Digital marketing trends of 2022...
January is the most energising month of the year.
Reflections are made on what we’ve achieved in the previous 365 days, and we look ahead to everything we’d like to attain in the next.
We should maintain this feeling more regularly, but let’s face it, sometimes life can just get in the way.
Much like that feeling, we should constantly analyse our own marketing performance and the marketing trends that are popularising our industries.
In this post, you’ll discover the hottest digital marketing trends 2022.
This will include predictions about what will be hot in digital marketing in the next year, and what won’t.
In the last few years, I’ve made predictions about the hottest upcoming digital marketing trends. In these guides, tactics and strategies like:
- Influencer Marketing
- Reactive marketing
- Video SEO
…have been covered.
In this instalment of digital marketing trends 2022, we’ll cover the hottest tactics, and give you a few points on how to use the featured trending digital marketing strategy…
Privacy Restrictions Increases The Importance of Direct Marketing
Our first 2022 digital marketing trend covers something that was forced upon us in 2021 – privacy restrictions.
The most notable privacy update that has affected digital marketing is the iOS14 update. This Apple enforced change has reversed the opt-in status of data collection.
Before the changes, users would have to opt-out of data collection in their personal settings on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, but following the update, Apple users will now have to opt-in to data collection at every data collection trigger.
This change might sound small, but the difference between going out of your way to opt-out, to being constantly asked whether you’d like your data collected, is a seismic shift.
Data is gold for marketers and this digital marketing trend is a reaction to that update!
We can no longer rely on pixels (and tracking codes) to do all the heavy lifting in our digital advertising campaigns. This means a greater reliance on an old favourite – direct marketing.
Direct marketing has never decreased in value, but any marketer or business who began their journey during the pixel-retarget-lookalikes age of advertising, might not be tuned in on its importance.
A direct marketing campaign is reliant on 2 things:
- Get a direct line to your target market
- Make personalised offers to them
In digital marketing, that translates to:
- Collect email addresses or telephone numbers or get calls booked!
- Segment prospects and make personalised offers
The recent privacy restrictions are here to stay (and there might be more!), making direct marketing more important than ever.
Here are a few simple strategies to help you with this digital marketing trend 2022:
- Create a lead magnet – offer your prospects something of massive value in exchange for their contact information.
- Adjust your funnel strategy – offer your prospects the chance to book a call with you, before making any monetary offer.
- Use lead generation objectives – use Facebook’s own lead generation objective to collect more leads inside their platform
- Segment iOS device audiences – create advertising audiences that exclude iOS devices and target these with traditional retargeting techniques
Be Everywhere
Would you rather have $1 million in your bank account, or 1 million real, engaged followers on social media?
The fact that you’ve had to think about your answer (even for a split second) tells us that presence, reach and digital omnipresence (the power of being everywhere) has never been higher.
If a route to success can be found through social media followers, then it’s crucial that you start considering how you can get more of them!
The answer is, of course, content.
But, in a digital world where competition for attention has never been higher, it pays to create valuable branded content, faster.
By creating a high level of content at greater speeds, you’re able to be in more places, more often – allowing you to reach more people.
The most effective way to do this is with content repurposing.
Content repurposing is the act of taking existing content and refreshing and remaking it into other types of content. For example, a podcast can be repurposed into quotes, audiograms, videos, carousels, and much more.
If you’re a smart marketer, you’ll repurpose 1 piece of content into weeks of social media posts.
You can try taking on the job of repurposing content by yourself, with your existing social media team, or by outsourcing it to a service that specialises in content repurposing.
Get On Stage
In a previous digital marketing trend guide, I shared the importance of going live. This trend has materialised and is now ramping up in importance.
2021 saw a rise in Live videos, and the birth of a huge new platform, Clubhouse…
The audio-based platform is best described as a live, interactive radio-style social network. Clubhouse has ‘rooms’ with tons of different topics, where you can speak, interact with others and gain new connections.
If you haven’t tried it already, sign up to Clubhouse, follow relevant topics and put yourself on stage.
…and then, continue going live across all your social media platforms.
Getting on a digital stage has never been easier, here are a few places that you can get started:
- Clubhouse – create your own room, or join an existing one and ask to speak
- Twitter Spaces – Twitter have created their own version of Clubhouse, check it out on the Twitter mobile app
- Instagram Live
- Facebook Live
- LinkedIn Live Video – LinkedIn live video creators are being selected by application only (for now)
Specialisms and Outsourcing
Digital has never provided more jobs than it did in 2021, and that figure is only going to grow exponentially in 2022.
A greater pool of people working online, combined with a younger generation hungry to work in digital and more people than ever getting connected to the internet, means more roles to outsource, and more specialist industries.
Many moons ago, digital agencies once specialised in ‘digital advertising’, but now many agencies won’t leave their specialist advertising channel (e.g. YouTube, Facebook or Google). The same can be said about freelancers, SAAS companies and digital consultants.
The direction you take when hiring and furthering your marketing will require thought and planning and should result in ‘specialist’ approaches, especially if you’re marketing with a small budget.
Focussing your resources on a specific area of digital is likely to yield more rewards than spreading yourself thinly across a variety of tactics because there is so much niche competition. The same can be said about hiring freelancers or working with outsourced companies.
Target your digital marketing tactics carefully around a strategy that focuses on your target market.
More Than 7?
The marketing rule of 7 is one of the oldest in the book, but, it’s made our digital marketing trends 2022 list because 7 might not be enough anymore.
The marketing rule of 7 states that a prospective customer will need to interact with a brand 7 times before they make a purchase.
These interactions include things like:
- Website visit
- Social media post view
- Email open
- Television advert
- Radio advert
- Newspaper ad
Historically, these interactions could be costly to acquire, especially in an age before the internet, but now, small businesses are able to capitalize on low-cost marketing channels like social media.
A large brand that’s fighting in a competitive marketplace, might need to use street banners, TV adverts, radio ads, newspaper features and event sponsorship to capture their seven interactions.
A small business will need to use social media posts, website content (like a blog), digital ads, YouTube videos, Amazon ebooks, and of course, email marketing to capture theirs.
The days of one-page sales websites driving high converting traffic from Facebook ads are becoming increasingly rare – and that’s because the internet consumer demands more trust and commitment from businesses online.
The rule of 7 might be one of the oldest in the book, but it’s up to digital brands to chase more interactions. This means posting every day on social media, creating long-form content, capturing leads and nurturing them, and striving to be in more digital spaces.
If you’re unsure, here’s how you can adjust for this rule:
- Add depth to your website – include a blog (if you have time), an about us page and provide more value to your visitors
- Capture leads and nurture them – make it your aim to capture more email addresses, and provide these contacts with regular (read: weekly) value to keep them engaged with your emails!
- Post everyday – try to post everyday on social media. Focus on the networks that your target market hang out on
- Be empathetic – go through your sales funnel and consider where your customer might need to see more trust signals – use this as an opportunity to provide another touchpoint e.g. an external resource, or the option of booking a call!
Want More?
That’s all for our digital marketing trends 2022 for now…
…as always, we’ll be providing weekly marketing tactics, strategies and insider knowledge throughout 2022, from an agency that actually does this stuff every day!
If you haven’t already, create a FREE account in our marketing training area – the Einstein Marketer Studio – where you can watch step-by-step training videos, follow our marketing action plans and access our vast pool of marketing resources!
What are you waiting for? Get started now!
