Digital Marketing Trends: Top 5 Trends You Need To Know For 2022

Digital Marketing is Now More Relevant Than Ever

Digital marketing or “online marketing” has now gained more prominence than ever. CMOs across the globe assigned greater shares of their marketing budgets to digital in 2021. This is something that we will continue to see in 2022. Spends on digital ads, eCommerce, and MarTech will increase. With this being the case, what can you expect when it comes to Digital Marketing Trends for 2022?

Why Are Digital Marketing Trends Important To Consider For The Upcoming Year?

As the online environment is constantly evolving, so are its trends. Thus, it’s important to keep up with the newest and most spoken about changes. It is important to evaluate which trends are “hypes”. Further, it is even more relevant to see which trends are likely to become a norm in your sector.

In the following article, we will sum up the most important digital marketing trends based on our trend reporting over the last few months. Read on to learn which movements will be sustained trends that will impact your marketing efforts in 2022.

Trend 1: The Rise of Social Media Marketing

There are constantly new Social Media trends emerging. As social commerce grows day by day, stores keep being launched on Facebook and Instagram. Moreover, 25% of marketing experts say that live video is the most important social content to reach a company’s social media goals. Platforms are, thus, introducing live video shopping with influencers, which has shown conversion rates of up to 26%. Furthermore, trends such as virtual and augmented reality on Snapchat and Instagram, also include social shopping, where individuals can try on products via lenses or filters.

What this means for you: Produce more visual content and assess the value of social commerce
Different social platforms have varying types of audiences. Thus, analyzing which social platform serves your relevant target audience is essential. For example on TikTok over 50% of the audience is under the age of 34. As a result, this channel may not be the best choice for businesses whose target audience is in their mid-40s. When you have understood if you are still posting on the right platforms, tackle media. Can you create more image-based or video-based content?

Keep in mind that heavy social media users are very likely to adapt and use social shopping. This allows you a great opportunity to create effective targeting based on platform insights you have already gathered. Take a look to see if your audience is likely to have an affinity for shopping through your social account and if you can set up the infrastructure to support such activity.

Trend 2: eCommerce

Ecommerce is expanding and is now valued at over $25 Trillion globally. Moreover, mobile commerce will account for 73% of eCommerce sales, leading to the “think mobile-first” trend. Additionally, online shopping is expanding to social commerce, as demand increase on social platforms with an expected growth of 6.3% in 2022. In China, 37% of shopping is done through video because guided selling makes online shopping easier.

What this means for you: Strengthen your eCommerce Strategy with Enhanced Features
If you are new to eCommerce, start by evaluating the right platforms to make your products available. Next, focus on your eCommerce presence. Do your products look their best online?

If you are more seasoned in eCommerce- it may be time for you to consider strategies to enhance your presence. Will your audience respond to rich content? Can you provide consultative selling online? Can Live Stream shopping work for your target market? Consider these possibilities to leverage trends that are going to be ubiquitous in 2022.

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Trend 3: Advertising

As a means of protecting consumer privacy, both Google and Apple have decided to stop investing in third-party cookies. This should bear a major influence on targeting abilities. Further in 2022, we may see a surge in omnichannel advertising. These campaigns can reach people regardless of where they are, rather than having a focus on a single channel. In addition, voice searches and short videos are becoming increasingly popular due to the short attention span of today’s consumers. As a result, content like this can positively affect in-store sales through mobile marketing.

What this means for you: Get your ads ready for the voice and video age.
It is hard to keep up with the latest trends in advertising, but it can be extremely rewarding. Keep your focus on your target audience- what changes do you see in their behavior and consumption patterns? If they are consuming short-form video or searching through voice-enabled assistants, then adapt your content accordingly. Remember that for voice searches, it is important to use more human or conversational language and optimize for long-tail keywords.

Trend 4: Website & UX Design

Minimalistic design has become very popular in the last couple of years, brands such as BMW first used minimalistic designs on their logos. Plus, brand websites are updating their UX to minimalist designs in order to make them easier to navigate. Like other channels, voice search is becoming increasingly popular due to OS’s voice assistants. Individuals are using voice search to easily find products on a website, this creates greater accessibility and UX. Other trends, such as personalization are also growing. Machine learning is able to provide a more personalized experience along with products recommendations that predict the needs and wants of visitors.

What this means for you: Audit your website for relevance
Two key things here are:

1. Checking your overall UX design to see if it looks updated and enables users to navigate through voice search. This means as content becomes more simplistic but more visual, your UX has to support such content without creating a lot of clutter and wasted clicks.
2. Ensuring that you’re able to tailor content to your different target groups so that you can increase engagement and conversion. You can start by splitting users up into distinct audience personas for your specific industry.

Trend 5: Search Engine Optimization

Improving search is important for your marketing strategy, as it boosts your brand’s online visibility. Trends, such as zero-click searches, make up 64.82% of overall searches. The snippets Google displays on your website discourage searchers from clicking, thereby lowering your conversion rates. Moreover, the focus of buyer-centric content stays an essential trend, in order to attract potential customers. As a result of Google MUM, buyer-centric content such as images, podcasts and videos will be available in 75 different languages. This permits search engines to overcome language and content barriers, thereby, improves overall search for individuals.

What this means for you: Focus on reassessing your keywords and enhancing your user-intent on your website
Trends such as zero-click will be inevitable, hence it’s important to adapt keywords that prevent Google from showcasing snippets. Keywords such as “What does a successful SEO strategy look like” instead of “What is SEO”. Thus, Google will only be able to show minimal information. This will drive searchers to click on your website to gain full knowledge scope.

In addition, once Google MUM is officially launched, multimedia content and user intent are to be considered by the search algorithm. This will entice potential customers and maintain your website’s visibility. To benefit from this, create content that is clearly readable by the search engine by maintaining hygienic SEO principles such as well-written meta-data.

What Trends Are Seen Across All Digital Marketing Areas?

The rise of voice searches, mobile users, and short-form video will be seen through many channels in 2022, thus making them some of the most sustained digital marketing trends. Ensure that your content is written for voice searches, optimized for mobile, and delivered visually where possible. Google MUM’s ability to read and present multimedia results also means you can afford to create more visual content without compromising heavily on SEO.

Online Shopping: Shopping online is a permanent shift in behavior. We have seen this through exponential growth in not only eCommerce but also social commerce. Digital channels are starting to converge in functionality and users are able to shop across multiple channels. For instance, influencers can promote a brand’s products on social media and create high-quality backlinks to a website, which improves overall SEO.

While some trends may come and go, the ones we’ve summarized above are very likely to influence your digital marketing activities in 2022. You may not need to implement all your changes at once, but studying what trends are affecting your industry the most can give you an idea of how to prioritize your resources across these channels.

What To Do Next?

Want to keep the conversation going?

Talk to us: moin@watersky.digital