As you dig into the marketing results for the previous year, it’s time to collaborate with the best digital marketing services and start planning your strategies for 2022.There has been some economic recovery and positive momentum after the pandemic and hopefully, marketers will get a better budget to work with. Whatever the budget, you have to plan your digital marketing strategies for 2022 and make good use of the money to attract the target audience and get maximum sales.

1. Go for podcast marketing

Did you know that 70% of the podcast listeners are glued to it as they are immersed in their household routine, at the gym, or commuting to work? About 50% of the podcast listeners in the U.S. are aged between 12 to 34 years. Regular podcast listeners have the power to make purchasing decisions or take an interest in them. So, why not aim to reach these “super listeners” with a weekly podcast and try to create a loyal fan base?

As per research, ad spending in the podcast market is expected to reach $2.74 billion by 2025. Just like Netflix disrupted the streaming industry, podcasting is already making big moves with 800,000 active podcasts and over 54 million episodes available worldwide.

What are the benefits of podcast marketing?

• A voice can engage your audience better than text. It helps to build trust and a personal connection.
• It’s easy to get started. It’s cheaper to video content. But we aren’t saying it is an alternative. Visual content sells the most even today. So, brands can provide both video and audio podcasting to their followers.
• Podcasting helps you to reach out to new audiences. It increases traffic and lead generation pretty quickly.
• It helps improve conversion as it builds an effective relationship with listeners.
• You can repurpose the podcasts into snippets and teasers and share them on social media platforms.

From a creative standpoint, podcasts work for every subject and industry. So, digital marketing services can implement this strategy for 2022.

2. Give preference for first-party data

It is obvious that customer data drives your marketing strategies. But the problem is, you have relied heavily on third-party data from Google, Facebook, or any other source for paid marketing. But growing consumer privacy concerns are driving businesses to enforce stricter regulations. The effect is that Google will scrap website cookies on Chrome in 2023 while Safari and Firefox have already implemented the ban.

It effectively means that brands now have to capitalize on the available first-party data and plan strategies to connect with these customers. Ensure that you integrate Google Analytics or other third-party analytics software through web development services to capture the data and insights. The data that you have from completed on-site purchases, surveys, customer feedback, and your CRM is valuable because you own it. And secondly, it gives you the blueprint to create a customer persona.

As per Google, a majority of leading marketers believe that first-party data is an important asset for brand growth. It gives you valuable insights into customer interests, behavior, and more. Tailor your digital marketing content based on this data because your future depends on it.

3. Shift your focus to personalization

Customers always want to feel special. Two in three customers want brands to understand their needs and expectations. The same number expect brands to validate empathy. It is not always about acquiring new customers. It is about retaining existing customers and making them feel special. The focus of your digital marketing strategy has to be on the customer journey as much as on their destination.

Here are ways to personalize content for your customers –

• Welcome returning customers back to the online store through unique messages.
• Personalize the messages based on customer preferences, interests, and actions.
• Use dynamic remarketing ads to target customers who are still undecided about a purchase
• Segment your email list and push notifications according to customer purchase history, location, demographics, purchase time, and other data points.
• Customize emails with product images that your customers have searched for in the past.

These personalization strategies by digital marketing services will help you to retain customers and build brand loyalty.

4. Bite-sized video content for Gen Z

It is not new that visual content sells. The past couple of years have seen a meteoric rise in videos.

Adults now spend up to five hours consuming visual content. Also, it gives brands an opportunity to increase awareness by 140% through different video formats such as-

• Product videos
• Instructional videos
• Behind the scenes
• Unboxing videos
• Event videos
• Announcements & teaser videos
• Reviews & testimonials
• How to use videos
• Interviews & chat shows
• Educational content

Short-form content dominates the social media landscape in the form of Stories, Reels, YouTube Shorts, Tik Tok, and many more. The younger audiences are known to lap up shorter videos and the older generation is very much there. The benefit of short videos for businesses is tapping into the young market and repurposing lengthy video content into bite-sized content easily.

