In the ’90s, radio, direct mail, and newspapers were the go-to mediums for marketing, the online space was still a bit of a question mark.
Gradually, people began to come across “door-to-door” marketers who advertised products and services, wearing branded T-shirts and for “bigger” brands, maybe even a branded van with loudspeakers doing the major announcements. This became one of the most popular ways businesses carried out marketing long before marketing shifted into a web-centric model.
Around 20 years later, web-centric marketing gained traction, marketers realized that the opportunities for having their efforts successful are a two-way flow of their marketing messages.
The Rise of Martech
The last two years have changed a lot in the marketing world with the transformation of businesses through “Martech.” Organizations are now making a keen effort to keep up with changes in technology.
“MarTech” is a portmanteau of marketing and technology. It refers to the use of MarTech tools and technologies that marketers use to inform, plan, and execute their campaigns. Marketing Tech is currently solving a lot of problems that traditional marketers didn’t even know existed. The year 2021 is an interesting result of what businesses can do with MarTech and 2022 is here to further transform the world of marketing.
So, if you’re still sitting on the fence about the future of marketing, these trends will prove to you that thriving digitally will multiply your efforts ten folds. To take your business to the next level in 2022, make sure to take advantage of these emerging trends in the marketing world.
Marketing Flywheel
While the sales/marketing funnel is a visualization for understanding the process of turning leads into customers during your marketing campaign it is not as effective as the Marketing Flywheel.
With the funnel- vision, the way to get a few more people to buy your product is to get many people into your sales funnel at the awareness stage. This is done with the knowledge that they won’t all fit in the end.
Invented by James Watt, the Flywheel framework centers on customer engagement by working on motivating customers to keep coming back. As a result, the pace and power of your flywheel intensify, along with the growth of your customer base.
As new technologies and opportunities to connect with your online audiences are rolling out, you have to learn, experiment, and adapt quickly to fall into the “early adopter” category and get ahead of your competition.
If you’re already using the funnel methodology, switching to a marketing flywheel is actually pretty straightforward. The flywheel creates a perpetual cycle of customer satisfaction.
AI Automation
AI automation is powerful because it allows us to reap both the business process benefits of automation—increased speed, efficiency, time-savings, and ability to scale—with the insights, flexibility, and processing power of AI technology.
Businesses that use AI automation are able to augment their capabilities, while off-loading repetitive tasks to the machine.
Using a marketing automation platform will automate the process by providing time-or-action triggered workflows that will do more with less effort. In social media management also, automated SM marketing tools enable digital marketers to manage various social media accounts simultaneously rather than navigating from one account/platform to the other.
Story-Driven Content Visualization
According to Google, the average consumer needs around 18 brand touches to become a customer, thus, each time a user is “touched” by content, they become more aware, and more likely to develop consideration. When it comes to social media content, expect to see more quality content online.
65% of humans are visual learners. it has also been proven that colored visuals increase people’s desire to read content by 80%. Marketing materials with images produce 180% more engagement. Research has proven that people are more interested in visual search than any other new technology. This trend will make waves in the year 2022 and it would serve as a major marketing tool for brands.
Conversational Marketing
Businesses that want to improve their marketing should adopt the customer-centric and dialogue-driven approach to marketing. These days, customers don’t feel comfortable with someone who is following a script. Gone are the days when business conversations are formal and requires “ma” “sir”. People now chat with clients through the instant messaging app. Conversational marketing will be deployed on a higher percentage in 2022.
Video Marketing
Research by Cisco found that by 2022, video will account for 82% of all online traffic. Videos are 53x more likely to generate first-page SERP rankings than other SEO tactics. Today, 84% of consumers have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a video.
World-Class Customer Experience
93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service. For all businesses, every year is the year for customers. The priorities will be shifted to giving a distinctive and top-notch customer experience in the year 2022.
Businesses that make use of CRM and CEM track, oversee, and organize every interaction between a customer and their brand throughout the customer lifecycle.
CRM shows what a customer looks like to the company, and CEM defines what a company looks like to the customer. CEM is a strategy that puts business customers at the center of marketing, sales, and customer support in order to drive brand loyalty and repeat business.
Whether you run a small or large business, you must know that customers expect multiple channels for engagement. They want you to anticipate their needs, and they want their loyalty rewarded through relevant and outstanding customer experiences.
However, marketing in 2022 will be more competitive. Brands that do not know their onions might struggle in the coming year. It is advisable to be innovative and always keep up with trends that will improve your marketing and drive more sales. A successful business keeps track of changing trends and adjusts to stay relevant to its customers.
But something is certain, the future of marketing and business will be more inclusive, diverse, and connected to real customer needs.
