Your Digital Low-down For 2023

The pandemic forever changed how digital audiences purchase products and spend time online. Marketers quickly had to become comfortable with adapting their plans and creating something new to flex to the ways the world was changing. This was essential in order to stay in the game and continue to grow.

With the sun setting on the ‘New Normal’ and the rise of the ‘Next Normal’, things are bound to change once again. So, what should brands do to stand out amongst the competition? Read on to hear from the digital marketing experts at Primal and find out how to future-proof your digital marketing strategy and ready your business for the ‘Next Normal’.

Tai, Content Manager

“Growing a business online is never easy, but it’s important to remember that when it comes to digital marketing, content is king. 

Want to find out more about how content marketing can benefit your business? Here are my five essential digital content marketing strategies to fast-track your brand’s growth online through powerful and engaging content.

Go Nostalgic

You might have seen the recent Y2K fashion revival or the resurgence of 90s songs in the Spotify charts. So, what’s going on? This comeback is likely to be linked to the pandemic lockdowns, which increased time at home, reduced time with friends, and ultimately meant that everyone started to lose track of time. Thinking of the good old times helped reduce stress and bring back happy memories, which started a new trend for all things nostalgic. To take advantage of this in your content marketing strategy, consider producing content related to those times gone by to boost engagement, or even explore launching products with retro throwback designs.

Human-driven Storytelling

Any marketer will tell you that understanding your audience is crucial for campaign success. Being data-driven is certainly important, but being human-driven will add power and emotion to your campaigns. Try tweaking the way you speak to your audiences. Use emotive language to highlight and empathise with their pain points. Then, conclude with facts and figures. Use numbers to support what you’re saying and act as evidence to drive your audience to take action.

Be Interactive

The reduced physical interaction with others during the pandemic meant that two-way interaction between consumers and brands became widely popular. If your brand owns social media channels, you might want to experiment with AR features like TikTok or Instagram filters and videos. If AR doesn’t quite fit your brand’s image, I’d suggest trying something more simple like polls, quizzes, or contests.

Video content 

A recent survey found that 59% of marketers said that video content drives positive ROI. If your audience is made up of mostly Millennials or Gen Z, short videos can be an especially powerful marketing tool to build brand awareness and boost engagement. This is good news for smaller businesses with limited budgets as they can avoid costly video production by instead opting for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Meta Stories or Instagram Reels. If you’ve already started producing video content, I’d suggest keeping it light-hearted and positive whilst showcasing your products. And a final tip is to consider live streaming to drive sales, promote events or share important updates with your audience. 

Make It Shoppable

Once you have your content ready, make the most out of it by making it shoppable. When you promote products through still pictures or videos, expand conversion opportunities by linking to your online shop. With fewer steps or barriers to purchase your products, you’ll create a seamless experience that will make it easier for your target audience to become your customers.”

Plearn, Senior Social Strategist

“Of course, brands can spend time creating brilliant content, but it’ll be wasted without a robust strategy that ensures the content is seen. As the dust settles post-pandemic, some exciting developments are occurring in the world of social media that present brands with bigger opportunities than ever before.

The Techvolution

Technology was relied upon more than ever during the pandemic; it helped to close the gap between customers and brands. And this gap will continue to close as the Metaverse develops (it’s expected to be worth $800 billion by 2024) and VR and AR technology is embraced further in the coming years. 

In addition to this, the tracking of devices and social media usage is more advanced than ever; enabling brands to adopt situational marketing strategies to ensure they deliver the right message to their target audience at the right time. 

Customer Values

As we already know, e-commerce is extremely powerful. Thailand saw a 76% increase in e-commerce sales between 2020 and 2022, and as people have become accustomed to this way of shopping, this figure is only set to rise.

But nowadays consumers are looking for more value from the products and services they purchase. It’s not just about solving an immediate problem but providing functional and emotional value that aligns with their morals.

This new approach from consumers will force brands to reconsider their brand identity, mission, and comms approach in 2023 as consumers take time to consider the bigger picture before making a purchase. 

The Future of Social Media Marketing

Since its inception 15 years ago, social media has gone from being a simple tool to connect people, to a highly valuable marketing tool that businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on. As we head into 2023, and what’s likely to be a time of financial uncertainty, the role of social media marketers and content creators will increase in importance as brands seek a low-cost way to reach valuable customers. 

My advice? Personalise your approach, take a deep-dive into your customer data and decipher what they really value, then create the comms to answer their pain points and drive them to take action, and never underestimate the power of social media.”

C, Art Director

“I see visual communication design as a tool for creatively finding a solution to a communication goal, a ‘creative solution’ if you will, which is something we cannot measure with metrics.

Without a doubt, visuals are crucial to any digital marketing campaign. A study found that 49% of marketers rate visual marketing as Very Important to their marketing strategy, 22% consider it Important, and 19% say that their strategy is nothing without visual content. It is robust yet delicate. We know that an image can be seen for as little as 13 milliseconds, and if paired with relevant information, people will still be able to remember 65% of that information three days later. That number drops to just 10% when purely textual information is provided.

