With consumer spending habits rapidly evolving, marketing professionals must remain current on emerging trends to engage and build rapport with customers.
2023 represents an opportunity to strategically align sales and marketing teams in order to maximize efficiency, which can be done through creating predictive audiences or user-generated content (which provides authentic marketing without spending).
1. Aligning Sales and Marketing
No matter where you are on your marketing journey or search for ways to boost growth strategies, aligning sales and marketing teams can be an essential step towards success. According to Demand Gen Report, companies who collaborate boost revenue growth by 19% while profit margins increase 15%.
An effective sales and marketing team allows the creation of effective buyer personas, an approach to connect faster with qualified leads, and authentic campaigns that resonate with customers. Furthermore, aligned teams share data for more informed strategies that increase revenue potential.
Businesses seeking successful alignment must outline goals, roles and technology effectively. By setting a common objective and encouraging communication while setting KPIs that share KPIs among sales and marketing teams and using tools like CRM/marketing automation systems for example, businesses can strengthen relationships among their sales/marketing teams while taking their businesses forward with greater efficiency.
Many businesses are struggling to adapt to customers’ changing needs, prompting industry leaders to emphasize the need for sales and marketing alignment. One key reason is because customers now have greater ability to research purchases on their own.
Your sales and marketing teams must collaborate closely in creating content that drives customer experiences throughout the buyer journey, such as product sheets, white papers, or benchmark reports that strategically position prospects towards becoming sales.
Aligning your sales and marketing teams may prove challenging initially, but once accomplished it will revolutionize how your communicate with customers. By meeting business goals more rapidly and authentically, your company can experience exponential growth.
2. Voice Search
Voice search is an innovative new way for users to access information using voice-activated virtual assistants on smartphones, smart speakers and other devices. Businesses should consider taking advantage of this technology as it could bring in new customers.
Voice search optimization refers to strategies designed to increase the chances of your website showing up in voice search results, with particular attention paid towards common verbal queries and optimizing content for search engines such as Google, Alexa and Siri.
People typically use voice search by asking their personal voice assistant a question such as, “Hey Google, where is the nearest restaurant?” or “Alexa, please show me all of the best coffee shops near me”.
Voice search queries differ significantly from traditional searches; nevertheless, they’re just as effective and make voice search a powerful asset for local businesses looking to increase traffic.
Voice search won’t go anywhere anytime soon, especially with mobile phones taking on such searches in record numbers and more consumers adopting voice-activated devices.
Voice search offers businesses another effective means of reaching young consumers – with over half of millennials and Gen Zers using it at least once daily according to research.
As such, local businesses must prioritize optimizing for voice search queries to provide an exceptional user experience and deliver a fantastic user journey. In doing so, they should keep in mind the five Ws and How (Who, What, Where, When and Why).
3. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an innovative technology used to resolve complex issues. AI can assist businesses in improving productivity, increasing revenue and strengthening customer loyalty by automating routine tasks, analyzing data and offering insight into business outcomes.
AI tools can also supplement human decision-making in various industries, such as banking and manufacturing. AI can make recommendations for borrowers, recommend products or services and even diagnose medical conditions – however it is important to remember that AI does have its challenges.
AI tools must first be trained on a large amount of data. Thanks to advancements in processing algorithms that can manage large volumes of information efficiently, this task has become easier over time.
Generative AI tools can assist with this process by using prompts to generate new content – whether this means text, images, videos, designs or musical notes. Generative AI can be used in marketing campaigns and online activities for creating engaging material but must only take in input and generate results based on it.
AI can make it difficult to explain its decision making processes; this can be particularly problematic when applied to financial institutions where regulatory requirements require that credit-issuing decisions must be disclosed and justified.
Lack of clear regulations and the rapid progression of AI technologies make it challenging to draft laws that effectively regulate this new technology. For instance, European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) places stringent limitations on how enterprises can utilize consumer data.
However, many businesses are turning to AI as a tool to improve their processes and operations. AI technology can be used to predict customer behavior, create more useful product recommendations and streamline operations – with proper training and management, AI can become a powerful tool that helps companies meet their goals more easily.
4. User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today, used for everything from brand promotion to community building. When consumers post photos and videos using your product, this fosters trust between you and them and ultimately increases customer engagement as well as brand mentions.
No matter if your brand is luxury or household, user generated content (UGC) can have an immense effect on its marketing strategy. Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign saw customers sharing pictures of themselves enjoying personalized cokes through social media; this generated millions in revenue while altering customers perception of the brand itself.
Social platforms such as Instagram make it easy for brands to easily share user-generated content (UGC) with their audience, but it’s crucial that brands know how to reshare authentic material while properly crediting its creator. If in doubt, sending direct message and seeking permission before reposting can help.
Reshare and tag the content from its original creator so they are properly acknowledged, and so that people can follow you back to their account.
Little Bellies, an organic snack manufacturer, encourages their fans to share photos of their children enjoying the products on their blog and social media channels. This creates a community where followers can come together over their love for both the brand and each other.
By encouraging users to reshare their own content on your platform, you can build an influential and relevant community that will continue bringing in customers for years. It’s an efficient, cost-effective, and scalable strategy.
5. Video Content
Video content has become an invaluable asset to marketers and can make your brand stand out among its competition. When used appropriately, video can expand reach, foster trust and improve conversion rate.
One of the best ways to create video content is to identify your target audience. Doing this will allow you to develop a buyer persona and ensure that your videos meet their needs.
Your aim in producing video content should be to engage and captivate an audience quickly, keeping their interest right up until the final scene.
Your audience needs useful information that provides value; this could include tips on how to use products, how services are utilized or answers to frequently asked questions about them.
If your target audience prefers visuals, add animated elements into your video content to give it an extra dose of personality and help it stand out from the crowd.
Selecting an effective format for your video content is also key. For instance, if your target audience prefers watching videos on mobile devices, consider posting short-form material that’s less than 15 seconds in duration.
Video content that engages its target audience by remaining on topic, answering viewer queries, and providing value throughout will keep their interest for repeat viewings when new videos are published online or through social media channels. This ensures their return when new posts arrive on your website or social media.
Another key step in optimizing video content for SEO is optimizing it to appear in search results when people search for videos related to your topic. To do this, identify popular search keywords used by viewers of similar topics to find similar videos and then optimize titles, descriptions and tags accordingly.