The marketing world is taking a new turn through digital transformation as more businesses embrace the change. New trends continue to emerge as businesses upscale and achieve their goals in real-time. If you've been looking for ways to make your brands more visible to your target audience and customers, you can apply the latest marketing trends to stand out from the crowd even on a small budget.
Effective marketing is much more than getting your brand name out there and expecting it to sell. In 2022, you have to create a compelling story about your brand, use effective marketing strategies, and measure your marketing efforts to determine the success of your marketing campaigns.
How and When Should You Start a Marketing Campaign?
First, what better time than the present to harness the muscle of marketing to evolve your business? Exactly. Being a business owner is definitely not easy, and unfortunately, the pandemic has inflated the challenges many companies have now found themselves facing.
Fortunately, one way that small and mid-sized companies can prosper while conforming to what's considered, "the new normal" is by simply keeping pace with current and evolving business and marketing trends.
What Are the Marketing Trends to Watch?
Let's go ahead and get into some key marketing trends.
1. Sustainability
Did you know that if the practicability of your brand isn't advocated, you could be losing revenue? As a matter of fact, a survey showed that 47% of customers, prefer to purchase from companies that are environmentally mindful.
Believe it or not, today's consumers are vocal about how businesses impact the natural environment. And even more so in the apparel world, as this industry reports, a two to eight percent utilization of global greenhouse emissions — primarily because of accelerated fashion. This explains why your focus should be on sustainability. Additionally, many consumers welcome spending a little more on eco-friendly products. A sustainable brand should satisfy the entire framework, including:
Products
Processes
Packaging
Missing either of these is equivalent to undoing the work you've already put in. If you're a novel business just getting started, putting forth a small initiative like using recycled paper-based packaging and avoiding disposable plastics could still show your brand as a powerful, sustainable brand. Now that's a statement you want to make!
2. Video Marketing
If your video marketing is executed properly, you can look forward to joining the 87% of video marketers who benefit from a prosperous return on their video marketing campaigns. Think of it this way: video marketing is kindred to TV ads, only it's more effective, and can be directed at your pertinent audiences. Thanks to Instagram and TikTok, you can simply pull out your phone and hit record. Video marketing can be everywhere, courtesy of social media platforms and word of mouth, which also helps to seal the deal quickly via the app.
Example: An eyelash company called Doe Lashes, which launched in 2020, rose to become a $15 million company in only one year, credited to their video marketing activities on TikTok.
3. Conversational Marketing
Person-to-person discussions hold the ability to create:
Increased loyalty
Prolonged customer relationships
Delivery of superior user experiences
E-commerce conversational marketing generally has the characteristics of a virtual product advisor or live chatbox. In all actuality, 52% of consumers said that they would continue to purchase from a company offering live chat customer support.
Example: Think about 1-800-Flowers.com, the online flower delivery service. Did you know that they utilize an AI chatbot on their website to guide consumers through the entirety of the sales cycle, while also offering suggestions?
4. Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing focuses on providing customer convenience by forming a harmonious experience for your customers at all times, no matter which online platform they choose to use. This means you need to be, and meet, your customers where they are.
For starters, data accumulation is vital to develop an across-the-board experience for consumers, and it aids in targeting the needs and wants of your customer base.
Example: Say you have a customer who saves items on their wish list while on your Internet site, you'll be able to send an email and an in-app notification if any of those items go on sale. Another instance of omnichannel marketing is abandoned cart emails or social media retargeting ads relating to items remaining in their cart.
5. Personalization
If you want to stand out, a personalized marketing campaign can help show your target audience that you're listening to their needs. This is beneficial as it sets a positive purchasing experience, hence, raising revenues, and customer loyalty. It's a win-win!
To incorporate personalization, produce offers that are custom-based on data collected from consumers. Then use that data as clues to cross-sell and up-sell additional products at checkout.
Example: Purple, the mattress and bed frame company, initiated "Sleep Cool", a personalized marketing campaign, which targets an audience of people who deal with night sweats.
6. Authenticity
Ninety percent of people, mostly Gen Z and Millennials, desire to have authenticity in the brands they back, and expect those brands to fulfill their ideals. Millennials and Gen Z make up most of this demographic. However, establishing a brand that has purpose isn't easy, and could even seem inauthentic if your efforts are inconsistent. Remember this, it's hard to gain back trust, once you've lost it. A good workaround would be to steer around this to maximize the content that is user-generated. User-generated content is 24x more likely to be authentic in contrast to brand-created content.
Example: A DTC skincare brand called "Peace Out" shares the good and bad of skin-related issues, including blackheads and acne. Even their TikTok videos come from genuine customers.
7. Influencer Marketing
Although influencer marketing has been around for a while, it is expected to acquire more momentum. Partnering with influencers is advantageous to your brand, especially with the way that Instagram and TikTok have reinforced their SMB features.
The great thing is that Influencer marketing can fit into your budget, which is good for new businesses or businesses trying to make a comeback. Start by collaborating with micro and nano-influencers in your market who have a modest and engaged group of followers.
To easily network with the appropriate influencers, there are platforms like BuzzSumo and Upfluence that can help. These platforms work by identifying customers who are likely to bring forth a positive ROI from your campaign, as well as showing your customers the highest engagement level. And guess what? Networking with these influencers is likely to provide your brand with enhanced visibility across the right audiences. But wait! It gets better. Influencer marketing is also affordable if you're willing to do the legwork.
Example: CLIF BAR, the energy bar company, frequently employs "mom influencers". This community generally has small but connected social media followings to promote their CLIF KID product line.
Wrapping It Up
If you want to get or stay relevant, you have to stay informed on how the market is moving, to keep your brand competitive in the industry. If you're in need of funding to reach your goal, the Bahamas Entrepreneurial Venture Fund may be able to help. We make loan and equity funding accessible to existing and start-up companies. If you're interested in acquiring more information, contact us today. We look forward to speaking with you. In the meantime, check out more articles on our blog right here.