Do you take enough time to consider the visuals for your marketing communications? Aesthetics are now a hot topic for digital marketers after a Google study found that blogs and content containing at least one image gained 94% more engagement, and social media posts with images garnered 2.3 times more engagement. 

What about storytelling? Consumers nowadays are becoming less and less susceptible to advertising, so crafting a visual that tells a story could have the power to increase the value of your product or service.  

So, how can you ensure the story you’re about to tell is suitable for your audience? The answer is data. A Cisco white paper found that in 2022, a single person generated 1.7 MB of data every second. Data is the key to developing effective content; it provides an anchor for marketers to build a unique story upon that resonates with their audience. The age-old phrase is still true: ‘A picture tells a thousand words’, but those words should be driven by data to form a solid foundation for storytelling. 

I will leave you with a final thought. Data shows that the consumption of mobile videos has increased 17-fold since 2012. With that being the case, why cling to static images when you can tell more compelling stories through ‘Stories’ on social media? One to think about for 2023!”

Milk, Ad Operations Manager

“COVID, working from home, and social distancing have all changed the way people live their lives and how they consume media. As a result, new media channels are growing exponentially. Everyone has the same 24 hours as before, but they now allocate that time to different and more diverse platforms. It used to be all about Google Search Ads and Facebook Ads, but now YouTube and TikTok are the preferred platforms for consuming content. Of course, each channel has its strengths, which highlights the need for full-funnel online marketing. It’s not just ideal; it’s essential these days. 

As online marketers, this coming year, we must dare to leave our safe zones and look for new channels, not by just guessing, but by using data insights as a guide and remembering to always have a plan B, because as the last few years have taught us, things can change at a moment’s notice.”

Chet, Technical Director

“Marketers are always looking for ways to improve how they work. However, before they can learn how to do things better, they have to know what to focus on first. Creating strong content is a good place to start. Here are my top tips:

• Distinguish yourself with state-of-the-art SEO techniques by adopting best practices, and regularly updating your processes, skills, and knowledge, including:

1. Critical thinking
2. Technical & programming skills
3. Analytics skills
4. Data skills
5. Motivation & adaptability
6. Speaking & writing skills

• Satisfy visitors’ wants and needs by analysing your website data, including:

1. Website usability surveys
2. Website usability testing
3. Website accessibility
4. Website usage 

• Engage visitors for as long as possible by creating engaging content: 

1. Addressing their needs
2. In the right format, e.g. graphics, videos, infographics, e-books, etc.
3. Uses relevant and attention-grabbing headlines
4. Drives the audience to take action
5. Provides the best user experience

Businesses can build trust by providing quality, personalised and helpful content that creates a seamless and enjoyable user experience that drives the target audience to take action.

The SEO industry has been changing constantly over the last few years, and SEO trends in 2023 will be different from what we see today. SEO is now more about quality content, the customer journey, crawling, and indexing processes, and less about links. This is due to Google’s AI-powered algorithms, which are designed to weed out spammy links and websites.”

Mark, CEO

“One of the most interesting digital trends I see developing in 2023 is the emergence of AI writers and content generation tools. Jasper and Rytr are just two of the many AI writing tools and assistants available nowadays. The content they produce is optimised for search engines which makes them extremely attractive to businesses. But how will they affect the future of copywriters and content creators? Well, they’ll certainly make their lives easier in the short-term. 

But what does Google make of all this? Well, an experiment by Neil Patel produced less than favourable results. Following a recent Google spam update, Patel analysed 100 of his sites and found that the sites with content exclusively generated by AI saw an average 17% drop in traffic and dropped an average of 8 positions in search rankings, whereas sites with AI-written content, but some human involvement, only saw a 6% traffic drop on average and a drop of about three positions in search.

So, while this is one trend I’m certainly excited about, I would proceed with caution. These tools can certainly speed up processes and provide a base for interesting content, but I don’t see them as a total replacement for human content professionals and researchers. Instead, I recommend using them for idea generation, combating writer’s block, and repurposing content.

As touched upon already, the Metaverse is another one to watch. A recent study by Gartner found that 25% of people will spend at least one hour per day in the metaverse by 2026 which presents brands with a huge opportunity to connect with their target audience. It also means that it’ll be crucial for businesses to plan ahead and consider how to build a brand and connect with customers in the Metaverse. 

Options include brand gamification, immersive experiences, or even the creation and sale of digital assets. Whatever you choose, it’s important to keep activity in the Metaverse aligned with your brand values and goals in the “real world”.”

Stay One Step Ahead With Thailand’s Leading Digital Agency 

At Primal, we know that building a successful business is not only about short-term actions, but long-term commitment. You want to succeed, and to do that in the digital era, you need to grow your brand’s presence online. Doing so is no mean feat. That’s why we’ve gathered Thailand’s top digital talent to create a digital marketing powerhouse that can help your brand succeed. 

Primal is Thailand’s leading digital agency, with over 150 passionate digital marketing experts. We act as an extension of your in-house team, taking the time to understand your brand DNA and what makes you tick. We then use our knowledge and experience to build a customised, data-driven digital marketing strategy for your brand. 

With Thailand’s best digital marketing experts by your side, anything is possible. Get in touch today for your free marketing plan.