The Marketing List: Ins & Outs of 2023

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While the majority of marketers are confident in their creatives, many admit they struggle to scale their creative approach. 

New innovations in AI tools are empowering advertisers to activate powerful copywriting and creative abilities at a higher pace. AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Copy.ai,Jasper, and more are lending a hand at the least initial drafts and brainstorming stage of landing page copy, social posts, and calls to action. But beyond words, designers are also experimenting with tools such as Automater, Alpaca, and Colorminder to scale photo editing, generate color palettes, and scale prototyping.  

Accessibility has been a trending conversation for years now but has historically stagnated as a goal or back-burner initiative. 

In 2023 we will see a surge in action to fully implement accessibility practices and follow through on promises. It is predicted the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) will finally publish the official Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in early 2023. While official legal enforcement will come at a later date, this publication will be a powerful nudge for many companies to take action and implement ADA compliance on their websites. As a web design agency, Bluetext supports the web accessibility movement to make individuals with disabilities feel included in our ever-growing digital world. Check out some accessibility best practices and how we enable Level A, AA, and AAA compliance in our website designs. 

We all watched the drama of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover in 2022. In this new year,  users are left uncertain about management practices and technical issues. Experts expect the platform’s user  base will decline over the next two years, most dramatically in the US market. The  platform isn’t expected to flat-line suddenly but may experience a trail of popularity as users begin to prefer more visual or video-based social  sites. 

In recent years we have seen the escalation of short-form video popularity, as they are easy to consume and share. People increasingly desire bite-size, short-form content that they can rapidly consume in an information-saturated world. This format is not only easier on the viewer, but most importantly on the content creator. Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have enabled brands to reach a wide audience and are designed to be most compatible with short and sweet video clips. The growing popularity of Instagram Reels and new developments in YouTube Shorts will only expedite this trend. 

For many years ‘less is more’ took over design trends, as many brands began simplifying graphics and logos. 

While clean lines and simplified styles won’t fade forever, we will see a rise in new design trends that blend nostalgic appreciation with new-age energy. The emerging style ‘retro-futurism’ refers to predictions of the future depicted in an earlier era. It is a highly nostalgic ‘Back to the Future’ aesthetic that leverages many popular emblems of the 60s, 70s, and Y2K. In 2023 many designers will revisit cyberpunk, Space Age, Jetson-esque memories to draw inspiration from the colorful utopias full of happy people and cool gadgets. 

Data privacy has been a hot topic for years leading up to and following the passing of GDPR guidelines, but never been fully enforced in the US. 

While many international companies have already implemented data privacy and cookie collection to meet GDPR mandates, US-based companies have been slow to catch up. But beginning January 2023 state-based regulations will be enforced. While these laws do vary by state and no federal data privacy law currently exists, the legislative wave is expected to spread to additional states. Companies will need to become proactive to clean up their data collection practices and provide transparency and opt-out options to users nationwide. Curious about what and where regulations have or will be implemented? Check out Bluetext’s breakdown of what every marketer needs to know about 2023 privacy laws.

Previous top-of-the-funnel marketing strategies cast a wide net in hopes of catching a few customers. But many companies have come to realize that audience refinement and quality over quantity are vital in terms of leads.

The blanket method of marketing that prioritizes views and clicks over engagement and action has been replaced with a preference for personalization.  Alongside transparency in data collection, there has also been a push to be more intentional with user data. Getting smarter about what data to collect and analyze has allowed marketers to assess previous actions and communications from marketing and sales teams to track what content a lead has seen. Historical data enables marketers to make informed decisions about new content that would be most valuable for the lead at their individual stage of the funnel. Personalization, or serving up curated content, will become a more popular lead-generation tactic to attract and nurture qualified leads.