As marketers look at 2021 in the behind mirror, they cannot help but wonder what lies ahead for businesses around the globe. Everything was normal at the start of 2020, and businesses were moving smoothly in their set pattern without any interruption. But in March 2020, the pandemic crept up and caught everyone unprepared. It made digital adoption necessary for businesses to keep cash flows running and keep market presence intact. The requirements for a digital marketing agency has enhanced since the pandemic began.
After two years, the digital marketing sequence is not where it was. Whether it is about creating lead generation, digital demand generation, or enhancing brand awareness, changes seen in the last two years will stay and take new forms in 2022. The enterprises are already conceptualizing new tactics or redesigning the old ones to enhance digital marketing ROI in the incoming year.
Exploring built trends that can shape the future of digital marketing.
One could explore some built trends that can help shape the future of digital marketing in 2022:
- Leveraging AI in the digital marketing landscape
AI is already used for streamlining and automating different business processes that include marketing. AI is specifically used in marketing to streamline monotonous tasks like data reporting, keyword recommendations, and analytics. Marketers are leveraging AI to build prediction models that can understand future behaviors of customers based on browsing history and historical purchases. Going forward in 2022, AI can be combined with SEO strategies to enhance paid search and organic rankings.
- Switching to a mobile-first marketing approach
Many customers from both b2b and b2c segments use Smartphones to search for products and services they need. Also, the first index approach of Google mobile makes it necessary for businesses to form a mobile-friendly digital marketing strategy to enhance customer engagement.
Contents and business websites also need to be made responsive on tablets and Smartphones alike. The current pandemic has developed Smartphones as the go-to device for different activities like shopping, learning, video streaming, socializing, and many more. Enterprises require mobile-friendly content to enhance their ranks in search engines and drive organic traffic. It will also be important for businesses to improve their digital demand generation programs in the future.
- AI-enabled influencer marketing
In the last few years, influence marketing has moved from silent marketing to content-rich marketing. It has become a major force in building brand credibility online across many b2c and b2b segments. Currently, influencer marketing is estimated at $9.7 billion in 2020, and it could grow to $15 billion in 2022. Many marketers state that they allocate over 20% of their total spent on influencer marketing.
The new phase of influencer marketing could witness the use of AI tools for different functions like tracking engagement ratio rate to influencer identification and performance marketing. This can allow brands to form a cost-benefit analysis for better influencer partnerships. Another important trend in this field could be the rise of Omni channel influencer marketing campaigns. This could lead to marketers advocating for sponsored influencer collaboration across different social media platforms.
- Plan data to revitalize digital marketing
Data is an important pillar on which the plans of modern enterprises rest. Combining consumer intent data and market signals with an existing customer database can help marketers identify customers who will make a purchase. When the target customers are identified, marketers can create a relevant concept and message for pushing customers towards the conversion stage.
Next year, first-party intent data will become important as Google has strengthened its data privacy and tracking rules. The social media giant has announced an end to cookie tracking by 2022. Since more than 80% of buyer’s research online before purchasing something, marketers need to extract first-party intent data for enhancing digital demand generation in the future. They need to be prepared with dynamic landing pages and forms for collecting first-hand intent data from surveys, registration forms, online searches, and others.
This marketing can help customize marketing campaigns and identify the important touch points to influence a customer to purchase.
- Voice search optimization
Voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant is common feature across households. Even Smartphones come with voice assistant tools to help users search the internet with voice commands. Shoppers use such tools to search for products, solve queries, find locations and visit sites.
Thus, enterprises need to make their online storefront prepared for voice search to enhance their SEO efforts value. There are two ways a business can optimize their sites; first, they need to choose new keywords for people who discover their site using voice search. In general, voice keywords are things users have to say rather than type, and sometimes users speak longer keywords that activate different results.
Secondly, businesses have to make their on-site content more conversational and interactive for targeting voice search users effectively. Forming content in a conversational tone can help it make it more voice-search friendly.
Hire a digital marketing agency
The fundamentals of marketing have changed greatly in the last two years. Digital marketing is considered a critical factor in improving the revenue and growth of a company. If a company wants to improve its brand and enhance its reputation, it could contact Mediaura. This company provides various digital marketing services and tools to enhance several organizations’ brand names and reputations in the pandemic era.
