Marketing technology, or martech, is one of the most effective ways to gain a competitive advantage. It helps businesses and marketing departments work faster, smarter, and with less friction in their daily routines.
The biggest companies in your space aren’t better than you, they’re just using different technology. But with the right marketing tech stack and a well-thought strategy behind it, you’d be surprised at what your team can accomplish.
If you’re looking to grow your marketing tech stack in 2023, you need to keep the latest marketing technology trends in mind.
Top Marketing Technology Trends for 2023
Well, the results are in – the proverbial New Year’s ball dropped. Here are the top marketing technology trends that will make an impact in 2023:
1: Consolidating Tools for Marketing and Sales Alignment
Despite lingering recession conversations, for marketers, nothing about our core mission of generating revenue and customers changes – simply the way to get there. Utilizing marketing technology helps your company remain both competitive and relevant to customers.
Now, however, we just need to be cognizant of how to collate customer data to make informed business decisions and, additionally, how to be more resourceful about what tech we use. That’s where consolidating technology comes into play.
Auditing your existing tools and building a tech stack that encourages marketing and sales alignment is a need, not a want, in 2023. As budgets tighten, marketing departments will be under more scrutiny than usual and will feel more pressure to prove ROI. Tools like a central crm or marketing and sales automation can help bring marketing activities closer to the money and show how they make an impact.
How to leverage this trend:
- Know your top three priorities and lean into tools that will maximize output and efficiency in those key areas
- Don’t underestimate the important role your sales members play in tech decisions – learn where they feel most limited and where technology can help.
- Conduct an audit and see if there is any overlap in your tech stack or if existing martech tools are no longer serving you
2. Personalization Through Marketing Automation
Data-driven marketing increases ROI, with campaigns that leverage data-driven personalization reporting 5-8x ROI for their campaign spend.
-Invespcro
It’s irrefutable that emails are the bread and butter of any good marketing strategy. From the dawn of the internet, it remains an unmovable monolith of Space Odyssey proportions in communications. Why? Because it works.
These days, however, customers want personalized content. They don’t want the same emails that everybody else is getting - and marketing automation can help you deliver that.
Going far beyond including a first name in an email, personalization and marketing automation technology nowadays use machine learning and AI to evaluate user behavior across channels to make outreach decisions. Depending on your budget and needs, there are many technology platforms that have marketing automation features available. This will continue to be a hot trend in 2023 and beyond.
How to leverage this trend:
- Build on your most important touchpoints and brainstorm how to add value through email such as action-based triggers, engagement, and other metrics (especially important in this age of ungating information!)
- Read more about what marketing automation platform is right for you: 5 Top Marketing Automation Platforms for Small Businesses
- Segment your lists so you can curate messaging to speak directly to your intended audience
3. Chatbots: Our New Robot Overlords
The chatbot industry will grow and reach a value of nearly $1 billion by 2024.
Chatbot adoption has been on the list of marketing technology trends for awhile now, and for good reason. They not only help 55% of businesses generate high-quality leads, but the quick, efficient answers are becoming preferred by customers.
Whether it’s applying a coupon or answering common order questions, a chatbot is a phenomenal tool to understand user queries and gain lead information in a natural and helpful way. In the world of marketing technology trends, this one’s quickly become a staple investment tool.
Many tools exist – from simple question branches to complex queries that get redirected to a salesperson, you can certainly pick your poison and test the waters depending on your business (B2B vs B2C, for example).
How to leverage this trend:
- Start with some of the most common questions people ask sales and gradually build out a library for your chatbot to continue adding value
- If possible, configure your chatbot with a picture of an employee in your company – this will add warmth and encourage interaction
- When in doubt, try it out! Most larger CRMs like HubSpot have the capability, so test out a few to see which work the best for your current and future business needs
4. Accessible Video to Drive Engagement
Using videos has been a conversation since I’ve been in marketing (without aging myself, let’s just say that’s been a while). With TikTok and YouTube continuing to ramp, visually/audibly presenting information not only helps others absorb information, but it’s also a fantastic tool for encouraging connection.
Since the pandemic, many companies have digitally transformed – bridging the gap from minimal in-person interactions. Implementing video is a mainstay trend to add personality into your marketing and sales campaigns.
More importantly, having accessible video matters, as most small to medium-sized business owners aren’t equipped to fund professional shooting and editing on an ongoing basis. Fortunately, there are many marketing technology platforms such as Canva and YouTube Studio that offer video editing capabilities for those who don’t have more advanced programs or licenses. Heck, most iPhones have some degree of video editing and cutting capability now!
Professional video isn’t required anymore, as we’re all well aware many are working from home – so don’t be afraid to lack a bit of polish in videos. Simply having someone sincere behind the camera goes a long way to make meaningful connections.
How to leverage this trend:
- Encourage salespeople to shoot videos to communicate with prospects. You can even build this into your campaigns over time
- Raise awareness about best practices for filming, such as shooting horizontally on a smartphone, shooting in front of a window for optimal lighting, etc.
- Start by making 2-5-minute explanation videos on your highest-viewed blogs to repurpose content and share with incoming leads (be sure to include captions!)
5. SMS Services are a Permanent Mainstay
90% of people open a text within three minutes.
For many industries, it’s incredibly advantageous to implement SMS services into your martech stack. With high open rates that are nigh instant (what person doesn’t have their phone within arm’s reach these days?), your chances of engagement skyrocket compared to other channels.
It’s well worth your effort to prioritize an outreach strategy – but keep in mind people must opt in to receive communications through this channel. If you’re too spammy, they’ll unsubscribe, and you’ll lose out on a valuable method of awareness.
As mobile optimization has grown, SMS marketing will continue to as well, only propelling its growth in 2023. Marketing technology trends all point to SMS as a preferred communication channel, so consider, if you haven't already, ways you can capitalize on meaningful, helpful outreach for your leads.
How to leverage this trend:
- Send promotions or notes that carry the most weight and is relevant to your list
- Create a list of 2-3 people who can receive any additional messages or questions that come through
- Know your audience, and test, as these are largely uncharted waters for SMBs
Embrace Marketing Technology in 2023
I hope this was a helpful, forward-looking perspective for marketing technology trends in 2023. What are some things you’re planning to implement and prioritize next year on this list? I’d love to know!
If you’re looking to build out your martech stack this year, WEBITMD has helped businesses of all sizes and industries grow their marketing and sales departments with technology. Download your free Growth Stack guide or get in touch to learn about our expertise.
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