2023 is a year of marketing evolution.

Aside from starting to master your knowledge of AI, there are some critical digital marketing strategies that you should be focusing on this year.

These strategies will help your digital growth, reputation, and niche expertise in your industry. These are the type of tactics that you don’t want to ignore.

Ignoring them might mean you’ll fail as a result.

But don’t worry! I’m not in the business of letting you fail. In this article, I’ll cover 7 critical digital marketing tactics to use in 2023 so that you don’t fail like many brands and companies are to do.

What critical digital marketing strategies should you be focusing on in 2023?

Let’s look at these strategies and how to start with them today!

Strategy #1: Video Content Creation

AI is starting to tap into text-based content.

While writing is still important, improving other content that artificial intelligence can’t quite a control yet is worth getting good at.

And that’s why video is on the critical digital marketing strategies list because it’s hot, and a bot does not control it!

You need to focus A LOT of your efforts on creating video content. Create short-form videos for social media platforms like Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. It’s okay to repurpose on these platforms as long as the TikTok logo isn’t on every video.

But if you can, each video unique to the platform will make your content management strategy FIRE! Hardly anyone is doing it, so that’s a market to tap into if you can create that kind of video content without going insane.

Make long-form content, too. Typically, your long video is how you can earn money on YouTube. You can even turn podcasts into long-form videos if you need ideas.

Every video, no matter short or long, need to have three main functions. (1) There needs to be a hook at the beginning to grab their attention (2) Every video needs to tell a story, and (3) Every video should have a cliffhanger at the end to make the viewer want to come back for more.

There more you post videos on social media, the more attention you will get. Gary Vee suggests you post many times a day. Sometimes his suggestion is overwhelming, but it’s proven to work. But at minimum, you should post at least one video daily on every social media page you have.

And it’s not that difficult to do anymore with all of the social media scheduling features available on the web in 2023.

The hardest part about all this will be getting the video and editing it, but if you adopt this strategy now, you’ll be rewarded for it quickly.

 

Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization

I know I said AI is starting to hit text-based content, but that doesn’t mean you should quit creating text-based content.

Instead, you should focus on creating specific content for your niche and become known as an expert. Then you must use and master one of the biggest critical digital marketing strategies proven year after year – search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is how you modify your content to tell Google and other search engines that you’re targeting a specific keyword or keyphrase about your content. The better your SEO practices, the better you can rank your web property.

But there is such a thing as using too much SEO, which can hurt your search ranking.

It’s important to know what works and what is ethical practices, and it’s important to know what doesn’t work and can lead to website penalization or even suspension from the search engine.

Could you imagine your website being suspended from Google?

The main function of search engine optimization to master is keyword research. Once you master keyword research, all the rest of the on-page SEO components will be easier to accomplish because they’ll make more sense.

Of course, there are many technical SEO functions to be aware of. These are also critical digital marketing strategies if you think about them.

A great place to start learning anything and everything about SEO is to research the over 200 ranking factors that Google has for search ranking.

 

Strategy #3: Product Marketing

Product marketing is the process of bringing your products and services to the customers and making sales by promoting the products and services.

When you market your products and services, you’re dedicating promotional tactics to them rather than just marketing your eCommerce entity. You take the time to market each product and service individually. That can only result in more attention to those products and services, giving you a better chance of making a sale.

In product marketing, you can target specific types of people and audiences for the specific type of product or service you’re trying to sell to them.

There are factors you want to consider for providing the best possible product marketing that you can provide. These factors play into your digital marketing strategies for marketing the products.

You should understand your customers better. You should find out what they want from using your product or service. Learn more about your competition and their tactics to market their products and services. If you’re working with different departments in your company, you must sit down and make sure everyone is on the same page. Everyone must work together to make something happen how you want it to. Make sure the product is positioned in the right spot in the marketplace.

It might feel easier to market your business and all your products. In most cases, it is easier. But when you skip out on individual product marketing as part of your digital marketing strategies, you will likely miss many opportunities to make more money.

