Which marketing trends will define 2022?

In 2022, the COVID pandemic continues to influence marketing trends. Digital marketing in particular will still be paramount in 2022, and companies should keep it in focus to stay ahead of the curve. Here are 3 of the most important marketing trends in 2022.

General marketing trends you should be aware of

Before we show you 3 of the most important marketing trends for 2022, we would like to briefly address two general developments that affect marketing trends.

First, the COVID pandemic has brought the Internet of Things (IoT) even further into focus. Because many people spend much more time within their own four walls, there has been an increased focus on IoT-enabled equipment in their homes. Devices purchased in this way are connected to the Internet to provide added value. The offer ranges from TVs to fitness trackers and into all areas of industry. You should continue to monitor further development of the Internet of Things, as the topic offers great potential for your marketing activities beyond traditional channels. MarTech events provide a further opportunity to gather information on new MarTech tools and trends.

Second, marketing technology continues to evolve. The number of MarTech tools and their providers has increased significantly in recent years. While in 2014 there were around 1,000 different marketing solutions available, by mid-2020 there were already 8,000 (source: chiefmarket.com). To keep your finger on the pulse of marketing, you need effective and up-to-date MarTech tools. Keep an eye on the market to identify tools that are relevant for you.

3 important marketing trends in 2022

Individual and personalized offers

Almost every product or service will face increased competition in 2022. As always, it makes no sense to advertise indiscriminately without knowing the exact target group. Therefore, it is necessary to stand out from the competition by advertising in a more targeted way than they do. At the same time you build up more trust.

The most effective way to target is to analyze the market and your own customers. Create buyer personas to best assess your customers. What are they looking for? How much money do they have at their disposal and which products are therefore suitable? What level of education do they typically have? These and many other questions should be answered by your buyer personas. Without an accurate picture of your potential customers, a personalized and individualized offer is impossible.

Based on these buyer personas, you should focus your marketing on personalized content and ads for these personas. Especially in the B2B sector, it pays off to push this personalization even further for large target customers. The keyword here is account-based marketing (ABM for short). This involves developing a special, personalized campaign for selected customers in order to address their needs as precisely as possible. Numerous software tools provide valuable insights into your target group and their buying process, such as 6sense and Demandbase.

Hybrid events

The pandemic has massively impacted all of our lives, professionally and personally. Digital collaboration has become the norm for many. Trade shows, conventions, conferences - all have moved to online alternatives. Now, gradually, physical events are becoming more common again. But a shift back to purely physical events is unrealistic, as people have discovered that digital events work well. Attending events virtually from our home offices is now too mainstream to abandon. Yet for many, attending physical events remains attractive, especially to maintain face-to-face customer contact. The solution to this problem is hybrid events.

A hybrid event can be attended both physically and virtually. The concept didn't just come about because of COVID, but it has clearly come into focus during the pandemic. Of course, not every event can be implemented as a hybrid event, but business events in particular lend themselves to this. The effort to establish such an event is of course initially somewhat higher than a purely physical or purely virtual event, but hybrid events potentially deliver many advantages:

• Larger numbers of participants.
• More sustainable compared to purely physical events.
• Greater reach of the event.
• Convince undecideds through lower participation threshold.

The future of cookies

The topic of data protection has arisen in the last few years like no other. Emerging regulations affect everyone, not just the big players. Google has announced that from the end of 2023, its own browser Chrome will no longer support third-party cookies. With a market share of about 65%, Chrome is by far the largest browser (source: Statista).

Google has announced an alternative to cookies that will track users less actively - but exactly what this will look like is not yet clear. One possibility for replacing cookies is a shift to first-party data, i.e. the company's own collection of data. It is currently impossible to see how this topic will develop further. Even so, it is clear that it Internet and browser technology will be an important marketing trend for 2022 and beyond.

These three trends - custom offers, hybrid events, and the future of cookies - will have a huge impact on the marketing world in 2022. If you want to continue to be kept up to date on marketing and MS Office topics, keep an eye on our blog or sign up directly for our newsletter (at the bottom of this page). If you want to learn more about the empower^® Solution, visit our empower Suite^® or let us answer all your questions directly. In any case, the future remains exciting and a lot will change throughout 2022.