Is your business taking advantage of the latest marketing trends?
Not sure what to watch out for to keep your marketing efforts on the right track?
In this article, we’ll cover six marketing trends impacting digital marketing now.
Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2022 and Beyond
Adaption to marketing trends is imperative to stay competitive while retaining high-quality customers. Though the advancement of technology continues to shape the digital marketing industry, experts believe marketing trends will be less about digitization and more about the human experience.
Marketing is no longer defined by branding and advertising alone but by the customer experience and user engagement.
Take a peek at the latest digital marketing trends for 2022 and beyond. . .
#1 Voice Search Continues to Grow
“Hey Alexa, what’s the latest statistic with voice search for 2022 and beyond?
“Statistics on voice search growth show that 91% of brands are heavily investing in the voice market.”
With over 4.2 billion digital voice assistants worldwide. and a whopping 61% of consumers between the ages of 25-64 already using a voice device, savvy brands are including a voice search strategy as part of their overall SEO strategy. A quarter of homes now own a smart speaker influencing how brands create and optimize content for voice search. Considerations for smart speaker advertising bring new challenges and opportunities for your business.
#2 Video Content Dominates
It’s all about video content on social media. Video content is dominating the social media space more than ever before. Highly visual social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube continue to dominate providing ample proof of this.
In fact, with over 1 billion users and growing rapidly, TikTok Users Spend More than 850 Minutes Per Month on the App outpacing Pinterest, SnapChat and Twitter. While you don’t need much more than a cell phone for filming your video content, brands benefit from a consistent posting strategy and content plan. Make sure you have this in place before hopping into this demanding yet rewarding space.
Our recommendation for video content? If it works for your brand, create a series of short, DIY videos.
#3 Live Streaming is Big and We’re Here for it
85% of people are already more likely to buy a product or choose a service after watching a video about it; and, when a live stream is added, more consumers feel part of an audience versus passive viewers. In fact, a Forrester study showed live videos hold users’ attention 10-20x longer than pre-recorded, on-demand content. And more and more businesses are seeing their live video campaigns boost video engagement by more than twice as much for influencer marketing.
“Going live” provides real-time engagement opportunities, brand authenticity and often means there’s going to be exciting news, how-to or information consumers will be the first to know about. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok are among the main platforms offer a live streaming option with brands forecasted to spend more than $100 billion on creating live video content by 2023.
#4 Privacy is Up, Targeting is Down
With the installation of iOS14 in early 2022, Apple phased out the ability for advertisers to track the Identifier for Advertiser (IDFA) tag by default. Instead, users will have to opt-in to tracking on a case-by-case basis. Keeping in that vein, Google announced its intention to phase out third-party cookies by 2023 creating new challenges for digital marketers and advertisers in reaching their target audiences. As a result advertisers are experiencing lower audience sizes (and therefore lower reach in campaign targeting). In fact, Gartner predicts 80% of marketers will abandon personalization efforts by 2025 due to a lack of ROI and the increased challenges. While digital marketing is ever evolving, this space is moving at warp-speed to find work arounds.
Our message to marketers? Make sure you follow the platforms recommendations for paid advertising and keep a nimble digital strategy.
#5 Google Featured Snippets
The featured snippet, (also known as the no-click search result or position zero) is the resulting blurb of content you see when you conduct a search on Google and other search engines. These snippets are extremely useful to the user as they can view the information they are seeking often without even clicking into the article. While this may seem counterintuitive to SEO as readers don’t actually need to visit your website for the info they seek, there are still tips and tricks you can implement to gain website traffic.
“Position zero”—appearing before search results—builds trust and awareness. Getting the reader to click through to your website requires slightly different tactics than those aimed at normal listings in the SERP, like adding a few more bullets to your answer than are shown. Or providing more useful content on your website than appears in the snippet and alluding to it in the title.
#6 Chat over Email Any Day
When it comes to customer service, having a chat feature readily available to your customers is imperative. Seeking real-time interaction and information is what your customers expect, making the sluggish pace of email almost as painful as email was to snail mail. Be prepared with chat features on your website and landing pages. Monitor your ads for questions and comments. Monitor your social channels with live agents and chatbots for FAQs.
Digital Marketing is Always Evolving
Best practices, targeting options, new platforms tools and tricks and ever-evolving technologies are things you can count on to always be changing. Keeping up with all the updates can be overwhelming for any marketing department, business or brand. That’s where a digital agency partner like Harp will help. Starting with an audit against your current goals, we’ll develop a current marketing strategy, on brand and in budget, and if needed provide the resources to implement and manage it.
Feeling the weight of these trends against your current marketing strategy?
At Harp, we offer full-service, digital and traditional marketing built around your strategic objectives. Our experts in brand, social, SEM, web and more are ready to leverage cross-channel marketing to not only grow your business but befriend the customer.