You should have a plan of marketing for every single product you make. It will increase your sales. It will increase your brand and company awareness. It will only do good for your company and increase your ability to earn more profit.

 

Strategy #4: Online Advertising

Many are laying people off if you’re paying attention to tech companies here lately. This is because advertising sales are dropping.

As the economy worsens, like it’s trending to do, the high costs of advertising are typically the first digital marketing strategies that companies cut. Why continue to pay high prices when organic marketing still works and is free for the most part?

But that doesn’t mean that online advertising is a bust.

In 2023, I predict ad prices will significantly decrease cost. Many tech companies and media brands will have to decrease prices to entice companies to purchase ads. Once they do, more businesses will start paying for ads, and the companies will return to earning revenue again.

Eventually, as the economy gets better, ad prices will go up again. That’s how the cycle works.

You should take advantage of online advertising now as the prices decrease and try to create a budget for when they increase again.

But that being said, try to have a “customization mindset” about online advertising.

If you can customize who will see your ads and customizing is beneficial to your company and product sales, then you should take advantage of these features. You can fine-tune who your ad is served to and get the most out of your money spent on ads.

Factors to consider for customizing your ad may include gender, age, income, job title, and geographic location. Your ad should have goals. In most cases, you shouldn’t create an ad unless you aim to earn more than you spent on the ad.

If you spend $150 on an ad for three days, your goal should be earning $300 or more in sales. You need to profit from it; otherwise, you just spend money without benefit.

Always make sure that you evaluate your advertising campaigns. Are they working? Try to use different campaigns and do A/B testing to see which one performs better than the other. You might realize that advertising on Facebook gets you more sales than advertising on Google. It is a good idea to try out many advertising channels and evaluate which ones are working and which are not.

There are many different forms of advertising to choose from on the internet. You have social media advertising which you should take advantage of due to the number of consumers on social media. You can advertise on Google and other search engines. I wouldn’t stay too far from Google and maybe Bing unless your audience is international, and then you can target other search engines. You should also consider buying ads on websites, blogs, online communities, and podcasts.

Make sure you create goals to earn more than you spend; otherwise, it isn’t worth spending.

 

Strategy #5: CRO

It’s always important to drive new traffic to your website. New traffic will get you more new leads and sales. But you should also cater to existing traffic to maximize your ability to earn more sales and loyal followers in the process.

That’s where CRO comes into play.

CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization. Using CRO means enhancing your website and e-commerce platform to increase the leads and sales you can generate.

According to some sources, the average CRO rate for eCommerce sites is around 2.17% globally. But that rate is higher for companies who sell in the United States. So, you can consider a conversion on your site as traffic to customers. You get someone visiting (traffic), and then they buy a product or service you provide (conversion). If your conversion rate or activity is low, you need to optimize your website to increase your conversion rate.

To optimize your CRO, you’ll need to do several different things. You’ll need to do A/B testing, use different optimization tactics, and embrace your analytics. Learning Google Analytics 4 right now is a good idea as we’re nearing the end of universal analytics.

To enhance conversion rates, start with your homepage. Add the ability for visitors to engage with the company from the homepage. Change product links to give more product information to help increase your chance of making a sale. Use copywriting strategies. Add a chatbot to the website to contact the visitor. Make sure you market your mailing list on the homepage and every other highly visited page on your website.

If you can adjust your pricing, that may also convert others into customers. I don’t mean offering your products and services for less unless that’s possible. So, what has worked for many companies in the service industry is you can buy the service for X amount per month, or you can buy it for a year and pay a little less than you would per month. This gives different buyers opportunities and can help increase your CRO.

Content creation has traditionally always been a workable tool for increasing CRO. Many companies resort to blogs. You can create blog content that is helpful to your industry. It will increase your authority and expertise in the industry, especially if the content answers hard questions. But it can also be a way to convert readers into buyers. You need to add Call-to-Action and copy that aim to make sales. You can further your content creation by linking to sales landing pages from the Call-to-Actions. These pages would be made up of persuasive content to help generate a sale.

