Digital marketing is a path toward success for businesses. Digitalization has done things extremely beneficial to the world, including all countries and businesses. Thailand is the most digitally advanced country in Southeast Asia. It has the most extensive 5G telecommunications network system among Southeast Asias countries. This gives recognition to Thailand as one of the most advanced data centers in the world.
Thailand’s Further Steps Into digitization
Thailand could have earned the title of ‘digitized country’ from the extension of the internet infrastructure. This extension has led to the enlargement of internet usage, and it significantly penetrated people’s daily lives. From 2017 to 2019, the number of internet users in Thailand significantly increased from 65% to 72%, resulting in a total of 54.5 million internet users in 2022. The figure has been constantly increasing and is projected to grow up to approximately 60 million by 2026.
All these statistics indicate how digital marketing has become so crucial in all commercial industries. Digital marketing is not a choice anymore, it is a must-have for all types of businesses. Especially, ever since it helps businesses to gain a competitive advantage through the usage of digital transformation. However, digital marketing is known as the fastest-growing industry. As such, a massive number of people are engaging via the internet, it is only going to increase further and larger. Therefore, staying on top of digital trends helps businesses advance their competitiveness and greater ROI.
Digital Marketing Trends in 2023
There is no doubt that there will be a new digital transformation emerging in 2023. Hence, it is important to be aware of and get ready to adjust your digital marketing strategies now. Before heading into the new year, have your digital marketing strategy all set and gain a superb competitive advantage.
Tailored Short-Form Videos for Digital Marketing
Nowadays, short-form videos are everywhere and have become increasingly essential to digital marketing strategies. Social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and especially TikTok have expanded their short-form video offerings. Videos on these platforms range from 10 seconds to 3 minutes, and the average length of short-form videos are between 30 to 60 seconds. The use of short-form videos in Thailand has grown rapidly and in fact, it became today’s most popular type of content. Its popularity is attributed to its snackable duration and digestible information. The videos are designed to be concise and easily absorbed in a few seconds, hence, they have a higher retention rate.
Based on a recent report, a significant growth of short-form video has been found in 2022. There had already been a steady growth. However, globally, the point reached 1.5 billion people who consume short-form videos daily in 2022. In fact, short-form videos account for around 80% of all mobile data traffic at the moment. Shortly, it is predicted to make up 90% of all internet traffic in 2023.
This year, short-form videos rank at the top of the list of marketing options in the world including Thailand. It is also predicted to continue to have the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy in 2023. Practically, there will be more businesses and marketers leveraging short-form videos to promote brands and products in 2023.
User-Generated Content
In Thailand, user-generated content (UGC) made a significant wave in 2022, and this recent trend continues to gain popularity. UGC is created and published by unpaid contributors, normally target audiences. UGC is a big win for brands because it is often very effective when increasing brand awareness and boosting social engagement. This content is generated in many forms, such as photos, videos, reviews, or testimonials.
UGC has grown right along with the rise of social media platforms, as users’ postings became more frequent and impressive. In a recent study, more than 92% of customers surveyed trust reviews and recommendations in UGC more than business generated contents. Around 70% of them answered that they heavily rely on social media’s UGC when they make purchase decisions. In 2023, UGC will be preferred by larger audiences. UGC on social media increased the conversion rate by 41% over the last year and the conversion rate is projected to grow higher in 2023.
Many businesses have already started UGC for their marketing campaigns. However, they have to be aware that even more businesses will begin using UGC on social media in 2023. The key to a successful UGC in 2023 is to keep UGC authentic and trustworthy. It will make your brand stand out for consumers and elevate your brand’s competitiveness.
Influencer Thailand: An overview of the market
Influencer Thailand‘s market is a comparatively recent digital marketing trend, but it has quickly become an essential strategy for modern businesses. The global market’s engagement with social media increased during the pandemic, and influencers began actively sharing their content.
Thailand is one of the leading countries for influencer marketing. A recent study indicates that around 77% of Thais aged 25-34 have purchased a product after being promoted by influencers. This proves that Thai consumers are highly engaged with influencers in Thailand and that it significantly impacts their purchasing decisions as well.
Global Outlook on Influencer Marketing
From a global perspective, influencer marketing is also profitable. The global influencer market grew from $9.7 billion in 2020 to $13.8 billion in 2021. In 2022, it reached $16.4 billion and it’s expected to grow even higher in 2023. For influencer marketing, Instagram is still the most used platform in 2022, both globally and locally.
However, TikTok is the fastest growing social media channel for influencer marketing campaigns In 2021, TikTok earned 2.3% of the share of influencer marketing spending in 2019. By 2022, it earned 10.2% and is projected to grow even higher by the end of 2023. Based on this prediction, marketers are expected to spend about $1.32 billion on TIkTok influencer marketing in 2023. This amount is two times higher compared to 2021 and nearly four times higher than 2022.
Rise of Nano and Micro Influencers
While the influencer marketing industry shows steady growth, the internal market trend has been continuously transformed as well. Previously, the major strategy for influencer marketing was to collaborate with influencers who have larger followers.
Now, massive numbers of followers are no longer as significant for achieving target outcomes. The latest trend is to collaborate with nano and micro-influencers. Nano and micro-influencers often have a stronger relationship with their followers. Their followers have higher engagement with their content, and their purchase decision is more exceptionally influenced.
In fact, nano and micro-influencers in Southeast Asia have made dominant achievements in 2022. More brands in Southeast Asia partnered with nano and micro-influencers this year, and it’s attributed to these influencers’ outstanding trustworthiness rate. Including Thailand, around 61% of customers in Southeast Asia said they prefer to purchase products based on nano and micro-influencers’ recommendations. Especially in Thailand, customers rely on recommendations from nano and micro-influencers more than anyone.
