If you work in marketing or even just dabble in it, you are aware that trends are ever evolving. It may be difficult to stay on top of trends and new technologies, therefore in this piece we examine the top 11 marketing tactics for 2022 and beyond. What can advertisers anticipate? What novel marketing strategies will be most successful in the upcoming years? Continue reading to discover the top digital marketing trends and how to apply them to your company.

1. Discussion-based advertising

The definition of conversational marketing

It is where customers communicate and engage with companies using chatbots and voice assistants. Additionally, click-to-messenger is one of the most often utilized forms of paid advertising in internet marketing efforts. The primary technologies underlying conversational marketing are artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Why is it so successful?

70% of users, according to recent IBM surveys, want immediate responses to their inquiries. It's a potent method of fostering engagement from a marketer's perspective, which raises conversion rates and enhances return on investment (ROI). Additionally, it makes the sales process more flexible because chatbots may pre-screen leads using AI and only deliver qualified ones to the sales team. Additionally, conversational marketing aids in the collection of a wider variety of audience data in the era of data-driven digital advertising.

Conversational marketing enhances the customer experience and helps establish confidence in the eyes of the consumer. According to a Salesforce poll, 42% of consumers lack trust in brands, which is frequently caused by delayed or unresponsive customer service. Utilizing conversational marketing, businesses respond immediately at many touch points, which boosts customer loyalty and brand buy-in.

The best ways to use conversational marketing in your company

To benefit from conversational marketing, a variety of methods are accessible. Click-to-messenger is a great method to start discussions with clients on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Live chats and WhatsApp messaging buttons are common conversational marketing tools used on websites.

2. Experience with highly tailored content

An experience with highly tailored content is what?

It is material that is individualized and catered to every user, as the name implies. Popular companies like Facebook, Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon are examples of those who successfully customize content for each customer. Based on your past purchases and browsing activity, Amazon's home page offers material that is likely to interest you when you first log in. Your viewing history and favorite genres are used by Spotify and Netflix to propose music and TV shows to you. Additionally, Facebook, a major social media platform, employs algorithms to decide what kinds of material to display in your newsfeed.

Why is it so successful?

Following the Covid-19 epidemic, lockdowns, and an increase in virtual life, highly tailored material is rising more than ever. According to HubSpot research, 74% of web users are irritated by material that seems unrelated to their interests. According to experts, society has become essentially "immune" to information because of spending so much time on gadgets and ingesting it during the lockdowns of 2020.

Therefore, companies may stand out from the competition and appeal directly to their prospective clients by customizing their content. Personalized call-to-action buttons (CTAs) garnered 43% more clicks than generic ones, according to HubSpot’s analysis of data from around 100,000 CTAs over the course of a year.

How to use customized content in your company

Businesses must be proactive in gathering customer data, have excellent data analysis, AI technologies, and CRM systems to offer highly tailored content. Brands may strengthen their connections with their audience and increase engagement and conversions by customizing their content. rather than abstract ones.

3. Interactive Marketing

Experiential marketing definition:

As the name implies, experiential marketing is a trend that emphasizes building a user experience around a brand rather than just a product. Corporate events, webinars, and competitions are some of the most popular types of experiential marketing, however experiences differ by brand and industry.

Take tech behemoth Apple, which is frequently cited as a pioneer in this field of PR. Recently, they've started doing their well-known "photo-walks," during which a representative of Apple leads customers through a neighborhood while instructing them on how to shoot pictures with their iPhone. The company also hosts the Worldwide Developers' Conference, which is its biggest yearly event and where it gathers tens of thousands of programmers from all around the world to talk about the most recent developments.

Why is it so successful?

Customers may interact with brands through experiential marketing and learn about their beliefs and personalities, in addition to their products. Salesforce study indicates that 84% of consumers would rather be regarded as a person than a number. The personal link between product and emotion is therefore strengthened by companies through the creation of memories, increasing brand acceptance and conversions.

How to use experience marketing in your company

Regardless of the size of the company, experiential marketing should be a component of any brand's marketing plan. Of course, small firms lack the resources to host significant events on the scale of Apple, but that doesn't mean they can't provide distinctive experiences for their target markets. Experiential marketing is frequently employed by SMEs and startups, and prominent examples include small-scale regional and online events.

Businesses must understand their target demographic and establish specific, quantifiable goals for their events to be successful with experiential marketing. Some of the more typical goals in experience marketing include growing social media followings, expanding email subscriber lists, and increasing sales.

4. Using influencers

Influencer marketing: What is it?

