Looking Forward to 2022: Experts Predict the Future of Digital Marketing
The Christmas turkey leftovers are finally gone from the fridge, and the New Years’ champagne flutes have washed away our troubles from 2021 (hopefully).
PLUS, we’ve now had more than enough time to binge-watch 5 seasons of This is Us before Tuesday’s final season premiere (WARNING: get your tissues ready if you haven’t seen it yet).
With all that out of the way, it’s time for us to crush our marketing strategies and business goals in 2022.
After a year that saw countless changes to the digital world brought on by COVID-19, many marketers are as uncertain as ever.
The advancement of artificial intelligence has many wondering whether copywriting will be replaced for good (if I see one more ad for Jarvis.ai…).
Content creators worry that their market is too saturated and attention spans too short for them to really impact their audiences.
But as leading direct response copywriter, Ryan Guthrie, reminds us: “There is opportunity everywhere and it’s just going to keep growing.”
Ahh, thank you Ryan for bringing us some sanity and optimism to kick off the New Year. It’s safe to say we could all use a dose of both right now.
Before the holidays, I reached out to leading copywriters and digital marketing specialists to ask them: “What’s the #1 trend you’re looking out for in 2022?” The responses were passionate, thorough, and enlightening.
As I pored over the answers, I was encouraged to see a number of consistent trends emerge.
In today’s post, I’m going to share the top five trends for copywriting/digital marketing in 2022 based on these responses and my own experiences.
By the end of the post, you’ll also have a framework to reach more people online with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
Let’s get after it.
Trend #1: Long-Form Content
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical part of any marketer’s job but understanding how content marketing fits into the SEO puzzle is not always clear
Because Google’s SEO algorithms change practically daily, it is very difficult to know exactly how to rank highest for your target keywords.
But as Kieran Higgins (Google’s #1 search result for “health and wellness copywriter”) tells us: “One thing that has remained consistent and isn’t set to change anytime soon is the need for quality long-form content. In fact, it is right at the top of my list of priorities.”
According to the State of Content Marketing Report, the need for long-form content is at an all-time high.
Consider the following statistics. Long-form content (3000+ words) gets:
2X more page views than shorter content (2000 words or less)
24% more shares
4X more traffic
And these numbers are only going to increase going forward.
The lesson?
It is critical that you invest in content marketing.
Yes, it’s time-consuming and difficult to write engaging long-form content on a regular basis.
But the benefits you reap by investing in this strategy are endless. Here are a couple:
You’ll rank higher in Google over time if you target the right keywords
You’ll nurture your prospects so they know they can trust you
You’ll situate yourself as the expert in your field (regardless of your degrees)
The more information you can provide in your content, the better! (As long as your articles are helpful and informative, of course)
You might also be thinking to yourself: “Will anyone actually read my content? I mean, aren’t there 600 million blogs and aren’t our attention spans like 6-8 seconds now?”
Great questions.
While you are correct with those figures, the simple answer is that the RIGHT customers for your business always find the time to read your content.
Why?
Because it directly affects them and their pain points, and they appreciate your commitment to helping them find the answers they seek. Long-form content is also a great way to qualify your readers and separate the wandering prospects from the committed customers.
That being said, you can and should certainly make the reading experience as pleasant as possible for your audience:
Write short paragraphs (3-4 sentences)
Avoid technical jargon or fancy words like “incandescent” (although using this on a date could certainly impress your companion)
Break up your content with images, videos, infographics, and bulleted lists.
If you do all the above, you’ll cater to both your skimmers AND your more diligent readers.
If you don’t have the time or writing skills to produce long-form content, you can always hire a copywriter to do it for you and achieve massive ROI in the process!
In fact, there are a number of professionals featured in this post who would be glad to help you out (myself included)...
Alright, enough of the shameless plug.
Onwards to Trend #2.
Trend #2: Video Content is ON FIRE
At its core, marketing is about messaging and relationship building.
Your goal is always to make an emotional connection with your audience. This way, they become lifelong customers and you help them solve their pain points in the process.
With COVID-19 continuing to play a big role in our daily lives, we are longing for connection like never before.
In 2022, video marketing is a key way that you can stand out from the crowd and connect with your ideal prospects.
Leading health & wellness copywriter, Sayre Herrick, tells us:
In 2022, more people are consuming content in the form of video. The demand for video marketing and video sales scripts will continue to grow, with subtitles and captions helping to make videos more accessible and boost SEO — especially on YouTube.
Consider the following statistics from 2021:
69% of people say they’d prefer to learn about a new product/service by watching a video
Brands who use video in their content get 41% more traffic than those that don’t
Calls to action get 380% more clicks when placed in videos
“How to” searches are increasing 70% year over year on YouTube
85% of people would like to see more video content from brands in 2022
As Wix philosophizes: “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million.”
What this means is that you can easily leverage the popularity of videos right now in countless ways!
As a few examples, you could post “how-to” videos on your website/YouTube channel, go live on Instagram, create quick reels, and even dance/post educational content on TikTok (which recently passed Google as the #1 most visited website on the Internet in 2021).
PLUS, vacation rental copywriter, Wendy Bixby, has more good news for us: “It’s so fun to write video scripts and to see them come to life when they’re recorded.”
Video marketing is the future, and it’s the best way to form an emotional connection with your prospects.
At its best, marketing is FUN! Thanks for the reminder, Wendy.
