And just like that, Q4 is almost over.

We’ve been knees-deep discussing 2023 with clients. Talking through industry trends, budget expectations, and work we’ve been completing that’s technically scope creep — you name it, we’re talking about it!

This is a post for people we may not have talked to yet. If you have additional marketing budget to spend in 2022 or are planning for 2023, here are a few ideas to keep in mind!

Implement a Marketing CRM — Especially if You Have Digital Ad Spend

I have a good reason for this.

I met with a Google Ads Representative with a client a few weeks ago, and the Google Rep strongly recommended that we identify a way to feed Lead Information back into the Google Ads platform.

“By Carrot or By Stick” they’re moving accounts off of Manual Bidding. This tells me that lead quality information (return on investment, if a lead is a MQL vs. SQL) will need to be identified to keep accounts profitable in an increasingly competitive landscape. Implementing a CRM (we typically recommend Hubspot) and properly integrating it with your website will provide us with Google-Click-IDs (GCLIDS) that we can feed back into the Google Ads Platform. This will give Google better visibility into lead data, allowing the Ads system to differentiate between a spam phone call and a real customer. Long term, this should result in more results-oriented campaigns, which will be a net positive for advertisers, agencies, and Google.

Social Listening — Start Determining 2023 Strategies To Pursue

Not sure what direction your marketing strategy should take moving forward? Social listening allows you to monitor conversations across a wide variety of social media platforms and forums, and aggregate those conversations to help define new marketing strategies. 

How have we seen success with Social Listening?

• Competitor Listeners: Knowing what conversations are happening around your competition can help more than just marketing plans. While it can certainly tell you where your competition is thriving, it can also help with product/feature road mapping and show you what your potential clients like that your competition currently offers.
  
• Complaint Listener: Aggregating common complaints with your competition and putting together a social and advertising strategy based on these complaints can give you a competitive advantage.
  It’s often easier for you to capitalize on where your competition may be falling short than it is for them to fix their business practice.
  
• Industry Listeners: Monitoring sentiment around your industry terms can help put together an in-depth content strategy. Plus, most marketers rely on tools that look at past performance data. Using real-time tools can give you a first-mover advantage.
  
• Brand Sentiment: Low hanging fruit for Social Listening is the ability to determine brand / company sentiment. With the ability to cover more than just the ‘low hanging fruit’ social profiles (Twitter, Facebook, etc), our Social Listening platform gives a broader depth of conversation.

Invest In SEO Content

We’re hearing and noticing reduced advertising spend at a top- and middle-funnel point of view. Display, Discovery, and Video campaigns are losing spend due to recession speak, while bottom-funnel spend is staying consistent or increasing.

This is understandable, in my opinion. Wrong (again — in my opinion), but understandable. Because Top and Mid Funnel Spend is typically not seen as tangible results for months and, at times, quarters, it’s the most likely spend on the chopping block, especially when answering to a CEO or CFO. 

However, SEO content is a more tangible deliverable to invest in now that will deliver long-term results. It’s easy to understand for management as well, because you have a deliverable posted onto your website you can point to. We’re seeing a massive increase in demand for SEO content over the past two quarters as well — now is the time to move since SEO content takes time (again — months, at times quarters) to rank for target keywords.
Pro Tip: If you need to show results quicker, identify secondary & tertiary long-tail keywords. You may be able to rank for longer tail keywords in weeks / months to show initial momentum, while coupled content with harder primary keywords that take longer.

Personify Your Brand with Email

One of the smartest ways you can invest in marketing is by nurturing relationships with existing customers and followers. Instead of investing ad spend behind acquiring new customers, invest in personifying your brand with your current email marketing list. People buy from who they like and trust. Email marketing offers a quick, cost-effective way to strengthen those bonds with your potential and current clients. 

Pro Tip: We often discuss the “80/20” rule with clients. Investing in relationship building with the 20% of customers who contribute to 80% of your business is one of the fastest routes to positive ROI spent in marketing.

Our email team has sent several personalized messages from founders, CEOs, or product managers asking “What can we do better?” or thanking lists for being a subscriber. We consistently get double-digit responses in inboxes offering suggestions, advice, and gratitude. 

Moving Into the New Year

Businesses have been on a wild ride over the last few years. With economic uncertainty in the wind, that rollercoaster doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. However, one thing isn’t changing: the way your business connects with customers online will remain integral to your business’ success.

As we move into a new year, you might be looking for marketing solutions to increase your business’ exposure, cultivate client relationships, or take your business to the next level. Or you might not be sure what your business’ marketing needs are. We get that, and we’re here to help. To learn more or start the discussion, drop us a message, and we’ll begin tackling 2023 together.