Marketing is always changing as marketers learn new strategies and methodologies, businesses change how they target and acquire customers, and people’s responses to various marketing strategies change. 2022 is poised to be a year of change, with a lot coming down the pipeline. To help businesses prepare and plan for the future, we will look at six things they and their marketers should keep an eye on.
Influencer Marketing Is Still Growing
There are some marketers who have concluded that influencer marketing is a thing of the past because of how many people no longer trust influencer messaging. However, the data contradicts this opinion because influencer marketing reached over $13 billion in 2021 in market value, and it continues to grow.
With influencers providing context and relevance, their campaigns become very successful depending on the influencer and product. Larger corporations like Adobe and PWC have already embraced influencer marketing, and thus this is something marketers should keep an eye on.
Strategic Thinking Will Be Key
Machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation have already taken over large parts of the work done by marketers. The only thing left for marketers to do is leverage these tools to their advantage. Marketers will require strategic thinking as marketing options increase and marketers find ways to take advantage of them.
How Privacy Will Affect Advertising
All marketers understand that user data is very important for targeted marketing. Targeted marketing relies heavily on ads, and these ads rely on the user data a marketer has on a user or a specific group of users. New privacy concerns and legislations are now affecting how marketers can collect user data.
Regulations such as the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation in Europe), CASL (Canada’s anti-spam legislation) and other legislations around the world are making it harder for businesses to collect the date they need.
Businesses have historically relied on first-, second- and third-party data, these sources will soon be obsolete. These data sources depend on various parties to collect and distribute the data to their partners.
Businesses will have to switch to Zero party data, which is data provided directly by users and customers. Marketers should start gauging how these changes will impact their advertising and marketing and take steps to mitigate against the expected negative impact.
Changes Happening to SEO
SEO is one of the older forms of digital marketing. In the past, it was all about getting on the first page of search engine results. However, as bots and the algorithms that rank pages have become more intelligent and with the ability to understand context, SEO is changing. Instead of using tricks and hacks to reach the first search engine research page, marketers should focus on providing a superior experience for their audiences.
Website Traffic Is Changing
Mobile traffic has been growing since internet-capable phones went mainstream. Now, mobile internet traffic has passed desktop traffic on most websites. Websites that do not have a great experience for mobile users will be left behind. This is especially the case when you consider Google now uses website speed as a ranking metric. Marketers must ensure their websites are optimized for all devices, especially mobile devices.
Exploding Marketing Options
There are now more digital marketing options than ever before. The result is marketers spreading themselves too thin trying to take advantage of all these methods. Marketers should focus on one or a few marketing channels that perform best for their businesses. Doing this will produce better results and lead to both monetary and time savings.
Marketing will continue to change as the internet and other marketing platforms evolve. Staying ahead will require that marketers keep an eye on everything happening in their industry, including offline strategies. Barring this, marketers will be left implementing old strategies and using channels that no longer produce results.