Trend #3: Consumer Trend: Social Responsibility
One of the few positive effects of COVID-19 is people’s increased willingness to fight for causes they care about.
While this trend is a powerful motivating force at an individual level, consumers expect and demand the same level of responsibility from the brands they engage with.
Content marketing specialist Jordan Horwat shares:
As a sustainability copywriter, I've already seen a huge shift in consumer behavior. Younger generations are taking a stand with their money and want to feel confident that their purchases serve a deeper purpose, and I know this trend is only going to grow in 2022. I'm always refining my copy to ensure the consumer feels driven, proud, and at ease with their decision to buy or opt-in, no matter how small the offering.
Jordan’s experiences are backed up by a number of encouraging statistics about CSR (corporate social responsibility) in 2021:
94% of Gen-Z believe companies should address pressing social and environmental issues
53% of consumers are willing to pay extra for products/services that contribute to positive change
92% of people prefer to buy a product that supports a cause
The message is clear. No matter what demographic you’re marketing to in 2022, you must be in touch with your larger mission/purpose AND share that message through your marketing.
CSR will only become more important for brands to position themselves well in 2022.
Of course, the danger of CSR is that some companies will simply pay lip service to its commitment.
BUT the BEST brands that endure in the long term are inspired by the highest level of service to community and society.
Make sure your higher-level purpose is clear in all that you say, do, and promote.
Trend #4: Niche Marketing > Mass Marketing
50+ years ago, businesses focused their marketing efforts on delivering their products/services to the masses. Today (unless you have the market value of Apple), there are simply too many other competitors for you to win with mass marketing techniques.
One of the hallmarks of marketing in 2022 is NICHE & COMMUNITY MARKETING.
What this means is that you must define your very specific niche and target those very specific prospects.
Mental health copywriter Megan Marolf reports:
Therapists in particular are overwhelmed with the mental health needs brought on by the pandemic. A good copywriter realizes that mental health professionals need to focus on attracting clients they KNOW they can help rather than casting a wider net.
What Megan beautifully points out is that if you market to everyone, you are really marketing to no one.
With the endless stream of content out there, general marketing won’t allow you to connect with your ideal prospects in a meaningful way.
For example, it’s ineffective for therapists to position themselves as general mental health counselors. Instead, you’ll want to hone in on your specialties. Are you an expert in anxiety for teenagers? Depression in mid-level executives?
The narrower you get with your focus, the easier it will be for you to create content specifically for your ideal clients.
The same is true for any niche. While it can be scary to narrow your focus and market to a smaller number of people, you are guaranteed to attract higher-quality leads who are aligned with your skillset and mission.
Niche down, don’t mess around (with that terribly cringe-y concluding sentence, let’s move on to our final trend).
One of your main goals as a marketer should be to create a community that your audience LOVES.
Trend #5: Apple’s Newest iOS Update: A Marketer’s Ivan Drago
Do you get the above reference? I’ll give you a hint: “ADRIAN!!!” Drop a comment below if you know what movie this line comes from.
Anyway, Apple’s newest update poses some serious challenges for marketers in 2022.
Health and wellness copywriter Jordan Conner shares:
It will be interesting to see how the recent Apple update impacts email marketing. This update prevents marketers from accessing data on open rate. Unfortunately, measuring success across email marketing campaigns will become more challenging.
And email won’t be the only form of marketing affected.
The iOS update focuses heavily on privacy and transparency in order to give some power back to the consumer.
A key feature is that users of apps/websites are now able to opt-out of their data being tracked and shared with third parties.
This makes retargeting efforts much more difficult as users increasingly decide to keep their data to themselves.
While this post is not intended to stir up a debate about the net effect of the new policy, it will be critical for all marketers to rethink their strategy around retargeting.
One solution that has achieved success so far is Facebook (or ~Meta~) lead ads. Facebook is no longer tracking conversions that happen outside of the app itself. This means that it can’t see who spends time on your website and create custom audiences for your ad based on those results.
BUT, you can still do really well by offering a lead magnet in your ad (like a free nutrition guide or 5-day challenge, etc.). Then, simply have the viewer fill out a form that pops up on the same page as the ad.
By keeping the viewers on Facebook instead of sending them to a dedicated page on your website, you’re keeping Facebook happy AND allowing them to create custom audiences for you from this interaction.
The update certainly poses challenges, but as creative marketing professionals we can all find ways around it while also allowing for more consumer privacy.
Conclusion
There you have it, five key marketing/copywriting trends to watch out for in 2022.
These are not the only changes to the marketing landscape by any means. New trends appear on a monthly and sometimes even daily basis.
While it can be dizzying to try and keep up, we can be reassured by mental health copywriter/web content specialist Suzanne Griffin’s words:
In 2022, I'm excited to try my hand at storytelling. People don't want to be "sold to" all the time. I want to connect people to a brand or service by developing a story to pull them in emotionally. I really love it when brands do this.
It is, of course, important to stay up to date with the changes happening around us. But Suzanne reminds us all that marketing is fundamentally about STORYTELLING.
The key challenge to figure out in 2022 is the same as it was in 1922: How can you/we share our message and values with our prospects to help them solve their problems?
We as humans rely on stories to make sense of the world and our role in it. The business that tells the best story about its brand wins. Always.
Business strategist and producer Chelli Johnson sums it all up perfectly when she says: “The Future of Business is Personal.”
Being PERSONALLY invested in your mission and your audience will allow you to truly care for them. And as humans, that’s what we really want.
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