What’s one of the biggest challenges marketers will face in the coming year?
To help marketers prepare for the coming year, Stukent asked experts about the challenges they see on the horizon. From database management to difficulty in engaging customers, navigating a future without cookies, and more, you can start preparing for tomorrow’s challenges today.
According to the experts, here are ten challenges marketers will face in 2023!
- Adapting to a Cookie-less Future
- Difficulty in Engaging Customers
- More Cost for Hybrid and Remote Operations
- Identifying Customers Through Multiple Channels
- Adjusting to Changing Consumer Behavior
- Staying Up-to-date with New and Emerging AI Capabilities
- Talent Acquisition and Retention
- The Need to Become More Interactive
- Managing Huge Databases
- How to Analyze Results and Achieve Transparency
1. Adapting to a Cookie-less Future
Most browsers are discontinuing support for third-party cookies, which track customer behaviors and launch targeted ads. For many marketers, this will be a challenge, especially for those who rely on cookies to reach their target audience. It will be challenging, but we must make changes and adapt to a cookie-less future.
It’s time to rethink how you understand your customers, engage with them, and build relationships. When you know what your customers want and need, you can design better products and services. You’ll learn how to craft your message better. When you’ve established genuine connections with your audience, you’ve raised brand awareness, and you’ve built trust, they can find you on their own even without your ads.
Marina Vaamonde, HouseCashin
2. Difficulty in Engaging Customers
With the prevalence of social media and everything being available online, it can be more difficult than ever to reach consumers. People are constantly bombarded with engagement, so a marketer needs to cut through the noise by reaching directly to their target audience. Building brand loyalty is the most important component in growing and keeping your customer base. Market to consumers who want to engage with your brand.
Brett Estep, Insured Nomads
3. More Cost for Hybrid and Remote Operations
The ongoing shifts at the workplace mean that businesses now have to set aside additional financial resources to help set up their hybrid and remote operations. Since these models are still in their experimental stages, companies will continue spending on tools and platforms with the aim of achieving continued efficiency. While this has resulted in budget cuts all across the board, the cuts have also adversely impacted marketing and advertising spending. Seeing how the current trend is set to continue well into 2023, budgetary restraints will continue to haunt marketers well into the near future.
Azmaira Maker, Ph.D., Aspiring Families
4. Identifying Customers Through Multiple Channels
The problem: There are so many options for reaching your target audience that you don’t know which one to choose. Customers today go through a number of steps and use a variety of devices before making a buying choice. They may see an advertisement on their smartphone web browser, then follow your company on Twitter, search for a product on their tablet, then shop on their laptop.
You must be able to tell where leads are in their individual customer journey and predict where they will go next in order to communicate with them effectively. You must also anticipate which device and channel they will use to take the following step. The marketing world is always changing, and so are your audiences and their purchasing habits. Hence, this will be even more difficult in 2023 and in the years ahead.
Vartika Kashyap, ProofHub
5. Adjusting To Changing Consumer Behavior
By 2023, it’s expected that there will be a higher percentage of millennials and Gen Z consumers than any other age group. These generations are unique in that they are the first to have grown up with digital technology embedded in their lives. They are also more skeptical of advertising and brands and are more likely to research products before purchasing.
Marketers will need to find new ways to reach and engage this tech-savvy, brand-conscious generation if they want to remain successful in the years to come. One effective way to reach millennial and Gen Z consumers will be through influencer marketing. This type of marketing involves working with popular social media users to promote your product or brand. Influencers typically have a large following of engaged users, and their endorsement can help to increase brand awareness and reach new customers.
Erik Emanuelli, ErikEmanuelli.com
6. Staying Up-to-date with New and Emerging AI Capabilities
The most pressing challenge will be staying up to date with new and emerging artificial intelligence capabilities. With new AI techniques and methods coming online every day, it can easily make your current marketing plan obsolete. Using industry news filters like Feedly will prevent your team from missing out on AI-based advantages as soon as they’re available.
Anamika Goyal, Cottage
7. Talent Acquisition and Retention
The pandemic may have accelerated the shift towards remote and hybrid work models, but this trend will gain more momentum in 2023. With many employees now opting for remote work over in-office job positions, talent acquisition and retention have proved to be a challenge across sectors, including the marketing space.
Marketing managers will struggle with employee turnover unless they offer flexible work options. But since every marketing role cannot provide remote and hybrid positions, marketers will continue to fight acquisition and retention battles until they find a solution that works for employees and organizations.
Kris Harris, Nootka Saunas
8. The Need to Become More Interactive
We can already see the direction that marketing is going towards with the spread of augmented and virtual reality technologies. More companies and brands are offering their audience a personalized and interactive ad experience. With the Metaverse growing, many companies and marketing strategies are integrating the same technologies. Companies that do not get on board will be left behind as users expect more personalization and interactivity.
The biggest challenge for marketers in 2023 will be to enhance the user experience and offer a personalized, interactive experience.
Nicole Thelin, Low Income Relief
9. Managing Huge Databases
One of the biggest challenges that marketers will encounter in 2023 is data management. Valuable data from multiple sources is essential and should be secured. Data organization, safety, and management are vulnerable to attacks in a world where cybercrime is rampant. It is essential to use the data properly, map out marketing plans, and use the correct data to determine the target audience. Data should be secure but easily and quickly accessible for business purposes.
The path to achieving well-organized databases is where the challenge comes in. The process is expensive because the aim is to perform data integration that will eliminate breaches and human errors.
Leah Wanjiku Gathoni, NearbyMovers
10. How to Analyze Results and Achieve Transparency
We allot a significant amount of our revenue (about 8%) to marketing across various channels and work with many vendors. Ensuring we have accurate data on engagement, leads, and conversions is so incredibly vital to us as a small business and also incredibly difficult to analyze and audit. If we are re-investing into the business each year via digital marketing, our biggest challenge going into 2023 is the transparency of performance across channels and campaigns.
Parker Evensen, Gunther Motor Company
If you’re looking to add more marketing skills to your repertoire, check out these blog posts:
- How 9 Digital Marketing Experts Have Changed Their Strategy in the Last 12 Months
- What Marketing Professionals Wished They Had Learned in School
If you’re an educator looking for up-to-date resources to prepare your students for a successful career in marketing, check out Stukent’s turnkey courseware and simulations for the following subjects:
