you should include in your social media marketing strategy is thinking about ways to include user-generated content. This can be in the form of ratings, unboxings, tutorials and product reviews. According to Stackla, 88% of consumers cite authenticity and trustworthiness as key decision factors for in-app purchases and increased brand engagement.
The most important thing is to use your authentic voice and represent the people in your company with their skills, values and personality.
3. Public Relations (PR)
Another old concept that still has a place in your marketing toolbox, especially in 2023. PR is relevant and can help raise awareness of a milestone you've achieved or a product/business you're marketing to grow. Media mentions also help your website/brand in search engine optimization and search rankings if you get reputable sites mentioning your business.
According to Statista, the PR industry will be worth $129 billion in 2025, a 68 percent increase from 2020 to $88 billion.
Related: The Impact of Public Relations on Small Business
4. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a must-have strategy in 2023. SEO aims to improve discovery for specific keywords related to your brand name and offerings, thereby helping you increase traffic and sales.
Organic SEO can help you rank your content based on specific keywords. I recommend learning how to apply the basics of SEO to your content and focusing on long-tail keywords first, as it will be easier for you to rank.
A key pillar of your SEO strategy should be creating quality content and engagingly addressing customer needs and questions while using targeted keyword phrases. Create consistent content that helps customers better understand your business and products.
SEO can be combined with paid advertising, allowing your articles to appear at the top of search results
Also See: 5 Simple SEO Tricks To Boost Your Rankings
5. Influencer Marketing
Working with influencers can help grow your business in no time by increasing your brand awareness and reputation. The key here is to do your research and get multiple quotes from different influencers so you can decide on the best deal.
I would say that going for the biggest name in a particular niche is not always beneficial as your business may not be ready for that growth. A better strategy is to find smaller accounts with more engaged audiences so that both sides can simultaneously grow and become more stable.
A growing trend in influencer marketing is live shopping, which allows potential customers to purchase products via live video. Influencers can showcase products, post reviews, and answer questions from their followers about the product they're featuring. Instagram introduced Live Shopping in September 2022, allowing users to purchase products directly from Instagram Live. So expect this to be a priority on the platform in 2023.
Related: Influencer Marketing Is Truly a Game Changer for Business
6. Virtual Events
Virtual events are here to stay, especially after the last two years when travel was almost non-existent. Demonstrating your expertise and value through online events can increase brand awareness and reach. Attendee lists can be reused and segmented in your email.
Another trick is to bring in experts from the industry you're in and create an event where they talk about different topics related to your business. Event videos can also be used in long and short social media videos.
7. Video Marketing
One of the most important strategies in recent years is video marketing. Video marketing is closely related to hosting virtual events and can help you present your business from different angles.
People in your organization can have topics to work on and record video broadcasts for the world to see. Behind-the-scenes and corporate events can show the human side of your team, and there's no limit to the creative ways you can create video content.
Authenticity is key here because you're willing to expose yourself to the camera so people can connect with you and what your company stands for.
Short vertical video content will be one of the biggest trends in video marketing in 2023 According to Zippia, 85% of American adults will own a smartphone by 2022, and Americans spend an average of 5 hours and 24 minutes per day on their mobile devices. Since vertical video content can take up more space on a device and people use TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, you should focus your time and creativity on exploring this type of video content.
The world is moving towards personal branding, and video is the best, if not the best, way to reach your audience
Win in Marketing in 2023
Bottom line: experiment and see what works for you and your company. Do not concentrate and do all the techniques mentioned here at once. Experiment with things that resonate with you as a person and as a workplace. Customize and develop the best marketing mix for your desired results that will help you succeed in 2023.
