Marketing in Kenya appears to be very exciting for the year 2023. Many brands have decided to increase their investments in digital media and tech as a result of embracing digital marketing. Online marketers in Kenya employ a variety of methods and tactics to stay one step ahead of the competition.
As a brand, it’s critical to be aware of the current market trends when it comes to digital marketing. You cannot regularly use the same digital marketing strategies and anticipate growth in your brand’s online presence. A successful brand should be able to adapt to changes and trends because some online marketing tactics and strategies become outdated over time. Are you interested in a top-rated digital marketing company in Kenya? Click Below.
Some Interesting Statistics for Kenya
- The internet advertising revenue in 2020 stood at KSH 3.4 trillion and will reach KSH 4.93 trillion in 2025.
- Ad spending in the Digital Advertising market reached US$72.55m in 2022.
- The market’s largest segment is Video Advertising with a market volume of US$26.32m in 2022.
- The average ad spending per user in the Social Media Advertising segment amounted to US$1.71 in 2022.
- In the Digital Advertising market, 65% of total ad spending will be generated through mobile in 2027.
How Can Prolyft Digital Solutions Help your Brand with Marketing in Kenya?
Looking for digital marketing agencies in Kenya? Prolyft Digital Solutions is a leading digital marketing agency headquartered in Mumbai, India with an office in Nairobi and operations in five countries.
We provide end-to-end digital solutions from functionality to social media, content and reach, etc. by understanding how customers respond to all media touch points. With many years of experience, new tech trends, and skilled experts, we deliver data-driven results and 24/7 support.
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- Increase your reach.
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What’s trending in Kenya now? There seems to be a new trend to learn about every day as marketing in Kenya transforms quickly. The good news is that firms that want to have more meaningful and authentic connections with their customers are driving all of these trends. Here are the ten trends that, in our opinion, will influence how you approach online marketing in Kenya in 2023 if you’re prepared for an exciting year full of innovation and change.
Read Now: How to Promote Your Business with Digital Marketing After the Pandemic
2023 Trends of Marketing in Kenya
Image credit – venngage
From tools for keyword research to short videos as brands learn to use new tech, marketing trends come and go. Brands cannot simply rely on their tried-and-true marketing best practices in this constantly changing market. Effective marketing strategies have changed to reflect the changes in consumer values and preferences. 2023 is expected to be an exciting year for marketing in Kenya due to emerging tech and consumer trends. The 10 marketing trends listed below will help you stand out from the crowd.
1. Brands will invest more in content marketing
Image credit – E2M Solutions.
What content marketing is? It is a digital strategy used to attract, engage, and retain customers by creating and sharing relevant online material like articles, videos, and more. As per a recent report by HubSpot, 82% of marketers use content marketing actively. In 2023, brands will invest more and more in content marketing in Kenya and worldwide – short video trends, blogging, case studies, and more.
Short Videos
While the long-form video for marketing can provide audiences with a great deal of detail about a product, brand, or service, B2C and B2B marketers have discovered that short videos can actually be much more effective at getting to the point. As per HubSpot, 90% of global marketers will increase their investment in short videos, and 21% plan to leverage it for the first time in 2023.
Short videos use less bandwidth and are better suited to online audiences’ quick attention spans across a range of demographics. Due to this fact, platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc. have seen immense growth in the past year. In Kenya, ad spending in the video ads segment will reach US$26.32m in 2022 and US$31.93m by 2027.
Blogging
Image credit – Wpbeginner.
70% of people rather get information from blogs than traditional ads. There are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites in the world.
Since brands began creating their own websites, blogging has become a popular marketing tactic. However, the fact that a strategy is old shouldn’t mean it is no longer effective. In fact, the reason blogging has been practiced for so long is that it is effective.
Blogs help your website or online pages by increasing search visibility as well as consumer engagement and conversion. In the end, websites with active blogs have greater search potential and can more easily implement SEO tactics.
Case Studies
Image credit – easymanagementnotes
The target audience can get a very in-depth and unique look at how people or brands profit from a product, service, or strategy by reading long case studies. While others display them openly on their websites in an effort to convince potential customers as soon as possible. Others might offer them as free PDFs that must be downloaded with lead generation solutions and conversion.
Infographics
Image credit – i.visual.ly
Infographics are packed with useful data and educational information in addition to having the shareability and visual appeal of a nice photo. This makes them incredibly captivating to both audiences on social media and website visitors. 45% of marketers are already using infographics in 2022 and others plan to get on board with the trend.
2. Influencer marketing will evolve and grow
Image credit – Neil Patel.
