As technology advances and digital marketing trends change, businesses find new methods to be innovative in how they market their products and services. Talking about 2021, almost everything we knew about consumer behavior has changed fundamentally. Now that we’re in 2022, it’s time to consider what did the marketers learn, what does digital marketing look like this year and which all trends continue to be a top priority of marketers?
Here’s what we learned as marketers over the last year and can state as digital marketing trends of 2022:
1. Personalized Marketing
Personalization is one of those marketing components that can make or break your business in 2022. More than 70% (1) of customers will only act if marketing messages are tailored to their preferences. Personalized marketing entails much more than simply adding the customer’s name to a generic marketing email. It’s about getting to the right person at the right time with the correct messaging.
To make the most of personalization, make sure you have a thorough understanding of your demographics and target audience. Examine their consumer identities, interests, objectives, and pain areas and design your marketing collaterals accordingly.
2. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is already huge, and we bet, it’ll continue to grow seeing the number of new social media platforms, and content kinds. By 2028, the worldwide influencer marketing platform market is expected to be worth USD 84.89 billion. (3) B2B brands like PWC, GE, and SAP too have embraced this trend. So, including it in your digital marketing strategy for 2022 can prove to be beneficial.
Usually, the best influencers out there keep up with the latest trends so that they can provide companies with the relevance and context they need to promote their product or service. However, it is always advisable that marketers should seek ways to collaborate with influencers of their industry only.
3. Multi-channel Marketing
Multi-channel marketing continues to be a dominant trend- utilizing multiple platforms, including social media, apps, emails for your marketing campaign. The idea is to expand the reach and increase engagement by being everywhere your customers are.
Having said that, it is important to realize which all platforms are working for you- just double down on those and make sure you have a strong strategy in place to follow up on your leads right away and close the deal.
4. Interactive Marketing through Social Media
With 4.55 million(2) social media users around the world, building a social presence becomes extremely crucial. During the time of pandemic lockdown, social media marketing became the best option for survival for brands as they were able to forge stronger bonds with present and future customers.
Remember, interactive content is the only way of building your brand, and social media platforms offer you that flexibility to be creative and interactive- you have questionnaires, live sessions, quizzes, and polls.
A social media marketing agency can go a long way in helping you use all of this to listen, monitor, and analyse your target demographic.
5. Email Marketing
Yes, you read it right! Email Marketing is NOT outdated, though the recipe has evolved. Now there goes creativity, micro-segmentation, mobile optimization, optimized graphics, well-designed landing pages, assured privacy, use of AI and most importantly personalization.
In the case of email subscribers, it becomes all the more important to create personalized content. As a matter of fact, in case of email marketing, marketers claim that personalized and segmented emails have increased email revenue by 760 percent. (4) So, along with social media, it’s high time for marketers to devote more time and effort into improving their email marketing strategies.
6. Video Marketing
Since the beginning of 2019, the average user has viewed over 100 minutes (5) of video every day, so, it is safe to say that video marketing is here to stay in 2022 and further. The logic is simple- video content is popular because it is simple to watch, and it promotes user engagement and retention more than text. Moreover, unlike other marketing campaigns, which are centered on sales, user-generated video content initiatives are founded on value and information.
So, be it social media stories, AR and VR content, vlogging, Instagram reels, Youtube tutorials or live streams, video marketing can help you stay ahead of the pack.
7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Is it relevant in 2022? Yes, though the rankings will be more competitive! Fishing your audience by keyword stuffing is just not going to work anymore as Google’s algorithm is improving its ability to recognize content that contains the most relevant and trustworthy information.
Some of the important trends that every SEO agency is keeping an eye on this year are EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trust), Page Experience Ranking (examining how consumers view the experience of interacting with a webpage beyond its informative value), Core Web Vitals (aspects of user experience), Link Building (quality, quantity and anchor text), and Voice Search.
8. Storytelling Marketing
The term storytelling marketing refers to the use of a narrative to convey a message. The goal is to make the audience feel something strong enough to motivate them to act. Storytelling helps customers understand why they should care about a product or service while humanizing your brand.
You can go for data-driven narratives, customer-led stories, podcasting, influencer-driven storytelling, or visual representations. Here are some tips that can go a long way: making a product/ service reveal with a story, explaining how a product is manufactured, packed, or delivered, sharing social corporate activities, introducing essential members of your team or clients, talking about the mission of your company and so on. In a world of fragmented media, it is time to engage your customers with your story that has both facts and sentiments.
9. Event Marketing- Virtual and Hybrid Events
During the pandemic, businesses got all-digital and selected social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter or hosted virtual events to communicate with their target consumers. As a result, it should come as no surprise that in 2022 and beyond, going live with your prospective prospects and existing consumers should be your top priority.
However, it is extremely important to know how to cut through the noise and stand out. As a best practice, marketing teams should also focus on practical content and deliver more ‘how-to’ content in the events, leverage virtual appointments and networking sessions, use social channels to network with your customers and prospects, deliver webinars that are more than running PPTs, and take an edge with new event formats like hybrid events.
Conclusion:
When it comes to digital marketing trends, they keep shifting rapidly. Particularly with AI technologies transcending everywhere, a single modification may have a significant influence. What you must keep in mind is that you can only create a strong impact when you know how to combine these trends as per your business. The bottom line is and will always be to offer value to your customers through your marketing and take care of a customer’s data.
If the idea of keeping up with all of these trends is making you feel overwhelmed, Channel Technologies can help you with all of this and more (yes, including event management)! We’re a digital marketing agency that has been adding value to the sales and marketing efforts of leading organizations for more than 23 years now! Get in touch for bespoke digital marketing services!