2022 is upon us, and after two incredibly challenging years, brands globally are looking forward to a year of growth and expansion. The digital marketing landscape is even more competitive than ever. With the various restrictions placed on businesses globally, online and digital business growth has accelerated beyond expectations.
The growth statistics are astounding. In the US alone, social media ad spending reached $43 billion in 2020. This is a 20% increase from 2019. This was further increased by another 18% in 2021. Across the board, there have been marked increases in spending, engagement, and conversions. From SEO to content marketing, paid ads, and email marketing, digital marketing is on an ever-increasing trajectory that brands simply cannot ignore.
With this in mind, we thought we would take a look at the trends that look to dominate digital marketing in 2022. What should you be looking out for and what can you line up for the rest of the year?
Heightened Personalization With More Consumer Insight
In the midst of this highly competitive digital environment, personalization is the only way brands have been able to cut through the marketing noise around them. And in 2022, this looks to evolve even further. More and more tools and platforms are emerging, with revolutionized technology which can pull and analyze customer data.
Consumer insights are a great way for companies to gain a deeper understanding of their customer and target them with relevant and personalized messaging. Insight communities have established themselves as prominent sources of information for brands. Insight communities make use of deeply profiled, and highly engaged customers to uncover agile, actionable, first-party data.
This real-time and highly valuable feedback allows brands to make strategic decisions, plan marketing campaigns, validate brands and accelerate the development of products and services that they offer. Highly targeted campaigns and personalized messaging yield higher conversion rates than any other marketing strategy. With the smart use of consumer insights, you can ensure that you are hitting the right mark at the right time, every time.
Pivoted Social Media Goals
Over the last decade, social media and its role in digital marketing have continuously evolved over time. For years, the focus has been put on the number of followers, levels of engagement, and likes and comments on posts. But, that has slowly shifted to the focus on authentic followers, with an authentic interest in the brands themselves.
But, authentic followers and authentic interest are incredibly resource-intensive. Companies globally have seen the impact that a Facebook agency can make on their company. With the constant changes to Facebook policies, algorithms and ads, it is tough for companies to keep ahead and ensure that they are staying at the forefront of social marketing. The trick, however, is to find an agency that is actually interested in your sustainable and profitable growth.
Not only do you need to have an in-depth insight into your customers, but your content and marketing strategy are also vital. Content needs to be comprehensive and adaptable to be able to capture people’s attention. Personalized messaging and constant monitoring of campaign success are crucial in this case. Monitoring campaign metrics is key to planning future successful campaigns and is essential to the content planning process.
It is also important to know that more and more customers are shopping directly from social media platforms. For smaller businesses, this means that they are able to market more effectively and reach broader audiences with less budget.
Mobile Apps Need to Be a Serious Consideration
There has been so much hype over the years about apps and the need for every company to have one, but the fact is that this is something that actually needs some serious consideration. Apps can be an incredibly costly expense to your company, and if you have not set clear objectives for your app, you might as well focus that budget on other marketing channels.
In saying that, apps do help brands reach unique audiences that social platforms and websites might struggle with. They also speed up the transaction process and reduce cart abandonment. So, establish some key goals that you want your app to achieve. How will you be marketing your app to a brand new audience? How can you get it to stand out among the over 200 billion apps that are currently in the stores?
Companies that have rolled out successful apps claim that it is down to creating a USP for the app. Their app differs from all of their competitors and provides their customers with a unique way to engage and convert with the brand. Unique offers, specials, discounts, and strategic partnerships are a great way to reach those new audiences and increase the downloads.
The Bottom Line
While authenticity, the customer experience, deep consumer insights, and user-focused content will be important in 2022, brands do need to keep consumer privacy in mind. Regulations and legislation have been put in place globally to protect user information, and if companies are found to step over those boundaries, harsh penalties might incur.
While more and more customer data is available for brands globally, they do need to be more aware of the restrictions that come with this access. It is advisable to brush up on your local regulations and ensure you are compliant in every region you are operational in.
