The end of the year is a good time to round-up the exciting trends in the world of marketing. This year demonstrated how marketers can quickly adapt and still provide effective results. Marketing is crucial to companies because it encourages business growth and the development of engagement with customers, staff and funders. As a result, marketers must be adaptive and stay up to date with the trends in the industry, especially in unprecedented times. With 2021 behind us, we’ve made a prediction of what some of the top marketing trends will be this year – do you agree?
1) Strong digital presence in events
There has been some uncertainty for in-person events following the pandemic due to social distancing regulations and this took a toll on face-to-face networking for marketers. While exhibitions are beginning to open up again for attendees, virtual and hybrid events are set to continue in 2022.
Virtual events have the potential to reach a global audience while hybrid events incorporate this potential with in-person engagement. Events have applied the use of video presentations, virtual and augmented reality to create a unique and immersive experience for attendees. This hybrid marketing strategy optimises potential leads for marketers as there is more people that can attend.
2) Is audio the new video?
2021 saw the continued rise in popularity in audio-based media with podcasts and online audio chat platforms such as Twitter’s Clubhouse app.
Released in 2020, the Clubhouse app is an exclusive audio only social media platform that saw meteoric success with 13 million downloads globally and 220,000 downloads in the UK as of April of this year. Following this, Twitter launched the Spaces platform that facilitates live audio conversations and not being limited by the characters restrictions when traditionally posting on Twitter. A considerable factor as to why this trend became so popular is that conversations happen in real time and listeners can actively participate. This allows for business to develop new forms of audio-based content that is more engaging to its audience.
Whilst live audio conversations are becoming a bigger trend, traditional audio conversations continue to be listened to. According to Forbes, it is predicted that 125 million people will listen to podcasts each month in 2022. The potential of such a large audience allows marketers to make campaigns on a much broader scale.
3) Blog content will continue to be a staple in marketing strategies
Blogging has been a cornerstone for marketing strategies ever since businesses started to build their own websites. It allows companies to periodically showcase their products or services to their audience and has the added benefit of making websites more discoverable online. Moreover, it is an opportunity to discuss subjects that are specific to your industry and can be an introduction to a company’s expertise. This helps to develop brand trust by provide in-depth advice and information in a consumable format. A survey conducted by Hubspot found that 56% of consumers have bought a product after reading a blog from the business supplying it. It is important to consider blogging when creating content as it is a mainstay in marketing and that will not change anytime soon.
4) Video marketing on the rise
A survey conducted by Biteable found that 74% of marketers believe that video has a better return on investment when compared to static images. This correlates with how so many people had to self-isolate and video consumption dramatically increased. Social media platforms that provide short-term video content such as TikTok and Facebook stories are projected to be over 80% of online content by the start of 2022.
Video content can be repurposed in a variety of ways. For example, videos are typically published onto a company’s website or social media but they can be transcribed to make an article or the audio can be used to make a podcast episode. While being able to be transformative, video can be a valuable method of presenting the specialist skills of a company.
5) The beginning of the end for third-party data
Google announced that they plan to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome by 2022 to enhance online privacy. This will be a considerable impact for marketers that use third-party data for email marketing and tracking users through cookies.
But what are the different types of data that marketers can use? Let’s quickly go over them.
First-party data: Information that has been collected directly from customers or your audience. This data is useful for making predictions and understanding users behaviour.
Third-party data: Data that was gathered by an outside source that has no direct link to your customers or audience. Data Aggregators collect the information from a larger audience and then sells it other companies.
Zero-party data: Information that is shared by your customers or audience. This provides a clear reflection of your audience since it is information straight from the source.
As third-party cookies are being phased out of Chrome, first-party and zero-party data will become more useful to marketing strategies. This transition will encourage marketers to improve their customers service and personalization efforts to acquire the information needed straight from the source. As a result, this will help to improve a company’s digital presence and customer retention.
6) Programmatic advertising in CTV
As many people had to stay inside during the lockdown, there was a massive influx of consuming media through a Connected Television (CTV). Research from Ofcom revealed that adults typically spent close to six and a half hours a day watching TV or online streaming during the height of the pandemic. While social restrictions have eased up, technological advancements have allowed streaming platforms to improve the quality of advertisements by dealing with repetition, frequency and fill rates. This ensures that CTV will become a cornerstone in marketing and will be an effective way to advertise to a large audience.
7) Automated conversational marketing
The use of technology in workspaces has been increasing since the pandemic began. In marketing, automation has been implemented to tackle repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting and advertising campaigns. Many marketers believe that being able to send out targeted and personalised messages automatically is the most important benefit to automation.
Moreover, automation is a big help in conversational marketing as it personalises interactions with customers to provide a more authentic experience. For example, chatbots can engage with customers in a human-centric manner and can be left to run by itself. They are best used to start a conversation and answer common questions so that marketers can reallocate their time to other activities. Chatbots can be implemented into websites and social media platforms such as Facebook which has added automation to Messenger for company pages.
What do you think?
Those are the top seven exciting marketing trends to look forward to in 2022. It’s always important to keep up to date with the trends to ensure that your business can utilise the best, most current marketing strategies. If you would like assistance in raising your profile and ensuring that you stand out in your specialist market, contact us today.
