My Top 5 Marketing Predictions for 2023

🍄Small businesses x micro-influencers.

No longer concerned about follower-ship, since we all know fewer followers means higher engagement, small businesses have an opportunity to partner with creators to spread their product and message beyond their own channel. Micro-influencers with something important to say (not just pretty pictures) will be in high demand for partnerships.

🌸 Cross-pollination.

If you’re still only leaning into one platform, it’s time to cross-pollinate. You can repurpose the same videos that do well on one platform across another but be sure to rewrite your captions to speak to a slightly different audience.

🍃 Sustainable is out.

Eco-friendly brands have never been in higher demand than now. However, these purpose-led brands are going to have to do a lot more than splash ‘sustainable’ over their comms. With a dubious audience and years of greenwashing trailing behind us, our words are going to need an overhaul to blow suspicion and regain trust. The brands that truly care will need to shout it from the rooftops in a way that matters.

📢 Brand vs Virality

Lesson learned. We all saw that viral content - whatever that meant for you (for me it was 26k views on one reel, it may be 1m for someone else) - does not equal followers. And followers do not equal sales. Brands are realising it’s far more important to stick to their own unique brand identity, voice, and strategy than to aim for viral memes or reels which often dilute unique positioning.

👾 Words By AI

ChatGPT is undeniably here to take over media releases, articles, and blogs. I haven’t used it myself but apparently, you pop in a few pieces of data and a blog spits out. What it won’t do is emulate empathy, understand your audience’s needs, subtly point them in the right direction, or adopt your unique brand voice. Only a human can do that. AI also can’t write a brand strategy. Micro brands will adopt AI to get them through the startup phase, but those wanting to grow and be the leader in their industry will need a human behind the keyboard.