Top Trends 2022 – Digital Marketing

We all look forward to the latest offerings in the market – whether it’s a new smartphone, a new line of designer handbags or the latest TechDogs Techno Trends articles! Similarly, businesses are also on the lookout for the latest trends that would allow them to stay relevant to customers and appeal to newer target audiences.

In 2022, businesses and digital marketers will aim to cater to their customers by leveraging the latest trends – from using Artificial Intelligence to personalize experiences to developing brand-new strategies for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and data collection. This year, digital transformation initiatives will have a major impact on the marketing industry and businesses will need to pivot quickly to stand out. After all, marketing trends wait for no one!

So, marketers, join us as we explore the top 5 Digital Marketing Trends of 2022 that will be the much-needed boost for your marketing strategies!

Trend 1: Marketers Will Use Artificial Intelligence To Personalize According To Customer Behavior

Every good marketer knows that the best way to a customer’s hearts is through a personalized experience that addresses their needs. With access to mountains of customer data, digital marketers can dig deep and easily identify a consumer’s interests, pain points and preferences to market themselves better. Yes, we know, that’s yesterday’s news!

In 2022, digital marketers will start deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate the process of customer data analytics. The improvements in AI analytics will enable businesses to analyze increasingly large and complex datasets to gain insights into customer behavior, allowing them to provide tailored experiences. From social media ads to product recommendations, AI will make it easier for marketers to hyper-personalize their customers’ experiences.

Moreover, since consumers are flooded with a deluge of marketing content across various digital channels, using an AI-based personalization strategy will help forge a real connection between the brand and the target audience. No more relying on “Hi [enter customer name]” emails as a personalization strategy! Artificial Intelligence will allow businesses to analyze customer behavior and build better one-to-one marketing strategies.

Jeremy Fain, CEO and co-founder of Cognitiv, an Artificial Intelligence marketing firm says, “One-to-one marketing has long been a talking point. Once upon a time, it felt like a far-flung fantasy. It has existed in some limited forms in recent years, but now — empowered by meaningfully workable AI—it is bound to become increasingly achievable throughout 2022.”

TechDogs’ Opinion: In 2022, personalization will remain crucial for digital marketers. Businesses should focus on creating customized marketing strategies that cater to their demographic rather than developing catch-all campaigns hoping to appeal to a large audience. Artificial Intelligence will automate analytics and insight generation, even offering real-time suggestions and recommendations to make one-to-one marketing strategies possible.

Moreover, we believe marketers should concentrate on using AI-based analytics to customize every level of consumer interaction to help their target audience feel seen and understood. Naturally, this will improve the end-to-end customer experience.

Trend 2: Featured Snippets Will Redefine SEO Approaches

What’s every marketer’s favorite three-letter word?

SEO!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the oldest and most valuable forms of digital marketing. Businesses that evolve and adapt to the latest SEO strategies have always been on top. After all, the quicker a piece of information is available to the consumer, the higher its worth is – time is money, people!

Traditionally, it meant ranking higher on SERPs (Search Engine Page Results) as users tend to open searches that appear on the top first – we mean, have you ever opened page 4 of a Google search query? Yet, being ranked higher on SERPs is no longer the primary goal. In 2022, businesses will be changing their SEO goals to leverage featured snippets on SERPs.

Search engines have evolved with one goal in mind - to provide relevant information to users in the fastest possible way. That's what featured snippets aim to do! We're sure you've seen those helpful excerpts on SERPs that contain the information you searched for, so you don’t need to click through to the website anymore – it’s displayed right there on the search results page. This year, marketers will need to modify SEO practices to get featured on the "structured snippets" (that's another term for featured snippets - we're just trying to increase your marketing vocabulary for the quiz later!).

This trend will have a massive impact on how people search online as almost 60% of search results returned by Google are now in the form of featured snippets. There's a reason this position has been dubbed “position zero” and getting information on featured snippets will become a highly coveted SEO result in the coming years.

TechDogs’ Opinion: Brands are still figuring out how to get their content to "position zero" on SERPs. It involves the use of various SEO strategies in combination to those typically used for a conventional listing on SERPs. Businesses that are the first in their domain to rank on featured snippets will surely have a significant competitive edge. This year, we anticipate that more digital marketers will evaluate and modify their SEO approaches to optimize their content for featured snippets.

Increased organic conversions will be a significant advantage of featured snippets for businesses. Companies should expect a substantial increase in traffic and overall brand exposure if SERPs choose to highlight their content in the "position zero" spotlight via a featured snippet.

Trend 3: Digital Marketers Will Leverage The Internet Of Everything

Wouldn’t you agree that the speed at which devices are being connected to the internet is simply astounding! Smartphones, smartwatches and smart TVs are already common; now it's time to welcome smart toasters and smart home fragrance dispensers to our homes. It is an inevitable aspect of digital transformation for everyday devices to become “smart” and connect to the Internet. This trend will give rise to a global network of people, data and devices – known as the Internet of Everything.

The Internet of Everything will undoubtedly provide digital marketers with a wealth of individualized data. While the Internet of Things (IoT) enabled businesses to collect, transmit and receive data from linked devices (or "things"), the Internet of Everything will be even more extensive, connecting people, processes and devices in real-time. Naturally, this new complex relationship will provide entirely unseen data profiles of individuals, allowing marketers to develop innovative marketing tactics for personalized experiences.
 
The technology giant Cisco estimates that 99.4% of physical “things” that may one day be part of the Internet of Everything are still unconnected. Although the Internet of Everything seems like something from a sinister episode of Black Mirror, it will empower people-to-people (P2P), machine-to-people (M2P) or machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, which would require entirely new methods of data analytics. Businesses aware of this trend can capitalize on the unique data collected from IoE when it becomes mainstream. All said and done, marketing will remain data-driven and IoE will be a major source of data for savvy digital marketers.

