The online marketing trends of 2022.
This year is flying by again too. Before you know it, we’ll be toasting the new year with oliebollen and champagne again. Where the end of a year is always a nice moment to look back, it’s also a nice moment to look ahead. And we’re only too happy to do that by way of a number of online marketing trends for 2022.
Five online marketing trends
Many people had seen it coming that internet use would rise over the last two years. We already couldn’t be pried away from our laptops and phones, and that’s only gotten worse during the corona period. Being present online is the standard, and this standard has set a whole lot of developments in motion. Everything we do, we do online.
As an online marketer, you’re all too happy to respond to that. But to keep doing so, you do need to be up to date on the latest developments and expected trends. With the online marketing trends of 2022, we’re already giving you a sneak preview of the near future of the online marketing world.
1. Content, content and content
If there’s one thing internet users can’t get enough of, it’s content. Preferably as original and creative as possible. Every day we take in an enormous amount of content, and as a business you naturally want to be part of that. To stand out in the enormous sea of content and content creators, you need to stay up to date on the most important trends.
Short-form video content
Getting your entire message into a short video can be a difficult task, but it’s definitely worth it. Short videos hold your visitors’ attention. No long attention span is expected. If you manage to capture your business’s message in a short video, you’ll quickly become visible on the phones of many viewers, at the push of a button. Short videos are ideal for social media (TikTok & Instagram Reels) and increase the engagement of your visitors.
Recycling content
Coming up with creative and original content every week is a challenge. Fortunately, it’s really not a problem to recycle content. Did you write a good blog last month? Split it up into shorter pieces of text and post them on social media. This way you reach a different audience with the same content. Or turn that nice article you wrote into a video. By pouring content into a different form, you can spread it across multiple channels. Fully adapted to the target audience.
2. Social commerce
When we talk about online marketing trends for 2022, social media can’t be left behind. Social media has become inseparable from our daily lives. That’s why it’s also no wonder that developments within these channels are popping up like mushrooms. One of these developments is social commerce. Social commerce is a kind of merger between e-commerce and social platforms, causing some social media themselves to turn into sales channels.
Reaching your target audience on the right channels
Different social media channels have different target audiences. And that’s exactly why social commerce is such a great development. By deploying the various social media channels, it’s possible to approach your target audience in a more targeted way. Before you start, think carefully about where your target audience is and how you want to approach them. What’s the message you want to convey? If you’re clear on this for yourself, it’s then just a matter of creating the right content.
Smooth buying experiences
The customer journey is drastically shortened by social commerce. The time between seeing a product and moving to purchase it is considerably less. If the consumer sees something nice go by, they can decide right there whether to go ahead with a purchase or to keep looking.
Additionally, it’s easier to handle customer service as well and quickly as possible. Through a message on Instagram or Facebook, the consumer can get in direct contact with the business. This is interesting the other way around too. The business can ask customers directly what their expectations are. Ask, for example, via a story which of two possible packagings they prefer.
3. Permission marketing
Asking for consent seems like the most normal thing in the world. But for the online marketing world, this wasn’t always the case. For years, marketers have been distracted by nice technical gadgets that let them track people in every step they take online. But this is starting to come to an end.
Privacy legislation
Many possibilities are being limited by the changes in privacy legislation. But is this really as bad as it seems? Of course a whole lot of information about the consumer gets lost, but on the other hand it’s also already been proven that this doesn’t have to be a disaster. For example, the NPO ran an experiment with “contextual targeting”, which shows you really don’t need to know everything about your potential customers.
When these potential customers subsequently give consent, a whole lot of information surfaces again. The nice thing about this is that you then no longer need to invest heavily in advertising costs for these customers. Once consent has been given, you can make use of cost-effective channels like email, sms, push notifications and chat messages.
In the future, we’ll see a hybrid form of marketing with partly technological and human interaction. It’s smart to automate the interaction with anonymous visitors on your website by using “human-like” chatbots until you know they’re really interested. Then give them the human interaction that convinces them to take the final step.
4. User generated content
Writing entire sentences with chocolate sprinkle boxes. Who hasn’t seen it go by. Every year it comes back around and we see the strangest creations on social media. This is a great example of user generated content.
In a sea of sponsored content, it’s hard to earn the trust of potential customers. Using user generated content creates recognition and trust with your target audience. When you see your neighbour post on social media that she’s incredibly happy with her new pair of shoes, you’re quicker to consider the content trustworthy.
In 2022 we’re expected to see even more of this. So try, as a business, to focus more on this. Share posts from customers about your business and try to create more engagement with fun campaigns. Do your products or services already appear on your customers’ socials?
5. Online events become the new normal
Yet another workshop taking place early in the morning. Normally that means getting up extra early and rushing to be on time. But with many offline events falling away, online events immediately filled the gap. And that’s actually quite nice too.
Normally, events are a trigger for people to come together. But now that people have experienced the directness and comfort of an online event, there will be plenty who’ll gladly keep online events in the mix.
Additionally, there are a number of benefits for the organiser too. Setting up an offline event costs a whole lot of time and money. There’s less of that with an online event. The high degree of interaction through the chat function also brings a new dynamic. And are a number of people running late? No panic, because an online event is usually easy to watch back at another time. In short, we’re far from done with online events.
Want to know more?
These developments are of course just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more marketing strategies and trends that will break through in the coming year. Do you want to keep up with the times and stay informed about even more online marketing trends for 2022? Then get in touch with us, no strings attached, to go through the possibilities.