What are The Hottest Trends in the Digital Marketing Space? Updated: 2022

If you are an aspiring digital marketer you must already be aware of the top digital marketing trends. Keeping up with the latest trend in their industry is essential for any professional. With the changing digital marketing landscape its scope and reach has widened and keeps increasing each year. Therefore top digital marketing companies have to invest time and energy in learning new arenas of marketing efforts to keep up with the competition. 

Having a good knowledge of the workings of algorithms and being aware of the new trend and changes in media channel features gives you the upper hand in executing a more effective marketing strategy and campaign. 

At one time voice search optimization and AI were concepts alien to digital marketing. Today these techniques are being integrated into digital marketing for better user engagement and creating a more comprehensive digital marketing strategy. 

 

Top 14 Digital Marketing Trends in 2022

1. AI in Marketing
2. Metaverse
3. NFTs
4. Crypto
5. Micro-influencers
6. YouTube Shorts
7. WhatsApp Marketing
8. Geofencing
9. Social Media Stories
10. Omnichannel Marketing
11. Interactive Content Marketing
12. User-Generated Content
13. Programmatic Advertising
14. Shoppable Content

 

AI in Marketing

AI is probably the hottest trend in the digital marketing space. AI, although still in its nascent stage, is rapidly evolving and no wonder soon it will become an integral part of digital marketing strategies. 

AI will soon have an impact or may affect every aspect of our lives in the future, for better or worse. We don’t realise but AI has already begun changing the way we interact with digital tools. 

Today, 60% of the internet users are already interacting with AI in the form of chatbots, face recognition, and solving queries across multiple apps and websites. Most of the content we consume on social media are already powered to some degree by AI who keep users engaged with content for longer. 

It is projected that AI will become a $200 billion industry by 2025 and digital marketers will have the opportunity to utilise and make use of this technology to promote brands and make content more engaging. 

 

Metaverse

Metaverse is a whole new world within the natural world, with it Meta the company wishes to create a digital space where virtual, augmented realities co-exist to create a life-like experience which is a new experience and opens opportunities for digital marketers to take its advantage to create truly engaging content. 

Metaverse is trying to bring ‘Ready Player One’ to life where you will have your own digital avatar of yourself in the world of your imagination where all possible actions are possible even doing business in the virtual world. 

Metaverse has already made digital commerce possible and digital marketers are already finding revolutionary ways to promote brands and fill the space with curated content with a completely new way to execute digital marketing campaigns. 

 

NFTs

Non-fungible tokens are the digital assets that you can trade; each NFT has a unique token which proves its originality and its ownership by you. NFTs have already disrupted the art and technology world and are now entering the digital marketing space as well. 

Top brands are offering free NFTs to achieve their marketing goals. For example Marriott Bonvoy created a quiz where winners could win their own NFT and win 200,000 Bonvoy points. Once more and more brands like Marriott and Adidas use NFTs as a marketing tool, the growth and opportunities become unlimited. 

 

Crypto

Crypto is not a new kid in the block but it certainly is taking the Finance world by storm. There are over 10 million active crypto investors in India and have been increasing since the returns are massive. Cryptos have become one of the coolest things for millennials and therefore everyone wants to invest in it.

Moreover, because it is built using blockchain technology it is practically unhackable and therefore is the most secure form of money in the form of tokens. People in the west have already started using crypto for purchasing groceries and daily needs and the trend is only to increase in the future. 

 

Micro-Influencers

Influencer marketing is not a new strategy for digital marketers and the market already feels saturated. Now companies are approaching micro-influencers like TikTok influencers, YouTube content creators and social media influencers for social proofing.

They are quickly becoming the new brand advocates and are equally impactful when it comes to brand promoting using real stories and emotions. 

 

YouTube Shorts

Since the popularity of TikTok, other social media platforms have taken up the trend of creating shorts such as YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, where the video content lasts for just 15 seconds or less. With the increasing popularity of short-form video content, YouTube shorts are quickly becoming more popular than long-form videos. For content creators this is a great opportunity who want to reach their target customers faster on a single platform. 

 

WhatsApp Marketing

WhatsApp marketing is emerging as the biggest and a must-use digital marketing trend in 2022. WhatsApp has completely changed the way businesses reach and engage with their audiences. It enables businesses, content creators and influencers to connect to their audiences directly and send personalised messages to users of all age groups. The WhatsApp Business Account ensures that the messages sent are verified, trust-worthy and encrypted thereby establishing the credibility of the sender. 

You can also take orders from consumers right on WhatsApp and send them purchase updates such as status, invoice, shipping details and more directly. All these features make WhatsApp marketing a budding trend in the marketing arena. 

 

Geofencing

Geofencing is a location-based service marketing in which various apps and tools such as RFID, GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular data create a micro demographic for the digital marketers and businesses to target a location specific customers. It enables them to target various marketing actions such as text, deal updates, social media ads, email or app notification to specific users when they enter or exit a geographic boundary. 