Brands utilize influencers for their marketing efforts on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, which is like celebrity endorsements. Although it is by no means a new fad, it has garnered a lot of popularity in recent years due to its simplicity. Influencers, which includes micro-influencers, provide material in which they engage with a brand by utilizing its goods or services or interacting with its personnel.

Why is it so successful?

Given the "engagement factor," which refers to how individuals connect with influencers and are thus more likely to respond to the marketing effort, influencer marketing typically produces greater results than traditional celebrity endorsements. For instance, the e-book subscription company Audible, a division of Amazon, collaborated with photography influencer Jesse Driftwood. Amazon noticed that despite having fewer than 100,000 Instagram followers, he had devoted followers who were highly engaged. Users commented on Driftwood's postings about Audible with phrases like "that is an excellent idea" and "can't wait to give it a try," indicating that they were quite interested in the topic.

Influencer marketing also exploits psychological and behavioral aspects of the consumer, such as recommendations. Influencers are the ideal approach for firms to generate persona recommendations in large quantities since, according to market research firm Nielsen, 83% of customers trust personal recommendations more than conventional digital advertising.

Influencers on social media often focus on a certain niche and attract followers who share similar interests. This results in more focused advertising for marketers, which lowers ad expenditure. For instance, National Geographic just launched a social media marketing campaign in collaboration with influencers in wildlife photography. Of course, given their passion in wildlife photography, their fans will also be intrigued in the National Geographic brand.

How to use influencer marketing for your company

For the best outcomes, brands should seek out influencers that provide material on their service or sector. Marketers may either employ influencer agencies or other social media sites to locate influencers on their own by using hashtags. Before addressing influencers, firms should establish their goals and target market, as with other marketing initiatives. The most well-liked form of influencer marketing material is when influencers upload pictures and videos of themselves utilizing a brand's goods or services.

5. Continuation of the Digital Transformation

What does marketing's ongoing digital revolution entail?

It's how businesses change their internal organizational structures, business models, and goods to reflect emerging, digital-driven consumer trends. Digital transformation in marketing refers to a company's shift away from print advertising and into more digital platforms, such as social media. For the years 2021 and beyond, marketing will continue to undergo a digital transition as companies use new technologies to maximize their marketing efforts and enhance consumer experiences.

Why is it so successful?

More data-driven campaigns and optimization brought on by marketing's ongoing digital transformation result in improved conversions, cheaper ad spend, and higher ROI, which is not feasible with conventional advertising. Research shows that 86% of companies say their client acquisition expenses (CPA) have gone up in the last two years. Brands should concentrate on enhancing user experience and boosting client retention in order to lower CPA.

A shining example of customer-focused digital transformation is Amazon's Alexa. Consider that you wish to order your preferred type of coffee. You can just tell Alexa to "order my favorite coffee" and Amazon will take care of the rest using voice search enabled by artificial intelligence, saving you from having to go online and search for it. This is referred to as "headless commerce," and it's the ideal illustration of how businesses can employ technology to enhance user experience and keep consumers.

How to sustain your business's digital transformation

It's not necessary for ongoing digital change to be as smart as Alexa. Marketers have a wide range of tools at their disposal at smaller companies and startups to continue the digital transformation of their brands. A/B testing, Google Analytics, and customer data platforms (CDP) are a few instances of how marketing is undergoing a digital transition.

6. New Trends in social media

What new social media trends might we expect in 2022?

The most popular new features on well-known social media platforms for 2022 and beyond are video content and social commerce. Video and Livestream have never been more popular because to the success of TikTok. In fact, Reels was introduced by Instagram in 2020, which many social media analysts believe was an effort to challenge TikTok's hegemony in the video market.

And social selling has gained popularity ever since Facebook's network-wide introduction of Shops in May 2020. Brands may now publish the goods that can be bought directly through the social media platform, using it like e-commerce websites.

Why do these modern social media trends work so well?

According to statistics, videos have a 40 times higher likelihood of being shared than non-video postings. Additionally, video advertisements receive more clicks and more interaction than text- and image-only ads. And while thinking about making a purchase, 80% of buyers prefer to watch videos than reading articles. Consumer engagement with video is evident from statistics like these, and marketers may take advantage of this when developing campaigns. Videos, according to some social media gurus, may boost conversions by as much as 30%.

