Marketing predictions: What’s out in 2023

This is part marketing predictions, part idea exploration and part a dream for a brighter business future. After tackling the marketing trends I’d like to see in 2023, it’s time to tackle what is out of style in the business realm.

See what you think of my marketing predictions for what we (hopefully) see less of in 2023

Scarcity mindset

At the risk of sounding like a mung bean chewing hippie, I believe the last few years have taught us that worrying about competitors, caring only about visibility, and cutting ourselves off from making bold moves will finally pass along with the scarcity mindset.

Say goodbye to:

• Hyper-competiveness and viewing someone else’s win like your loss
• Failing to notice the good opportunities for collaboration, community or support
• Greediness and unethical business tactics
• Over the top “buy now or lose out forever!” style sales tactics
• Worrying there’s not enough time, money or resources to go around.

We have the opportunity now to move towards a focus on abundance and feeling good about what we aim for by adopting a possibility (or abundance) mindset:

• Seeing a win for one company as a win for the industry overall
• Sharing resources, talent and business acumen to build trust
• Encouraging industry transparency and accountability
• Optimism and hopefulness returning in place of survival mode.

Big, bulky planning

Businesses have learned a valuable lesson about business planning, marketing predictions, and forecasting in the last few years. And that is, we’re all one climate disaster or global upset away from the old style of planning helping rather than hindering.

This will be the year of the smaller leap.

More businesses will be likely to plan by:

• Building strong quarterly marketing and business plans to limit risk
• Adopting a start-up style approach by planning cycles and ideas that limit risk and resource usage but that are flexible enough to pivot to match the market
• Investing in contingency plans that are far more robust to get through unusual times while providing surety to investors, funders and boards
• Creating plans that all kinds of people can action within an organisation rather than banking on the time, focus and longevity of key players and single focus departments.

Oh, and if you need a hand with your planning, say the word! 

Hiring unicorns with no lives

If you’re looking to recruit talent, it’s time to be realistic. The days of looking for the quadruple skilled worker who will do 10 hours a day for the same money they earned waiting tables for the thrill of working alongside you don’t exist. Or they will not work for you because they can freelance or start their own business.

For far too long, businesses have increased the skills and capabilities required while the pay and the perks have reduced or remained static. Nobody over twenty-eight cares about your indoor plants, team building dinners, and office yoga. They want to see their family, enjoy workplace flexibility, decide what their own idea of well-being looks like, and enjoy being a person.  Nobody under the age of twenty-eight has the money to accept your junior pay rates for the privilege of working all night. They are paying a huge HECS debt, 60% of their wage on rent, and can’t afford potatoes or electricity.  If they have to live with their parents anyway to make ends meet, they are considering taking bigger risks with their own side hustles.

If you want loyalty and staff, you’ll need to stop writing role descriptions that have more arms than an octopus that pays the same money to walk a dog.

You can attract top talent by:

• Considering freelancers and contractors as part of the mix – and onboarding them properly so they feel safe, welcome and valued
• Approaching it as an exercise in exploring purpose, values and opportunities. Create study opportunities, make space for special projects, and provide the incentive to fold the extra insights and skills acquired back into the company that encouraged them
• Making workplace flexibility a cornerstone of what you offer. Allow for different start and finish times, have a robust work-from-home policy, and ensure that your workplace is disability-free as well as parent-friendly
• Recognising that while the multipotentialite way of working appeals to some, it is not for everyone. Don’t expect so many skills in the one role that you forget the value of strong skills in specific areas also has value
• Allowing your team to devise and implement what workplace well-being looks like to them. That way, you can cater to what people need instead of following office trends.

Big ad budget wins

With how consumers are responding to business and brands right now, I don’t think we can pay our way to glory with advertising. We know people are moving away from free-to-air TV towards streaming services and relishing the lack of ads. We also know that organic interactions on social media and the online world are hitting the mark. Nobody cares about your stadium sponsorships unless it’s making comments about how annoying it is to figure out where your favourite band is playing with the next change of hands.

What we do care about is consistency and helpful reminders. Especially seeing more and more people are forgetting what web page they had open in ten minutes’ time.

You can get better bang for your buck by:

• Building out campaigns across multiple mediums instead of saturating one place continually
• Making use of remarketing campaigns to remind consumers who you are
• Looking for friendships and sponsorships opportunities on the smaller scale, especially in causes, community and people with influence
• Breaking the million-dollar ad campaign spend into much more varied activities
• Investing in community managers and giving them the time and freedom to drive a far more intimate online experience
• Creating content marketing assets in blog, video and social media format to accompany the ad spend. That way, the campaign stays fresher for longer.

The mythical return to normal

In business and the marketing predictions set, there is a lot of debate about when everything will return to normal. If you’re hanging your hat on the return to normal arriving, I have news for you and it’s all bad.

We’ve been through a major change in life. People have questioned their relationships with everything from work to the town they live in. They are considering what it means to be a person living in an unpredictable world. And many people are sensitive to the role businesses play in their lives.

This will probably lead to consumer trends like:

• More people shopping small and local over big box and corporate
• Looking for experience-based purchases over more clutter to own
• Valuing lifestyle and experiences over commodities and products
• Losing patience with big, cheesy commercial moments
• Moving away from daily newsletter reminders that offer tips that could be tweets
• Spending to feel good and/or on escapism
• Continuing to feel the pinch of unresolved stress
• Resistance to change but a thirst for creativity and curiosity

Your employees want you to listen, too. They don’t want to work in the office, smile and nod at presenteeism and overtime, or continue to ignore things like corporate sustainability plans or accessibility and flexibility.

It’s OK to recognise the impact of the last few years on internal and external customers alike. And to build something that matches this shift in mood and operation.

Marketing prediction articles

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a cheap shot, but in an ever-changing world where we rely on so much technology and can get scuttled by uprisings and happenings the world over, how can we truly predict the future in real terms?

Our world is disruptive. The idea of following trends and keeping up with the Joneses doesn’t serve us as much as we think. Unless we specifically focus on early adopters, our audiences are not trendsetters. They are people just like us who are trying to make their way in an increasingly unstable world.

What that means is you need to know what you want out of your business and the customer experience. It’s time to stay close to your audience and listen. Limit your risks, but not your experimentation or creativity. Build firm foundations on research and planning but be adaptable and move with the trends as they happen. Aim to be reliable and consistent in a changeable world while demonstrating you’re bracing that change positively.

We all get worried about whether we should be on the latest social media platform. We look over the fence and see a lot of exciting and shiny things happening with other companies’ marketing and budgets and all the rest.

But we know three things we have control over:

1)     What we do well

2)     Who appreciates what we do well

3)     How to communicate well with them.

It doesn’t have to be hard

When was the last time you sat down and worked on your marketing predictions and transformed them into workable plans?

Let me help you figure that out via strategy plans you’ll actually appreciate and learn from, community management strategies that help keep you and your audience connected, coaching you through specific issues and ideas, and creative content ideas that helps you create an intimate relationship with your audience.

Want to know more? Contact me now and let’s move you beyond marketing predictions into success in 2023.