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Replay of Episode 136: My Marketing Predictions for 2023
Today we’re doing something a little bit different here on Chasing Simple. For this episode, I’m going to be giving you a replay of an episode I released a year ago. Episode 136: My Marketing Predictions for 2023. This episode aired originally on November 29, 2022. And the reason I’m replaying it for you is so that we can discuss it next week.
Often, you’ll see podcasters put out these types of episodes about their predictions, but you don’t usually see them go back and talk about them later. But I thought that would be fun, so today you’ll hear my 2023 predictions again, and then next week I’ll go over where I was wrong and where I got things right.
My hope is that this series is informative for you as you move into planning for 2024, but also that it’s a fun break from all of the end of year hustle that we’ve been doing lately between Black Friday and the Christmas season coming up.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Really quickly, before we dive into this episode – I just HAVE to share something I’m really excited about with you. My book, Chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion. But without that Masters of Business Administration (MBA) or background in business, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating. Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity-focused journey to improve your content marketing and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing, so that you can fit your marketing into your business, without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your copy, and even potentially get on the launch team head over to amandawarfield.com/book/ See you there!
- This week’s episode is brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.com/planner/
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
Today we’re doing something a little bit different here on Chasing Simple. For this episode, I’m going to be giving you a replay of an episode I released a year ago. Episode 136, my marketing predictions for 2023. This episode aired originally on November 29th, 2022. And the reason I’m replaying it for you is so that we can discuss it next week.
Often, you’ll see podcasters put out these types of episodes about their predictions, but you don’t usually see them go back and talk about those predictions later. But I thought it would be fun, so today you’ll hear my 2023 predictions again, and then next week I’ll go over where I was wrong and where I got things right.
My hope is that this series is informative for you as you move into planning for 2024, but also that it’s a fun break from all of the year end hustle that we’ve been doing lately between Black Friday and the Christmas season coming up and the end of the year is just a lot, so I hope that this is a nice little fun break to just enjoy some content without feeling a lot of pressure to do something about it.
You’re listening to episode 188 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your own for 2024 planning at amandawarfield. com / planner.
How do I find time to create content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically? Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing.
Welcome friend, this is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist. speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or
Helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation.
They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing… Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week, offering you transparent conversations, actionable steps.
And judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating, your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship together. Really quickly before we dive into this episode, I just.
Have to share something that I’m really excited about with you. My book, chasing simple marketing is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but without that masters of business administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing.
Overwhelming and frustrating throughout these pages. I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business.
To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amandawarfeld. com book. I’ll see you there. My first prediction is that everyone is going to do exactly what they should not do. And by that, I mean that typically in a recession, the first thing people want to cut is marketing.
Which, I get it, marketing typically is a large part of your operating expenses, right? But, it is the last thing that you should be cutting. And I know, you’re like, Amanda, Great. You’re a marketing person. Like, obviously this is what you’re going to say, but this is not just me. Okay. Think about it when you cut your marketing and you no longer are marketing as much as you were before.
What’s going to happen to your leads? That pool is going to get smaller. And what’s going to happen to your sales if your leads pool gets smaller? Well, your sales are also going to get smaller, right? It’s just the nature of it. Marketing is simply the attracting people to your space and nurturing them once they’re there so that they become leads that turn into sales.
If you aren’t marketing, you are not bringing those leads in like you were previously. And frankly, if we move into a recession, they’re going to cut back naturally anyways, and so you’re really extra cutting back on that. I don’t want to say doubling because I would just be pulling that number out of thin air, but not only is it going to get cut back because people aren’t going to be buying as much if we move into a recession, but then also you’re minimizing those leads that you had anyways.
So it would be a double whammy for you to cut back on your marketing. And here’s the thing. There may be ways that you can tighten up your marketing. budget. I’m not going to give examples of that because it just wouldn’t feel fair, but there are ways you could tighten up your budget. I just want you to do it strategically.