According to market study, 87% of customers think social media influences their purchasing decisions in terms of social marketing. Before making a purchase on a company's website, shoppers typically conduct product research using social media, reading reviews and other material. Customers can now easily buy things on platforms like Facebook and Instagram thanks to new purchasing features. This results in a simpler and more efficient client journey, which raises conversion rates. According to statistics, 70% of Gen Z customers in China make direct purchases via social media.

How to incorporate modern social media trends into your company

The truth is that anyone with a smartphone can record a video for social media, even with the help of sophisticated cameras and astute editors. Marketers may leverage Stories, Reels, and Lives to increase interaction and repurpose evergreen content to build films. To choose the greatest material to broadcast and the ideal times of day to do so, social media teams should examine audience statistics. And instead of making the frequent error of attempting to be on every channel, concentrate on the ones where your audience is most active. Marketing departments should access their account settings to set up shops and submit their items for sale.

7. E-commerce

What new e-commerce trends might we expect in 2022?

Some recent e-commerce developments have previously been mentioned in this article, including conversational marketing, personalization, social media selling, and headless e-commerce. Virtual reality, visual search, and shop local are more emerging trends.

Virtual reality is popular because it answers a major concern people have about online shopping: that the actual goods would differ from the pictures. Users may better envision the goods using interactive 3D and 360° images, and some shops offer user-made movies of their items to increase conversions. Like this, when users enter search phrases, AI-powered visual search presents pictures of items.

Due to the pandemic's disastrous impact on neighborhood businesses, the phrase "Shop Local" has gained popularity. To aid in their recuperation, consumers are choosing independent merchants more frequently than major ones.

Why are these new fashion trends so successful?

Due to the start of the Coronavirus pandemic and the closing of retail locations, e-commerce exploded in 2020. In the UK, e-commerce sales rose dramatically by 61% in May 2020 compared to May 2019. Even when everything was reopened, customer behavior had changed, and it is anticipated that e-commerce will continue to increase in popularity.

Simply said, humans respond better to visual material than words, which is why virtual reality and visual search are increasing conversions. According to Google, visual information generates 94% more hits than text, and according to AI startup Vizenze, 62% of millennials prefer visual over word search.

65% of consumers now want to purchase products from companies that promote sustainability, and local companies are often nimbler in this regard because they use less energy and leave a smaller carbon footprint than big-name merchants.

How to use fresh e-commerce trends to your enterprise

Businesses may make a few easy adjustments to increase conversions with graphic content. The picture quality and loading speed will both increase if images are converted from JPEG and PNG to WebP format. To enhance conversions, it is helpful to ask consumers to upload images and videos of themselves using the items. Concerning sustainability, companies have to support environmental programs like packaging reduction and carbon offsetting.

8. Automated Advertising

What is digital advertising programmatic?

Programmatic advertising is, to put it simply, the automation of the purchase of digital advertising space. In the past, marketing teams would be required to draft proposals, engage in negotiations, and execute contracts. However, with programmatic advertising, businesses may place bids for ad space in milliseconds, allowing marketers to focus more of their time on campaign optimization than on management. Programmatic advertising is already being used by many firms for up to 50% of their advertising budgets, and it is predicted that by 2022, this trend will have reached $100 billion.

Why is it so successful?

Real-time data analysis and audience targeting are made possible by programmatic advertising. Google promoted their search app via programmatic advertising, reaching up to 30% more consumers at a 30% reduced cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Brands benefit from more flexible and automated ad buying with programmatic advertising, which reduces staff workload and boosts ROI.

By utilizing a variety of networks and ad exchanges, programmatic advertising enables businesses to broaden their reach and target their audience with more pertinent adverts. Conversions and brand recognition are increased as a result.

How to use programmatic marketing in your company

Businesses must first select a demand-side platform (DSP) to determine budgets before launching programmatic advertising campaigns. DSPs like Media Math and Adform are well-liked. Then, like with other digital advertising campaigns, marketers must specify the campaign's goals and KPIs, as well as the creative style and target demographic. Once the data is out there, marketers should utilize it to identify trends and improve their efforts.

9. Automation adoption

What does marketing automation entail?

The use of technology to automate marketing and advertising operations is known as automation in marketing. The epidemic has increased the use of technology in the workplace over the past year, and automation has risen to the forefront of all company activities, not only marketing. Although it may sound sophisticated and difficult, marketing automation is easy. Everyday instances of marketing automation include planned social media postings, automated email sequences in sales funnels, and email order updates.

Why is it so successful?

