The beginning of the year is an ideal time to set goals and plan for the coming year. The end of sanitary measures and the return to a certain reality caused some upheavals in 2022. The year 2023 will be full of challenges as well, especially given the economic uncertainty caused by the recent massive layoffs and the ongoing labour shortage.
At the marketing level, there is a reduction in marketing budgets, the end of third-party cookies, the protection of personal information, and even the environment, all of which are hot topics that will change the way things are done. In this article, we will examine the various trends that have emerged in response to these challenges.
Key objectives for 2023
Before identifying the trends to watch, it is critical to understand the key marketing relationship objectives that businesses should include in their strategic plan this year.
- Increase the personalization of communications through better data usage.
- Improve customer experience with a unified and comprehensive profile
- Retaining customers through responsible and compassionate marketing
- Improve team performance through automation of processes and campaigns
Trends 2023
Here are the trends to watch this year and implement in order to meet the previously stated goals.
#1 – Hypersegmentation and hyperpersonalization
Segmentation and personalization are still hot topics. To remain relevant, it is now more important than ever to create smaller, more specific segments and to personalize your marketing communications as much as possible. To get there, everything depends on the data you have and your ability to use it.
As databases become more plentiful, it is critical to use this data to create better experiences for both the merchant and the consumer. To continue collecting enough relevant data, you must understand how to collect the right data. These will improve customer knowledge, allowing the development of specific micro-segments.
- Create your data entry (collection of 0 and 1st party data)
- Transform your data to understand your clients’ ADN (segment RFM, BANT, etc.)
#2 – Personal data security and confidentiality
With the implementation of the most recent regulations governing personal data protection (GDPR in Europe, Law 25 in Quebec) and the increasing number of data breaches, businesses and customers are gradually becoming more aware of the issue. Certain actions must be taken to ensure the privacy of individuals and the protection of confidential data.
- Selecting wisely the technological providers through whom personal information is transferred or stored.
- Obtain consent to conduct self-monitoring and tracking (required in Quebec by September 2023 (Loi 25)).
- Reconsider data access, whether through single sign-on (SSO), limiting user access to more sensitive information, or any other action that reduces access and risks.
#3 – Kind Marketing
Relationship marketing must adapt to new realities. Following the pandemic situation of the last two years, there has been an increase in kind marketing. As consumers are more solicited through various media, they become more impatient and their attention span decreases. As a result, in order to successfully differentiate and retain the customer base, it is now necessary to focus on a more empathetic strategy.
- Having a communication strategy that is aligned with your brand’s perception and values
- Understanding consumer needs and meeting customer expectations
- Increasing message quality (relevance) over quantity.
- Positioning the company in terms of social issues (environment, diversity, and equity)
- Allowing the client to control the frequency and content of messages received (Preference center)
- Analyzing data and using personas to advance to a higher level of personalization.
#4 – Omnichannel marketing campaigns
Email, SMS, social media, and push notifications are examples of communication channels that have proven to be effective in maintaining client relationships and staying current. RCS, Whatsapp, and Wallet have now joined them in the world of relationship marketing. With the proliferation of communication channels available to connect with your customers, it is critical to understand how to centralize and optimize your marketing efforts in order to avoid becoming disoriented and instead capitalize on them.
- Having the same brand image across all channels
- Create a consistent experience at each point of contact (same offer available on all channels)
- Adapting the content to each platform
- Creating a unified platform that allows for homogenous distribution across all channels.
- Improving the use of existing channels
- Developing new contact points in order to generate more opportunities (evaluate the use of new channels and communication types)
#5 – Artificial intelligence and automation
In the face of a labor shortage, it will be necessary to review current work processes in order to improve efficiency. Artificial intelligence and automation are two factors to consider in order to accomplish this. These can be used to free up your resources from time-consuming tasks, allowing them to devote more time to tasks that add real value to the brand.
- Getting your communications designed in less time (learn more about our content tool)
- Assuring the optimization of marketing technology tools (Stack MarTech)
- Automate existing processes in the stack
- Reconsider the process and the creation of emails
- Creating automated content (images, message objects, automated segmentation) to create more content without creating more messages
#6 – Email deliverability
The rigidity of message providers’ delivery rules and the expansion of privacy-protection tools will present new challenges for marketing teams in managing email delivery. Moreover, the indicators to be examined in order to determine the availability of funds have changed.
Since the beginning of Dialog Insight, our experts have concluded that email opening rates are not a reliable indicator. The release of iOS 15 will confirm this assertion. This update, which no longer transmits users’ data on email openings, is likely to skew the data. However, these new measures will also create new opportunities. It is therefore preferable to act quickly in order to identify them and take appropriate action.
- Analyze and clean your data base to identify non-engaged clients and attempt to re-engage or dismiss them (follow-up email after unsubscription with special offers).
- Test your email marketing campaigns using the conversion rate to see how your customers react to different types of emails. Check out our white paper on the subject.
- Re-align your good practices so that they are no longer solely dependent on the rate of email opening.
- Pay attention to the number of clicks to determine your level of interaction with your target audience. It is one of the indicators to focus on because it is more specific and allows for more accurate statistics. Dialog Insight allows you to calculate the rate of clicks on openings or deliveries.
- Improve your sender reputation to increase your deliverability.
#7 – Emails
Email marketing is one of the preferred communication channels for businesses during a recession because of its low cost and high return. Furthermore, with the green shift, businesses must adopt greener modes of communication, such as digital. The distribution of the Publisac in Montreal will end in May 2023. It is therefore critical to continue to use this channel while also ensuring that it evolves in line with communication trends.
- Create eye-catching, cleaner single-column layouts with more space between blocks, using rounded designs and circles.
- Invest in the content rather than just the container; create concise content with fewer CTA buttons; and personalize messages and offers (personalized discount coupons, decision support)
- Take inspiration from models used in the same industry. (MailChart)
- Display your company’s logo as an email sender. (Brand Indicators for Message Identification – BIMI) This will improve visibility and deliverability.
- Insert polls, quizzes, or animated GIFs to make your emails more interactive and dynamic. AMP is another option to consider, as it allows for action directly in the email, but it is time consuming and not supported by all email providers.
- Prefer the creation of personalized digital circulars to paper ones to communicate special offers by email according to the profile of the subscriber.
Conclusion
The year 2023 is ideal to enhance your relationship marketing strategy. These trends are opportunities that should not be overlooked when developing your marketing strategy. Don’t let these opportunities pass you by.
Our relationship marketing platform is constantly evolving to meet different market needs: automation, artificial intelligence, personas, email templates and more.
To see how Dialog Insight can support you in 2023, plan a demo.
