4 Trends in Marketing for 2022

Whether they have been in the game for years or are brand new to it, marketers are constantly required to reinvent their strategies. Their job comes with the need to stay on top of trends in marketing for the coming year and design newer audience-drawing marketing strategies.

Tracking marketing trends and anticipating any changes in them can be very illuminating for a business. It can lay the foundation of a company’s future of marketing.

While marketing has never been a steady field, the pace with which it has been changing since the past year has been faster than ever. In 2021, 43% of marketers widened their content marketing budget with 66% of them expecting to see this rise continue in 2022.

With digital marketing getting more popular than ever, we can safely assume that 2022 is going to be a year of dramatic marketing changes.

With that said, let’s have a look at the 4 marketing trends that you need to take advantage of the next year.

1. Video Content is King

The beginning of 2021 saw a continuing rise of the video content platform TikTok. It effectively took over all other leading social media channels among young users. This massive success can be attributed to the increasing preference for short-video content by internet users.

Very quickly, the landscape of social media has shifted away from status updates and photos. Now, from Instagram’s Reels to YouTube’s Shorts to Facebook’s Live, most social platforms have introduced features emphasizing short clips.

These short video formats provide marketers with an opportunity to create content that is engaging, attractive, and shareable. Producing content that instantly grabs the user’s attention has become vitally important, especially now, with the average human attention span lower than ever.

Here are a few video marketing statistics that will illustrate the importance of doubling down on video content in 2022:

• 92% of marketers agree that video content is an active part of their marketing campaigns.

• 79% of consumers state that they have bought something from a brand as a result of watching their video content.

• Users retain 95% of the information they watch in a video, compared to 10% for text.

• Marketers who post video content increase revenue 49% faster than non-video users.

2. Audio Content is Making a Comeback

No matter how much we love visual stimuli, the immense popularity of podcasts has proven that audio experiences are still very much a significant part of our lives.

Clearly, we still enjoy listening as much as watching. This means that brands should monetize the audio trend and make it an active part of their marketing efforts.

Here is why audio-form content should form an active part of your business’s marketing efforts in 2022:

• The average listening time of audio content is estimated to rise to 1 hour and 37 minutes per day in 2022.

• 53% of consumers reported being convinced to buy from a brand due to a smart speaker ad.

• 62% (176 million) of the US population aged 12 and older listens to online audio content weekly.  

• 81% of media agencies used some type of audio advertising in 2020 with 65% using podcast advertising.

3. Social Responsibility and Transparency are the Way to Go

New businesses are popping up by the minute. The overload of digital content due to this ever-increasing number of brands has made consumers picky. They want to know whether the brand they are interacting with is ethical, transparent, and shares their values.

Not only that, consumers want to learn about the people behind their favorite brands. This means more behind-the-scenes content and showcasing aspects of the business that make the customer feel like a part of the team.

In 2022, marketers should recognize the true value of connecting with consumers on a deeper level. They should be transparent about their business and marketing practices. This includes being transparent about the consumer data they are collecting, the eco-friendliness of their products, and the social causes they support.

Customers should also be given the option to opt out whenever they’d prefer.

A few key statistics that will inspire you to showcase your brand values and bring your customers in the loop are as follows:

• 83% of millennials revealed that they want brands to take a stand and show support for important political and cultural causes.

• 72% of consumers agree that they feel more connected with a brand if its employees regularly share useful content on social platforms.

• When customers feel connected to a brand, more than half (57%) of them will increase their spending with them. 76% of them will choose to buy from them over a competing brand. 

• 86% of customers report that authenticity is one of the primary deciding factors of whether they would interact with and support a brand.

• 81% of consumers state that they need to be able to trust a brand before they buy from them.

4. Inbound Marketing Strategies Will Sustain Effectiveness

Inbound marketing is a business strategy built on creating valuable and personalized content for a brand’s users. It allows businesses to form connections by addressing people’s pain points and solving a problem for them.

Inbound marketing relies on the Attract, Engage, Delight model.

In the Attract stage of the customer journey, high-quality content is posted by the brand that gets the users interested.

Once the interest is built, the next stage is to Engage them and continue providing educational, useful, and entertaining content.

Subsequently, the third step is to Delight the buyers, meaning that they should feel happy and supported while interacting with the brand.

This model leverages content marketing supported by Search Engine Optimization (SEO), efficiency-boosting market automation, and social media to guide the buyer journey.

When it comes to inbound marketing, research shows that:

• 82% of marketers who create content, specifically blogging, experience positive ROI from their inbound marketing.

• 54% of inbound marketing users allocate up to 49% of their marketing budget to inbound strategies.

• Inbound marketing doubles the average conversion rate of a site.

Conclusion

Marketers love new trends. The changing landscape of digital marketing gives them exciting opportunities to implement growth strategies. And now, with Google slowly phasing out the use of cookies, big changes are set to occur in the online marketing space in 2022.

As consumers are becoming increasingly demanding, brands who adapt and stay on top of these changes can survive the competitive digital marketplace. The thing to remember in the end is to experiment, measure, and make sure that these trends work for you.