While the pandemic continues to permeate business and society in different ways, organizations are finding their stride and getting into the “recover and renew” phase, as the worst of it subsides. Aiming for pre-pandemic growth, marketing teams at every organization are being leaned on to fuel that growth. 

Skilled CMOs balance changing audience needs while driving results for the organization in an ever evolving marketing landscape. Not only are they familiar with current industry trends, they integrate those trends across their marketing strategy, while leveraging data to make strategic decisions, ultimately pivoting their organization towards growth (we’re talking about more attributable revenue here) in 2022.

In this 2-part Blog Series, we’ve outlined a go-to reference for successful 2022 planning, so you and your team can drive real impact. Not just for CMO’s and aspiring CMO’s, this research is a helpful resource for all members of the marketing team! 

Marketing Trends to Embrace ASAP

Some elements of marketing are timeless, while other trends come and go along with new technology, changing cultural expectations, global pandemics or other things of that nature… Check out our list of trends that are key for a successful 2022!

– Hybrid events

Covid-19 and social distancing requirements led to a mass cancellation of events across the globe. For some marketers, this changed everything they knew about marketing. Those who were agile enough to leverage virtual events to engage with their audience were able to create a proverbial pitcher of lemonade. Identifying your audience, using the correct tools to target them with email campaigns and social media campaigns and not being afraid of digital spending helped with the success of these events. 

In person events, under safe circumstances, will never disappear; we are human and the nature of business always has been and will continue to be personal. Simultaneously, we now have solutions that eradicate geographical limitations, provide disability access for those unable to attend the event, aside from those who would simply rather hear what you have to say from the comfort of their own couch. In this particular situation, Hybrid events let you have your cake and eat it too. 

In-person events will be back, accompanied with a strong digital component. For both physical and virtual attendees, creating an immersive experience will be key. 

– Owning Your Audience

• 500 million tweets are sent out every day.
• 6 million businesses use Facebook ads to reach their audiences.
• 2 million posts, articles, and videos are published on LinkedIn every day.

While social media offers a great way to connect with your audience, the best engagement on those sites happens on the end user’s terms. At the mercy of social media algorithms and competing with the infinite number of things vying for their attention, the probability of your message getting lost amidst clutter is high. “Your” audience on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn don’t actually belong to you. 

Keep using social media, it’s a great channel – but don’t be dependent on it. Your organization should own a channel and the accompanying audience. By creating email lists, engaging your opted-in audience with things like newsletters, e-books and email marketing campaigns, you’ll build solid rapport, resulting in a direct line to your audience – that you own. 

Obviously this will require a bit more work than a basic SM strategy – understanding your target persona and executing email campaigns require intention and strategy. Using intent data is one way to make sure you’re making educated decisions. We have plenty of resources here, so check out some of our other blogs for more information if you’re curious. 

– Better ad-targeting 

Who

What

When

Where

And **Why** should they care?

Americans go through 4000 to 10000 ads every day. The fact that 99% won’t relate to an individual is why society is becoming increasingly immune to pushy selling tactics.

Rather than using resources to figure out how to execute a marketing campaign that will sell to everyone, instead, do the work to seek out those who are in need of your solution. That is the hard work. They will be receptive to a basic and straightforward campaign, while a flashy campaign will still likely fall on dead ears unless you can somehow achieve virality. 

Conquer the 4 W’s – who are you talking to (and who wants to hear from your marketing team. Seek out those who have shown some interest in or who fit a very specific persona), what message are you trying to convey, when are they ready to hear your message and where/which channels are they going to be able to receive your message on? Bonus- be strong about your why it should permatiate your overall messaging and outreach strategy. 

Invest your energy in understanding your audience, creating educational content, and relevant ads, and you’ll not only see revenue increase, but better brand credibility and a happier marketing and sales team. 

– Content experiences matter more

People log on to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Youtube for different purposes. Every platform has its own template and content type. Marketing teams should challenge themselves to creatively play around and create some native content for their audience on the channels they’re focused on. Depending on company size, you may have one main channel or you may have four. 

Strategic content production keeps the needs of your audience as the topmost priority. When creating content, spend some time on the following two points: 

1. Focus on the larger perspective rather than on individual content pieces. Consider end-to-end user experience and optimize how users engage with your content (i.e. plan out a video series, consistent over six months, rather than focusing on one off videos).
2. For each piece, ask yourself “why am I creating this content piece, where will I place it, how and where will the reader find it?” Answer these questions and orchestrate your content assets accordingly. 

Remember, the goal is to share valuable content with the people who need it. 

– Finding alternatives to third-party cookies

Data privacy regulations are prompting organizations to build up first-party data collection capabilities. Identity Resolution capabilities are a must-have for any advertisers as it allows them to collect data from various user-touch points and channels. 

How can marketers use this opportunity?

When you use cookies, the user can opt-in and say “Yes, I am okay with giving my information” But what if they don’t opt in? Are they lost to your organization?

Identity Resolution solves this by taking data from multiple sources and combining it to identify the company and sometimes, in the right circumstances, the contact. Since you better understand the prospect, you can deliver relevant and recent ads at the right time.

As the whole marketing landscape is experiencing a paradigm shift, brands will be looking for alternative strategies that facilitate tracking and measurement in a cookie-less future. They can use tracking pixels to collect latitude, longitude, IP address, and other information. All these data points can be combined to attribute corporate identity to understand prospects based on their location and place of work. 

Depending on the size and bandwidth of your team, it might be smart to focus on just one of these trends in the short term. Once your team feels comfortable, move on and tackle something else. Alternatively, you could spend time ranking your current performance in the above trends, then determine your strategy. Double down on your best performing channels or dedicate some resources in 2022 to shoring up weaker ones?

Putting effort into any of these elements will help your marketing team deliver more of the results your organization needs. If you read anything interesting in this article that you’d like to get more information about, we’d love to hear from you! 

Stay Tuned for our next post tomorrow.