The year 2023 will be one to remember for those in digital marketing. Several technologies and innovations – that some consider life–changing – have been released to the public. From ChatGPT and Bard to X and Instagram’s Threads, reflecting on the impact and evolution of these updates is the first step to preparing for 2024.
ICYMI: Read some of the biggest digital marketing debates of 2023.
With the new year quickly approaching, there are four key digital marketing trends to start implementing into your brand’s strategy:
- AI-Powered Marketing
- Personalized Content Marketing
- Short-Form Video Content
- Privacy-Centric Marketing
As you continue reading, ask yourself: Has my company and team experimented with these tools and approaches in 2023? How will they be incorporated into my plans for 2024?
AI-Powered Marketing
It’s no secret that AI-powered technologies have shaken up just about every industry under the sun. The rapid growth of capabilities in just one year has brought a lot of excitement and fear to the digital marketing world.
The fear of AI taking jobs away from people, but the excitement of efficiency and creativity have been a constant tug-of-war. Like any other breakthrough technologies there are advantages, but caution needs to be taken.
Utilizing AI to effectively analyze a vast amount of data from a variety of data streams will allow for smarter optimizations and forecasting of digital campaigns. Platforms such as ChatGPT will help increase efficiency with things like content creation, audience segmentation and personalized content.
However, AI does have its flaws just like we do. The main drawback today is that AI-powered tech and algorithms are not always accurate, which is where the human touch comes into action. Reviewing and editing anything AI spits out at you is crucial. Whether you embrace technology or not, the fact is that it’s not going anywhere. It will become more prevalent so it’s best to try and keep up then get left behind.
Personalized Content Marketing
Getting smarter with how you interpret and implement your company’s analytics is more important than ever. While AI and machine learning keep getting more advanced, your content must also follow suit. Basic audience segmentation will no longer work. Creating hyper-personalized content creation will be the best way to reach specific customers and users.
A study done by McKinsey & Company found that 71% of consumers expect business to deliver personalized interactions. By utilizing machine learning and AI data tools to analyze massive amounts of data, you can create buyer personas that will help you with personalized content.
Companies like Amazon and Netflix do this by analyzing purchases and viewing history to create recommendations.
However, you don’t have to be a massive corporation to effectively create personalized content. Consumers are becoming more aware of targeted marketing tactics and are increasingly opting out of certain tracking parameters. This makes personalized content much more important. As more data continues to become available from growing AI technologies, push yourself and your team to consider how it can carry over into personalizing content marketing.
Short-Form Video Content
With the continuing popularity of YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels, short-form video content will continue to be an important part of your content strategy in 2024.
Explore our guide to short-form video content on how to edit, what to post and more.
Short-form videos allow brands to create crisp and engaging content that resonates with users. You can capture inspiring stories, showcase products or highlight brand messaging. Video content can also help businesses in a variety of ways like raising brand awareness, driving traffic and ultimately driving conversions.
Another powerful feature of video content is the use of User Generated Content (UGC). One great thing about UGC is it can come from a variety of places, including first-time customers, brand loyalists, employees and influencers.
As you’re creating short-form video content for your brand’s social media channels, consider ways to engage those who are already posting about your brand (or share content that’s relevant to your industry and offerings).
Privacy-Centric Marketing
As companies like Apple continue to increase their privacy measures for their users, marketing strategies will have to adapt along with them. Also, the emergence of AI technologies is creating a stricter data privacy ecosystem.
According to a study done by Razorfish, nearly two-thirds (65.8%) of U.S. consumers said a company being transparent about how they plan to use personal data would help that company gain their trust. This correlates with an increasing amount of consumer awareness when interacting with a company’s content. Advanced encryption technologies and the end of third-party cookies are just a couple more examples of hurdles marketers will have to adapt to in 2024.
There are a variety of tactics that you can use to create transparency with users. One is to utilize consent and opt-in procedures that let users know what data you will be collecting and how it will be used. Second, prioritizing first-party data that comes directly from your company’s own website is a great place to start. This is going to be extremely important as third-party cookies phase out.
It’s impossible to identify and encompass all the digital marketing trends that will take shape in 2024 in a single blog post. However, based on the major themes seen in 2023, these four trends are guaranteed to keep their place on center stage.
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