Just ensure you are testing the different digital marketing strategies you’re using to increase CRO to ensure it’s working. You may have to change it from time to time.

 

Strategy #6: Brand Marketing

What do you want your company to look like in your industry? Do you want it to look like your competition? Or do you want it to stand out from the crowd and result in more profit?

Many companies fail to introduce branding into their digital marketing strategies. As a result, they don’t make the profit they could be making if they had their noticeable brand.

Take a look at the athletic clothing industry, for example. Do you see people wearing the brand of yoga pants Amazon Essentials much? Chances are, you haven’t seen that brand. But I bet you’ve seen yoga pants by Lulumoon, Gym Shark, and Nike. These companies have built a brand around their products, and branding is easier to market because it’s unique from the rest of the same old competition out there.

Many companies claim they have a brand but don’t do anything with it after establishing it. That’s where brand marketing comes into play.

A good brand is a functional brand. Your brand must have a purpose and goals for it to exist. You can’t just say you have a brand, and that’s it. Any company that wants to build a brand needs to outline the reasoning behind it in its digital marketing strategies.

What do you want your brand to achieve? More money? Changes to the industry? Creation of causes that helps people in the industry. Maybe a little bit of everything above? It’s important to know why you want to build a brand.

On branding, you need to be recognized as the brand. Stick to one color scheme. Have a photo or logo you use on all social media to recognize you easily on any of them. Don’t be different in everything. Use the same voice. Branding is all about being easily recognized.

You will heavily depend on organic and recruited ambassadors in branding. You want people to help market your brand; in return, you reward them for helping you. You want to make sure they know they’re special to your brand. And your employees might even be some of your biggest ambassadors, so don’t single them out just because you’re paying them.

Branding is one of the best ways to create loyal customers. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “brand loyalty” before. Branding deserves a spot in your digital marketing strategies.

 

Strategy #7: Community Development

Community Development is so critical today, especially with the threat of what artificial intelligence might do to your brand in a competitive nature.

AI is changing everything. Artificial intelligence will change the way we find things on the internet. It might change the position of our websites in the future of search. It might even kill most organic search marketing methods and introduce a more pay-to-play concept. Increasing the amount will be an easy tactic if we’re paying to be seen.

It’s promised that AI won’t be geared to do this, but as cultures change, many of these promises also change. I wouldn’t doubt that AI will start to disrupt the marketing world within the next five to ten years.

And because of that, community development is more important than ever.

AI and algorithms are designed to show consumers content ranking high enough to keep those consumers on their websites. That’s why you typically do better with uploading a reel on Facebook versus posting a link to your blog post. Platforms want to keep people on their platforms so they can serve them their ads and make money.

It makes sense, and I totally understand their motives.

But AI and algorithms are not smart enough to impact human memory and desires, at least not fully yet.

If you build a community around your brand, people will know where to find you. They will seek you out regardless of what an algorithm wants them to do. That’s why it’s important to build a brand so that people become familiar with your company and remember it because of your brand.

When you gain ambassadors, whether you recruit them or they come organically, you start the building blocks of developing a community. These super fans will help you build a large community if you let them and treat them right.

Companies and brands that don’t build a community soon will likely quit existing in the future. It’s definitely some food for thought as technology creates a better chance for competition to win as it spends more money trying to win.

 

And that concludes 7 critical digital marketing strategies you should consider mastering in 2023 and beyond. Using the strategies above will bring more awareness to your company, products, and services and increase sales significantly. Marketing is a win more than a loss, but sometimes we have to spend a little bit of money. If you enjoyed reading this article and want to see more, follow me on Twitter today.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers that follow this blog. Shawn also offers a variety of services for extra help in the area of content creation, blogging, forums, and digital marketing. Learn more about Shawn Gossman by clicking here.