A successful marketing campaign can be the difference between sustaining a thriving, profitable company and being left behind, losing business to your competitors. Staying on top of the latest trends in marketing can help keep your solutions top of mind for your existing customers while consistently feeding new prospects into your sales pipeline.
These days, there are many different channels and innovative tactics a brand can use to reach its target audiences. It’s important to know which ones to build a presence on and how to show up there if you hope to craft the most effective marketing strategy. Below, 15 members of the Forbes Agency Council share key marketing trends that they believe all brands need to take note of to find success in 2022.
1. Pivoting With Shifting Tactic Effectiveness
The one trend that everyone can depend on is that tactic effectiveness will change and shift throughout the year. It’s imperative to spend time understanding the core of your brand and what makes you unique so that you can effectively build your brand in whatever channels you pivot to throughout the year. –Josh Dougherty, A Brave New
2. Evolving A Brand To Fit Each Channel
Be mindful of all social media, and be prepared to pivot your band and creatively flex. Brands must present the right voice/vibe on each channel to engage their target audiences. TikTok has its place, but the content can’t match your Facebook ads—your visual voice must shift. It’s no longer a one-size-fits-all social game, and the evolution of your brand is key to harnessing the power of each channel. –Taja Dockendorf, Pulp and Wire
3. Emphasizing Comfort And Delight
People are seeking comfort and delight as they emerge from the pandemic nightmare: the comfort of high-quality, well-known brands and the surprise and delight of “second-mile” service or delivery. Brands that emphasize peace of mind, tradition, family—the comfort of a connection to others—will do well. Those who can add delight to the customer experience will excel. – Jeff Bradford, Dalton Agency
4. Building First-Party Data Strategies
Start building your first-party data strategy. For many organizations, this starts with evaluating how a customer data platform fits within your infrastructure. It also includes evaluating your third-party data usage and how deprecation of third-party cookies, mobile device IDs, and other data privacy regulations might affect them. –Greg Kihlstrom, GK5A
5. Driving One-To-One Marketing With AI
The use of artificial intelligence can be a powerful and accessible component in a marketer’s toolbox. One-to-one marketing has long been a talking point. Once upon a time, it felt like a far-flung fantasy. It has existed in some limited forms in recent years, but now—empowered by meaningfully workable AI—it is bound to become increasingly achievable throughout 2022. –Jeremy Fain, Cognitiv
6. Using Storytelling Tools On Digital Video Platforms
For 2022, specifically, the dramatic change in consumer habits around video consumption is critical. Brands need to adjust their thinking from “channel” to “experience.” The biggest entertainment platforms in the world today are online, digital, and on-demand. Leaning into the emerging storytelling tools of these platforms is a crucial exercise for brands this year. –Kimberly Jones, Butler/Till
7. Exploring The New Frontier Of The Metaverse
The metaverse is a multifaceted extension of our physical reality, where gaming, social networks, unconventional presences, and cryptography converge to create new avenues, audiences, and opportunities for professionals and businesses that possess a new digital perspective and mindset. This is the new frontier—the hard-drive gold rush is here, and while the stakes are high, the barriers to entry are still low. –Rodolfo Salazar, QUDOX The agency of the new era
8. Adapting Media Mixes To Changing Consumer Habits
Adjust your media mix to adapt to massively changing consumer habits. This is particularly true with respect to TV and digital. If you’re not doing so already, now is the time to test connected and digital TV media buys. View your media-mix modeling with a healthy degree of skepticism. Things are changing. –Gyi Tsakalakis, AttorneySync & EPL Digital
9. Personalizing According to Customer Behaviors
If brands want to stay ahead of the curve, they need to get on the personalization train. The problem is, that most brands don’t have a clear understanding of what personalization truly is or how to get there. Brands need to analyze the motivations behind their customers’ behaviors. They will discover that this is the best path to elevating personalization and ensuring greater brand affinity. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
10. Collaborating With Creators For The Long Term
Long-term collaborations with creators on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are essential for building and sustaining brand awareness. With privacy changes shifting the marketing landscape, brands need those strong relationships with brand ambassadors now more than ever in order to ensure organic content is landing in front of target demographics. –Mae Karwowski, Obviously
11. Aligning Brand Practices With Consumers’ Values
Consumers are savvier about sustainability credentials than ever before, and they are actively making choices based on brands’ alignment with their personal values. In order to survive in this empowered market, brands will need to both understand the social values of their customer base and make real, tangible changes to practices that are out of alignment. – Chris Martin, FlexMR
12. Building Connections Through Short-Form Video
Short-form video is not exactly new, but it has taken the social media world by storm in the past few years. Between Tik Tok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, it is one of the main ways to connect with your followers and a wider audience. As more companies move to create their own short videos, it is a big mistake to rule it out. – Lisa Montenegro, Digital Marketing Experts – DMX Marketing
13. Doing Your Homework Before Following A Trend
Saying there is one trend that every brand should follow is shortsighted. Brands should be aware of and educated on current trends and do their homework to find out if a certain trend is right for their audience(s) or not. Is your audience on TikTok? If not, don’t waste your time on that trend. That said, video, AI and augmented reality continue to grow in use and popularity in both B2B and B2C marketing. –Megan Devine, d.trio marketing group
14. Utilizing Paid Ad Solutions On Social Media
One key marketing trend that all brands need to take note of in 2022 is utilizing paid advertising solutions on social media. Brands must be investing in paid social media ads on platforms such as Facebook and Google to stay top of mind, stand out from the competition and, ultimately, convert more business. –Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc
15. Telling Micro Stories
With TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, everyone’s attention span is getting shorter and shorter. We need to be able to hook people in the first three seconds and keep their attention until the payoff at the end. This can be done very effectively by telling micro-stories. –Sun Yi, Night Owls
Source: https://dmxmarketing.com/fifteen-key-marketing-trends-brands-need-to-take-note-of-in-2022/