Here are some interesting stats to bolster the viability of geofencing:

• Mobile ads with the help of geofencing get double the CTR.
• Geofencing is adaptable with 92% of smartphones.
• 90% of SMS are read within 3 minutes.
• More than 50% of shoppers visited a retailer after receiving a location-based message. 
• The global geofencing market is expected to grow approx. 2400 USD by 2023. 

Top brands such as Starbucks and Sephora use geofencing to advertise their products to interested customers who enter their store. They use a store companion app to send personalised business updates to their customers. They also send special push notifications thereby letting customers in the nearby area know about upcoming deals in their store. 

 

Social Media Stories

SnapChat introduced the story narrative with 24-hour life which users can share with their friends. Later in 2016 Instagram came up with ‘My Stories’ which featured similar limited life posts. Facebook also adopted the stories later on its own platform in 2017.

Micro-videos facilitate content and images to come together to leverage the feature which delivers high-engagement with users thereby increasing traffic and authority manifold in a few days. The brands should focus on having the right CTA’s which will create a genuine connection with the audience. 

 

Some Benefits of Social Media Stories:

• Increased Engagement
• Increased website traffic
• Increased brand awareness
• Cost-effective
• Opportunities to reach out to younger generations
• Add location tags
• Add mentions for other brands and your followers
• Use polls within Instagram Stories

 

Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel is a process of marketing across multiple channels to have multiple touchpoints. It has been around for a while but in recent years it has gained more value partly because of the increasing number of platforms and channels to market on. Omnichannel marketing strategies allow businesses to use multiple ways of promoting their brands or business to the target audiences. 

• More than 65% of consumers use various media channels before deciding to purchase their products.
• Omnichannel strategies increase store visits up to 80% than usual.
• Omnichannel with SMS campaigns have a conversion rate of almost 50%.
• Nearly 90% of customers prefer online customer services.
• Nearly 13% more order is received on omnichannel vs. single-channel

 

Interactive Content Marketing

Interactive content is content where audiences can actively participate instead of simply skimming through or passively watching or reading a content. When it comes to effectiveness there is nothing quite like interactive content. It has proven to drive traffic to websites, educate users about a brand and increase conversion. 

• Over 50% of all marketers report using interactive content.
• Nearly 90% of marketers agree that interactive content is effective in educating its buyers.
• 88% of marketers said that interactive content is more effective in differentiating their brand from their competitors.
• Interactive posts account for 33% of global marketing content

 

User-Generated Content

People love to participate in activities relating to their favourite products. UGC or user-generated content like reviews, shout outs, promo videos etc has 4 times more CTR in comparison to usual promotional activities. UGC harnesses the excitement of the customer and prompts them to create something of their own. 

UGC is a great strategy for various reasons, it reduces time and effort and resources required to run a campaign. It facilitates brands to promote high-quality promotional material created by their fans and followers with no additional cost. UGCs receive 28% more engagement rates when compared to a normal post as the trust factor is higher. 

Irrespective of its efficacy only 16% of brands employ UGC strategy to promote their brands. No other brand comes close to leveraging UGC as GoPro did. GoPro’s success primarily depends on their users who shot videos using their equipment. Their “Video of the Day” campaign fueled their success to new heights.

 

Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic Ad is all about using AI to automate their marketing campaigns so that advertisers can target more specific audiences and demographics. Programmatic Ad buying is the use of software to purchase digital advertising making processes such as negotiations, proposals, quotes etc redundant. 

The automation is fast and efficient which increases the conversions and lowers customer acquisition cost. Real-time bidding is a type of programmatic ad buying which facilitates faster targeting, and buying qualifying ads on a per-case basis which implies that only the target audience will receive the ad leaving the rest. 

Programmatic advertising is rapidly increasing every year and is predicted to be used for a majority of display ads within the next few years. 

 

Shoppable Content

Shoppable content includes any content such as picture, video or article that includes a direct link to a buyout portal. This is a faster way of getting customers aware of a product through content marketing and having an impact on their decision. It is specifically effective for ecommerce brands who can create and promote their shoppable content on various platforms such as blogs, social media, messenger apps etc. 

A product on the ecommerce website has a defined layout and UI with few contents that are fixed such as description, product details, pictures and price. However, with shoppable content, eCommerce brands can market their product in a way that blends with the platform it is promoted on such as in the form of stories, posts, shorts etc. 

Media channels such as Instagram and Pinterest have already introduced shopping features in their apps. 

• The global digital buyers in 2021 is 2.14 billion. Expected ecommerce sales is expected to grow 18 percent of retail sales worldwide.
• The top reason people shop online is free delivery.
• Brands such as H&M use their Instagram profile to create shoppable posts. 

 

Conclusion

By comparing today’s digital marketing landscape with what it was 5 years ago we can conclude the immense pace at which the digital space is evolving. This also gives us an idea of what digital marketing will look like within the next 5 years. Top digital marketing companies in India constantly strive to adopt new technologies and leverage their features to promote brand awareness and create new revenue streams.