In 30 seconds:
- January is on the horizon, which means it’s time to think about – and implement! – the digital marketing trends 2022 has in store.
- The marketing landscape has been disrupted by the pandemic, and amidst shrinking budgets, it’s vital for marketing departments to work smarter to make the most of the next year.
- Gen Z have high expectations for brands, so a successful digital marketing strategy means engaging with new technologies, platforms and trends to keep your business’ online presence thriving.
Even without a pandemic to account for, predicting upcoming digital marketing trends is complex.
The past year has changed the way consumers engage with brands, and it’s impacted marketing budgets significantly. It’s more important than ever for brands to understand what trends will govern the marketing landscape in 2022 – especially for Gen Z consumers.
Gen Z is quickly forming loyalty to brands, with 40% feeling more loyal than last year. So it’s crucial to appeal to the next generation now.
This means keeping ahead of the latest marketing trends to deliver the best customer experience. Remember, these digital natives have grown up online, so Gen Z‘s expectations are higher.
As marketers shift to a bigger focus across digital marketing channels like social media, search engines and even artificial intelligence, we’ve outlined five digital marketing trends 2022 will impact.
What are the next major digital marketing trends in 2022?
Let’s first get something straight: digital marketing is not all about tech.
Digital technologies might be advancing rapidly, but younger generations, who are well-used to living life online, respond best to marketing strategies that emphasise people as well as product. As we move into next year, there is a push to make marketing more “human” again.
This is good news for brands engaged in social commerce (buying and selling directly within a social media platform). 97% of Gen Z consumers cite social media as their top source of inspiration when shopping. It’s full of opportunities to engage on a more personal level.
It’s why personable platforms like TikTok should form part of your digital marketing strategy. After all, it’s where Gen Z is most likely to interact with brands.
The social media trends 2022 brings will be the key, and your brand should keep aware of your target audience as much as any new technologies.
5 future trends in digital marketing
Without further ado, here are the top five digital marketing trends we predict will have the biggest impact on Gen Z marketing in 2022:
1. Influencer Marketing 2.0
The prevalence and popularity of influencer marketing is growing and growing. In fact, influencer marketing is expected to be worth $15bn in 2022, up from $9.7bn in 2020.
More brands are understanding the opportunities leveraged by assigning the right influencer to a digital marketing campaign. Many are now following in the footsteps of Estée Lauder, who announced in 2019 their intention to spend 75% of their marketing budget on influencer campaigns.
It’s clear why. Gen Z is distrustful of traditional advertising, but they report being more likely to buy a product based on a recommendation from an influencer. Want to build trust? Partnerships with influencers is the answer. And in 2022, you should focus on video content such as Instagram Reels and TikTok videos.
The shift to video is unsurprising: it’s Gen Z’s preferred form of digital marketing, and TikTok‘s video content-first platform has forced all social media platforms to adapt. Each has thousands of established influencers – and micro-influencers – ready and willing to help implement your next brand awareness, ecommerce or brand sentiment campaign via video.
The other plus? TikTok‘s algorithm presents a whole range of niche communities to explore. You can be guaranteed of the fact that the perfect audience for your brand is already there, primed and waiting for your video marketing content.
2. Interactive Content
One social media trend 2022 will bring is the continued rise of interactive content.
User experience is central to an effective digital marketing strategy, and what better way to personalise the experience for users than to talk to them directly?
Live video is one area of huge potential growth in the coming year. It’s an option offered across all social media platforms, and is reported to drive the biggest return on investments of all social media formats.
Live-streaming enables brands to connect directly with users and promote an authentic and dynamic vision of the business. Authenticity is one of the most important considerations cited for any campaign aimed at Gen Z, so genuine interactivity is a marketing tactic you cannot ignore.
Whether your brand is most active on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook, it’s clear that maintaining a social media presence on livestream should be a key strand of any digital marketing strategy in 2022 that seeks to engage Gen Z.
3. Conversational Marketing
Gone are the days of the stuffy “Sir”s and “Ma’am”s in email marketing. In 2022, consumers want natural interactions. Gen Z don’t recognise formal brand messaging; they’re used to seeing brands take part in dance trends, so they’ve grown to expect friendlier communication.
Take Starface, for example. The beauty brand’s social media marketing plan embodies the brand’s product as a character operating its social channels. It relates to customers as an equal individual through all messaging. We talk in more detail about why Starface’s content marketing works – and how your brand can master this form of digital advertising – in our report here.
The growth of the conversational marketing trend has the same underlying cause as influencers and live-stream video: the personal touch really is key.
4. Artificial Intelligence
2022 may just be the year of the AI-powered marketing strategy.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning gives improved data clarity, which fuels the optimisation of marketing strategies. Meanwhile, robotic process automation will enable brands to improve some of the user experience journey.
This marketing automation could provide responses to customer queries, cutting short the time customers wait to hear from you. You should also prepare for the growth of voice search, so any AI-powered chatbot you use can respond in kind to your target audience‘s online behaviour.
This is especially useful for improving customer satisfaction amongst Gen Z consumers, whose expectations for speed and convenience are higher than average.
AI-based marketing tools for content planning will develop, so brands can streamline their digital marketing operations. Hubspot could be in for a refresh – and keep an eye on Google: the search engine is constantly updating its “smart” tools, so keep up to date to get the best results from any paid ads you run.
Just remember that the human aspect of marketing is still the most important to Gen Z, so any leaps into the world of AI should be to enhance your marketing team‘s efforts, not replace your people.
5. Responsible Consumerism
Social responsibility. Going “green”. These are important focuses for brands generally, but they’ll have an impact on attracting a Gen Z audience, too.
It’s no surprise that the “Greta generation” ranks sustainability a a top concern. 73% of Gen Z consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. That’s more than every other generation.
Gen Z cares about the impact of purchases on the world. Just less than half of millennials and Gen Zs think businesses have a positive impact on society – but they support brands who aim for responsibility.
In fact, 70% of Gen Z will purchase products from brands they consider to be ethical.
Marketing the positive steps you’re taking towards sustainability, or highlighting any diversity and inclusion initiatives (via infographics on your Instagram Stories, perhaps?) could prove more effective in capturing Gen Z’s interest than any product promotion.
Looking for a winning marketing strategy?
At Fanbytes we’re proud of our reputation for helping brands engage with Gen Z using the latest digital marketing trends.Our expertise across all social media marketing, from Snapchat and TikTok influencers to augmented reality, means we’re best placed to help your business develop a future-ready digital marketing strategy that gets results.
Get in touch to find out more about how we can help your company keep on top of marketing trends and capture the growing Gen Z market.
Looking for more expert advice? Intrigued by the opportunities TikTok promises? We have more top tips on how best to market to Gen Z below:
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