Marketing Trends in 2022
Want your business to be ahead of the curve this year? We’ve compiled our top Marketing Trends that you cannot miss for 2022. Grab a cuppa, take note and get inspired!
Community building
We’ve said it before, but community building is a hugely important part of any marketing strategy. It drives brand loyalty, awareness and a sense of togetherness that many consumers are craving since the Covid-19 pandemic forced us to spend more time alone. Customers have adapted to new ways of life, but are missing the connection to others we once took for granted. Marketing efforts with a community feel will drive success as there’s a very real consumer need to engage with others, now more than ever.
Digital Transformation
Digital is an ever-changing landscape that brands and businesses can sometimes struggle to keep up with. But since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, brands big and small have been forced to expand or overhaul their digital strategy as they increasingly needed to be able to reach their customers online. Digital transformation stands for the adoption of new, digital technologies to improve physical business processes and services while increasing efficiency. And although not all businesses may not need an entire digital overhaul, it’s certainly worth assessing your company’s infrastructure to see where you could bring it up to speed with a little digital boost.
LinkedIn is growing
It’s where professional relationships are forged, careers are developed, and business is done, so LinkedIn is a great platform to incorporate into your marketing strategy. Not only is it a top-three player in digital B2B advertising, but it’s growing three times faster than any other platform. It’s also rated the #1 most trusted social media network, so if you want to drive professionalism, trust and credibility within your B2B marketing strategy, LinkedIn is one channel you need to be keeping up with!
Gamification
We’re pretty sure you’ve probably heard of the Metaverse by now, and if you haven’t you need to read our WTF is the Metaverse blog. The word “gamification” has been thrown around for some time, but only now is it really starting to take off. Brands are starting to find ways to engage customers online through social media and parallel online universes using gaming techniques that drive first party data. Most importantly, this doesn’t feel like a chore for the consumer because it mimics gaming techniques and mechanisms that make it fun and interactive. You can read our blog on Gaming and the Music Industry to get inspired, too!
Experiences
Experiential marketing is a strategy that helps to bring to life your brand in a real life setting and in physical form, allowing customers to see it, feel it and engage with it in more ways than what’s usually expected. Bring your brand to life ‘offline’ through interactive branded experiences and immersive events. It will give your customer a different perspective of your brand, create a positive association and, when done well, build long-lasting bonds with your audience!
Become a leader in education
It’s no longer about the sales drive alone, it’s about letting your customers know how you are going to improve lives with your product and services. Customer interactions are going to become even more complex in 2022 and it’s not just about educating them on how your product benefits them, but why they should even care. Consumers want a clear proposition presented to them with lots of information… not just selling. Educate consistently across all of your platforms. Show, don’t just tell.
Product development moves back into marketing
Marketing teams will work closely with product development teams in order to improve customer experience and increase conversion rates. Excellent brands understand the importance that marketing plays in the product development process. They’ll invest in research, consumer profiling, competitor research and branding to ensure they have a product that catches the customer’s attention in a saturated market. The world is a competitive space, but being clear about how you are going about things and who you are is going to set businesses apart.
First party data
There’s no better data than the data that comes directly from the consumer. It helps you to create a comprehensive picture of your clients: who they are, what they want and how to give it to them. It also helps you to build a stronger and more honest relationship with your customer because you are receiving information directly from the client. We know data collection might sound like an old hat these days, but there are actually a lot of ways to harness data in a fun way that doesnt feel like a tiresome exchange. Take gamification for example (read more about this strategy below). You can use quizzes and polls to extract data from your customers and make it fun for them at the same time!
Personalisation
If you try talking to everyone you end up speaking to no one. Personalisation is going to be a key trend that continues to grow as the expectation of customers has shifted to wanting to receive a more personalised experience. Using first party data to deliver bespoke content such as targeted emails, custom videos, and product recommendations will also be key. One of the overarching goals of personalisation is to instill the feeling of FOMO in the customer as content and communications are tailored to their interests and passions.
Content Marketing is still key
Content marketing is more important than ever, and being able to communicate through video in particular is going to be one of the most impactful skills to have. Having a clear strategy in place that resonates with your audience is key. It’s important, though, to make sure that a certain level of quality can be maintained. Effective storytelling is what will build relationships, and not doing it well is going to set you up for failure.
Conclusion
2022 has already started with a bang and it’s going to be one exciting year, as we are going to see a lot of businesses level up and take their branding to the next level – check out our blog on 2022 Branding Trends for more inspiration. Creating a strong marketing strategy built on data that informs business decisions, and using it to create better personalised content that engages and inspires individuals, will set your brand apart. You can leave any questions for us in the comment section, but in the meantime, we look forward to seeing what you have in store for us this year!
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