The Future of Marketing: Five Innovative Marketing Strategies to Explore in 2022

By Hannah Ferguson

Digital marketing is a fast-paced and rapidly changing industry, and there will be no lack of marketing innovations in 2022. To succeed as marketers, we must embrace industry changes as they come, and use them to our advantage. Exploring new ideas and expanding our marketing knowledge is key to flourishing in our field. In order to stay on top of your marketing game, here are five innovative marketing strategies to keep in mind when planning for 2022. 

1. Incorporate artificial intelligence into your marketing plans.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is a fast-growing and extremely intuitive tool that may seem overwhelming at first glance. The reality behind AI is that the technology is not intended to replace humans, but to help boost our productivity. By incorporating artificial intelligence across your marketing practices, you can improve customer service, personalize campaigns, and even develop AI-created content. 

Virtual assistants like chatbots can give your consumers instant access to an array of support-related answers without the need for a human support specialist. Customers want quick access to solutions for any pain points they may face, and artificial intelligence can help businesses achieve this goal. On top of customer management, AI technology can also intuitively help you manage your marketing campaigns. 

2. Allow marketing automation to assist your team.

Marketing automation can assist your team in a multitude of ways, ranging from paid search to email marketing. Marketers used to spend hours building campaigns that can now be generated in a matter of minutes with the help of automation technology. By automating parts of your marketing plan, you can save time, create more personalized content, and win over a larger customer base by boosting your engagement.   

Email marketing automation will be especially important in 2022. You may have used some form of automation in the past, such as A/B testing or even simply pre-scheduling emails. This year, try using automation for personalized marketing. Email data can help you automate emails to be sent to your customers with the right content and message at the best time. Understanding what your audience wants is one of the biggest challenges of digital marketing. Automation can break down consumer data and segment your audiences so your contacts will receive personalized content that’s most relevant to their needs.

3. Enhance your media mix with video marketing. 

Rich, high-quality content is key to an effective marketing strategy, and video content is more important now than ever. Video is one of the most consumed forms of media in circulation today, with YouTube being the second largest search engine just after Google. Video allows consumers to see a human face behind the brand, which makes video marketing extremely influential when developing customer relationships. 

Aside from YouTube advertising, rapidly growing platforms like TikTok are allowing companies to reach their audience in fun and creative ways. Video is great for building brand awareness, providing tutorials for your products, and capturing new customers. Consumers are spending more time streaming video across all platforms than ever before, so if you’re not incorporating video marketing into your mix, you could be missing out on huge audiences.  

4. Make marketing plans with consumers’ emotions in mind. 

The future of marketing is dependent on prioritizing customers’ needs rather than promoting a product or service. Peoples’ decisions are driven by emotions, and they’re more inclined to support companies that they feel represented by. By focusing on what the customer wants rather than what you’re promoting, you can drive brand loyalty and ultimately increase revenues.

Utilizing customer data is crucial when creating personalized experiences and advertisements for your target audience. Figure out what your customers need and how you can provide a solution for these needs. People want to be treated as more than just a customer. By putting emotions and needs at the forefront of your marketing efforts, you can develop strong customer relationships and learn more about your target consumer. 

5. Learn how to market without third-party cookies.

Every year there are advances with digital privacy, and 2022 will be no exception. New restrictions on third-party cookies will limit the access that marketers have to track their campaigns. While this is a speed bump for digital marketers, there are ways to create customized marketing plans without these cookies. 

First-party data is the key to generating personalized marketing content. By utilizing the data provided from your existing customer channels, such as email and social media engagement, you can create customized ads to reach your target audience. Customers are more willing to provide information to companies that they trust and relate to. Focusing on building strong customer relationships and building on the data analytics that you have will be extremely important when planning for the year to come. 

All in all, the key to successful marketing in 2022 is embracing innovation as it comes.  Businesses and marketers have been thrown some extreme curveballs over the past few years that we’ve had to learn to maneuver as they come. Marketing is all about experimentation and keeping up with the ever-changing digital world. Consumers are looking for companies that they trust and relate to, and that cater to their needs rather than just pushing a product. Ultimate marketing success does not happen overnight, so it’s important to focus on both short- and long-term goals for your 2022 marketing strategies.