Pour into a strong marketing strategy and plan and cut back on other costs where you can for the upcoming year. Do not cut yourself off doubly from potential sales and leads because marketing’s your largest expense. That is just natural and that’s just the way businesses run a lot of times. Now, my second prediction, and this is one that I am absolutely already seeing happening, is that shops and smaller items are going to be easier for people to commit to.
And this is a two fold issue, okay? So first, obviously money is going to be an issue. If we move into a recession, people are going to be buying less, and they’re only going to be buying what they feel like is absolutely necessary. And so money is going to be an issue. Not only are people only going to be buying what they feel like is absolutely necessary, but they’re also going to be more likely to DIY things.
They’re going to be more likely to say, Okay, well, I know that they’re an expert, but I just can’t put the money down for that right now. But, I could do a smaller offer that they have. So, having digital products, if you don’t have them already, I highly urge you to start thinking about how you can turn some of your bigger offers into digital products, or parts of your bigger offers into digital products, so that people who are really concerned about money and really have to tighten things down, as a lot of us probably will be, will be able to DIY.
What they need to DIY for the next year or however long and then when things get better and feel better They’re gonna come back to you as the expert. Okay, the other issue I said this issue was twofold So there’s the money I guess you could count the DIY thing as a second So maybe let’s say threefold the other issue that kind of plays into this is The fact that time is going to be a large component of this.
So I’m not saying that no high ticket items are gonna sell. That’s just not true. They will. It may be harder to sell them, but they will. But I predict that we are going to See people more willing to commit to a high ticket VIP day than a high ticket ongoing group coaching program or membership or One to one offering if it’s something that has a time commitment.
I I think that we’re going to see people less and less likely to commit to those. Again, that doesn’t mean you need to shut down all of your offers like this. I’m definitely not saying that. I’m just saying to prepare for that, and a good way to prepare for that, is to start thinking about, okay, could you offer and implement a VIP day?
Could you offer and implement digital products? What are some ways that you can diversify your different revenue streams and give people other options because people are going to be very hesitant to commit to any ongoing type of commitment where they’re like, well, I’m committed to paying X amount every single month for six months.
They’re just not going to because we’re, we’re afraid because we don’t know. What the next six months are going to hold. So, I guess you could call that threefold. There’s a time issue, there’s the money issue, and there’s also the issue where people are just going to be wanting to DIY things. So, shops, smaller items, VIP days, other revenue streams, start thinking about those.
Don’t cut back on what you’ve already got. But start thinking about other ways that you could have different revenue streams to serve people in different ways. Now my third prediction. Is that you’re going to move to TikTok. I really hope you will move to TikTok. Here’s the deal. I see every day. I’ve been talking about TikTok for months and months and months and months and months now.
Months. You can go all the way back to episodes 111 and 112 where I debrief a lot of what I was doing on TikTok way back at the beginning of the year. Okay, I’ve been talking about TikTok since February. This is airing in November. Almost every single inquiry I’m getting at this point for my Disney business is coming from TikTok.
I went viral once on my cat account over a month ago at this point. And I am daily getting just 8, 10, 12, 20 followers still a day on that account because of that one video. And I’m not doing anything with that account, it’s literally just for fun, but it showcases the power of growth that TikTok has right now.
And I’ve talked about this in the past, but every social media channel has A life cycle, and a lot of us right now are really resistant to moving over to TikTok because Instagram feels like our place, but I need to remind you that change is inevitable as a business owner, and we have to adapt. We have to adapt, and if you think that your people are not on TikTok and that you’re too old, you’re wrong.
I promise you, you’re wrong. One of the men that’s running for governor of South Carolina right now, he’s gotta be in his 40s, 50s maybe. He is racing up the polls because he’s using TikTok. Racing. And let’s just say no one ever thought that he would be anywhere close. Racing the polls because he’s using TikTok because he recognizes that that is the place to grow your platform right now.