5. Search engine optimization stays relevant

Search engine optimization or SEO aims to get the relevant audience to your website. These are consumers who are actively searching for products or services and are mainly at the top of the sales funnel. When it comes to digital marketing strategies, SEO is the foremost requirement to encourage traffic to your website from users that matter.

As per Statista, 55% of the traffic to websites comes from direct searches. 80% of the consumers research a product online. Half of them discover new brands selling those products. But only 10% of the searchers go beyond the second page of search results.With so many users finding their answers on the first page, your strategy as well as that of SEO services has to be focused on better ranking to attract more potential clients and earn revenue.

6. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for small businesses

The keyword bidding war gets hotter with small businesses jumping into the fray for paid ads in digital marketing. In PPC, you bid for relevant keywords for which you want your ads to appear when a user searches for them. These ads appear at the top of the search results above the organic listings and sometimes at the bottom of the page depending on the Ad rank. You pay for the ad if the user clicks on it.

Paid ads are not limited to search engines. You can advertise your brand on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. PPC is one of the most efficient forms of sponsored advertising. Google handles more than 60,000 searches/second and it is the go-to platform for paid ads as you can earn $8 for every dollar spent if done right. Even if you have an established presence in the organic results, you can still opt for PPC through reliable SEO services to rank for several high-value keywords and optimize conversions better.

7. Give importance to B2B marketing

Most often, e-commerce is seen as B2C and the focus is on consumers. However, B2B can be most profitable for businesses because these searches are intent-based. It is more specifically true for service-based e-commerce. If you are out there posting educational and informative content on a regular basis, you establish authority or expertise on the subject. A client interested in your service may seek to speak with your business representative to learn more about your services.

8. Focus on local SEO

While online markets opened their doors for consumers during the lockdown, it is now back to local shopping as restrictions have eased and people are venturing out to shop. Consumers have always preferred local solutions to meet their demands be it products or services.

Geofencing is a concept that aims to reach consumers in localized “fenced” areas through text messages, emails, in-app notifications, and social media. It can be strengthened through SEO services targeting local consumers.

• Listing on local online directories
• Creating a Google My Business account
• Involving website development services to build online stores for local searches
• Creating content-based on local events
• Reviews from happy customers
• Optimizing for voice search for directions to the physical store and business hours

These are crucial digital marketing strategies to optimize for local SEO. Services like Google My Business are free to use and they can immensely help to boost your local SEO and provide value to potential consumers.

9. Push notifications to retain customers

Even though email marketing is cost-effective, push notification is emerging as its superior alternative to connect audiences with the brand. Just as you segment users in email marketing, the same can be done in push notifications too. With people using mobile devices for everything from brand search to online shopping, it makes sense to use push notifications as a part of your digital marketing strategy for 2022.

Today, more than half of the users who have downloaded the app allow brands to send push notifications so that they can stay in touch with what the brands have to offer. There is a fine line though and brands should not go over the top by bombarding customers with frequent push notifications.

There is a threshold to the number of push notificationsyou can send depending on the services and anything beyond that means you risk losing your customers.

10. Optimize for voice search

The number of digital voice assistants in use has increased and is expected to reach8.4 billion by 2024. A growing number of consumers use voice search to look for products and services online. It’s much more convenient than typing and enables users to search by speaking their desired terms. Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Voice Assistant allow users to communicate with their devices through voice.For some, voice search has still not seen phenomenal growth as expected. Nevertheless, it is better to make it a part of your digital marketing strategy. Optimizing for voice search includes focusing your effort on conversational keywords and creating persona-based content to answer people’s questions. To make this happen, you will have to find expert SEO services in USA who will help you with keywords, schema markup, and website organization.

Are you ready to implement the latest digital marketing strategies?

As brands continue to fight for consumer attention, the best digital marketing services have to plan strategies to stay ahead of the curve and meet the goals. Houston IT Developers offer custom, result-driven digital marketing services for all kinds of businesses. Let’s start building your personalized digital marketing strategy to reach new customers and achieve your business goals.