Monday January 3, 2022 comments

1. Growing Respect for Intersectional Identity

Because the pandemic has highlighted societal and structural inequalities, in addition to gender and racial issues that we’ve dealt with in the last two years, people are expecting growing brands to take a more nuanced approach to diversity, inclusion, and equity.

To be truly nuanced, you need to understand the many identities that matter to people in your target market, and include them in your efforts. This means acknowledging that identities are intersectional. Each person has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression, and we must consider aspects that can marginalize people. And this can overlap: people are not defined by a single characteristic. They are more likely to connect with your brand if customers see themselves reflected in a nuanced (not assumed) way.

To step up your approach in 2022, start by researching what identity means in your market and relate that to your brand marketing. Then incorporate these learnings into every stage of the creative process, including updating the language and designs you use. Build campaigns that are representative and accessible.

2. Is the Metaverse upon us?

People always thought Facebook was approaching its demise for downfall, but even when we all rolled our eyes at Mark Zuckerberg for rebranding a utopic-dystopic Meta for Facebook, virtual and augmented reality experiences world AND Facebook are betting big on Metaverse. This is a huge anticipation for the future of the web.

For now, let’s stick with our Facebook campaigns and see how this will evolve. It will be quick before we even know it.

3. Relevance = Reach

In order to stand out in 2022, business or agencies should be more purposeful about communicating their value and authentic purpose. You have to express messages and provide experiences that are true to your brand and relevant to people, reflecting their needs.

By leaning into brand purpose and expressing value in a way that is authentic and consistent, brands can connect meaningfully with audiences and drive business results. In every engagement with consumers, they have a point of view, and they express this to potential buyers across all touch points. Focus on value and authentic purpose. This is what will distinguish your brand in the busy online market.

4. Shopping the content

The world of shopping has changed. Global e-commerce sales grew by nearly 30% in the past year and new ways have emerged to make online content more “shoppable”. People can now buy products directly from social posts, we mean those Instagram shopping posts are hard to resist!

As you’re working on your marketing campaigns for 2022, consider how you can make your content marketing more story-driven AND more shoppable. You can absolutely showcase your brand identity while optimizing the effectiveness of your campaign— you can be a great storyteller and a great seller all at the same time.

5. Natural Eco-Friendliness

After several eye-opening viewings of Our Planet and the powerful youth movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg, a vast majority of people say sustainability is more top of mind now than it was before. Customers expect brands to lead the way to make sustainability more feasible in their daily lives.

Brands can make this easier by incorporating sustainability benefits into choices customers or subscribers are ALREADY making without being too extra about it, as the kids would say. For example, Google is now introducing eco-friendly options on Maps, which makes sustainable travel routes the default (yes to more biking and walking!)

6. Experiences are EVERYTHING

Businesses still need to drive word-of-mouth reactions, consequently earning social media attention. As the marketing world becomes more cluttered and deafening, earned social media word-of-mouth becomes more difficult but incredibly important to break through.

Companies and agencies should focus on creating experiences at every stage of social media strategy with customers or subscribers to earn social media word-of-mouth value.

7. Conversational Marketing

Personal relationships between consumers and brands are highly valuable, and this can be built  by utilizing a conversational approach. This includes personalized emails, chatbots, messages, videos, and more. Conversational marketing is done by using dialogue-focused communication styles to improve engagement and convert more leads.

After the huge digitization pivot of 2020, when customers contact a business, they don't want to wait for a long time to hear back. In fact, almost 85% of customers (we’re pretty sure that includes you) expect an immediate response to their questions. People want what they are searching for right away, even if it is in the middle of the night. If they can't get the information

from you, yup, you’ve guessed right, they will just as easily hop away to check if they can get an answer from your competition. Implementing conversational marketing into your digital platforms will eliminate the waiting game and help your customers get just what they need as they interact with your business or agency.

We are betting that you want to make sure that your business is thriving digitally, whether that goes for engagement or lead conversion or actual sales. Email or message us to book a discovery call where we can figure out the digital marketing potholes of your business and how we can ensure your smooth journey to a productive year online.