Marketing seems to generate many trends and fads. Oftentimes it is hard to know what is going to work long term in the relatively new digital marketing environment. Technology and platforms also evolve with new opportunities to buy, sell, connect and interact with audiences. For these reasons, trends can be unpredictable in duration and effectiveness across platforms. In 2022, there are a few trends that look likely to carry over from 2021.
For long-term marketing planning, using strategies and tactics that have shown good results in the past help you form a solid foundation. As your marketing begins to find a groove and establish patterns that are proven effective, you’ll begin to see which trends appeal to your target audience and be better able to predict the trends that will resonate with them.
In this article, we will examine 8 trends that in 2021 got attention, and in 2022, are expected to continue to reach audiences with technical and creative methods.
Word of Mouth
Word of mouth (WOM) remains one of the most effective marketing tools. Social media has heightened the power of social trust:
- 83% of respondents from 60 countries trust recommendations from friends and family, and 66% trust online recommendations (Nielsen).
- 74% of purchasers (auto, beauty, and smartphone categories) identify word of mouth as the main point of influence for purchasing decisions (Google, TNS, & Ogilvy).
- Social media – WOM is seen in both conversations and content sharing.
- User-generated content about brands and their products – customer reviews, unboxings, or fan pictures posted on Instagram are great examples.
- The proliferation of influencer marketing has been working so well based on the same principles as WOM: People trust other people more than brands.
How to Work with It
Customers need to be able to easily identify your USP. This will help them to talk about your product or service easily. It will encourage them to promote your brand online and with friends and family.
- Share positive testimonials about your business on your website.
- Share your product reviews.
- Encouraging users to share pictures or videos of your product using a specified hashtag.
- Creating content that appeals to sharing on social media.
Search Intent
Search intent, or the reason behind a search, is part of what Google is trying to better understand. For example, Google ranks “guides” the highest for informational intent queries, like “how to count to 10 in Chinese.”
For a transactional query like “amazon,” Google is programmed to search for the eCommerce site, rather than the geographical location, based on accumulated data over years.
Google wants to optimise search results for human users, and move away from algorithms dictating the search result findings. Google’s sophisticated machine learning algorithms like BERT or MUM were introduced to make the search engine “more human”, meaning that the search engine should understand information as well as human intention.
There are many recognized trends in SEO, but search intent is fast becoming the core of Google’s business strategy at this time.
How to Work with It
Design and optimize content with search intent in mind by examining the search result pages for a particular query and identifying the three Cs of search intent:
Content type – Blog, video, white paper etc.
Content format – How-to guide, list post, review, comparisons, etc.
Content angle – The USP of the content piece, for example, “bestseller,” “lowest price,” and “new.”
By identifying the three Cs of search intent, you will be able to better optimise your content to respond in the way Google “recommends” to its users for particular search queries.
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing opens access to your products, offers, and support services on all channels, platforms, and devices. In eCommerce, this allows customers to order through an online store, a mobile app, a phone call, or a visit to a local store. Including every possible contact option, including a live chat with a chatbot, increases customer satisfaction and engagement.
- The purchase rate of omnichannel campaigns is 287% higher than single-channel campaigns (Omnisend).
- Customers are channel-agnostic. They expect businesses to be available on any channel that’s convenient for them (Gartner).
- The more channels you offer the better. More prospects mean more ROI.
How to Work with It
You can offer omnichannel experiences in three key areas.
Product or service – By offering access to your products and services in as many ways as possible, you improve ROI.
Customer support – Train your customer service teams and have as many contact options as possible for people to connect with your brand. Live chat, FAQs, email, call centres and other contact options allow people to connect with you swiftly and resolve their issues with good impressions. According to research, 82% of consumers expect an immediate response to sales or marketing questions; 79% of companies say that live chat has had positive results for customer loyalty, sales, and revenue, while conversations inside Facebook Messenger between companies and customers have a 30% higher conversion rate than retargeting ads.
Promotion – Advertising on many channels: Twitter, YouTube, Google Ads, Facebook, Webo, various kinds of sponsorships, and more means finding more customers.
Privacy and Digital Advertising
Safari and Firefox browsers block third-party cookies by default. Google had planned to stop supporting third-party cookies in Chrome by 2022, but it has been delayed until 2023.
Apple has long required a voluntary opt-in for the Identification for Advertisers (IDFA) from its users, so that platforms like Facebook, can’t “track you across apps and websites” unless permissions are granted.
Privacy is a priority as the internet grows and its many uses evolve. The EU introduced a strict privacy policy in 2018 to ensure that people were always given the option to have cookies enabled while visiting a site, and include easy opt-out options.
According to research:
- Half of Americans have decided not to use a product or service because of privacy concerns (Pew Research).
- 42.7% of internet users worldwide use ad blockers (Hootsuite).
