Predict the Future,8 Digital Marketing Keywords In 2023
Did you "soar" this Spring Festival? "The Knockout" (《狂飙》), true to its name, soared in popularity and became a hit at the beginning of 2023, marking the first major success in the series market of the year. According to statistics, "The Knockout" reached a record-high popularity value exceeding 11,000, topping historical popularity records on the iQIYI platform with a Douban score of 9.1, and garnered over 4,500 trending searches across the internet. This illustrates that, in addition to the inherent quality of a good work, the success also heavily relies on platform promotion and the power of cross-border marketing.
Brand marketing is no different. The pressure, hope, and changes of 2022 are behind us, and 2023 continues to be a year of constant exploration and evolution in the digital marketing industry. Today, we want to discuss the 8 key marketing terms for 2023 and how businesses can seize new opportunities, return to the essence of growth, and build genuine user assets!
2023 Consumers will be more cautious
Facing a global economic downturn, weak market growth, and rising cost of living, people are becoming more cautious about their daily purchasing decisions. As mentioned in the "2023 McKinsey China Consumer Report: The Era of Resilience": in 2022, only 16% of respondents claimed their spending increased by 5% or more year-over-year, which is half the proportion from 2019; 22% of respondents reported reducing their spending. Market fluctuations drive consumers to make more stringent trade-offs to maintain their quality of life. People are becoming wiser, hoping to spend less money while getting more products. High-income groups are reducing shopping frequency or changing their preferences for specific categories, but they are not turning to cheaper brands or products. This is thanks to major brands (especially Chinese brands) continuously enhancing their competitiveness, providing more differentiated products. Lower-income consumers are turning to more price-competitive channels, actively seeking discounts and promotions, such as purchasing groceries and daily necessities through community or group-buying platforms, or choosing the lower-priced product lines of the same brand. In terms of search and shopping behavior, apart from a few categories, consumers now shop omnichannel. Additionally, some consumers postpone their purchasing plans, waiting for promotions like "618" and "Double Eleven."
In reality, consumers are not compromising when choosing brands and products; they are simply making more cautious trade-offs: is it a reputable brand, what is the quality, is there any false marketing, and is it worth repeat purchases, etc.. Likewise, this is where brands need to focus their efforts.
2023 Attach importance to growing grass scientifically
As mentioned earlier, with consumers having more channels to purchase products and becoming more rational in their shopping habits, scientific seeding (planting the seed of buying desire) remains crucial in 2023. Brands need to occupy users' minds through quality content, reach users interested in the brand and enhance user loyalty through multi-dimensional seeding methods, turning them into key growth engines for engagement and conversion, thereby maximizing ROI. For instance, before the Double Eleven shopping festival in 2022, the variety show "All Girls' Offers" produced by Li Jiaqi and his company Mei ONE sparked widespread discussion on the internet, with Douyin topics accumulating 400 million views. Girls with shopping needs watched Li Jiaqi and major beauty brand executives negotiate and highlight the best products for their shopping lists. Sincere brands like Fresh, Zhuben, and OSM achieved a mutual enthusiastic connection with consumers, resulting in impressive performance on the Double Eleven sales battlefield.
For brand owners, the normalization of major promotions in the future will make brands focus more resources on precise marketing and perfect the short-link path from seeding to purchase. Successfully increasing reach does not equate to successful seeding. Scientific seeding requires brands to personalize marketing based on insights into user preferences, precisely target and efficiently accumulate A3 seed users, and achieve simultaneous increases in brand awareness and sales, promoting multi-dimensional positive growth for the brand.
2023 Consumer-centric technology
In the Spring Festival movie slot, "The Wandering Earth 2" makes a grand return after three years. Facing the impending apocalypse, the “Mountain Moving Project,” which is the predecessor to the “Wandering Earth Project,” and the “Digital Life Project,” present two different paths. Once again, the timeless theme of science fiction is brought to the forefront: in the confrontation between technology and humanity, who ultimately holds the right to choose the future?
If Web 3.0 is the platform for a new wave of marketing revolution, then the metaverse and NFTs can be seen as a reshaping of digital marketing. In 2023, the direction of metaverse marketing and related privacy strategies will also become clearer. The continuous emergence of consumer-centric technologies is one of the most noteworthy luxury consumption trends in the retail industry. According to the Luxury Institute, it is crucial for leaders in sales, marketing, and other customer-facing departments in the luxury retail industry to adopt consumer-centric technologies. In 2023, Webpower will also focus on the “DMT+Web3.0” marketing strategy, using advanced technological means to help retail brands establish closer connections with consumers and place them at the forefront of key initiatives.