TechDogs’ Opinion: Today, marketers use data from our smartphones, online activities and smart devices to tailor customer experiences. The IoE will generate massive quantities of individualized data that can be used to gain innovative customer insights. Forward-thinking businesses can leverage this data to hyper-personalize their customer experiences to provide better engagement with the brand.
We believe that the IoE will completely alter the way businesses and individuals interact digitally.

Think of this – the global Internet of Everything (IoE) market size was valued at around $900 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $4,205.50 billion by 2030. Although there will be concerns about the privacy of the data collected and used by businesses, marketers will rely on IoE to be the primary data source for customer behavioral data in the future.

Trend 4: Marketers Will Focus On Building Zero-Party Data Strategies

Data is what fuels digital marketing - we know you know! However, most marketers will agree that finding high-quality data is one of the biggest challenges they face. Moreover, with third-party cookies set to disappear in 2022 and laws such as GDPR restricting the collection of personalized data, businesses need to start rethinking their data collection strategies.

Traditionally, businesses leverage first-party, second-party and third-party data to market to potential customers. While the first two are collected with consent and are more accurate, third-party data increases privacy and compliance risks. Hence, in 2022, digital marketers need to transition to the latest customer data trend.

Zero-party data, a term coined by Forrester Research, refers to data that the customer consciously and proactively shares with a brand. It can include information such as preference data, purchase intentions, how the individual wants to be identified by the brand and so on. Consumers are willing to share personal information with brands in exchange for an experience tailored to their wants and needs. Naturally, this data collection strategy benefits both parties as customers receive personalized experiences while having control over what data is shared in exchange. Hence, in 2022, zero-party data collection strategies will become increasingly important to brand around the world.

For example, in 2020, a clothing jewelry retailer, My Jewellery, created a “style profile” test to help customers identify which pieces fit their personal style and to collect zero-party data from customers. This improved transparency in data collection and allowed consumers to choose what they were comfortable sharing to get a more tailored shopping experience in return. Greg Kihlstrom, the Chief Strategist of GK5A, a team of advisors and consultants for MarTech transformation initiatives advises that it’s time to start building a zero-party data strategy. He says, “It also includes evaluating your third-party data usage and how deprecation of third-party cookies and other data privacy regulations might affect them.” With third-party data becoming obsolete by the end of the year, this is the best time for businesses to start implementing zero-party data collection strategies.

TechDogs’ Opinion: Consumers are growing wary of third-party data because they have no control over how it is used or who has access to it. Furthermore, the number of incidents of third-party data leaks leading to identity theft has increased dramatically. These factors have combined to create a perfect storm for marketers to transition to zero-party data collection strategies. Marketers can deliver better customer experiences while allowing consumers to retain control over their data. 

Brands that incorporate data collection practices which prioritize consumer privacy, such as zero-party data collection, will be favored by consumers. Although marketers will have to put in more effort initially, the data collected will come straight from their customers, which will play a significant role in creating more personalized and tailored campaigns.
 

Trend 5: Influencer Marketing Will Remain Influential

Who comes to mind when we say “influencers” – is it Amanda Cerny, Huda Kattan or Salt Bae? Influencers exist in every niche and their genuine reviews and opinions affect not just the purchasing behavior of the masses but also their attention. In 2022, influencer marketing remains one of the top industry marketing trends. We mean, top brands such as Adobe, SAP, GE and PwC have all leveraged this trend last year – and we’re sure they already have their creative juices flowing for this year! #CantWait

Most digital marketers realize that brands can build a stronger relationship with their demographic by endorsing their message through brand ambassadors and influencers. This age-old digital marketing trend ensures that organic and engaging content is served to the target audience, instead of promotional content that may end up in their junk folder. An added benefit of having influencer endorsement is that businesses can engage with a far wider audience than simply through their business channels. This year too, brands will partner with influencers (or as we call them now - “creators”) to promote their products and services on social media platforms.

According to market research firm eMarketer, roughly half of all marketers leveraged influencer marketing in 2019, while the number is predicted to grow to 72.5% in 2022. This year, digital marketers will look to reach out to a larger audience through influencer collaborations – or do we need Dwayne Johnson to say it for us!

TechDogs’ Opinion: Although influencer marketing will continue to be relevant, digital marketers should prioritize looking for opportunities to collaborate with influencers in their domain. The consumer demand for organic and genuine endorsement cannot be overlooked in today’s day and age. Furthermore, influencer marketing cannot be a purely financial arrangement as it necessitates the careful alignment of the brand’s products and services with the influencer's existing audience.

Think of this - a recent survey found that three-quarters of creators will only work with brands that align with their beliefs and target audience, as influencers who push off-brand and unrelated products risk losing touch with their audience. Hence, brands must focus on finding genuine industry experts rather than just a "face-for-hire" for their brand endorsements, or the brand as well as the influencer risk alienating their intended audiences.

Conclusion

That’s every digital marketer’s worst nightmare! It is also why we created this handy guide on the top 5 digital marketing trends set to make a mark in 2022. Keeping up with trends is the best way to ace the marketing game and increase customer loyalty for your business. From preparing for the Internet of Everything (IoE) to leveraging AI-driven personalization to implementing zero-party data collection techniques, digital marketing continues to grow in 2022, driven by technological advancements and forward-thinking marketing tactics.

While marketing trends come and go, the fundamentals of successful marketing stay constant: know your target audience, engage with them and learn to adapt to marketing strategies that make them feel wanted.