We’ve done the research for you and compiled a list of the top 6 marketing trends to be on the lookout for in 2022, and how to optimize them for your business.
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Read the Full Discussion Below
Glyna: Good morning.
Sarah: Good morning. Hello. Hello. So when we talk about marketing, I think the one thing we can guarantee is that it’s constantly evolving. So, it’s hard to know what’s next, what’s coming up, but the good news is that we’ve done the research and the homework for you. We’ve compiled a list of kind of the six marketing trends that we see that are going to be on the horizon for 2022, and really how to optimize it for your business. So let’s go get to it.
Glyna: I love our new intro graphics and video. You did such an amazing job as always.
Sarah: Thank you.
Glyna: All right. Welcome to Marketing and a Mic, everybody. Sarah and I will be here every week to give you all kinds of digital marketing segments. Talk about trends, what’s going on, how we can help you, and just give you resources for your business so let’s take a look at where everybody can find us.
Sarah: Yes. All right. Every week we go live on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and of course our podcast, Marketing and a Mic. And you can catch the replay on Instagram and don’t forget that we have our YouTube channel and that is Fusion One Marketing, and it’s all resources, video resources, content, just to help you with your business. So let’s get right to it. So, technology, personalization, intent, and the user experience, are sort of the buzz words. Those are the buzzwords for 2022, and these are all on the increase. So really what’s going to happen is there’s 2022 is going to bring more opportunities to capitalize on this with your customers. So, let’s dive right in and kind of show you the marketing trends to be on the lookout for.
Glyna: Okay. Number one, the rise of voice search. Now, all of us have probably used these. Google devices, Alexa devices, Siri devices, and so on. All of us have used them. That’s what we’re talking about in voice search. And these days, even cars have integrated voice search options. So people are going to continue to do more searches this way, and they’re really going to start making purchases through voice search so it’s a great time to position yourself for this medium.
Sarah: Yeah. And let me tell you something with voice search, it’s going to have a big impact on local searches. So since we’re always often out and about, and we have our mobile device and that’s kind of when we turn to that device to ask them a question to help us find something locally. So here’s our recommendation for voice search. Make sure you optimize your content for voice search. So what does that mean? So you want to start creating content that’s relevant to your local area, and that’s really important so that you are more visible on local searches. So we recommend you do this by including keywords to describe your location or neighborhood around you.
Glyna: Yes, keywords are not going anywhere. It’s just a difference in how you use them in voice search versus regular search. So use keyword phrases now that are more relevant to voice searches versus if you’re just typing something. Our voice searches tend to be more conversational. So it’s important to really think about how the humans and users, how their experience is going to go when creating your content. Let me give you an example, for instance, let’s talk about air conditioning. If you were typing a search in, you probably would say something like air conditioning and then it would auto-populate companies near me. But on a voice search you again, more conversational. You want to say something like, “What are some air conditioning companies in my area?” And I would say instead of in my area, say in Inverness or in Hoover or in Chicago or wherever you are.
Sarah: Yes. So that’s going to be a key to help you on that voice search so that you pop up locally for that. So let’s move on to number two, social selling and social commerce. This is going to be a big one. This is going to go way more mainstream. So social commerce, if you don’t know, it enables customers to make purchases via your social media platform. So we’ve seen shoppable posts and we’ve seen in-app checkout features, and they’re just going to become more of a commonplace. So many businesses are incorporating social selling by live video. And this is something that we also recommend. So I’ve seen them a lot, but live videos, they now provide sort of a shopping cart icon that’s right there during the live video. So it’s actually really popular for millennials and Generation Z customers. This is like where they go for their shopping. And so now when you see that icon during the live video, customers can shop those feature products that are being displayed right on the spot and it’ll take them directly to the shopping cart.
Glyna: Exactly. And so you want to think about how do I optimize for this social selling? Well, the best tactic you’re going to involve a balance of paid and organic methods. So the paid would be a pay per click whatever platform you’re on, organic would be the normal post that you make on those platforms. This is going to help you build brand awareness and increase your purchases. So since it’s becoming more difficult to build social media ads or target from social media ads, this is a great way to do it.
