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2023 is set to be a challenging and exciting year with new developments and trends emerging, and the possibility of a predicted contraction in the economy on the horizon. So, for you as a business owner or manager, you need to ensure your marketing efforts are as effective as ever.
To help you keep your business on track, we've put together 23 tips you need to make sure your marketing is in shape for 2023.
Planning
1. Start by conducting an audit
It is important to see where your strengths and weaknesses are before you develop a plan for the year. Use our Marketing for Growth online tool to help you conduct a free audit. Once completed, you will know what you need to pay more attention to, and also where there is room for improvement.
By completing this initial audit, you will quickly identify opportunities as well as areas for improvement. This free tool includes guidance on content marketing, social media, SEO, lead generation and website maintenance.
2. Be aware of key dates, holidays and observed celebrations
Whether you want to avoid the school holidays or that's your time to make a killing, or if you need to know when the Black Friday sales begin, our 2023 Event Calendar will help ensure you know what's happening and when.
The 2023 Event Calendar includes all Queensland public holidays, school holidays and some important observed celebrations.
3. Develop a content calendar for 2023
Content spans a wide range of genres from traditional press releases and opinion pieces, to blogs, social media posts and infographics.
One of the smartest ways to ensure your marketing budget stretches further is to outline the themes and topics you're going to focus on. Once you have the skeleton outline, you can then build in different outputs to suit your marketing channels.
🚨 Spoiler alert 🚨 Jump down to tip 6 to see what questions your content should answer.
When constructing your content calendar, ensure you plan for several content types which suit a variety of platforms or channels. Keep in mind that content, where possible, should be repurposed to suit each format so it works harder for you.
To help you develop an editorial content calendar, download our Content Calendar planning template.
4. 2023 is the year to build trust and authenticity
A recent report by Adolescent Content identified that 78% of Gen Zers are sceptical of brands' commitments to issues like equity, diversity, and sustainability.
With this cohort likely to become the largest by 2026, brands should look to how they can demonstrate their sincerity, and action toward these issues in transparent and authentic ways.
For further insights into what Gen Zers will really take notice of, view Instagram's 2023 Trend Report.
2022 definitely experienced a shift away from the 'perfect'. With over-polished, media-trained influencers and celebrities failing to engage their followers in the same way they had in the past. Instead, authentic, real-life personalities are increasingly captivating audiences, particularly for Instagram Reels and TikTok.
What does this mean for brands? First and foremost, if you are investigating partnerships with influencers for 2023, try to avoid anything that could be seen as 'staged' or 'produced', but endeavour to create insightful, personalised moments.
Content
5. Magnificent Magenta
Pantone’s colour forecasters predict that Viva Magenta – “an animated red that encourages experimentation” – will rule the roost in 2023.
6. Make your content more appealing
Your content should answer these questions:
- What problem are you solving for your customers?
- Who has this problem?
- How does your solution help them solve that problem?
- Why is this solution any better than the others?
- How’s this going to make their life better?
- What is their world like after they buy?
When answering these questions ensure you:
- Get specific
- Be relatable
- Make it funny
- Paint a bigger picture
7. Condense your ideas
If your sentence contains 3 or more ideas... Put it in a list.
Lists are:
- Digestible
- Engaging
- Easy to read
This list for example.
8. Talk one-on-one
It's easy to write as if you are addressing everyone at once. But when your audience reads, they read alone.
Write to one person, directly, one-on-one.
Don’t write like you’re addressing guests at a wedding. Write like you’re talking to the groom, in a quiet room, one-on-one, before the ceremony.
- Don’t: “It's great to be with you all." ❌
- Do: “Hey! You've got this, mate." ✅
Think of one person and write to them.
9. Make them take action
Remind your prospects how much:
- Time
- Money
- Energy
They’re wasting by not using your product or service.
11. Align social media with your overall strategy
It is fair to say, people (and businesses) can get a little carried away on social media. The one thing we hear constantly is that businesses need to know if their social media efforts are actually contributing to their organisation's goals and objectives.
The only guaranteed way you can do this is to ensure your social media campaigns align with your strategy. Use our free social media planning tool to help you get your campaigns back on track.
12. Embed User Generated Content into your strategy
User-generated content (UGC) is content created by consumers rather than brands and has become increasingly popular in recent years.
UGC can range from TikTok trends and #OOTD (outfit of the day) posts to unboxing videos, branded hashtags and photo tags. A powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing, UGC allows brands to connect with consumers in a more meaningful way and help brands build trust and loyalty, as customers see other consumers’ experiences with the brand.
Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to trust UGC than brand-created content, so prioritising authenticity in your marketing using this form of social media content is a must.
