The marketing world moves at the speed of light.
Marketers embraced digital transformation more than ever as they adapted to constantly changing virtual and hybrid business landscapes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then, as countries cautiously reopened -- and more consumers left the house -- some businesses saw slumps in the virtual engagement and online traffic they'd recently relied on.
The Marketing Trends of 2022
1. Influencer marketing will evolve from trend to a common marketing tactic.
How and why has influencer marketing gone from an intriguing trend to a commonly-used marketing tactic? Well, influencers are often masters of the platforms they use and the field or topic they talk about. They already have an audience that is engaged, interested in their content, and influenced by the information they provide.
When marketers collaborate with influencers and industry thought leaders in their industry, they can expand brand awareness and gain fans from the influencer's own audience.
Can't afford to hire a celebrity influencer with millions of followers? That's okay. In fact, more than 56% of marketers who invest in influencer marketing work with micro-influencers.
2. Video marketers will keep content short.
More than 31% of global marketers currently invest in short-form video content, 46% of them consider the strategy effective when it comes to performance and engagement. And, in 2022, 89% of global marketers plan to continue investing in it or increase their investment.
Not only does it take less bandwidth to create a short-form video, but this type of format aligns well with the fast-paced attention spans of online audiences in a variety of demographics.
3. Mobile optimization will be even more important.
It's no surprise that consumers are spending more and more time on mobile devices. In fact, more than half of annual online website traffic comes from mobile devices, including tablets.
And, as millennials and Gen Z audiences continue to grow buying power, mobile-optimized digital experiences will be even more vital to consider as a business owner who markets to these fast-paced, highly connected generations.
4. Permanent social media posts could overtake ephemeral content.
Our survey results show that 44% of global marketers plan to increase their investment in permanent social media content, while 8% say it generates the most ROI compared to other marketing strategies they leverage. Meanwhile, 25% of respondents called ephemeral content the "least effective" trend they invested in.
Lastly, 37% of marketers said they plan to decrease their investment in ephemeral content. However, a mix of ephemeral and permanent content can often be the best of both worlds as it gives brands the urgency and engagement of temporary content and the steady engagement, longer-term brand awareness, and discoverability of social media content that doesn't disappear.
5. Companies will prioritize social responsibility.
The interest in buying products from socially responsible brands really took during the many global events of 2020 and 2021.
As the COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on the world, it highlighted the pains employees had to endure in the workplace and in politics. Employees became more vocal about their frustrations, inequality, and workplace treatment.
Additionally, early research from organizations like McKinsey predicted that customers would more heavily support brands that demonstrated their care for all customers, employees, and shared causes.
6. Experiential marketing could make a comeback.
The pop-up, which was based in NYC back in 2018, also included snack and drink lounges with M&M-themed cocktails — which, I'm willing to bet, we're great opportunities for M&M to appear on different attendees' social pages.
Although immersive experiences like these were fun, effective, and highly shareable on social media, they ran into barriers in 2020 and 2021 as businesses, public venues, and entire countries were forced to shut down public operations in the global pandemic.
According to our research, 58% of marketers who currently leverage experiential marketing call it an effective strategy, while 48% of this group plans to increase experiential investments in 2022. Additionally, 9% of marketers plan to invest in experiential marketing for the first time.
7. More businesses will use SEO to concur search traffic.
While SEO was the sixth marketing trend those surveyed were leveraging, with 28% of marketers saying they currently used it. Of those marketers, 49% of marketers call it effective while 84% continue to invest the same amount or more into the tactic in 2022.
As the interest and need for SEO strategies grow, so do all search optimization opportunities. As Google algorithms have evolved, SEO has become about much more than churning out basic posts that answer simple search queries.
8. Virtual events will continue, but some brands will invest less.
When polling global marketing professionals, the data we received lined up with this prediction.
In 2021, 51% of marketers were investing in virtual events. However, 17% of these marketers plan to decrease their investments in 2022.
Despite losing some shrinking virtual event budgets, marketers won't be leaving the virtual event space any time soon. In fact, a whopping 80% of marketers plan to invest the same budget or more into virtual events in 2022.
9. More consumers will hear branded audio content.
In the summer of 2021, marketers were perplexed by Clubhouse -- an invitation-only audio chatroom app that quickly gained millions of users without publishing any visual content. And, as Clubhouse took our field by storm, platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook unsurprising rushed to start investing in, testing, and/or launching similar features.
Meanwhile, throughout the year, a number of big brands -- like HubSpot -- expanded their podcast content and networks to meet even more listeners. According to our research, 53% of professionals whose companies leverage content marketing find "podcasts or other types of audio content" effective when it comes to engagement and brand awareness.
10. Inbound marketing will remain a best practice for growing brands.
In a time of digital transformation, embracing inbound marketing is an incredibly smart move.
Throughout the last two years, the world's dealt with unprecedented change, and outbound marketing tactics have become even less effective in reaching prospects and leads.
The shift from in-person to hybrid work from home (WFH) business practices have made inbound marketing come to the forefront of effective tactics. For example, there’s been a significant rise in virtual events due to COVID-19 forcing marketers to get creative to catch the attention of customers.