Brands may grow their marketing initiatives with the help of marketing automation to reach larger visitor volumes. The main advantage of automation, according to 30% of business owners, is time savings. Their marketing staff may now concentrate on optimization and content production rather than wasting time on repeated tasks. Additionally, automation enables marketing teams to consolidate their omnichannel marketing efforts onto a single platform, doing away with the requirement to post content and interact with communities on several social media platforms. Productivity rises, and increased ROI and conversion rates are directly related to it.

Additionally, it makes it possible for organizations to gather and analyze larger volumes of client data than they could manually. As a result, businesses can rapidly create a comprehensive picture of their sales cycle and client experience, highlighting any gaps or weak areas.

How to introduce automation into your company

Marketers should plan out their customer journey and sales cycle and identify processes that can be automated to maximize the benefits of automation. Brands should establish SMART objectives (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) after they have established them to judge the effectiveness of automation. Finally, experiment with various automation tools, such as Google Analytics for data analysis, SproutSocial for social networking, and MailChimp for email marketing.

10. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI): What is it?

In artificial intelligence (AI), devices like computers and robots perform activities like voice recognition and decision-making that need human intellect. AI is used in marketing and advertising to forecast the customer's next move in the sales cycle by using historical sales and marketing data. This enables marketers to improve process weaknesses and gaps and enhance the customer journey.

AI is rapidly being utilized by marketers to assist with creative chores including creating headlines and text, designing logos, and creating email newsletters. To "learn" how to do these jobs efficiently and produce pertinent material, it analyzes data from previous client contacts.

As we've already covered in this piece, chatbots and tailored content are just two examples of emerging digital marketing trends that are being driven by AI. More information about it is available in this post.

Why is it so successful?

Simply said, AI enables marketers to analyze, evaluate, and comprehend infinitely more client data than they are able to do with the help of humans. Teams are able to have a far deeper insight of the behavior of their target audience as a result. Marketers may develop new campaigns with more focused outreach by using this data to forecast a customer's next step, which boosts conversions and ROI. According to a recent research by the consulting company PwC, 72% of CMOs saw AI as having "significant advantages".

The monotonous and time-consuming duties are handled by AI and automation, freeing marketing teams to concentrate on strategy and optimization.

How to apply artificial intelligence in your company

Today's most widely used marketing-related software uses AI, therefore using it is a matter of choosing the best solution for your company. And this relies on the aims and ambitions of your company. In 2021, popular examples of marketing software in use include chatbot software, PPC campaigns with AI at the core, and AI content creation tools.

11. Postal Service

Describe direct mail.

The term "direct mail" describes actual marketing materials that are addressed directly to a potential customer's house. Brochures and letters with special offers are a couple of examples. Direct mail buckes the trend in that it isn't digital marketing but rather print-based marketing when compared to the other topics in this article. However, data indicates that 70% of customers connect with a company online after getting direct mail from them, therefore direct mail will play an increasingly significant role in multichannel marketing efforts in 2021.

Due to their lack of an envelope and concise text, postcards are among the most successful direct mail types in 2021. They are also far more likely to be read than letters and brochures. Additionally, it is less expensive than mailing regular mail. Another trend is short text, with studies showing that direct mail would include 62% less words on average in 2021 than it will in 2014. Only 500 words on average were used in direct mail in 2021.

Why is it so successful?

As a result of shifting customer behavior, direct mail is becoming more popular. Many customers are "numb" to digital marketing initiatives due to the content marketing explosion and remote work being the new norm. According to studies, 70% of customers appreciate direct mail for its personal touch and genuineness, which makes them feel appreciated. According to the same report, 56% of physical mail is kept in homes for longer than 28 days following delivery, which inevitably boosts brand exposure. Direct mail's sensory qualities also contribute to its effectiveness.

How to use direct mail in your company

The most typical aims of direct mail are to boost sales, website traffic, and social media followings. In order to operate a successful direct mail campaign, marketers must first outline their objectives. It's crucial to specify how it works with online marketing channels and when in the consumer journey it would be most useful. Direct mail is a more expensive form of advertising due to postage and printing, therefore marketing teams must make sure they have the information and resources required to ensure its efficacy. Prior to focusing on a bigger audience, it is wise to test and optimize various direct mail campaigns on a small sample of clients. To direct customers to your online channels, take into account include QR codes in your material.

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Salty Red Dog Marketing, LLC is a marketing agency in Red Bank, NJ, Westport, CT, and everywhere in between. We service businesses with marketing strategies, digital marketing, social media, and consultations.

Contact: info@saltyreddogmarketing.com

Phone: NJ: (732) 802-6205 // CT: (203) 429-9671