Sarah: Yeah, to kind of balance both because there has been a little bit of difficulty with that personalization on some of the social media ads. So it makes it hard for that retargeting. So a workaround to this is to really start promoting more tailored products to specific demographics. So an example of this would be promoting sweaters in a specific area when the weather is just right when it’s sweater weather. So, and brands are also tagging posts specific to a location to help draw in local customers. This is that whole geotagging, all of that’s really, really good to help you… It’s like a good workaround to get right to your audience in these specific locations.
Glyna: Yes. And specific is the right word. Do you want to be more specific about what’s going on in your area? What time of year is it? All that kind of stuff makes it all make sense, not just do generic posts. You really want to personalize it to all of that stuff. All right. So number three, audio content. This is the weirdest thing to me sometimes because we’re in the world of video now, but audio content is taking a seat at the big table, as we say. So in what I mean by audio content, podcasting. Podcasting, it’s been around for a while, but in the last couple of years, I mean, it is taken off and it’s flourishing more than ever. I mean, and I think they’re so popular. I know they’re so popular because it’s an easy to consume format and you can consume wherever you are because you don’t have to be sitting in a particular place because you can listen to it on any device these days.
Sarah: Yes. And it’s so great because like you said, it’s an “easy to consume” type of content. So streaming and audio podcasting, all that stuff, it’s actually supposed to be one of the top growing media channels in 2022. So that’s why it’s on our list. So it’s surged in 2021, it actually increased by almost 25%. So that growth is expected to continue. So along with this comes more space for local advertisers to advertise within these podcasts. So it’s just another type of platform where you could insert yourself as an advertiser.
Glyna: Yes. And I’ll tell you what, even with our podcast, I’m getting people contacting me, wanting to advertise on our podcast. So it’s very interesting. This is the way things are going. So how are you going to optimize for this audio streaming? Well, it’s very important to have a call to action per episode, but don’t confuse your listeners. You want the call to action to be related to something that you do. Be concise and sum up key points. In other words, if it’s been a long podcast, especially you want to go through those key points real quickly at the end because it’s hard to rewind a podcast. And nobody wants to rewind it and try to find out, “Where was at one point?” Include timestamps in your description so listeners can easily find the specific talking points throughout the podcast.
Sarah: Yes. That’s another go. I see that more and more on podcasts and it is, it’s really helpful for you to follow along where key points are being made. So resist off-topic tangents or little side chitchat.
Glyna: That’s no fun.
Sarah: I know, and I love them. I love them. But as you know, we got to capture them in the beginning, we got to hook them. So as much as we are hilarious and just-
Glyna: I know.
Sarah: They don’t want to listen to that. If these people are two together, let’s go straight to what you’re talking about. Even though I think having a little personality is important. But anyway, so the key is to stay on your talking points because that’s why the listeners coming in. If they go on this and they’re like, “They’re not even talking about what this is titled.” You’re going to lose them. So that’s why it’s important to optimize your title and description with specific keyword searches too. So if they’re looking for certain things like marketing trends on the horizon in 2022, that type of thing. We’re doing marketing trends 2022, these are keywords that will help you and have your podcast appear.
Glyna: Well, we’ll get to the business at the beginning, but we’ll just have to sprinkle our awesomeness throughout.
Sarah: Exactly. That’s been totally lost.
Glyna: So, you’ll have to listen to all of it to be able to see or hear all these wonderful things. All right. Number four, MUM, this is kind of making it easier to remember this. MUM is Multitask Uniform Model. I was like, “What the heck?” All right.
Sarah: Yeah. It’s like, “Why do we care about this?” And it’s not your mom, like if you’re living in England.
Glyna: Yeah. It’s my mom on Google. That this is another Google thing. Okay? But we have to be on the lookout for everything Google and what they’re doing. And because it has a huge impact on all the followers and anybody who is looking at your stuff. And it has a huge impact on SEO and even the way the users experience what they’re looking at or listening to. So what is, Google recently announced their new algorithm. Oh boy, drum roll.
Sarah: Right. Here we go.
Glyna: Yeah. So it’s coming in 2022. Now it’s going to be designed to interpret multiple forms of media and visual data to form a single response. And what does that mean? They’re going to be looking everywhere, combining everything you’re doing into SEO. So since non-text-based queries are on the rise, now the need for an enhanced machine learning technique comes to improve the user experiences and searches. That was a mouthful.
