Every year, there is enormous interest around the new digital marketing trends expected for the following year. Thus, 2022 will be no exception! We are in the midst of setting up strategies and budgets for the year in question. And for that, you need to arm yourself with patience, insights, and common sense. 

Since the pandemic led to reduced marketing budgets, marketers have been searching for truly cost-effective new techniques. According to Gartner’s 2021 report on the state of marketing budgets, marketing budgets hit their lowest recorded level, dropping to 6.4% of company revenue in 2021 from 11% in 2020.

On the digital level, the trend is, fortunately, reversed. Marketing spending commitments in recent years have been largely dominated by digital channels, representing 72.2% of the total marketing budget. Furthermore, the budget allocation between so-called Paid, Owned & Earned media seems interesting, suggesting the continued importance of the website, email, Organic & Paid Search, and social networks, all of which hold similar budget levels in this survey.

There was a time when blogs alone were a sufficient novelty to attract attention – but that is no longer the case, obviously. Nowadays, the attention economy is an entire field that focuses on optimizing displayed content in relation to the attention span of internet users, currently estimated at 8 seconds. You have only 8 seconds to stand out, capture your target’s attention, and convey the message! It seems complicated, even impossible. But if others can do it, you can too.

Exploiting the Continued Rise of Influencer Marketing

This may seem completely out of place or outdated. However, the reality is quite different. Contrary to what one might think, influencer marketing still works and works very well. In 2016, the influencer market was worth about $1.7 billion. By 2020, this number had jumped to $9.7 billion. By the end of this year, it is expected to reach nearly $14 billion, indicating a trend that continues to accelerate. 

For some brands, the problem is triggered by the inadequate choice of influencer for the collaboration. At one point, there was a tendency to think that if Brand X’s campaign worked with Influencer Y, then let’s start a campaign with the same person! However, there is often a big gap between the brand’s target audience and the influencer’s audience, between their mutual values, and many other elements. 

Or, by frequently using a particular influencer, the latter loses credibility and harms the brand instead of promoting it – knowing that internet users are increasingly savvy and alert to insincere or unengaged campaigns by influencers. 

To remedy this, it would be more profitable to carefully choose these partners. We recommend avoiding overly generalist influencers and turning more towards niche influencers or others who have a close and direct link with your activity, products, values, and target. 

Riding the Wave of Emerging Chatbots

Another digital marketing trend that has gained popularity in recent years and may be part of your investments in 2022: chatbots.

Chatbots are an excellent, low-cost, and largely automated means designed not only to offer a more engaging experience to customers but also a more personalized one. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and associated concepts allow chatbots to improve their interactions over time – to the point where you might be talking to one without ever realizing it.

Recent advances have even enabled chatbots to develop their own “personality,” creating a fun experience that frees up your precious time so you can focus on issues that truly require your attention. Expect chatbots to become even more important in 2022 – especially as companies, brands, and media try to do more with less following the losses they still feel due to the pandemic.

Opting for Hybrid Events

Following the COVID-19 crisis, virtual events have become an essential pillar for continuing to interact with customers and partners. Now that physical gatherings are resuming, marketers face a choice. Should we return to organizing strictly physical events? Or should we stay virtual to meet the needs of consumers who prefer to attend live events from the comfort of their homes?

The answer, it seems, is to implement a hybrid approach. When planning events for 2022, ensure that your physical events have a strong digital component and use technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality to create an immersive experience for those who wish to attend digitally.

Diversifying the Platform Portfolio

Nowadays, consumers are becoming increasingly “digital savvy.” But that doesn’t mean they use all available platforms. Pay close attention to ensuring that the channels used for your marketing are in line with where your audience gathers. Do not hesitate to follow them and go to them if they migrate from one platform to another or expand their range of choices. Only these platforms deserve your time and effort. Still, ensure that the content is consistent and optimized for each platform. It’s entirely normal since, for example, videos do not work as well on LinkedIn as on TikTok. But at the same time, maintain a coherent brand image in everything. The potential for diversification is enormous. However, try to adapt your content schedules and not overload your staff. 

Prioritizing Content Marketing

To stand out from the competition, one magic solution: content. The amount of information on the Internet is enormous, and the need to interact with the public becomes daily. Thus, it becomes increasingly difficult to create original content every day or more capable of capturing attention. 

Consumers do not want to see the same arguments, the same approaches, the same call-to-actions, etc. What they want to see is a unique twist, a strong emotion, high-value content. For this, you will need to find a surprising insight and creatively develop it by incorporating a lot of emotions and interactivity. That’s why the “industry” of blogs and influencers has experienced exponential growth!

We recommend, as much as possible, working on longer and more educational content through articles, as they are an excellent tool for solid SEO and thought leadership. You can incorporate an interactive and playful aspect. For example, you can add quizzes, games, and questions, which tend to work exceptionally well. 

Although the demand for content is also growing, do not pressure yourself to publish every day, especially if you judge that the content would be repetitive, boring, and far from relevant. This could have the opposite effect! It’s better to provide less frequent content as long as it adds value to internet users, and thus automatically to your business. 

Developing Mobile Marketing

According to Pew Research, “constant” Internet use among adults has increased by 5% in recent years. What does this mean? It is not only the consumption patterns that have changed with the increase in Internet use but also the way people access the Internet. Just take a moment to observe the people around you in public places – and the obvious finding is that they are almost all engrossed in their phones. 

As more and more people use smartphones and tablets rather than computers to browse products or services on the web, companies need to create mobile-friendly content that guarantees a better ranking in search engines. A simple strategy is to optimize your website’s design so that it automatically adapts to small screens. The AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) option also speeds up content loading on smartphones and tablets.

Alternatives to Third-Party Cookies

Google has announced that it will end third-party cookie tracking in early 2022. What does this mean for your business? 

While consumers demand greater privacy protection and better control of their data, tracking users on the web is essential for many advertisers and businesses. Today, consumers already enjoy the ability to refuse cookies and third-party tracking, and that was not enough. 

To better cope with such a decision, you should automatically think of increasing your efforts to collect and fully utilize first-party data to continue delivering relevant ads. Zero-party data is becoming increasingly popular. Briefly, it refers to data directly transmitted by the consumer to a brand, whether through a form, a survey, gamification, or a simple online consumer/brand interaction. In any case, CRM tools, surveys, and interactive content will become increasingly necessary for the success of your campaigns once cookie tracking is no longer in place.

You can also use tools such as Google’s Privacy Sandbox or FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) to perform personalization and consumer targeting without encroaching on user privacy. 

Suddenly, in 2020, marketers were forced to rethink their strategy, pivoting quickly and (in some cases) unsuccessfully. Consequently, the coming years could be marked by increased demand for agility from marketing teams and communication professionals. This means no more silos between marketers and other departments. The focus will be on the need to plan quickly and collect data more efficiently.