No matter what the goals for your business are this year – tweaking development plans, searching for new growth opportunities, or solidifying your name on social media – it’s always good to know the latest trends and base your plans on them.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of emerging small business trends for 2023 so that you’d be in the know and ahead of the curve. So, take a look at the intel we’ve gathered from various publications below and see where your goals could mirror the latest trends.
Accessibility
Accessibility starts with awareness, and awareness brings us to topics like inclusivity, justice, and a sense of community online. In fact, these are the topics that set the rules of internet use in these recent years, and it goes to show that this societal shift was long-awaited and is much welcomed by all of us.
Now, what you can do here, is to improve your website accessibility and meet the standards of WCAG 2.0, also known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In an ideal world, reading these guidelines should be the first step for any business to create its website. Don’t hesitate to include people with disabilities to help build the most accessible webpage.
A good example here is The New York Times website that has been recently enhanced to provide alt-text by placing photo caption in HTML, added downloadable Braille files, and have audio versions of all their articles.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, isn’t just for tech connoisseurs anymore, as it can actually be beneficial and simple to use for small businesses, too. It automates tasks to save time, improves customer service, and helps with data analysis. And absolutely any small business can benefit from that!
Here’s one example – chatbots. They are excellent in improving customer service or just making your website more interactive. And if you ask us, both are equally important in generating sales. Another thing such a chatbot could do is suggest items your customers might be interested in and guide them to bigger purchases this way.
Besides chatbots, search engines, and everyday AI like social media news feeds, artificial intelligence can help you with a ton of time-requiring tasks, from text speech generators like Murf, to content creators like Neuraltext, and even influencer campaign automatizations like Agenic Influence.
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Mobile Marketing
With smartphones getting, well, smarter each year, the tendency is clear – more and more people will use them as their sole gateway to the internet. In fact, World Advertising Research Center predicts that by 2025, 72.6% of internet users will become mobile-only users. So, investing in mobile marketing should be a crucial next step in your business development plan.
You should probably start by ensuring that your mobile page is just as simple to use as the desktop version. Make sure the design is responsive and easy to navigate, your call-to-actions stand out, and you have a ‘back to top’ button everywhere it needs to be. If all of this is up to standard, your Google rankings might even move up a bit since this search engine, in particular, relies on mobile-first indexing.
Tip: An easy way to stay on top of mobile marketing trends would be to work with one of the platforms that offer holistic insight into social media trends and best content creation practices, like Agenic Control.
Personalized Customer Service
These days, customers expect businesses to know their exact needs and respond to them in a timely manner. So, adapting your customer service to each of their specific needs and providing a smooth customer journey is crucial if you want your brand image and customer satisfaction to improve.
Employ tools that will help you gather the information on your customers – start with Google Analytics, and search for more elaborate versions of data-gathering if that’s not enough to cover your needs. These data-gathering tools can help you glean useful intel on your customers, like how they find your website, which products they come for the most often, and the driving force behind their purchase decisions.
If you’re looking for a real game-changer in learning all there is about your audience – from the sentiment, they attach to your business to what messages truly speak to them, aim to add social listening to your marketing and business development toolkit.
Once you have all the data you need, you can use it to tailor your customer’s personal experience. Be it an automated email for subscribing or custom coupons based on their purchase history, the options to personalize are quite a few (and all very welcomed by your clients!).
Online Communities
We all have this idea that every business needs to have a solid appearance on social media channels; however, not everyone is sure just why they need it. See, social media platforms are the cheapest and probably the most effective way to spread the word about your establishment and promote it to your target audience. That could be done in various ways, but the one that seems to be trending (and really appreciated by people) is creating an online community. Think of it as creating a Facebook group, making webinars, offering online courses, or even creating a blog – any space where you could share your expertise on your industry without actually spending too much effort in promoting it.
And don’t be afraid if you don’t gain much traction at first! Patience here is the key, but once people figure out that you are, in fact, sharing intel they can’t find anywhere else, the audience will flock around you, trust your opinion, and model their purchase decisions based on it.
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Data Transparency
Transparency is commendable in every business dealing, but where people want it the most these days is personal data handling. As per Harvey Jang, Cisco’s vice president, deputy general counsel and chief privacy officer:
“Organizations need to explain their data practices in simple terms and make them readily available so that customers and users can understand what is going on with their data.”
If your business page handles any kind of personal information, it is crucial to provide and implement a privacy policy on your website. The privacy policy is a statement issued by you, as the website and business owner, stating the ways the website collects, stores, and manages the data of its visitors. Having this statement will also fulfill a legal requirement to protect the information about your customers.
Be as transparent as possible about your practices, and it will bring your business credibility and gain the trust of your customers.
Sustainability
Mass production is a thing of the past, and now, finally, we’ve put our collective minds to stopping climate change in its tracks. And it reflects in the policies of all businesses – from tiny to world-famous and the demands set by customers. So, look for ways to make your business more sustainable, check out the ideas suggested by your clients, and know that the sustainability trend isn’t going anywhere, growing larger and larger with each year instead.
Takeaway Note
As you can see, some of the trends followed us from the last year (like personalized customer service, sustainability, and online communities), and some emerged in full force only now (like AI-based business solutions). So, if you haven’t had the time to up your accessibility game or deal with sustainability as of yet, it’s as good time as any to start setting your business to these truly important trends.
However, if you need some help in keeping up with smaller, everyday trends on social media, too, check out our social listening tool called Agenic Control. With the help of this platform, you’ll be able not only to stay on top of social media trends but also to create the most relatable content that’s tailor-made to your audience.
SOCIAL LISTENING ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE
