While getting visitors to your site will always be important, the digital marketing trends that drive success in 2023 all revolve around engagement. It makes sense: if a million people visit your website, but none take action, then what did you accomplish?
Below, we’ve gathered the top 7 trends you can leverage to improve the engagement and conversion of your B2B customers in 2023.
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As Google goes, so goes the internet. The Web search giant will shut down Google Analytics V3 – also known as Universal Analytics – as of July 1, 2023. Its successor, GA4, has been around since the fall of 2020, but let’s face it: most sites won’t change until they have to.
Don’t fall into this trap! Migrating to GA4 will take a bit of work, but once you do, you’ll have a customizable, event-based analytics model that measures user interaction and engagement. GA4 works across web and app data, making cross-channel insights possible. Over time, you’ll be able to build a complete view of your customers’ life cycles so you can make changes that further drive engagement and conversion.
It’s easy to forget that you’re not just competing with competitors in your market space but also with several hundred other business priorities on your customers’ minds at any given moment. You might have the most compelling website copy in your industry, but if it looks like a wall of text, you’ll be lucky if people even skim it.
Consider serving up your story in bite-size, shareable videos to short-circuit this reaction. It can be anything from a product FAQ to a customer testimonial, but sound bites and short, punchy messages are vital in reaching customers. HubSpot found that 90% of marketers plan to increase or maintain their investment in short-form video in 2023. On top of that, 21% plan to leverage it for the first time—so it’s no surprise HubSpot named short-form video as its number one marketing trend for 2023.
If it feels like we’re bombarded with more Tweets, likes and shares than ever before, that’s because we are. When audiences see an influencer using a particular product in their day-to-day life, it has an impact, and businesses are paying attention.
According to Forbes, spending on influencer marketing in the U.S. is expected to rise by 12% to over $4 billion. Fortunately, you don’t have to ink a pricey deal with a big-name influencer to benefit. Any time your customers see organic social content highlighting your brand, they’re more than twice as likely to trust that over your company’s posts.
So, encourage your customers to share their experiences on social media—then do whatever you can to engage with them when you get tagged in a post.
According to Gartner, customer acquisition today is more likely to be influenced by the purchasing experience than by product or price. It makes sense: B2B purchases like implementing a CRM or .jpeg?width=394&height=231&name=AdobeStock_374240625%20(1).jpeg)
switching equipment manufacturers are months- or years-long commitments with significant financial implications and opportunity costs that involve decision-makers from across the organization.
Forbes defines customer experience as “the cumulative impact of multiple touchpoints over the course of a customer’s interaction with an organization.” Put another way, managing B2B customer experience means making it easy to buy, implement and get support for your solution or product. Make it one of your 2023 resolutions to do a check-up on what it’s like to work with your organization at all stages of the buying process.
With privacy regulations throwing up roadblocks to targeted ad content, businesses need to rethink their SEO strategy. Gone are the days when a website packed with keywords would generate a steady stream of traffic: Google is bumping sites with low-quality content like this out of the top search results.
To win the search game, companies need to align with their customers and write content for humans instead of algorithms. This means incorporating effective marketing and editorial efforts to make sure the content accomplishes its intended goal. It also means adding visuals, interlinking pages, using semantically related keywords and keeping your content fresh.
The B2C customer experience is becoming ever more personalized, and those expectations are also bleeding over into the B2B arena. Your customers will expect an omnichannel experience that’s transparent and secure: your branding should be consistent anywhere customers might interact with your brand. Look for digital force multipliers like chatbots, which, when well-developed, can offer a human feel without requiring a body behind a keyboard.
Qualtrics found that, for over 70% of companies, digital channels contribute at least 40% of revenue. Don’t let your company miss out on the big-time benefits of going digital.
This year, being compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will impact more than your ability to serve those customers. In early 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued formal guidance on website accessibility and compliance with the ADA—the first time an official stance at the federal level has been voiced.
To maintain compliance, you must ensure your site is user-friendly for blind people using screen readers and those who must use a keyboard to navigate, among other disabilities. Our free website accessibility audit can help you identify problem areas on your site.
Don’t stop there—Strategic 7 Marketing can help you take advantage of all the trends we’ve outlined. To learn more about our free website audit report, please email Jonathan Ebenstein.
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