With the rise of fast-paced social media, marketing trends are an ever-moving target. Especially for small business owners, the future of marketing might seem like a complete minefield to navigate. Nailing down effective marketing tactics can be difficult to identify — but also more important than ever to get right.
The good news is that the rate at which marketing is evolving, particularly online, means there is a range of digital marketing trends and strategies you can take advantage of to level up your business. Incfile interviewed five experts on the top digital marketing trends for 2022 to help identify what marketing tactics will be important for small businesses looking for success throughout the year.
Establishing an Identity That Is True to Your Brand
Marketing is all about communicating your brand to potential customers. To do this effectively, you need to have a solid idea of what your unique identity and values are as a business.
Kelly Keenan, the founder and president of Brand Story Experts, says that it’s all about building on a foundation of authenticity. “Celebrating your company’s people, culture and core values is more important than ever,” he says.
While businesses have often borrowed marketing strategies in the past, Keenan believes that people have lost interest in any copycat brands. This means that a unique identity has become a marketing essential. “If you aren’t clarifying your own story and educating people on who YOU truly are — you are behind in the times,” Keenan says.
Utilizing Local SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is widely considered to be the most important strategy to ensure your brand is seen online. Brenton Thomas is the director at Twibi, a full-service digital marketing agency. While SEO has been treated as a broader tactic, Thomas believes that small businesses shouldn’t underestimate the importance of focusing more on local SEO.
“If you only provide a service for several towns or counties, you don’t want people outside of that service area seeing the website,” he says. This means that focusing more of your efforts on local SEO is more likely to generate better customers and more prospects.
There are a variety of ways to improve local SEO, including adding a free Google listing with your physical address and information, developing keyword research focused on your local audience and creating location pages on your website.
Refreshing and Repurposing Old Content
Consistent and quality content is one of the most important aspects of having an online presence. Paige Arnof-Fenn, the founder and CEO of Mavens & Moguls, a branding and marketing firm, says that being visible and active online is the only way to truly compete in today’s business world.
While there are many ways of making sure you’re visible online like local SEO, content is also key. According to Arnof-Fenn, content is only growing in importance and quality and consistency matter. However, with attention spans shorter than ever, a helpful marketing tactic can be to repurpose, refresh and reuse outdated or old content.
“It does not take much time to repackage articles or update your keywords…the possibilities are endless and pay off quickly with increased traffic and engagement,” Arnof-Fenn says. This could mean turning a series of articles into an ebook, transforming a piece of content into a tweet or sharing links on social media of your blog content.
“Research shows that consumers need to be exposed to things many times before they take note, so even though you may think your content is already out there, chances are no one is sick of reading it yet,” Arnof-Fenn says.
Following Video Marketing Trends in 2022
One of the biggest trends of the past year has been the explosion of video marketing on social media.
Richard Dedor, an executive marketing speaker and consultant, says that it’s important for businesses to stay agile with their marketing and adapt to current trends.
“Small businesses need to go towards the attention and right now, that is TikTok,” he says. Even though other social media apps such as Facebook have traditionally been favored for marketing purposes, the rise of video content on TikTok and now Instagram is changing the game.
“Even though Facebook holds the market on quantity of users, they don’t hold the market on engagement or passion for their platforms,” Dedor says. This means that small businesses should be looking at how to capitalize on current trends for their marketing strategy, including delving into short video content.
Optimizing Influencer Marketing
Lattice Hudson, business owner and coach from Lattice & Co., says that influencer marketing is where businesses should be looking to invest in the new year.
“With influencer marketing, you can tap into their existing niche and customer base as well as a variety of interested clients. These endorsements are key since they give your product or service both exposure and validation,” Hudson says.
Most people regularly spend hours every day following their favorite influencers on Instagram or TikTok. It’s become a valuable source of marketing for all small businesses and a tactic that will likely continue to dominate the marketing world in years to come.
While marketing trends ebb and flow and change from year to year, these top marketing tactics for businesses are the ones to watch for 2022. For even more help with global marketing trends, read up on the best practices for growing your business and establishing a successful online presence with Incfile’s informative guides.
Jenna Scatena
Jenna Scatena is a writer and content strategist with a love for stories that have never been told before. More than a decade of working with prominent magazines and brands informs her approach to impactful storytelling. Her stories have reached more than 30 million readers, won multiple awards and been anthologized in books. Jenna's work has appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, Vogue, Marie Claire, The San Francisco, BBC and The Atlantic. She's the founder of the editorial consultancy, Lede Studio.