1 in 4 marketers currently use influencer marketing and it offers the second-highest ROI after the short video trend. This trend will keep pace in 2023. You can leverage influencer marketing in Kenya with short videos to benefit from both trends at the same time as well. The global influencer market will grow to $22.2 billion by 2025.
Marketers can work with influencers to boost brand awareness and gain more fans from the influencer’s audience. If you can’t afford to work with a celebrity influencer, you can work with micro-influencers. A HubSpot study shows that 56% of marketers who want to invest in influencer marketing work with micro-influencers.
These influencers are social media promoters with a small following. They have few followers but a high level of engagement. Micro-influencers (or those with fewer than 1,000 followers) get 7 times the engagement rate than mega-influencers (100,000+ followers) on Instagram. These people have found a niche and now play a big role in lead conversions, connecting with the target audience, and creating more brand awareness. They are everyday people so their audience is more likely to trust their opinions and suggestions.
It is advised to not just look at the follower count of the influencers when checking if they are right for your brand, instead pay more attention to their engagement rates (clicks, purchases, etc.)
3. The shift in social media trends
Image credit – Hootsuite.
As per HubSpot’s 2022 Consumer Trends Survey, 20% of Gen Z and 25% of Millennials have contacted a brand on social media for customer service in 2022. Now social media is being used for customer service and this trend is picking up quickly. Many marketers already use direct messages (DMs) to provide customer support on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. These platforms are expanding their e-commerce capabilities.
What is trending in Kenya? The social media users in Kenya are about 11.8 million in 2022 and there are 4.55 billion active social media users globally. Because of this, social media marketing in Kenya has gained popularity and is now a critical part of almost every firm’s overall marketing plan.
Making genuine personal connections with your audience through social media marketing helps you personalize your brand. Looking for social media agencies in Kenya? Want to increase engagement? Prolyft Digital Solutions is one of the top social media marketing companies in Kenya.
Many social media sites are competing to become the next popular place for shopping. Facebook has Facebook Shops, Instagram has Instagram Shopping, and TikTok is testing a new e-commerce feature. As per a recent study by Shopify, Facebook continues to be the king of social media, with 2.93 billion active users in 2022. Followed by YouTube (2.52 billion), WhatsApp (2 billion), Instagram (1.39 billion), and WeChat (1.3 billion).
Read Now: Marketing to Gen Z – Your Strategy to Impress New-Gen Customers
4. Rise of new SEO strategies
Image credit – GoMage.
In order to get both long-term and short-term traffic returns, marketers need to make sure that their websites and content are as easily discoverable on Google and other search engines. Even though SEO is not a new concept, modern marketing strategies use SEO.
SEO comes in third place, behind influencer marketing and short videos when it comes to the trend that marketers will spend the most money on in 2023. As per HubSpot, 61% of marketers say improving SEO to grow their organic online presence is their top priority. SEO or Search Engine Optimization in Kenya has always been the best marketing strategy. Do you want the most exclusive SEO services in Kenya? Looking for the best SEO company in Kenya? Look no further than Prolyft Digital Solutions.
Optimize your keywords
Want to know about the best online marketing platforms in Kenya? To find out where you can improve your content with keyword-optimized titles, subheads, body text, or descriptions, you can use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to conduct some quick SEO keyword research related to your business, products, or upcoming content.
Video and image SEO
SEO involves more than just editing the text on a page. In order for a page to appear in Google images or search engine video carousels, it may also involve selecting and optimizing the apt videos and images for the page. Unlike video optimization strategies, which might involve embedding a video with a related topic or keyword into a blog post, image optimization methods might entail compressing files to speed up pages and adding keyword-optimized alt text to images.
Link building for search rankings
When highly ranked websites start linking to yours, Google’s crawlers take note that your site may be reliable and hold great domain authority. This may then increase your ranking on Google. Getting other websites to link to yours is the ultimate goal of link-building and marketing in Kenya. It can take time and effort to create highly shareable content, reach out to other websites to share it with, or make sure that your post receives links.
AI chat bots
When machines learn from experience, adjust to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks is artificial intelligence. 95% of customer interactions with brands will be through AI chat bots by 2025. Conversational marketing helps firms to engage with customers on a personal level.
As machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) continues to advance, brands can now use chat bots to address customer concerns and respond to real-time queries. Chat bots can help you increase customer engagement, raise customer satisfaction, and increase sales whether you’re providing support or generating leads through your website or social media platforms.
5. Mobile optimization will be key
Image credit – Evolve Systems.
UX (user experience) is more than just a trendy buzzword. It speaks of a person’s experience using a system. A user who has a positive experience with a product or brand will remain loyal to it and will use it again. Marketing in Kenya focuses on mobile optimization.
