Digital Marketing Trends for 2022 and why Personalization will be a Hot Topic
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Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash
Trying to make predictions about anything these days is like trying to put socks on a rooster. But here at Motionlab we are always up for a challenge. Several organizations have released reports of marketing trends for 2022, talking to business experts working on the front line who have the best view of what is happening during this turbulent period. And there is certainly consistency and lots of interesting trends in their findings.
So we've sifted through several reports and put the key details together for this blog, as well as gazing into our own crystal ball to interpret what all this means for video personalization. Personalization is a concept that is appearing more and more in marketing strategies every year and we boldly predict this is a trend that's going to continue.
A Cookie-less World
With third-party cookie deprecation coming into effect later in 2022 and privacy laws being tightened in response to public concerns, marketers are focused on two key factors for their strategic focus in the new year - personalized content and audience building.
Companies are going to need to rethink their tactics on how they get data and how they use the information. They'll need to work harder and smarter to get it but the rewards can be high. There is no doubt that personal data is now recognized as one of the key tools in marketing strategies. Technology has opened the door to building better customer relationships if it is used wisely. For effective audience building, identifying, engaging and cultivating new audiences as well as meeting the higher expectations of existing audiences is seen as the key to success.
In this new cookie-less world, there is going to be a need for an entire rethink of marketing strategies. Digital prospecting, audience engagement and campaign reporting will need a major overhaul. Covid has accelerated the disruption of existing marketing practices but now there is an excellent opportunity for a necessary reappraisal.
Global e-commerce sales grew by nearly 30% last year. We'll be spending a lot of time online again and audiences will become increasingly demanding for a satisfactory and sophisticated experience. But consumers hate being bombarded with too much, or unnecessary, information. They want immediacy, authenticity and relevancy. Personalized content can be the solution to this but only if it is used in the right way and not intrusively. Marketing is increasingly becoming about the customers' needs, rather than the product.
Cookies will be disappearing in 2022. Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels
There remains deep-rooted scepticism in some areas of the public over the use of personal data. Some see its deployment as useful while others see it as invasive. The changes coming next year provide a perfect moment to build stronger trust with customers so that data use is more transparent and, ultimately, more empowering for the customer themselves.
This also correlates with what is seen as a growing need for being socially responsible. 31% of marketers say social responsibility is ineffective in terms of campaign engagement or performance. 45% plan to focus more on it next year.
Data Wrangling
One of the major headaches for marketers is manually integrating data into an effective strategy. It's increasingly time-consuming, especially if it's spread out over separate locations. This makes it difficult to have a clear overview and make effective strategic decisions. Worse, it can lead to errors being made.
Data needs to be consolidated and the transition to automated data is gathering pace. In 2022, the added value of investing in an efficient CRM system will be seen as a necessity rather than a luxury. 7 out of 10 marketers say this is a priority.
Photo by Lars Kienle on Unsplash
Personalization
All these factors combined point towards the increasing demand for personalization in commerce and marketing. This is true for the way that companies communicate with their customers and the way that customers expect to be talked to.
Major brands like Amazon, Netflix, Starbucks and Easyjet are all using personalization marketing successfully to create customized experiences. Elements of personalization are becoming prevalent in most forms of marketing.
Customers like it and it works.
Global Attitudes
Different countries recognize different strengths and priorities
Germany sees campaign optimization as their biggest strength, but it's less so in the US and UK. The UK sees campaign reporting and optimization as its greatest strength. In the US, it's personalized content delivery and audience building.
The US and UK see improving the situation with the inefficient collection and use of manually wrangled data as their biggest challenge. Germany sees being able to make better sense of the data and respond effectively as their biggest challenge.
Delivering the Message
The rise of Influencer marketing is the number one trend for next year according to many. This has rapidly evolved over the years and is now a commonly used marketing tactic to engage with audiences, especially younger ones. An authentic experience with a trusted person is seen as an increasingly effective way to deliver a message.
The second most flagged trend is the rise in use of short-form video. Video is an ideal way to create engaging customer relationships because it gives the brand a human voice. This then helps to build credibility, trust and loyalty with customers.
31% of marketers around the world currently use short-form video content in their campaigns. 46% of them consider the strategy effective for engaging their audience. In 2022, 89% of them plan to continue investing or increase their investment in video.
Some other Key Trends:
Increased mobile optimization as the purchasing power of millennials and Gen Z audiences continues to grow.
Increased use of AI-powered optimization.
Permanent social media posts becoming more important than ephemeral content.
Increased use of conversational marketing.
Greater use of push notofications.
Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) experiences and interactive content.
Live Stream Shopping. Although relatively unknown in the west, this is already a huge multi-million $ phenomenon in China with over 300m viewers. It's likely to get bigger and expand globally.
Increasingly sophisticated SEO strategies. SEO has gone beyond merely using keywords now. Marketers need to not only understand what audiences are searching for but why.
Virtual events along with hybrid marketing strategies will continue to rise as impact of Covid and restrictions refuses to go away. Some brands say they are reducing their budgets for this but 80% say they will spend the same or more.
Clubhouse may have already had its 15 minutes of fame but the buzz around it was phenomenal and it's likely that branded audio content will now become a 'thing'.
And last, but certainly not least, with personalized content and short- form video both being seen as major trends for 2022, it's perhaps unsurprising that personalized video is also tipped as being a hot topic for 2022.
Keep reading more insightful and informative blog posts from Motionlab to see if we were right.
To take a deep-dive into some of the reports yourself, you can find the source data here for Adverity's report or for Hubspot's report here.
Danny Holman, Motionlab