Marketing is one of the most significant factors for business growth and success. However, there is a reason why marketers allocate the majority of the marketing budget to online marketing strategies. We have learned anything in the past two years that an online marketing strategy will keep your business afloat even during a global pandemic.
This article talks about the best marketing strategies for 2022, so let’s dig right in!
Digital Market Will Become More Critical in 2022
Covid-19 has had a tremendous impact on our lives, habits, and digital consumption. Looking at the new consumer trends, it is clear that:
- Digital marketing will be marketers’ top priority
- Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) marketing will take the lead
- Content marketing will be a critical growth factor
- Brands will need to create a more personalized and consumer-centric content
Source: Ecliqs
Why Do You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy?
- 91% of consumers use a search engine to find a product/service
According to research, more than 91% of adults look for products online. If you don’t invest in a digital marketing campaign, you will give up multiple leads and sales.
- 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google
Did you know that nearly 90% of all web pages get no search traffic from Google after the first year of publishing? Only a meagre 0.21% gets 1001+ visits. (Source: Ahrefs)
Thus, creating a website alone is not enough. Your digital marketing efforts will decide how much traffic flows to the landing pages and turns into leads. Therefore, the lack of a strong digital marketing campaign results in low ranking, low traffic, and no leads.
- Roughly 80% of online consumers have purchased from social media ads (Source: Statista)
More than 3.7 billion people use social media every day. As social media consumption rises, consumers will turn to social media for product research and purchase. Last year alone, social commerce generated over $474 billion in revenue (Source: Inc.). It is estimated that the global social commerce market will reach US$2.9 Trillion by 2026.
It is high time for businesses to invest in social media marketing strategy to boost their online sales. Failing to do so will leave you behind your competitors.
Source: Oberlo
Now that we know the importance of digital marketing, let’s look at the top 7 marketing strategies you can’t afford to ignore in 2022.
Top 7 Marketing Strategies For 2022
Influencer Marketing
Global marketing professionals plan to invest in influencer marketing in 2022. 57% of marketers currently leveraging influencer marketing believe it to be effective, and 46% plan to increase their budgets in 2022. At the same time, 11% revealed it is the top ROI-generating trend they tested.
You will see people glued to their phones and interacting on different social platforms when you look around. But who are they interacting with? Mostly with influencers. Vamp did a research study where they found out that 61% of those surveyed engaged with an influencer on any given day. The same survey found that 87% bought a product or service based on influencer input.
Source: LaunchMetrics
Understanding Influencer marketing
The foundation of influencer marketing is that it is easier to influence people who are already influenced by someone. It identifies the individuals that influence potential buyers and orient marketing activities around these influences. Thus, influencer marketing uses prominent leaders or influencers to drive a brand’s message to the targeted market.
While there is some overlap between celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing campaigns, influencer campaigns tap into an existing community of engaged followers who trust their endorsements. There is often a formal agreement between brands and influencers, but influencers tend to be more selective about their affiliations. They choose to partner with businesses that reflect their unique personal brands and resonate with their followers.
Source: Engaio
Followers vs. Engagement
As a marketer, you should focus on the depth rather than the breadth of the engagement. Breadth refers to how many followers an influencer has. On the other hand, the depth of engagement means how the followers interact with the influencer and their content. The deeper the engagement goes, the more bank for the buck you’re going to get.
Pro Tip: Over 56% of marketers investing in influencer marketing, work with micro-influencers. Micro-influencers – influencers with 5000 to 100,000 followers/subscribers – have minimal impact but high engagement. They are more relatable and connect with the community that they’re influencing.
Mobile Optimization
84% of marketers focusing on mobile optimization will continue to invest the same amount or more in 2022. (Source: HubSpot)
5.13 billion people own mobile devices – 66.5% of the global population. With billions of people spending more and more time on their mobile phones, it’s no surprise that mobile marketing is one of the top digital marketing trends. According to stats, more than half of the worldwide online website traffic comes from mobile devices. (Source: Statista)
As the buying power of Millennials and Gen Z consumers grows, mobile-optimized experiences will become more essential than ever. Moreover, 64% of Gen Z and Millennial mobile users are always connected. If you want to engage with these highly connected, fast-paced generations, you will have to invest in mobile optimization in 2022.
Source: Business Wire
Socially Responsible Marketing
Here’s a funny statistic for you:
31% of marketers say social responsibility is ineffective for campaign engagement or performance, yet 45% still plan to invest in it throughout the coming year.
So, if 31% of people say social responsibility is not that effective, then why are 45% still doing it? Well, it is because with the current state of things in the world as we know it –pandemics, non-communicable diseases, and environmental degradation – social responsibility, ethics, and transparency matter more to the modern consumer than ever before.
A research study by McKinsey also shows reports that customers prefer doing business with brands that actually care about consumers, their employees, and the environment. Moreover, a 2015 Nielsen Global Corporate Sustainability Report revealed that 66% of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable brands.
Source: Agility PR Solutions
Thus, if you can incorporate an element of social responsibility into your brand and your business marketing, then go for it. Create social media strategies to focus more on shared causes, inclusive initiatives, promotions, and offerings.
Here are three key statistics to keep in mind:
- 87% of people will purchase a product because the company advocates for a cause/issue they care about. (Source: Investopedia)
- More than 9 in 10 millennials would switch brands to another one associated with a cause. (Forbes)
- 73% of surveyed consumers say brands must act now for the good of society and the planet. (Source: Marketing Dive)
Experiential Marketing
77% of marketers use experiential marketing as a central aspect of their marketing strategy.
