During the Christmas season, each household has its classics: decorating the Christmas tree, hanging stockings on the fireplace, singing Christmas carols, building a gingerbread house...
For companies, we also have our classics:
-Email from CEO. Subject: "Marketing Plan 2023 Review."
-Reaction of the Marketing Director: "Oops".
After 20 years of forecasting Marketing budgets, I have learned that the more you anticipate the next year's trends and activities, the better: your Marketing strategy for 2023 must come before the new year, not in Q1. By then, it's too late.
If you're a little behind or don't know where to get started, take a look below where we discuss key steps to take and Marketing trends for 2023.
Marketing strategy for 2023
The way we budget for Marketing has changed enormously over the last few years: Gone are the days when budgets were mostly dominated by events, mass advertising, and shooting flies with cannons. Today, consumers spend a considerable amount of time researching before initiating any commercial process.
With these changes, companies now require adapted business processes, market responses, and decision-making timelines. It's a new year, so it's the perfect time to think out with the old, in with the new!
According to a HubSpot study, some of the top 2023 Marketing trends include:
- Influencer marketing will continue to grow unstoppably.
- Platforms like TikTok will become (if they are not already) authentic Teleshops.
- We have to start taking into account the differences between Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X.
This year, two types of questions will have to be addressed when it comes to preparing the Marketing budget:
- Classic questions: How do I prepare the budget? What are the big items? Where and how should I distribute the money?
- 2023-specific questions: How will the Ukraine War affect us? Do we have to worry about political polarization? Is the Metaverse definitely out of the question? What's going on with Twitter?
Inbound Marketing is your best bet
Inbound Marketing ties all the pieces of your digital strategy together.
- You will have the perfect method to digitize and automate your Marketing processes, all in one place.
- You will be able to refresh your brand and optimize assets.
- You will provide leads with real value (in the form of relevant content), but in a non-instrusive way.
- You will be able to integrate the technological trends of the market.
- You are going to improve the relationship between Marketing & Sales and achieve Sales Enablement.
Do these points align with your 2023 objectives? Once you have decided that Inbound Marketing is the way forward, you can continue on the path towards planning and implementation. For the latest Inbound Marketing tactics, continue below.
Inbound Marketing trends 2023
1. Infrastructure
You need to have a digital framework to support your strategy. This includes "traditional" media such as a website, blog, landing pages, social media, paid search and social campaigns, and email marketing. But it should also include innovative solutions such as lead scoring, smart content, chatbots, and automation campaigns.
Ideally, you must be able to do all of this in one spot, like the HubSpot platform, for example. Your digital infrastructure should not be an island; it should be integrated seamlessly with your CRM, Sales processes, and tech stack (ERP, email, phone, even WhatsApp). HubSpot lets you do all this and more, learn how.
2. Content
Content Marketing is essential in the digital age for organic online positioning. If you don't have enough internal resources to create content pieces like blog posts, infographics, and ebooks, you should consider to hiring freelancers or a content agency to product high-quality content for you.
And don't forget about the design work associated with your content. It's not enough to write a block of text and publish it; you need images and graphics that present the information in the most visually-attractive way possible. As they say, an image is worth 1,000 words.
Finally, it's also critical to reserve part of your budget for SEO, in order to perform keyword research, develop a positioning strategy, and optimize web and blog content for online search.
3. Visibility
To capitalize on your value proposition, your company needs to make itself visible to all relevant markets, no matter how niche they might be. Although not strictly Inbound, Paid Search (Google Ads, for example) and Paid Social (LinkedIn Ads, Facebook/Instagram Ads, depending on your Buyer Personas), are the perfect complement to organic positioning.
Depending on how much room you have in your Marketing budget, you can extend these to include Display, native advertising, etc.
4. Lead nurturing
With your infrastructure in place, content created, and campaigns executed, the work isn't over. Not even close! In fact, this is when the real work begins. After attracting leads, you need to have an appropriate strategy for each phrase of the Buyer's Journey: TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU.
That means creating relevant follow-up content, automated nurturing emails, lead scoring parameters, and sales triggers and handovers. Without this interconnected web of nurturing activities, any new leads that engage with your company will not progress down the sales funnel. They will either lose interest or not understand the next steps they need to take.
You must do everything you can do to guide them along the sales process, make it easy for them to access information, and build their trust and confidence in your company.
5. Expertise
Marketing and Sales assets and processes aren't the only things that are important for your 2023 Strategy...what about building expertise? With the last bits of your budget, you need to dedicate resources to making sure your entire team is up-to-date on the latest trends, tools, and training. Deep (and continual) knowledge is essential for achieving success. If you use the HubSpot platform, for example, you should be aware of the latest HubSpot tools.
Finally, if I could recommend that you ask yourself one question, it is this: Does my strategy work for 2023...or 2003? It's time to throw out the traditional Marketing plans of the past and get with the times! If your 2023 Marketing Strategy doesn't include Inbound elements like SEO, chatbots, automation, lead scoring...then it's the wrong strategy. If you still need help with developing next year's Marketing strategy, count on mbudo!
David Romero
David has more than 20 years of experience directing Marketing teams in national and multinational companies. He has over 10 years of experience implementing Inbound Marketing strategies with a commercial focus for B2B companies. His motto is: always be learning.