Marketers need to heed the clear message here: internet users want to protect their privacy. Asking people permission to make content, use their data or otherwise use their personal information is essential. People are aware of the value of big data, and many people are happy to give you access to that information, for the right reward. Marketers need to be aware of privacy issues and think of creative ways to connect with audiences in ways that respect that privacy.
How to Work with It
To better understand how to work within the restrictions on privacy, data tracking and data usage, you need to research the jurisdiction/s in which your business operates:
- Google relies on ad revenue. It is working on a new browser-based tracking standard called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).
- Big publishers are moving towards their own data aggregation and ad selling over third-party solutions.
- The wide adoption of Unified ID 2.0 (developed by The Trade Desk and the IAB Tech Lab), which appears to resemble third-party cookies, is expected to continue.
By taking measures to diversify marketing channels now, marketers will mitigate some of the issues involved in privacy that still hamper the US market, but which have been mostly resolved for internet users in other nations.
Data
Data science has become one of the most important roles in marketing. Close analysis of data will reveal information that puts your business ahead in marketing. Hiring a marketer with a background in data science is of increased benefit to your business.
Data research can help resolve some complex marketing problems such as customer churn, multifaceted customer data, sentiment analysis, campaign performance, etc.
How to Work with It
Connect to quality data sources. There is a dedicated analytics tool for every marketing channel. For example, to take advantage of organic search, you will need a premium SEO tool, which allows access to global search commands and backlinks data. The right SEO tools show your competitors’ data, which you can then use as a basis for comparison.
Data analysis skills include mastering relevant spreadsheet formulas, understanding statistics, and understanding how data is collected. However, marketing analytics software performs a lot of data cleaning, analysis, and visualization tasks. Marketing automation has become highly advanced and is a useful tool.
Some data solutions can take all your customer data points, merge them into one database, and then allow you to design omnichannel communication workflows based on customer characteristics, actions, and even AI predictions.
Frictionless
Frictionless purchasing is key to the customer experience. With so much on offer and the ability to find similar products from many brands, if a customer experience is difficult, they will walk away.
Frictionless shopping examples include:
- E‑grocery companies that deliver to your door in as little as 15 minutes.
- Investing in the stock market with apps like Robinhood or eToro.
- SaaS products offer free trials as a standard to entice customers.
How to Work with It
Decrease friction for any form of conversion action that you want a user to take. Sign-ups, payments, searching the website or moving between social media and your website, all these actions need to be streamlined with supreme UX and UI.
Some areas that people commonly complain about friction include:
- Lead generation – gated content results in more qualified leads with more data points available.
- Security – Two-step verification processes to log in to accounts.
Video
Video is one of the most important forms of advertising. According to researchers:
- 79% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy or download a piece of software or app after watching a video.
- In the US, YouTube is the second-most organically visited website.
- 91% of marketers have said that the pandemic has made video more important for brands.
- Video was the primary form of marketing media created in 2021, followed by blogs (used by more than half of marketing teams), and infographics.
Video works for users and businesses. It showcases your product or service in a fast and accessible way.
How to Work with It
Produce high-quality content that is scripted, but allows for some natural mistakes or wordplay – audiences engage with the relaxed approach to video content. Produce your marketing materials in your native language and have a professional provide translations in other markets so your content is widely accessible. Do not assume your audience speaks English. This is a common mistake made by US marketers. Be globally aware and speak the language of the market you are working in.
Remote work
Working from home is the new normal. While many people are finding a balance between the office and the home, others are discovering that one solution suits their work style more than any other – working from home in complete autonomy.
According to a Stanford study of 16,000 workers over nine months, a work-from-home arrangement increases productivity by 13%, because it is a more convenient working environment, people take fewer breaks and fewer sick days.
Here are a few more benefits:
- More employee loyalty
- Better mental health
- Lower cost of employment
- Lower commuting costs
- Access to better job options
Employees are eager to continue working remotely or semi-remotely. In terms of your marketing team, having a range of people working from home can benefit your brand immensely, especially if they are multilingual, working in various time zones and able to work independently to tap into their creativity.
How to Work with It
The overall consensus seems to be that in order to adapt to this situation, companies will employ a hybrid model: Staff will spend some days in the office and some days at home.
To best support your team:
- Avoid the always-on mentality – This is advice both to employers and employees. Many people report that while working from home, they feel like they’re constantly working. This eventually leads to lower productivity, lower satisfaction, and professional burnout.
- Provide the right tools – Give secure access to cloud accounts and provide the software that your team needs to communicate and perform.
- Consider in-office time for new hires and inexperienced workers – Newbies often need the support of the company and time to learn the company culture.
- Create private chat groups – Give employees space to communicate without managers dropping in or reading conversations. People need to develop friendships and trust with colleagues.
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