13. Choose your social media weapons (platforms) wisely
Rather than try to have a presence on every social media platform or app, focusing on the right channels for your audience will help your marketing become more effective.
Here are the top Social Media channels based on the percentage of Australian's who have an account with each of the following platforms.
57.3% of TikTok's Aussie users are 25-34 years young (Source: Fiber). Increasingly users are aged 35+. Whereas Facebook's stronghold appears to be in the 35 to 54 year old bracket. And, certainly from a campaign perspective, we continually see Facebook being particularly strong for those 40 years plus.
However, that only tells part of the story. As you may know, having an account with a social media platform doesn't always indicate that you are using the app.
In terms of usage, TikTok's users average 38 minutes per day, outdoing Facebook (31 minutes on average), Instagram (29 min) and Twitter (35 min). The Social Insider reports engagement rates of 5.96% for TikTok, higher than others who struggle to maintain an engagement rate of < 1%.
Keep an eye on Instagram
Whilst TikTok has certainly raised its game in terms of engaged users, Instagram has come under a fair bit of flack for attempting to monetise its platform (like Facebook). With content creators actively moving away from the platform (because their reach has died) to TikTok, Instagram is expected to release some powerful upgrades to its Reels that are expected to help it recover some lost ground.
If you're selling online, you need TikTok
If you are running an e-commerce store and TikTok isn't currently part of your strategy, it really should be in 2023. With its (current) ability to extend your reach far beyond your current followers, TikTok has proven time and time again to be an attractive platform for those seeking to generate online sales.
Cairns tradie apparel Cashie Clothing is one such example.
Advertising
14. Correctly configure Facebook's iOS 14 Privacy Updates
Due to privacy and data concerns, Apple and Google have taken steps to reduce third-party cookie tracking. This has made it harder for businesses to track events on their websites with the Facebook Pixel.
Although Meta (Facebook and Instagram) has made efforts to protect advertisers, if you don't correctly configure your Meta advertising account, you will:
- Experience higher costs per acquisition (CPA) and total ad spend
- Find it harder to reliably track conversions
- Suffer from reduced targeting as audiences are often too small
- See a decline in your retargeting audiences through a lack of data sharing between apps.
Whilst this is not a new issue, we still frequently find that businesses haven't successfully implemented any solutions.
To help businesses, Facebook created the Conversions API which allows businesses to share data directly with Ads Manager.
15. Work with a Google Ads Partner
If you are planning to grow your business using Google's Search, Display or Shopping Advertising platforms, then you should be working with a certified Google Partner.
We know this sounds a bit like a sales pitch, but it's true.
According to IAB Australia, online advertising spending in Australia for the FY 2021/22 was AU$13.9bn, with search advertising (including Google Ads and Shopping Ads) accounting for 44% and display advertising a further 39%.
So, if like many other brands your intention is to pivot from traditional to digital advertising, you need to partner with someone who knows the ropes and will help you avoid the pitfalls of poorly performing or targeted campaigns.
In the digital world, creative fatigue happens quickly. Quality scores affect your cost per click and your ability to stand out. Add to this the instant feedback loop, whether that's through comments or responding to call to actions and it's easy to see how brands waste a lot of money. Fast.
Forte Marketing is a Google Partner, with our team being certified in Google Search, Display and Shopping Ads.
This means that we meet the stringent set of requirements set out by Google to ensure each and every campaign is of the highest quality and continues to improve standards and performance.
Find out more about our online advertising services here.
16. Are your customers really watching your ads?
There are two schools of thought here. One is that TV is such a central part of everyday life, that advertising on traditional TV is still the most effective way of generating brand awareness. The other is that there are so many other options, such as streaming services, social media and the internet, that you need to diversify your advertising strategy.
The truth really depends on who you are trying to target, and the reality is that no one size fits all. However, GroupM and Magna predict growth in mobile advertising spending will increase by +12% to $A11.2 billion in 2023. This is a sure sign that digital media will continue to increase its dominance and, more importantly, relevance.
A Canaccord Genuity study of Australian advertising between 1961 and 2018 found advertising to be relatively robust. With only three periods of decline in that timeframe.
What they did identify is that TV appears to be highly sensitive to total ad market declines, whilst radio has been consistently resilient.
As we enter 2023 with expected declines in consumer spending, business owners will begin to scrutinise advertising spend. ROI will play an important role, not only for the business, but also for protecting marketing budgets. And this is why we believe digital advertising, due to its ease of tracking ROI, will continue to grow.
Heck, businesses may even see it as an opportunity to grow. See UK retailer, Next's, online performance, as a recent example.
Next took the decision to double down on digital and was rewarded with a 20% rise in full-price sales. A massive £70m ahead of previous expectations.
17. Test everything... all the time
From headlines, to calls to action.
