The other day I received a newsletter reading –If you are a content marketer, this is your must-have tool for 2023.

Apart from a good email marketing tactic, the newsletter did not offer much for me. The must-have tool was a content calendar with general features and one new ‘magical’ column where you can add your comments. My heart screamed SCANDAL!

Soon, we all will witness the top-trend content culture, ranging from ‘top trends for marketers in 2023′, ‘technologies for marketing in 2023’, to ‘new tools to use in 2023’, and more. In fact, many of them are already up at Google.

I am not against these lists. Some of these articles are genuinely good and well-researched and help businesses to choose the right tools and technology solutions to up their content marketing game. However, not every time do businesses or marketers need a new tool or a solution to realize their content marketing dreams.

I have been with teams who while allocating the budgets for the coming year, spend a lot of time researching which new tool or technology should they add to their content marketing dream board, only to repeat the process for the coming year. Why?

Well, they do thorough research on the trends, tools, technology coming in, features, benefits, and more, but forget to carry out an analysis within the organization. So, after purchasing their dream content marketing technology – like an AI solution, a new analytics tool, or a solution for data intent – they spend the next few months or sometimes an entire year understanding the implementation of these solutions.

While skilling up is not a bad thing at all- what concerns me is that sometimes the decision-makers overlook that the new-age technology solutions and tools return extraordinary results in a given time frame, only if the human resource is that well-trained before making the purchase.

Hello! What happened to conscious buying? Isn’t this one of the crucial tactics played on customers to make them realize how a particular product/service stands out?

That’s why ask-

1. Do I/my company need a technology upgradation for content marketing for the next year?
2. If yes, do I have the skill set already in place?
3. If not, how much time will it take to learn the new tools and technology solutions?
4. An estimate of ROI is a must. Are the return estimates worth the time, money, and human resource invested?

If the answers are positive, then my friend, let technology be your success-bringer in 2023.
If not, you can realize your 2023 content marketing goals with the following alternate path.

Offer Content-Experience-as-a-Service

It’s all about the experiences today you lend to your customers, subscribers, followers, and not-so-engaged audience. To enhance the overall content experience, strategize by unifying the experiences of targeted segments. Instead of creating buckets, create a database where you can view all the experience attributes as one.

Now, this is where technology will play an important role. But before that, plan all the aspects of content creation and distribution.

Focus on Fundamentals

Data-driven has been the buzzword this year. However, if you want to execute a successful content plan for 2023, move to meaning-driven. Every stat, piece of information, and knowledge acquired and analyzed contains an abundance of treasure for content planners. Dig deeper to discover the meaning of the data collected and base your content strategy on it. Keep a sharp eye on the emotional intent together with business and creative intent. Sync your customer base responses and the interpretations you are driving from them.

The more you focus on the meaning of data-the better content marketing strategy you have.

More v/s High-value Content

Social media content is a boiling example of what happens when you focus on numbers than quantity. If you scroll your social media accounts, say LinkedIn, you can find repetitive content, ideas, and values being shared. The rat race among the content creators to jump on every viral trend, and create as much as content possible is leading to content erosion (the crucial and meaningful content is getting either washed away in the feed or is getting little to no exposure due to the excess content).

We don’t want your content strategy to fall into the same trap. High-value content is the key to sustainability and brand recognition. Aiming for thought-leadership content will allow you to understand market scenarios, gaps, challenges, and leveraging areas better.

2023 is still in the box. What will it bring- who knows?

But right now, think-ask-write out your content marketing goals and the lessons learned this year. Every business is different, and so is every experience- set up a better dream and a better way to accomplish it.