Planning your marketing is something that should be done throughout the year. But it becomes especially useful during the new year. It’s a time when we get to think about our accomplishments in the previous year and see how we can actually improve. With so many marketing strategies at your disposal, which ones should you act on in the first few months of 2023 (even beyond)? Continue reading below for the best new year marketing ideas.
How Do You Create a Marketing Plan for the New Year?
Make sure that you look back on the previous year’s marketing activities and the results they generated. If there isn’t a big difference in your growth, then it’s time to think about new tactics. Such tactics could cover broad areas like social media, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, video, and more.
To create a competitive plan in 2023, it helps to watch out for emerging trends. If you haven’t yet, you can check out Hubspot’s survey data which mentions audio content (such as podcasts) and inbound marketing as two of the many marketing trends this year.
2023 New Year Marketing Ideas to Engage and Convert Your Audience
Without further ado, here are the best new year marketing campaigns and strategies to fuel your success. Keep in mind that not everything on this list will be relevant to your business, but these ideas should get you off to a good start.
1. Start a podcast.
For those who are thinking of starting a podcast, here’s wonderful news — 2023 is a perfect time to get involved, thanks to the increasing number of podcast listeners. In fact, there have been more than 464 million listeners globally as of January 2023.
Spotify has been a major player in the podcasting industry, but now we’re seeing more improvements from Apple, especially when it comes to letting podcasters make money from their shows.
One of the best things about creating a podcast is that it doesn’t require a lot of tools. But you need to be sure what topics to cover. It could be the thing you’re most passionate about in your industry or a growing interest which you’ve identified in your audience.
Related: How to Promote Your Podcast Using These 9 Strategies
2. Build a customer loyalty or referral program.
A loyalty program is a marketing strategy that’s designed to encourage customers to make repeat purchases. Starbucks’ Rewards program is a great example. They reward customers with a free drink, pastry, or slice of cake after collecting a certain number of stars.
On the other hand, a referral program grants rewards to people in exchange for recommending a business to their friends and family. A good example would be Dropbox’s famous “invite your friends and earn more storage space” program.
Or Harry’s “invite friends and earn product” pre-launch campaign:
Whether you’re planning a loyalty or referral program this year, it can definitely help in boosting your brand awareness and sales.
If you’re interested, know that UpViral can help you get started now. Some of our successful users were able to generate tens to hundreds of thousands of quality leads with high referral rates. You can check out our case studies in the meantime!
3. Focus on thought leadership first before trying to sell.
Establishing thought leadership is all about creating content that inspires change in your audience. It entails sharing insights that people in your niche or industry can take action from so that they can reach their goals — or get closer to them.
Unfortunately, some brands do hard selling before earning their audience’s trust through education and relationship building. (Nina Franks, a marketing agency owner who acquired 3,311 and $4900 in sales for a beauty brand, mentioned this in our case study interview.)
So, when you’re planning marketing ideas for each month, make sure that these strategies are aimed at providing value. Offer free live training sessions and webinars. Become a research hub that people will want to check out regularly for the latest industry news.
4. Move your audience from social to email.
If you’ve been doing social media marketing for a long time now, then you’re probably aware of the low organic reach on various platforms. (Facebook is well-known for its very low organic reach — unless, you’re boosting your posts or running ads which costs money!)
Organic or unpaid marketing on social platforms still matters. Keep on posting those great visuals and sharing valuable articles. But at the same time, consider moving your social media audience to a platform that doesn’t affect your visibility and allows you to get closer to them. We’re talking about email.
Online marketing educator Amy Porterfield maximizes her opportunity to build an email list from social media (her Instagram, for example).
Notice on her Instagram profile, she adds Linktree, a link that basically takes people to her best resources. Aside from featuring her latest podcast, she offers other free resources which can only be accessed by signing up your name and email. It’s a brilliant strategy.
With a growing email list in 2023, you’ll also be motivated to write better and more actionable email content. (Since you worked hard to get those subscribers in the first place!)
5. Use SMS to promote.
It’s no secret that inboxes are overcrowded with emails. Unless people actually look forward to your emails, you can imagine the struggle of getting them opened — let alone noticed. The solution? SMS messaging.
According to Search Engine Journal’s article, SMS messaging has a high open rate of 98% and a click-through rate of 18%.
Text messaging can be extremely valuable for local businesses to drive more purchases. For example, they could send SMS reminders to check out an upcoming sale or new arrivals. They can even include links to their website product pages, in case they have an online shop.
Speaking of incentives and loyalty rewards — these are actually great new year marketing ideas to include in your SMS marketing campaign.
Here’s an important tip to keep in mind: Get their permission first before sending customers messages. Like email marketing, it’s important to have their consent, or you’ll only get a negative response.
6. Create a deeper connection through video.
Video still remains a top format in content marketing. Hubspot’s survey revealed that a huge percent of marketers consider video to be effective and that it provides the biggest ROI. Check out their visual:
Entrepreneur, influencer, and bestselling author Neil Patel even mentions video’s ability to build deeper connections with your prospective customers. And if you’re still on the fence about leveraging video, he shares a tip: “repurpose video content into podcasts and text-based content.”
7. Create long-form case studies for leads and credibility.
Case studies are a marketing staple. But, unfortunately, some businesses fail to take advantage. By giving prospects a deeper insight into how your company has helped others like them, you can effectively persuade them into subscribing or even hitting that “buy” button.
In Hubspot’s marketing trends article, they mentioned that case study usage is only growing, and that 37% of surveyed marketers plan on using it for the first time in 2023.
There’s no definitive format for a great case study; however, make sure to cover essential elements such as: An overview of your customer’s problem, their goals and reasons for trying your product or service, how they used it, and results it generated for them.
If you need ideas for case studies, feel free to browse through our case studies resource section.
8. Sell a trending product.
A key ingredient for a successful e-commerce business is having high-demand products. (Aside from other key aspects like branding, SEO, and user experience.)
According to Shopify, trending e-commerce products this year include toys, shoes, decorative bottles, GPS navigation systems, and digital artwork. You’ll see the complete list here, along with each product’s global order growth %.
You can also do your own research, especially if you don’t have anything in mind yet, by checking out Amazon Best Sellers. This section gives you an updated list of trending products in every category.
And while you’re at it, consider whether a product solves a real problem in your audience or serves to be a real treat — like their favorite food, for example.
Final Thoughts
Keep ahead of the curve with these new year marketing ideas. Don’t limit yourself though — feel free to use any of these for the upcoming months (as you see fit) to increase your conversions and revenue this year.
Finally, keep in mind that the marketing world is always changing and growing. Stay on top of trends, but always make it your goal to provide content and products that add value to your audience’s lives.
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