According to our research, 58% of marketers currently using experiential marketing believe it to be an effective strategy. 48% of them plan to increase experiential investments in 2022. Moreover, 9% of marketers plan to invest in experiential marketing for the first time in 2022. (Source: HubSpot)
What is Experiential Marketing?
Experiential marketing, or engagement marketing, is a marketing strategy that immerses customers within a campaign, product, or service. It is often hard to pull off, but it is a legitimate tactic within your marketing plan. It generates brand awareness, boosts brand loyalty, and gives your audience something to remember you by. It deeply engages the audience and enables them to experience the brand – thus, influencing them to buy the products/ services from that brand.
Source: Quora
In experiential marketing, you go beyond the visuals, using strategy, psychology, and creative thinking. This unique marketing form allows the brands to engage with the audience as they wouldn’t normally do so. These experiences could be a pop-up kiosk, an interactive billboard, AR/VR platform, etc.
The impacts of experiential marketing include:
- Grabs the audience’s attention
- Leaves a long-lasting impression on the consumer
- Drives brand loyalty and brand awareness
- Helps you earn media exposure and PR
- Raises the profile of your brand
To conclude, experiential marketing is the solution if you want to take your brand recognition to another level in 2022.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing has been around for years and serves as one of the most effective marketing techniques. Yet, so many people still are not implementing it. It is shocking to know that 27% of marketers say they will leverage inbound marketing for the first time in 2022.
Importance of Inbound Marketing
Business growth is the result of a well-executed inbound strategy. The inbound approach to doing business is more human and customer-centered. In today’s world, buyers have all the power, and there has been a massive shift in the relationship between a business and buyers. Now a buyer has more information about your product, industry, and competition.
So, instead of interruption-based messaging where businesses had all the control, inbound is about empowering buyers. You need to align with the way buyers think, research and purchase. It is about being helpful during each experience they have with your business. Inbound marketing requires you to improve product quality. Plus, you need to create valuable, relatable and tailored content for your target audience.
Source: Vital Design
Inbound marketing is a valuable asset that can help create brand awareness, build trust digitally and drive customers by refocusing strategy to seek your content. 18% of marketers say outbound practices provide the highest quality leads for sales. Moreover, inbound marketing is also more cost-effective. It costs 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing.
Content Marketing
Did you know that 80% of B2B companies use content marketing for lead generation?
Content marketing strategy is creating and distributing content to attract and retain customers. Basically, you create and promote content to lead people towards a profitable action. Stats show that content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates 3 times as many leads. (Source: Neil Patel)
Why YImboou Need to Implement Content Marketing?
With so much information available at the tip of our fingers, we, as consumers, will be influenced by content. Now the content we read and watch is from multiple sites and creators. So, whatever you create should have the goal of attracting and retaining customers. Your content can be in various formats like blog posts, podcasts, videos, online courses, infographics, free tools, templates, eBooks, checklists, and more. As long as there is demand from your target audience for that type of content, then pretty much anything is fair game.
Source: Niel Patel
Getting Your Content Noticed
You are probably already finding that it’s harder to get your content noticed, and that is because there are over a billion blogs on the Internet. Just think of it this way: if there are a billion blogs, that’s roughly one for every seven people. In short, there is a ton of content. So, how do you stand out? How do you get noticed? How do you succeed in this busy landscape? Don’t rely on SEO or social media.
Source: CommPRO
SEO is not dead, but it takes longer to get rankings, and it is harder to execute. SEO is still super effective, but you just have to be patient and play the long game. At the same time, social media is continually cramping down on how much reach you get unless you spend money on ads.
Thus, you have to find a new way to promote your content. You can use different strategies like leveraging push notifications, messenger bots, email marketing, re-marketing, etc. You can even repurpose your content and leverage that same piece into audio form, video form, or vice versa.
Video Marketing
96% of consumers have watched a video about a product or service. Additionally, 78% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales (Source: Wyzowl). Therefore, video marketing is not going anywhere anytime soon.
According to a study, 99% of video marketers say they will continue to use video. Moreover, a whopping 81% of businesses already use video as a marketing tool. So, that majority will keep video going strong in 2022 and beyond.
Video content could be shared across multiple online platforms and viewed in several forms, including:
- Instagram reels
- Facebook videos
- YouTube videos
- Vines
- TikTok videos
- Live streams
- Podcasts and Webinars
- Tutorials
- Slides
Here are three video marketing trends to look out for in 2022:
Live Streams
Statistics also show that 2022 will be the year of the live stream. According to PRNewswire, the average smartphone user in America has 9.5 video streaming apps currently installed on their phone, meaning over 11% of their total apps are dedicated to streaming. Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram are already implementing features that make it easy to live stream. While dedicated live stream platforms like twitch more than doubled their average monthly users from 2020 to 2021.
Source: Influencer Marketing Hub
Educational Videos
Educational video content is also growing steadily. The global transition to online learning is a big-time legitimizer of this industry. It even sparked a movement on TikTok, the “learn on TikTok” hashtag that has attracted content from big names like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Shoppable Videos
Another video marketing trend in 2022 is shoppable videos. Shoppable videos allow you to buy products directly from ads and influencer videos. You can tag products in a video (the same way you might tag a person) and allow shoppers to add to the cart all while watching the video. In some versions of shoppable videos, you can even have viewers look in a demo or fill in a form for more information.
Wrapping Up
It is not hard to see the massive impact that marketing has on the growth of a business. Various statistics and research evidence proves how effective marketing can attract customers and boost sales. Implement the strategies mentioned above to make 2022 a year of growth, recognition and prosperity.