Sarah: So, this is why we’re talking about MUM. This is why it matters. We just talked about voice searches on the rise. We just talked about audios on the rise. So the benefit of MUM is really the ability to think beyond just the question or the statement of somebody searching for. So and I don’t know exactly how they’re going to do this, but I’m pretty impressed that they’re going to do this. They’re actually going to remove the need to do multiple searches in order to get answers because you and I, we’ve done that. We’ll search for something and we’ll get part of our answer and then we got to do another search to try to piece it all together to get exactly what we’re looking for. So this MUM thing is really designed on that customer intent. So it’s going to remove that factor to have to do multiple searches, and it’s going to have the ability to understand and interpret what your intent is and bring solutions based not only on textual content, but interpreting and bringing in things like video and audio, it’s going to do that all and it’s basically doing all the digging for you.
Glyna: Yes, exactly. I mean, Google, even though they change a lot, one thing has remained the same. It’s all about the user experience and who can do it best. So how are you going to optimize your content for MUM? Because this is very important. So what you’re going to want to do is refine your content to ensure the correct labeling of all your audio and video files. Again, it’s about using keywords. What are you wanting to talk about? What’s the point you’re wanting to drive home. So think about how each platform displays content and searches how they’re performed and make your media content positioned in that way. Link images, I mean use the stuff that people are seeing and it’s visual images, video, and any other important media that will capture the attention of MUM, Google, and the customers.
Sarah: Yes. And that makes sense because they’re scanning that so you want to make sure that you optimize all this other non-textual content so that it’s included as the relevant content for those searchers. So another thing to do, which I think is a really smart thing is to include a comparison or related topics within your content. Because again, this whole thing is about the intent. So it’s bringing multiple solutions in one spot, so that’s going to make your content more versatile. It’s going to give it that added value and that’s important to search engines. So another thing too is to focus on displaying empathy and building trust with every piece of content you create. And that sounds kind of funny, but again, they’re going with the mindset. And so there can be a little emotional aspect to your search. And so when you’re delivering something that is a little bit solution-driven to whatever that person is needing, that’s going to be really important to include. So since this update is coming in early 2022, it’s a good idea now to start incorporating these little tweaks in your content now.
Glyna: Yes, exactly. All right. So let’s move on to number five. We keep saying this year after year like it’s a new thing, but the short-form video will be a priority. Video, period, is a priority. So in 2020 in the pandemic and all of that, the use of video got put on steroids because it was a great way for people to say, “Hey, I’m still here. Don’t forget about me.” And all of that. And finding new ways to use videos. So today things like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Pinterest Pins, Facebook Stories, all that stuff are competing for an audience’s attention. So they want to use short-form videos because they’re easy to digest. Now, what is considered a short-form video? Anything that is two minutes and 30 seconds or shorter is considered short form. Now HubSpot, who’s like the king of all marketing things, digital marketing, said that in a recent survey that more than half of marketers who use short-form video plan to increase their investment in 2022. So if it’s not on your list of goals, you better put it on there.
Sarah: Yes. And we’ve talked about this on our previous show and there’s a lot of ways to put out short-form videos, but the reason why is because it works. It’s got the highest ROI of any other social media strategy and they’re perfect for sort of our declining attention spans. We prefer that because it’s over quickly and we don’t have a lot of leisure time to watch these super long videos. So, our time comes at a greater premium. So this is why short-form video, works because it’s perfect for us. And it’s easier for us to remember stuff and digest it when it’s chopped up into little segments.
Glyna: Exactly. And I think, I mean you could do your short-form videos, I mean by themselves, but I think if you created even longer videos and you’re able to chop them up and use them into shorter videos, I think that’s something that way you’re doing all of it at one time. But anyway, that’s just an idea. So how are we going to optimize for these short-form videos?
