The unsettled global situation over the past year has created a great deal of uncertainty about the economy. In the fall of 2022, it became clear that this affected companies' decisions on major investments. Most indications are that at the beginning of 2023, several of these uncertainties are likely to remain. But there is also a silver lining in that the coming year could be one in which this uncertainty decreases and the market stabilizes. But this is difficult to predict with certainty at present.
In the face of a possible slowdown, it is important to be prepared and create a space that makes it possible to scale up and down, quickly if necessary. It is about cost-efficiency and building a flexible cost structure that enables rapid decision-making.
Companies are likely to review their employment costs, contracts with consultants and agencies and seek this flexibility in their contracts. This may involve converting fixed costs into variable costs and ensuring that they are not tied into long contracts that they cannot get out of. For IT projects, it could also be using more consultants for a period to be able to finish them faster.
Sweden has great needs for business-related IT. Large parts of Swedish industry are lagging behind in the digital transformation and have only recently begun to clean up their structure of old systems and integrations. A long recession may accelerate the need for digitization to make operations more cost-effective and thus increase the need for external specialist expertise. This could mean a greater demand for consulting and agency services.
Employee advocacy is about getting your employees to become an ambassador for the company in their own channels and platforms. Simply speaking about the company and sharing insights on behalf of the company. More and more companies are recognizing the impact of employees' personal platforms. A sender who is known and trusted in their network reaches out more effectively to more and the right people. And in a more natural way than through the company's own accounts. Harnessing this power is an opportunity - especially in business-to-business (B2B) marketing.
We believe that in 2023, more companies will evaluate the opportunity for employees to contribute to the company's marketing efforts and create a plan to engage them. An engagement plan typically includes training, tools and resources to motivate and encourage employees to represent the company and spread messages and insights.
Google will phase out third-party cookies by the end of the year (2023) due to increasing awareness and demands around privacy. Cookies have been a mainstay of targeted online marketing. Cookies enable a tailored experience for the visitor by tracking user behavior across the web. To stay relevant, brands are testing alternative personalization solutions to continue developing personalized and customized content and ads. A growing trend is to create an interactive personalized web experience by having the customer answer questions. This puts the customer in control of their data and provides more personalized content without the need for cookies.
Personalization of content and messages has been a hot trend and a hot topic for marketers for many years. With content already moving towards hyper-personalization, it will become even more important to have content that customers can interact with.
Interactive content will be an increasingly important tool to keep visitors on your website for a longer period of time while providing you with valuable information about what they are interested in.
In a September 2022 survey of marketers, more than half of whom were B2C marketers, 52% of respondents reported that the most effective of these tools was interactive emails, followed by interactive videos or live streaming, polls or quizzes, and interactive infographics. This is part of a clear trend towards increased B2C interactivity: customers are looking for immersive experiences. Current examples include 360° tours of properties available for purchase or short-term rental and virtual tours of vacation destinations. But any sector that offers something customers can actually see and experience should also make it possible digitally.
The use of video in marketing and sales is a trend we've been highlighting for the past 4 years and this year's trendspotting is no exception.
There's no ignoring the huge influence that TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have had on the industry in recent years. With TikTok almost doubling its monthly users in 2022 to nearly two billion, it's likely that its influence will only continue to climb in the coming year.
This format, vertical videos in the range of 30 seconds to 3 minutes, is an ideal content for mobile as it is quick and easy to absorb. Longer videos are better suited to YouTube. However, if you want your videos to have a chance of taking off, it's not a bad idea to shorten them and make them mobile-optimized. The more short vertical videos you produce and post, the greater the chance of standing out in the noise and even going viral by having your content shared widely.
A recurring thesis is that email marketing is dead. But once again, it can be stated that this is completely wrong. Yes, you read that right, we predict a greater interest in email marketing in 2023.
Email is already an important part of digital sales and online shopping. Hence, the likelihood that all your potential customers have an email address. You could theoretically send an email to all these potential customers today. Or, using the data you've gathered, you can target a specific demographic with customized messaging and spend your money more wisely. This is one of email marketing's strengths. That you have a direct channel you can personalize effectively to your and your customers' needs. It's no wonder that email marketing is and remains one of the most popular digital marketing channels when it is both effective and easy to follow up immediately after sending.
If you also switch on Marketing Automation, where everything is data-driven automatically, you get an even better segmented and personalized email delivery.
In 2022, we have seen a number of different AI content generators emerge and take up more and more space. With OpenAI releasing its open and free ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) to the public in November 2022, interest in AI-generated content exploded. ChatGPT is the first AI that can write longer texts such as expository essays, poems, and help programmers solve coding problems. Before that, AI-generated content has mostly been about images, illustrations and simple customer service chatbots or asking Siri and Google Assistant simple questions such as what the weather will be like. At its core, AI is about giving instructions to an application whose algorithms have been trained to do or solve specific tasks. But it should be remembered that AI does not possess human characteristics and cannot create on its own, but must have basic information. An AI cannot make philosophical trade-offs between two different things, but makes trade-offs based on data alone - it either is or it isn't.
While AI applications have been operating under the surface in various systems such as decision support and the like, AI-based content generators have taken center stage as companies try to keep up with the increased demand for original content. Creating original content takes time and it can be difficult to continuously produce high-quality material. This is where tools such as ChatGPT or Rytr come in handy, as they can provide instructions to write a first version of a text that can be refined into high-quality content. On the image side, MidJourney or DALL-E are leading examples.
In 2023, we expect to see several similar applications on the market and also see how copyright laws are challenged when an AI-generated content does not necessarily have a human author.
In 2023, several B2C and B2B brands will activate their presence in the metaverse.
This is because they simply want to be first with their presence in the metaverse and Web3, which is still in its infancy
Although much of the hype around the metaverse came during a time of great economic growth, interest is still high, even now that the global economy is experiencing great uncertainties ahead of 2023. Given the large investments that big companies like Meta, Google and many more are making in these emerging technologies, it's not likely to be a temporary fad but here to stay. Big brands and tech companies are taking it seriously, and so should you. Put simply, Web 1 was about making information available to everyone. Web2 was to be involved in the creation of the information. Web3 is to experience and be in the information and with the help of blockchain technology you can seamlessly move between the different worlds of the Metaverse with your information that you own. Much like walking between the shops in town with your wallet and ID, you can walk between Apple Store, Amazon etc.
Earlier in 2022, Decentraland hosted the first ever Metaverse Fashion Week which featured big brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Elie Saab. Brands including Forever 21 and Estée Lauder opened their virtual stores in Decentraland's fashion district.
We will expect to see more brands open virtual stores and plan technology-driven activations in 2023.
We've highlighted these trends for 2023, but all the trends we talked about last year are just as relevant this year.