Marketing is a disco ball of shifting priorities. It’s exciting and shimmery, but staying on top of it all can be challenging! And while the seventies are back in vogue, you don’t need to trend with the bell-bottoms and earth tones. Savy is here to help you get in on the trends worth following. Whatever your marketing flavor, our creative agency can put ourselves to work for you. Here are five top marketing trends that led the pack in 2023, starting with short-form video content.

Enter: The Short-Form Video Trend

Short-form video content is more than a Snicker’s ad for bite-sized content. It’s a way to engage with a brand while learning something new and having an experience. This rare combo is a format that lends itself to, yes, TikTok, but also Facebook and Instagram Reels, embedded video on landing pages, and more.

A short-form video by industry standards, is under 60 seconds. Without discussing attention spans, the truth is in the data on how social media users consume content. Here’s a stat that applies mostly to B2C customer bases: “58% of viewers will finish watching videos in under a minute. But if the video is over 20 minutes, only 24% of them will do that.”

Trends are similar for B2B audiences as well. The industry is moving toward sub-minute video formats to learn quickly and effectively. See how Leading Edge Flight Academy, a long-time client of Savy, is leveraging short-form Reels to educate its audience about flight and what it takes to become a future commercial pilot! 

Become a Multi-Channel Storytelling Powerhouse Through Visual Assets

Before visual storytelling, most businesses relied on referrals or word-of-mouth to spread their message effectively. While that is still the case in niche industries, most have shifted to the social proof of branding, logo, and social media presence to vouch for them. That’s why most people prefer to feel what your brand is before being told. 

In our visual age, it’s important to remember that the most powerful and effective marketing and brand stories serve our basic human needs before anything else. So whether your brand is about adventure, conservation, or the brilliance of innovation, showcasing that message through multi-channel visual storytelling is an asset. From social grids and website landing pages to blogs and paid ads, it’s one of the most effective ways to present your brand as a cohesive front. 

See how Savy helped Expion 360, an industry-leading lithium battery company, increase online store conversion by 28%, increase search traffic by 93%, and increase orders by a whopping 221% thanks to an effective multi-channel storytelling and branding strategy. 

Get That Green (Not Just Cash)

Sustainability trends in marketing are solidly here to stay. Everyone from ethically produced fashion to top airlines is embracing this, with carbon offset opportunities at checkout to encourage travelers to pay it forward with projects like tree-planting or carbon-neutral initiatives.

By showing sustainability commitments in the form of fair-trade certifications or transparency around the reduction of water and energy usage, consumers can consider the real cost of what their dollar supports. This act helps people more clearly advocate for the brands they love. 

With the value for sustainability shared by millennials and Gen Z alike, this trend isn’t going away anytime soon. Check out how our ranching client, Oreganic Beef, is cultivating conversations around land sustainability and stewardship through its generational farming practices and refusal to use pesticides. 

Scale Faster by Embracing Help From AI 

AI is a grab-bag term for technologies that automate. And while things like chatbots and machine learning dominate the headlines, here’s why this is a good thing. Manual tasks like lead sourcing, answering basic FAQ questions, and customer inquiries are met with faster response times from automated chatbot technologies.

Additionally, not all companies are large enough to sustain full-time customer support staff or need time to ramp up profits before hiring more staff. AI makes this effortless. Even the marketing industry is getting an overhaul to its content production and research, with technologies like Google’s Bard, Grammarly, and the illustrious ChatGPT. 

Learn how Savy clients, like Pahlisch Homes, embrace automated and live-chat tools to encourage immediate engagement with customers visiting their website to explore home-buying opportunities in their community.  

Animation Station: Using Movement to Attract Attention

Animation is changing the way we relate to brands. Whether through illustrative effects on a website homepage or in an informational video, animation shares some crossover with short-form video in its benefits. It is engaging, show-versus-tell content and is a great way to spice up an email campaign or blog. See our client, Josie’s Best Gluten-Free Baking Mixes, for some fun, foodie animations.

GIFs (moving graphics) are another tangible example of how to try this trend out in a way that audiences recognize and enjoy. 3D animation is another effective and eye-catching trend for B2C and B2B companies. Animation helps brands showcase products online to gain a more realistic view of a location, like companies that offer 3D walkthroughs of floorplans.

Navigate Through Trends Successfully With a Creative Agency

While we’ve covered seventies fashion trends to GIFs and ChatGPT, you don’t need to do it all to outpace your competitors if you have an effective, targeted strategy for your industry. A creative agency can help you outpace the next brand and experience a big payoff with your marketing. But don’t take our word for it. Check out our work to see how brands harness these trends, or contact us to see how we can put these to work for you!