From creative, through to experiences.
A lot of the time, an original hypothesis needs finessing. And only through testing will you find out if there is a better way.
"Never Stop Testing and Your Advertising Will Never Stop Improving."
- David Ogilvy
Most online advertising platforms allow you to easily set up and test variations of content. Increasingly, they are becoming more dynamic, choosing the most suitable headlines, descriptions and creative, based on the user's behaviour.
However, building in a feedback cycle so that you double-down on what is working and revisit ideas that don't perform as expected, is important.
Test Your Landing Pages
Whilst it is relatively easy to test different creative options, headlines and descriptions, that is only part of the story. Particularly if you are running digital campaigns.
It's scary how many digital ads simply direct to the home page. Which may be fine.
However, directing traffic to a dedicated landing page, that is optimised for selling or generating a fresh new lead, generally performs better.
And, even if you are doing that much. That isn't the end of the story. Just like testing ad variations, we test landing page variations too. This ensures we are not leaving anything on the table and that clients fully maximise the return on their marketing investment.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
18. Evaluate your SEO services
As you may well know, SEO is a battlefield.
With constant unsolicited emails and the fact that very few have a real understanding of what good looks like, SEO is sometimes categorised in the 'too hard' basket.
And as such, brands don't ask anywhere near enough questions of their suppliers.
Use the new year to check if you are getting the service you need...
Are you getting any bang for your buck?
Answer these five questions to find out...
19. Monitor your SEO performance
Free tools such as Google's Search Console will help you identify where you are ranking well and where you should improve. Find keywords that have high relevance and volume, and target them in 2023.
Some trends you may need to be aware of include:
- The 900% rise of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) searches in the last five years. This includes searches that contain 'After Pay' and the like.
- With Inflation and Sustainability front of mind with consumers, Google has noted a marked increase in people looking to combine the two. With terms such as "second-hand", "sustainable", "how to reduce" and "how to save" becoming increasingly popular in long tail searches.
- However, in contrast, or even in tandem, searches for some little luxuries are also proving popular.
For those in a B2B industry, the importance of mobile has lagged behind those in the world of B2C. However, mobile optimisation is now a given rather than a luxury.
In fact, most search engines prioritise mobile experiences over desktop already. So if your website's not much use on a mobile, you are running behind the pack.
20. If you're selling online, embrace Google Shopping
Google will continue to actively upscale its shopping features like the Merchant Centre, Shopping Ads and Google Shopping.
If you run an ecommerce store that's experienced a decline in organic traffic, and you're not utilising Google's shopping services, this may be why.
If this sounds like you, ensure a key element of your strategy in 2023 is to begin using these services to ensure your products are featured in the 'shopping' tab in Google's results.
Websites
21. Maintain your website
To ensure your website is:
- Protected from hackers
- Using the latest features
- As fast as it can be
It is important to perform regular maintenance checks. Check out our breakdown of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly checks you should be doing.
During 2022 we learned that even big businesses are not safe from hackers, with Optus and Medibank both falling victim to data breaches.
With nearly 30,000 websites attacked every day, it is more important than ever to maintain your website.
22. Move to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
If you are using Google's Universal Analytics to track your website's visits, performance and user behaviour, come July 2023 you will be in for a shock. Google has announced that from July 1 2023, its Universal Analytics (UA) platform will no longer be available and will be replaced with Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Whilst July may seem ages away, we've found that switching from UA and GA4 actually takes some getting use to. And, whilst Google's migration tool makes it seem straightforward, conversions and ecommerce tracking does take a few extra steps to configure.
If you are also using Google Ads, you will need to have your GA4 account linked too.
By doing this you will be able to:
- See your Google Ads campaigns in the Acquisition overview report
- Access new Google Ads dimensions in the User acquisition report
- Import Conversions into your Google Ads account
- Enhance your Remarketing campaigns
- View Google Ads campaigns in the Advertising workspace
A few months ago, we put together a rundown of what to expect when moving to GA4. So if you are completely new to GA4, we recommend you give it a read
And last but not least...
23. Choose a 'top-rated' agency to partner with
Forte Marketing is one of the Top 3 Best Rated Agencies in Cairns. This means we've successfully navigated through a rigorous 50-Point Inspection, which includes everything from checking reviews, ratings, reputation, history, complaints, satisfaction, trust and cost to general excellence.
So you can be confident you are working with one of the best.
Social Media
10. Use the correct size post on every social media platform
One of the biggest head-scratchers for business owners is knowing the formats and sizes of each social media platform.
These also change frequently, so it's even harder to keep on top of.
Personally, we believe portrait posts stand more chance of gaining people's attention when in a timeline. However, that doesn't mean they should be used exclusively.