Digital marketing no doubt is changing constantly. But take a pause here. If you look closely behind all these shifting tectonics, there are a few core principles that form the foundations of every marketing campaign.
Authentic, human connection is the final target of any marketing campaign. Your approach and communication medium can change with time and technological improvement, but the goal remains constant. Your audience is human, driven by emotions after all. If you fail to trigger their emotions, chances are your marketing strategies may not work.
Aligning your strategies with your marketing goals is a huge factor in play here. That being said, here are eight digital marketing trends that you still will be able to utilize in 2022. The best part is it performs irrespective of your marketing goal and business vertical.
1. Email marketing will still be the most profitable channel
There is a good reason why email marketing keeps on coming back year after year.
It is highly profitable showing a potential of 36X return on investment. However, realizing this channel’s power is increasingly becoming challenging.
The sudden adoption spike that email marketing is experiencing globally is making the channel saturated faster than ever.
Today, if you have to reap the benefits of email marketing, you need a lot more than generic, one-size-fits-all emails. To give you a better idea, here are some highly-converting product launch email template examples that can set your mindset for success.
But the question here is how to craft these email frameworks for your business?
Enter one-on-one, account-based marketing. Integrating this strategy in your emails, you can deliver the brand experience that can keep your audience hooked.
Optimizing your emails for personalization, and customization thus becomes a critical success factor here.
To do this right, ensure you take every detail, small and large into account. From copy, design, CTA, product offer, context, and time, every element contributes to the final conversion goal.
2. TikTok popularity will keep on rising
SourceIf you did not start using TikTok just yet, 2022 is the time.
TikTok is here to stay. With over 800 billion active users worldwide and increasing, this is where your future customers reside.
Adopting it now is sure to give you a competitive advantage over your competitors.
However, to sustain the same, you would need more than just an optimized profile picture and bio. Simplifying your TikTok journey, UNUM recommends some advanced strategies to implement in 2022.
At the end of the day, the core of winning the TikTok game is still the same as any other platform. The right content, placed in the right context boosted with intense engagement results in the wonders of this social media platform.
3. Omnichannel marketing will continue to be a must
Source‘Distribute and rule’ — if you could carry one mantra from 2021 to 2022, it would be this.
While the global digitization movement gained you leverage to find your audience more easily, it has created stiffer competition. No one channel can leverage your way to the top and keep you there in the long run.
Sure, there are many digital marketing strategies for small businesses that you can deploy. However, without a diversified marketing distribution channel, all these strategies may not come out as effective as you expect them to be. But this doesn’t mean you have to be present on all social media platforms.
Think strategically.
Start with your audience first. Develop your ideal audience’s profile. Everyone is not your brand’s target audience after all.
Based on this profile, pick up the channels where your audience already hangs out and be present only there. This will expand your marketing spectrum while delivering a comprehensive brand experience for your audience as well.
4. Customer experience will keep dominating the market
There is nothing that your customers desire more than a superior shopping experience.
No doubt why experience-driven marketing is one of the key demands of 2021. It is what makes your products sell. The fun part is that it will pass on to 2022 as well.
The question is how do you deliver this?
In one sentence, you have to design your customer experience. Multiple factors can improve your customer’s brand experience.
From your first ad copy that you expose your audience to or the follow-up remarketing offers, each of the interactions build momentum for conversion.
But your experience designing work does not end at conversion. It trickles down to the end of the relationship that your customer has with your brand.
Your customer support plays a serious role here. For preparing your business better, here are some powerful customer service trends to follow for 2022. Now when you know the foundations, here’s a pro tip.
The most optimal customer experience design will still come from you. You are the most qualified person to design your brand-user experience.
No one knows your audience better than you.
Sure, trends will set you up with the right mindset. But, customer delight will occur when you put your audience at the center of every decision you make in your business.
5. Search will still hold relevant
Google processes almost 5.6 billion search queries in a day. That’s a lot.
The good news is, it does not show any signs to slow down in 2022. It will just rise.
If you have only been dominant on social media, now is the time to up your search game. However, make sure you have a well-laid-out plan here.
There are two approaches that you can integrate here. SEO (search engine marketing) and SEM (search engine marketing). While both of these strategies perform in the same foundational method, SEO is organic and SEM is paid.
Thus, optimizing and creating a tactical keyword strategy is foundational to success.
Fail to do so and you might end up losing more economic resources for paid marketing than you gain customers.
A pro tip here would be to ensure that you validate the search intent of your keywords before developing your content.
6. Word-of-mouth will still prevail
SourceIf there is one marketing channel that can compete with email marketing any day, it is word-of-mouth marketing.
There is nothing more powerful than your existing customers doubling as your brand evangelists. But if you are still doubtful of its power, here is a case study on the value of word-of-mouth marketing for the hotel business.
The best part is that you can use the do the same for your brand. But the big question is how?
There are several ways to gain your customer’s loyalty.
From establishing loyalty programs, referrals, discount campaigns to free giveaways you can test various techniques. But at the core, for all of these to work, your product needs to be something that people want.
7. Privacy will continue to be a top priority
In a digital world that is vulnerable to threats, consumer privacy is a top priority.
According to a Statista report, almost 90% of global online consumers have shown at least one concern about their data privacy.
What is critical to note here is that your consumers will continue to grow sensitive towards how you use their data in 2022.
If you were neglecting your website’s data privacy measures, you need to level up now. Without establishing a secure environment for your audience to browse your website, earning the trust of your audience will be almost impossible.
The worst part is you will be risking your opportunity to convert them into customers. However, you can still turn the tables.
Get creative here. Adhere to the global data privacy policies like GDPR and CCPA and ask for your user’s permission to capture their personal information.
Although your users are skeptical about sharing their data these days, they are more than happy to do the same provided you deliver them a personalized brand experience.
8. Interactive content will continue to gain traction
SourceIn the digital world, everything is content. This means no matter how good your content is, it is designed to get saturated at some point.
Mark Schaefer pointed to this phenomenon as the content shock.
Finding creative ways to keep your content fresh is thus a key requirement.
The fun part is making your content interesting is easier than you think.
From a short questionnaire, interactive buttons to chatbot integration, there are multiple ideas to play with.
While you experiment with these tested strategies, remember the best interaction happens when you involve your audience inside the process.
Co-creation is thus a powerful strategy. The only element you need to remember here is to ensure you reward your audience for their efforts.
Conclusion
Having a comprehensive idea of the trends is always a good practice in an industry that is always changing. However, here’s a word of advice.
Depending solely on trends can prove to be a dangerous game in the long run. Trends can be a huge booster for the start yet every business’s audience is unique and so are their needs.
If you just follow up with the trend, chances are you will miss seeing the opportunities and gaps where you can meet your customer’s demands unique to your business. But you can easily navigate through this challenge.
All you have to do is integrate an experimentation and feedback culture into your marketing ecosystem.