Glyna: Well, there are many ways to integrate the short video in your content marketing. So let’s give you a few ideas. Talk about a product teaser, something that’s coming out or use it as a product demo. Oh my gosh. There’s endless opportunity for people who sell stuff to do demos in a very short video. Respond to FAQs. Oh my gosh. Again, that’s endless. UGC, build a hashtag campaign and ask users to send videos to the hashtag or within the hashtag. That’s really cool. Capture behind the scenes. Those are fun. Those are always fun and catch people’s attention.
Sarah: Yeah.
Glyna: We can always do how-tos, the hacks, quick tutorials, anything like that, that you can get your point across in less than two minutes and 30 seconds is good for short-form video.
Sarah: Yeah. And we’ve talked about this before. You don’t even have to have your face on some of these. You can do demos, you can do behind the scenes. You can all do those things without showing your face so there are definitely workarounds. And you don’t have to dance and you don’t have to talk and point to talk about balls. There are ways around it and still be successful.
Glyna: Yeah! And if you visit our social media, I think Sarah just did ways to create a video without being on video or showing your face. So check out our social media for some more ideas.
Sarah: Yes, definitely check that out. So this is our sixth and final one today, and it’s going to be a deeper focus on customer intent and user experience. There is a lot to this topic, but really we’re going to just give you a really good overview of it. But we talk about keywords, we talk about SEO, and all that’s really important, but the customer intent and experience is really going to be a key driver in 2022. So, user experience is really essentially how a person interacts with your product or service or software product, whatever it is. So the bottom line is that your user is always going to expect convenience and that’s what this is about.
Glyna: Yes, follow Google’s lead. User experience is what it’s all about and it can honestly make or break the customer’s buying journey and their experience. So understanding not only what people are searching for, but what also drives them to make that purchase is key. If they can’t find what they need very quickly and every second that they spend scrolling, increases their chance of them leaving the site. So you better make it available quickly.
Sarah: Yes, yes. Yes. That’s all about the… So how can you optimize the user experience? There are tons, but we’re going to give you some top ones. Okay. So make sure that you have well-placed call-to-action buttons. So simplicity is key. So make key features like these buttons somewhere they can easily find without the whole scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Another trend that’s coming up is a more minimalistic design. So, visual content, it’s very important but consumers are almost feeling overloaded with so much stuff in their face. So because of this, many companies have sort of scaled back their design and moved towards more of a simple, more seamless design that is kind of tailored to the user’s experience.
Glyna: Yes, exactly. You don’t want to confuse people. They want quick results, quick answers. So you really need to know how… You need to understand how people use your website. I mean, once they come to that, where are they going. Use Google Analytics to see what pages they’re visiting, which ones are most interested in, and that can help you a lot. So what information are they quickly scrolling through and where do they stop? Where are they spending their time? So you need to understand those things. And then CTAs, those are call-to-actions, those are huge and very important. You can test different call-to-actions to see which one’s doing best. And then you can tailor everything towards that. And how do you do this you might ask? Well, you do what we call an A/B test and see how customers respond. Put different ones on there and see which ones are they using more. I mean, there are things like button color, the size of your button, where it’s placed, how it’s worded. Those are all key drivers of how users respond to your call to action. So pay very close attention to them.
Sarah: Isn’t that amazing? I thought about that, about how you could put learn more or get a quote, or you could put save now and they could all have a different response from that customer of what’s going to get them to what motivates them to want to take action.
Glyna: Exactly.
Sarah: So, the last part of this is to understand the buyer’s journey and this is so, so, so important. So people come to your product, your website, whatever, from various different entry points. So along the way, they’re going to make various decisions. So it’s important to follow sort of the behavior of the buyer’s journey and create a series of sort of potential actions that the user might take on their journey. This is kind of has to do a little bit with that omnichannel marketing we’ve talked about a few shows back of meeting the customer where they are. So in doing this, you’re kind of being able to create a more seamless buying experience for them, which is all based on their actions, which again is just going to increase those conversions.
Glyna: Yeah, exactly. So those are some things that you need to think about for 2022, it’s the perfect time to do it. And that’s a wrap.
Sarah: Yes.
Glyna: There’s so much more coming so stay tuned. We’ll cover more things coming up. But as always, if you want to talk to us about some of these trends or if you have any other digital marketing things that you need help with, hit us up, we’d love to help. I guess we will see you all next time.
Sarah: Until next time. Bye.