Happy New Year! 2023 is upon us, and it’s the perfect time for a fresh start. It is going to be an exciting first quarter for businesses here in Southeast Asia. With most pandemic restrictions lifted, we can look forward to living a life closer to how it was before.
However, as consumers resume in-store shopping, businesses may need to revisit their strategies – this may involve anything from reorganising people, streamlining operations, or repositioning marketing strategies.
In this article let’s look at several digital marketing trends to help you position your business to receive more sales. Regardless of the industry, retail, F&B, beauty and services, are three trends your businesses should adopt this year.
- Video increases customer reach
Whether you’re marketing to consumers or businesses, there’s no denying that video is here to stay. Just look at the rise of short-form video apps such as TikTok. The app has over 30 million and 120 million monthly active users as of January 2022 on Android devices and iOS devices platforms, respectively. Youtube Shorts and Instagram Reels also contribute to the popularity of video marketing as well. For many companies, video can play an essential role in the sales and marketing cycle. It offers a way to connect with and influence customers.
So in 2023, if you have yet to hop on the video bandwagon, it’s time to register for an account and start creating content for your brand. Sharing curated, relevant content on your social media pages can effectively drive conversations amongst potential consumers. It also demonstrates that your company is interested in solving an issue or sharing information rather than just selling.
Here are examples of helpful content you can create for each industry:
|
Retail |
F&B |
Beauty and services |
|
|
In-depth features |
How to guides on products |
Highlight seasonal ingredients and their uniqueness |
Show the experience from a client’s point of view |
|
Interviews (video and blogs) |
Feature instore or eCommerce walkthrough guides |
Show restaurant layout, ambience |
Feature client testimonials |
Other types of content include industry news, third-party research, press releases or announcements.
- User-generated content and influencer marketing will still be popular
Consider UGC a modern digital take on word-of-mouth. If you’ve ever bought a pair of jeans and loved it so much that you snapped a photo, put it on Instagram and tagged the brand, you’ve created UGC – and your customers can do the same with your brand/product.
People ultimately trust other people over impersonal brands. Unsurprisingly, this survey shows that consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic than brand-created content.
One reason why UGC has taken off is through influencer marketing. Celebrity influencers such as Charlie D’ Amelio earned $17.5 million in 2021, selling all kinds of products to young fans who watch her Tiktok videos. In addition, brands such as Amazon, Hollister, Dunkin, and Prada pay about $200,000 per post, so she can help them market their products by talking about them on her social media page. For these businesses, it’s money well spent. After all, marketers who collaborate with influencers can raise brand awareness and leverage the influencer’s audience to gain new customers – it could even happen overnight with the right celebrity influencer talking up your products.
Even if businesses cannot afford to hire a celebrity influencer with millions of followers, they can always work with social media promotors with a smaller following. Although these micro-influencers may have fewer followers, their posts still come across as relatable, and as such followers trust their opinions and recommendations. Micro-influencers might be a more budget-friendly option if you’re a small business, but can be more amenable to working with you. There’s a definite win-win solution for both parties.
- Social media as a customer service tool
Leveraging social media as a customer service tool will become your norm in 2023 if it hasn’t already. The ease of instant messaging on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook — coupled with their e-commerce capabilities, means consumers would instead send DMs rather than go through the company’s customer service page.
Therefore, providing customer service on these platforms will become even more crucial. McKinsey reports that customers also spend 20 to 40 per cent more with companies that respond to customers on social media. And companies that don’t will lose customers year after year, with a 15 per cent higher churn rate versus businesses that do respond.
It’s also worth noting that Millennial and Gen Z consumers prefer to communicate via DMs. HubSpot’s 2022 Consumer Trends Survey show that 20% of Gen Z-ers and nearly 25% of Millennials have contacted a brand for customer service. So if your business has a social media page, but no one monitors it, it’s time to hire someone to respond promptly. It will improve customer engagement, leading to stronger brand loyalty and higher repeat sales.
Qashier: Your partner for the New Year
The new year brings fresh opportunities for everyone. Start on the right foot and ring in the new year with Qashier’s reliable smart POS solutions.
Our smart POS system can handle different operational aspects, from QR code table ordering to table management (F&B), employee management, customer relationship management (loyalty programs), inventory management, data analytics, and cashless payments.
Try the Qashier app for free on your own Android device! Alternatively, you can speak to us to see how Qashier can meet your business needs. Schedule a meeting with us here, call us at (+65) 3165 0155, WhatsApp (+65) 8887 7687, or email [email protected].