Your website or app is your most valuable marketing resource, and a great UX can make all the difference when trying to persuade top-of-funnel users to convert to customers. Looking for the best web designers in Kenya? Or the best web design companies in Kenya? Keep your site or app’s navigation simple, keep the layout straightforward, and avoid giving users too much data on the main landing pages with Prolyft Digital Solutions. Your website should be mobile-friendly as mobile phones generated 60.66% of website traffic in 2022.
6. Emphasis on social responsibility for business
Image credit – GeeksforGeeks.
By balancing their profit-making initiatives with socially beneficial practices, customers today give higher priority to brands that practice social responsibility. As per the CSR Report 2022, 85% of people have a positive image of a product or firm when it supports a cause they care about. And 92% want to buy a product or service that supports a cause.
Is social responsibility important? Yes, it is the current trend of marketing. To draw customers who want to make a difference with their purchases, experts have made it a point to highlight social responsibility initiatives in their campaigns when marketing in Kenya. Examples are as follows:
Using recyclable packaging
Spreading awareness about social issues
charitable donations of a portion of profits
running campaigns to donate goods to those in need on a one-for-one basis
7. AR/VR tools and apps
Image credit – MirrAR.
Meta (previously Facebook) unveiled their cutting-edge Metaverse in 2021. The need for marketers to include hybrid and mixed-reality experiences into their marketing mix has increased as a result. With virtual reality in Kenya, brands can use a simulated but realistic experience to market their goods or services.
While marketing in Kenya, many brands are embracing AR/VR tech, and global brands such as Sephora and Ikea, have already used AR strategies to draw in customers. Few have created fully immersive virtual reality experiences that call for a VR headset. The marketing landscape in 2023 will still be impacted by virtual try-on and branded Instagram filters, but this year, more avant-garde VR marketing strategies should take the spotlight.
8. New privacy marketing tactics
Data is extremely valuable in the marketing industry, and not just to you as a marketer or business owner. Customers view their data as valuable, whether it be an email address, credit card number, or smartphone location. You are entrusted to protect this data. Every business uses data, whether it is a hotel, bank, or government body. All aspects of marketing, sales, service, and other activities depend on it.
Are you looking for a hotel digital marketing company? Prolyft Digital Solutions has worked with popular hotels in Kenya like Ole Sereni, Villa MB by Xanadu Collection, and more.
Identity theft and data breaches have always been a problem, but as the number of cyber-attacks has increased, consumers are becoming more aware of how vulnerable their data is. In fact, big brands like Google and Apple are now speaking out in favor of user data privacy.
Apple IOS release in 2022 allowed users of iPhones and iPads to choose which apps could access their third-party data. Meanwhile, Google will stop using third-party cookies on Chrome and will instead encourage advertisers to use its Privacy Sandbox. Privacy marketing in Kenya is still in its nascent stage while the world takes center stage.
9. Automated email marketing
Image credit – Forbes.
Firms have uncovered the value of email for marketing over the past couple of years. There are 4 billion daily email users. This number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. And more than 306 billion emails are sent and received each day.
Users can interact with interactive email elements like image carousels, games, or embedded videos without leaving their inbox or visiting another page. Interactive emails allow users to change certain features without leaving their inbox or going to another page.
But Apple is coming out with a new privacy setting with the upcoming changes to data privacy that will actually stop brands from knowing when users open their email. Of course, if this happens, open rates will be much less reliable in 2023. But email marketing in Kenya is still a hit and will be in 2023 as well.
10. Brands will test native ads
Ads make a huge difference when marketing in Kenya. But now, nearly 50% of marketers who use native ads say it’s their top strategy for higher ROI, and more than 36% say it’s effective. You invest in a native ad when your brand pays to have content featured on a website owned by a different party. Native ads blend in and spread awareness of your brand to a new audience, as opposed to traditional ads, which are made to interrupt and stand out.
For example, the well-liked social media platform Instagram works with brands to promote native ads. Brands can share posts that look like the posting style of the average user’s followers by using the Instagram Story or Shop features, all while subtly promoting a product.
Use Trends of Marketing in Kenya to Grow
The landscape of marketing in Kenya is constantly evolving. You must be ready for anything if you want to succeed. The best way to do this is to remain focused on your goals and have no fear of failure or change. No matter how hard you try to stay ahead of the curve, change will still happen if you are not prepared for it.
We hope our advice will help you as you create your marketing strategy for 2023 and the upcoming years. There may seem to be too many trends for you to follow, but don’t worry! Each of these trends can be infused into your current strategy and combined with others to enhance your brand identity and help you stand out from the crowd.
Looking for affordable digital marketing prices in Kenya? Don’t be hesitant to get in touch with Prolyft Digital Solutions, one of the best digital marketing companies in Kenya if you have any questions!