Based on this statistics, nano and micro-influencers will continue to be recognized as the most vital influencers tiers in Thailand in 2023. These influencers are expected to attract even larger niche communities next year. Therefore, the influencer marketing trend will remain focused on nano and micro-influencer campaigns.
Live Stream Content and digital marketing
Today, digital technology transformation has reached a new point: live streaming. Live streaming videos’ public adoption is often attributed to the COVID 19 pandemic. During the pandemic, live streaming has become especially indispensable for digital marketing, and it proved its popularity and profitability.
Globally, the annual live streaming consumption rate has increased by approximately 20% from 2020 to 2022. This indicates how effectively live streaming trend penetrated people’s daily lives in a short period of time. About 15% of individuals ages between 18 to 34 around the world admit they watch live streaming content more than once every day. This supports the fact that live streaming videos capture attention around 10 to 20 times longer than pre-recorded videos.
Thai Audience Engage with Live Stream Content
Following this global trend, Thailand also adopted a live streaming. There has been a rapid growth in the number of live streaming users in Thailand since 2020. The user count has increased by 24.8% (1.2 million users) per year from 2020 to 2022.
The number is predicted to rise continuously, and the user count is forecasted to reach 5.14 million users by 2023. The revenue also shows a constant annual growth. From 2020 to 2022, the total revenue of live streaming in Thailand increased from $125 million to $171 million. The revenue is expected to reach around $200 million within 2023, this is about a 65% increase compared to 2022.
A Great Opportunity for Marketers
Live streaming adoption and expansion enables marketers to capitalize on monetization opportunities, as the service navigates the explosion of ecommerce. Including Thailand, Southeast Asia’s livestream ecommerce market reached around $18 billion in 2022. This accounts for about 20% of live streaming ecommerce sales worldwide, and Thailand has experienced the highest growth in sales among Southeast Asian countries.
Driven by the pandemic, this new live streaming phenomenon successfully attracted Thai customers. It provided a unique experience for both consumers and businesses; therefore, it’s expected to be consistently spotlighted in 2023. Live streaming marketing effectively creates a connection with target customers, and allows closer communication between the host and audience. It’s high affordability and engagement with audiences continuously attract businesses and marketers. It enables them to keep utilizing this real time service within their digital marketing strategy today.
TikTok and the New Generation of Consumers
TikTok has become a major player in the social media marketing space. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have dominated social media space for a long time. However, TikTok has opened a new social media era by carving out a niche for itself.
Popularity of TikTok in Thailand
TikTok has over 1 billion users from 150 different countries worldwide. Currently, 35 million of the Thai population consume TikTok daily. In Thailand, TikTok has the highest engagement rate compared to Instagram or YouTube, and the rate continues to increase. In 2022, TikTok’s net worth is estimated to be $75 billion, and it is the second highest after Facebook with $85 billion. Today, TikTok is the major consideration when businesses conduct marketing campaigns.
TikTok’s digital MARKETING tools for Business
TikTok is not just for consumers or creators anymore. Businesses have increased the highest investments for TikTok in 2022. TikTok is focusing on usability for businesses, and the platform is improving targeting options for advertising. In 2023, businesses and marketers are expected to invest a higher amount of money in TikTok’s paid advertisements.
For the past few years, the average non-paid click-through rate (CTR) was generally 1%. Now with the paid-advertising services in TikTok, the average CTR results in 5-7%, and some top-views get up to 16%. Creator licensing efficiently prevents viewers from skipping businesses’ ads on TikTok. Compared to other social media paid ads campaigns, TikTok offers higher achievements. TikTok also provides wider advertising options.
In addition, these targeting options enable marketers to choose delivery methods regarding target audiences’ tastes and preferences. TikTok has in-feed advertising, image advertising, video advertising, and spark advertising. In 2022, spark advertising allowed brands to gain about 20% higher completion rate and 140% higher engagement rate than other advertisements. TikTok’s paid advertising will maintain its popularity in 2023. TikTok’s business tools will become more simplified, and its usability will continue to be updated to make it easier for businesses to succeed.
Internet Privacy in Digital Marketing
Along with the rise of digital marketing transformation, internet privacy concerns have been raised at the same time. Internet privacy concerns have been raised for several years and have become one of the major problems in digital marketing. These privacy concerns significantly impact digital marketing’s daily processes and internet users’ daily life as well.
Google, Firefox and Safari are all working on improving website privacy. One major change waiting to hit the digital marketing industry is third-party cookies removal. Google has committed to remove third-party tracking data in 2021. There will be no alternative tracking identifiers replaced, instead Google will introduce a new technology called ‘Privacy Sandbox’. This significant change will be made by Google starting in 2023.
This internet privacy transformation will crucially impact businesses’ online websites. There will be some significant changes on onsite and banner advertising display. Moreover, their websites won’t be able to track cookies to populate advertisements anymore. This new change will hinder marketers from collecting data and make it more difficult to build those profiles. Businesses will have to prepare for this unprecedented transformation, and need to modify their digital marketing strategy accordingly. In fact, more than 80% of digital marketers are actively preparing for this huge change. Businesses and marketers must be aware of the consequences of third-party cookies termination, and better be familiar with its new Privacy Sandbox technology.
Influencer House
The rise of new digital marketing trends in 2023 will significantly change businesses’ digital marketing strategies. Businesses of all sectors should be ready for this new digital evolution before heading into 2023. Influencer House can help you with the preparation.
We provide smart solutions for your business using the latest technology of data analysis, AI, and Machine Learning. Influencer House creates added value for brands by offering the trendiest digital marketing campaigns that ensure the highest ROI. In order to get more information, please contact us through our email at inquiries@influencerhouse.co.th or visit our website.