Due to the isolation of the pandemic, use of technology and digital media for both business and leisure is on the rise, Digital marketing is continuously evolving and the pandemic has expedited this evolution.
There are many new digital marketing trends and strategies that businesses must embrace if they are to thrive in 2019 and beyond.
Let us discuss some of these trends to look out for in 2022:
Brands need to engage and interact with increasingly savvy customers online. No longer is a brand just a provider of a great product or service, they need to be part of people’s lives to differentiate themselves and data has a massive role to play in this:
Chatbots and voice search Customers want answers with minimal fuss and chatbots provide a low-cost solution to presenting FAQ information or finding the answer to questions never asked before. As chatbots become smarter and more widespread in 2021 they may replace call centres, especially as voice search is now integrated into all mobile devices allowing for a more conversational interaction.
People are becoming increasingly demanding online:
Digital marketers can no longer place products or services online and sit back comfortably; they need to catch people in the micro-moment, the point at which they are either:
Traditionally marketers looked at user search terms, affinity audiences or demographics to differentiate between people in different stages along the funnel. With search engines, communication providers and social networks utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence on the vast amounts of data they have on each user, it’s becoming possible to predict to the user’s needs instead of being reactive to the user’s needs.
To stand out of the crowd, you need to personalize your marketing. That means personalized content, landing pages, emails, and more. With the availability of data like purchase history and links clicked, personalized content has never been easier.
This year and onwards is going to be about capturing data about how your app is used and improving the user experience (UX) by driving the platform to change and adapt to this by itself. This means that, depending on the data available on a user, the application will be able to act like a chameleon and change itself to provide the ideal UX for them. This will create truly personalized sites that behave differently and show different features depending on the individual using it.
Personalization is not just restricted to websites. Email continues to be a major channel of communication, with millions still using it for personal, commercial, industrial, legal, scientific, and academic purposes.
However, email marketing is evolving, with generic marketing emails not being effective as they once were. It is now a combination of automation and, more importantly, personalization that makes email marketing important for the future. When you can trigger your email marketing to something specific, such as a user browsing a particular product, and then follow up with a promotional price or demo video in a personalized email, this can be very effective. Email is often the final “trigger” to motivate an action, especially when combined with your remarketing techniques.
It’s never been more important to recognize the fact that quality content is a fundamental part of SEO, and will continue to be so in 2022.
People have been running away from traditional ads for years.
A recent study showed that the top four most-trusted sources of advertising were: people you know, branded sites, editorial sites and reviews. Ads are near the bottom of that list and that fact hasn’t really changed.
We predict that people will further put more trust in reputable content instead of relying on advertisements. This denotes that more engaging and informative your content is, the better your chances are to be noticed online.
You just need to make sure that the content you produce is something your audience wants to consume. Content can come in many forms; from blog posts targeting specific keywords you’ve identified, to larger projects including interactive maps, videos, quizzes and influencer campaigns.
Larger content marketing pieces are a great way to build back links (as mentioned above), which is why it’s so important to ensure it’s relevant to your audience. Creating content that people want to share and talk about on social media, and link back to, will help to increase your position on the SERPs, as well as building brand awareness and positioning you as an authority in your field.
Micro Moments is a “new consumer behavior,” as termed by Google, that delivers your marketing message clearly and concisely in a way that is of interest to the consumers – all within a span of seconds. People generally make instant decisions on what to eat, which restaurant to choose, what to purchase, or where to go etc. Micro-Moments that every marketer should know about are.
Ultimately, the whole consumer decision journey is a combination of these micro-moments across all channels and devices. The successful brands of tomorrow will be those meeting their consumers’ needs in these micro-moments. To take advantage of micro-moments, be where consumers search for information in the moment – such as Google, Google Maps, Amazon, YouTube, and anywhere else people search for information at a moment’s notice.
This is basic local SEO, and should be something you’re doing anyway, but make sure your Google My Business Page (GMB) is up to date! Check that it includes the correct address, contact details and opening hours – there’s nothing more frustrating for a user if they searched for your opening hours, and turned up to your store to find that you’re closed. Something to bear in mind is the recent addition of the “Product” and “Offer” posts that businesses can now utilize:
This enables you to emphasize a specific product or service. You’ll need to include a title, and either a photo or video, along with some key information. You can also include a CTA button through to the relevant page on your site.
This allows you to highlight discounts and offers on specific products or services – e.g. a hairdresser may decide to offer 15% off cut and blow dries for a week. In addition to a title and “View Offer” CTA button, you’ll need to post the start and end date of your offer.
We’re the strategic digital marketing agency for brands that want to thrive in the digital world. From SEO to content marketing, there isn’t a thing we can’t do successfully with our experts onboard. Find out more about us and our plans for 2022 by getting in touch with us.