I know that it’s uncomfortable. I know that we’re overwhelmed and we don’t want to learn new things, but you’re not too old. Your audience is there. I tend to see millennials, especially lurking. They’re not so much the ones making a ton of videos, although it’s becoming more and more common, but they’re lurking and they’re there.
I promise you. And they’re sending TikToks to each other. They are sharing like crazy in their various DMS behind the scenes. As business owners, we have to change with the times. Especially if we’re running online businesses, and especially if content marketing is a large portion of how we get our leads, and it’s a large portion of how we market.
And if you want to talk about TikTok, I’m happy to do that with you. I get it. It’s, it’s a lot, okay? And we all felt so comfortable on Instagram, but Instagram… At this point, it’s a great place to nurture the people you already have. It’s a great place to nurture your superfans. It is not a great place to grow.
And frankly, it’s not a great place to nurture people that aren’t superfans. Because if they’re not actively looking for your stuff, they’re going to have a hard time seeing it. It’s not going to show up as often, or hardly at all. So, number three, TikTok. You’re going to move over there. I’m going to see a lot more business owners over there.
I promise, I know it’s overwhelming. Just get on there and make your own account. Okay, and just spend some time on it. Check out the culture, play around on it, see what’s getting posted, see what you enjoy, and just, just check it out. That’s all you need to do, okay? Now, the fourth prediction I have is that relationships are going to be more important than ever.
And I feel like this is probably a no brainer, you know, if we’re thinking about business Um, even outside of a recession, obviously relationships are incredibly important. The people in your network, the people that you lean on, all of that, always so important. But it’s going to be more important than ever during a recession, if that’s what we’re moving into because we trust referrals that someone gives us more than we will ever trust any other kind of marketing.
Do I buy from people that I randomly find on TikTok and Instagram? Absolutely. Am I 100 percent more likely to buy if I’m already following someone and then someone I know says, oh my gosh, yeah, I love their stuff. Absolutely. Relationships are going to be more important than ever. Lean into the people in your circle.
Lean into the people in your network. And lean into the people… That are already purchasers from you serve them so, so well, that relationship marketing is going to be more important than ever moving into the new year. So to recap those 4 predictions, first and foremost. The first thing that everyone cuts, it’s going to be marketing, but it should be the last thing you’re cutting.
So I really encourage you to really focus on your marketing strategy and plan and cut back in other ways throughout your operating expenses. Two, shops and smaller items and easily consumable, digestible items, like a VIP day, are going to be a lot easier for people to commit to. Three, TikTok is going to continue to be the place where people are going to grow as far as content marketing and social media goes.
And four, relationships are going to be more important than ever. So your action step for this week is to make your TikTok account. Don’t worry about posting on it. Don’t worry about coming up with your strategy. Don’t worry about doing anything except create your TikTok account. And just see what’s on there.
It’s going to take some time. If you give it one hour and you’re like, this is stupid. You did not give it enough time. Okay. The for you page will get scarily accurate, but you have to give it time to see what it is that you’re interacting with. Okay. So get on Tik TOK and just interact with it. Get on there for 20 minutes a day or 10 minutes a day.
Whatever feels good for you. So that timer and get on there and then just. Let it evolve so you can get into the culture and see what happens. But I want you to start your TikTok account. That’s your action step. And your book recommendation for this week is The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis. And Fiona Davis does such a good job weaving two very different and separate storylines together.
And I, I’m pretty sure I’ve shared about another one of her books previously as one of the, like, book recommendations of the week. But this one is so good. It parallels… two different models in two very different time periods that are struggling financially, and the models themselves aren’t related at all, but they both somehow end up involved.
With the same family and mansion decades apart. And it’s just, it’s very intriguing. She does a really good job of weaving those two different parallel storylines together. So, The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis, I highly recommend and I will link to that in the show notes. Alright my friend, don’t forget.
Send me a DM, send me an email. I would love to hear your thoughts on your predictions for marketing in 2023. And until next time, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your life in biz.
Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast, and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
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