2023 ChatGPT: From Zero To Hero
AI has now become an indispensable technological tool in the digital marketing industry. Especially at the end of 2022, the frenzy sparked by ChatGPT on the internet suggests that this form of interactive dialogue might soon replace traditional website interactions. ChatGPT is a powerful tool for generating creativity and content on an unprecedented scale. Whether you want to accomplish more in less time or simply improve the quality of your output, ChatGPT can help. It can also simplify market research and provide a solid foundation of audience insights to inform your marketing strategies. By compressing and analyzing vast amounts of data, ChatGPT can save you the time and effort needed to understand customer feedback and social media conversations. All these capabilities can help you make better, bolder, and faster decisions about how to meet your audience's needs.
But at the same time, there is a flaw in becoming overly reliant on tools. While ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for generating creativity and content, it is crucial to remember that it cannot replace human expertise and creativity. In marketing, it is essential to strike a balance between using ChatGPT and maintaining a human touch. Often, there is no optimal solution when it comes to the evolution and selection of technology. The most important thing is that humans must always maintain the authority to make final decisions.
2023 The vitality of sustainable development
Another trend to note in digital marketing is using brand storytelling to market luxury retail brands. Storytelling is a powerful strategy that, when done well, can showcase brand values while building a community of consumers with similar values. This helps brands stand out in the sea of digital content, build better relationships with consumers, and showcase brand values in an engaging and authentic way. When discussing fashion retail trends, one of the most important factors that brands must leverage is consistently delivering an excellent customer experience. As detailed by Save My Cent, 60% of consumers expect high-quality customer service when purchasing luxury goods, and 78% of customers expect durable, high-quality products. Webpower's "Shopping Assistant" feature assists sales associates in understanding user profiles, accurately meeting user needs, and also facilitates management oversight of sales associates' work for enterprises. Additionally, some brands are starting to take on social responsibility. Studies have shown that although more eco-friendly retail products are priced higher and may deter some consumers from purchasing, 60% of consumers state that this is an important purchasing factor. These are reasons why brands can achieve sustainable development.
2023 Mastering Visual Marketing
Generation Z has grown up with the internet, and as a new generation of consumers, the way they browse and interact online is constantly evolving. Companies need to meet their changing needs in innovative ways to truly connect with their audience. Just as mentioned earlier, people resonate with good stories, and visual marketing can help achieve this goal.
Brands can flexibly handle their consumer profiles using the 5A model: for instance, combining eye-catching splash ads + brand specials + innovative and content-rich live commerce can achieve precise traffic direction and complete one-stop conversion. For B2B companies, visual marketing is equally important. They can use their official website, landing pages, promotional posters, images, short videos, and CTAs to establish brand tone while maintaining professionalism, helping users recognize their shared values with the brand. Providing clear information and a comfortable experience encourages users to further explore and understand the brand.
2023 Omnichannel Search Marketing
In the past, when discussing search, platforms like Baidu, Sogou, and Google would come to mind first. However, now Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu have also become search portals. Previously, ByteDance CEO Kelly Zhang mentioned in a Weibo post that Douyin video search had over 550 million monthly active users, surpassing the 530 million monthly active users disclosed by the Baidu App in April 2020.
Users' reading habits are becoming more youthful, indicating that the era of text search is gradually giving way to the era of video search. Companies need to reconfigure their B2B SEO and SEM strategies, as omnichannel search may become one of the trends in 2023. The development of search activities relies on context and content, connecting users with brands and foreseeing commercial value.
Brands can employ a "search + paid traffic + live streaming" marketing combo. After users perform search operations on the platform and gain some understanding of the brand-specific content, they will then see more brand content while browsing videos, further deepening their brand awareness, and finally, live streaming can boost conversions.
The End of Third-Party Cookies
Since the second half of 2021, Google announced it would phase out third-party cookies. As of July 2022, the deadline has been extended to 2024. Nevertheless, marketers now have more breathing room to find better alternatives for gaining audience insights and measuring marketing campaigns.
The disappearance of third-party cookies means that brands will be unable to identify specific marketing audiences easily and will find it challenging to collect and store user browsing behavior preferences. However, from another perspective, this move can help advertisers and marketers focus on more valuable data sources. Using first-party data will be crucial for building user profiles and targeting similar audiences based on genuine customer needs.
Therefore, brands will strive to build and maintain an engaged community to collect first-party data, fostering closer relationships with customers and followers—whether in real life or on social networks. Constructing customer profiles through first-party data while protecting user privacy, refining lifetime value, and optimizing the customer service experience will become the blue ocean of next-generation brand marketing growth.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in "One Hundred Years of Solitude," "What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it." With the lifting of pandemic restrictions, more marketing opportunities will emerge. How can brands take the lead and break through the barriers? In 2023, Webpower will join you in witnessing new developments and new paradigms in digital marketing!
