Since its inception more than 30 years ago, digital marketing has evolved from a new trend to a critical strategic component for nearly every organization. Technology continues to evolve, creating unprecedented opportunities to analyze consumer behavior, deliver messages, and create immersive brand experiences. Digital Marketing Innovations You Should Know About. Over the past few decades, the world has begun to embrace the digital realm — and the many new platforms and tools that come with it. Now is a great time to be a digital marketer.
What innovations are there this year? Let’s take a look.
Social Commerce
Online retailers have been using social media to drive leads to their e-commerce sites for years. As of 2022, nearly all major social networks now allow brands to set up shop directly on the platform. This is called social commerce, and recent research from Accenture predicts that this model will grow three times faster than traditional e-commerce, reaching $1.2 trillion by 2025.
The rise of social commerce reflects a fundamental shift in the way consumers behave on social media. They are now more receptive to advertising, and in fact, many will log on to social networks specifically looking for shopping . This means digital marketers must adapt their social media strategies to accommodate their audience’s higher intent to buy.
Social commerce has huge potential for building brand loyalty, as social media can now host high-value content and purchasing opportunities in the same place. This seamless, immersive approach to e-commerce can reduce friction in the buyer’s journey and provide valuable data for future marketing campaigns.
If you want to jump on the social commerce train, consider how you can incorporate more middle-of-the-funnel content into your social media strategy. Focus on engaging your audience and warming them up to making a purchase directly on your page. According to Accenture, 63% of users surveyed said they would make a repeat purchase from the same social seller.
Conversational Marketing
The growth of social commerce goes hand in hand with conversational marketing, which allows consumers to chat directly with brands. Chatbots and Facebook Messenger are nothing new, but conversational marketing has gained a lot of momentum with the growing popularity of WhatsApp and other messaging tools. Consumers value personal connections with brands—and they expect a prompt response.
In 2022, we’re seeing a shift toward chat-based marketing and sales. We’ve returned to the days of door-to-door salesmen, except today the focus is on providing value during these personal conversations. Marketers can engage prospects through social media messaging rather than starting with a sales pitch. The Meta platform even allows them to make purchases directly within a chat. About a third of users prefer using social media for customer service and shopping .
Metaverse
In a truly amazing case of science fiction becoming fact, virtual reality is becoming its own field, supplementing real life with immersive digital experiences. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) make up the metaverse, which refers to all the digital worlds accessible to consumers. VR and AR are already well-used in gaming platforms like Pokemon Go and Minecraft. Instagram and Snapchat filters are a whimsical form of AR that can increase engagement in stories; many marketers are joining in the fun by creating branded filters for their campaigns.
Now, VR and AR offer more powerful tools for digital marketing, social networking, and online shopping.
Innovative brands like Nike and Gucci have already introduced “virtual try-ons” for their customers. The latter even sells virtual sneakers that can be “worn” during the metaverse. IKEA has developed an AR app that visualizes digital furniture, rugs, curtains, and paint colors in real-world spaces, allowing users to virtually design or renovate a room. It won’t be long before AR becomes an essential part of the digital shopping experience.
Meanwhile, virtual reality takes the consumer experience to a whole new level. Users can enter and navigate digital worlds. The technology is making waves across multiple industries, from real estate to warehouse management. For marketing campaigns, VR can help brands achieve a key milestone in conversion: encouraging potential customers to visualize themselves with a product or service. Now, this can be made very real!
Let’s not forget about NFTs. Non-fungible tokens are proprietary digital assets created and stored on a blockchain. There has been a surge in interest in NFTs as investments. However, they can also be an effective engagement strategy. NFTs can be incorporated into the metaverse experience, given to customers as souvenirs, or sold as unique branded purchases.
AI-driven personalization
Personalized marketing campaigns are proven to drive more clicks and conversions. Consumers like the feeling that brands understand and serve their interests. However, this approach requires a lot of data as well as complex workflows and automation. Many brands are limited to clearly defined drip sequences and cross-sell/upsell.
However, over the past few years, AI has not only iraq telegram data become more powerful, but also more accessible. Machine learning algorithms can sort, organize, and analyze thousands of data points to deliver highly personalized content to each user.
Amazon and Spotify have been leaders in this space, known for using machine learning to predict what customers want to buy or listen to. Marketers can use this technology to provide their prospects with a completely customized experience. Everything from past purchases to newsletter signups how to deliver compelling email marketing in 2021 to social shares goes into the algorithm, which then forms the precise combination of content and timing for the best impact.
The only problem with personalized marketing is how AI collects this data. New privacy regulations will change how marketers can legally obtain these details.
First-party data
Technically, it’s not an innovation, but first-party data will become more important for personalized advertising. That’s because third-party cookies will soon go away. Overlapping privacy regulations in the EU and the US make it illegal to collect and use consumer data without their consent.
In response, it is now standard practice for websites to asia email list request explicit permission to create first-party cookies, i.e. those stored directly by the website.
But third-party cookies, such as the tracking codes that power retargeting ads from Google and Facebook, are no longer viable. ( Google has taken the lead in finding solutions that comply with data privacy regulations .)
This presents a huge hurdle for marketers eager to take advantage of personalized advertising. However, all is not lost: first-party data is more accurate and more capable of shaping campaigns. Because first-party cookies and other data (email addresses, mobile phone numbers) can be explicitly approved, they do not have the privacy issues of third-party cookies.
They are also more likely to reflect the consumer’s interests and where they are in the buying process. Marketers should focus on collecting first-party data by building strong relationships with prospects. As always, providing value through web and social content and then engaging prospects through email campaigns is a time-honored strategy!
Summarize
The future of digital marketing seems bright, with so many tools and technologies available to help brands build strong, lasting relationships with consumers. We’re witnessing a paradigm shift from static, transactional marketing to a truly cohesive, content-driven approach. All digital marketing innovations in 2022 revolve around the user experience: protecting their privacy, engaging in conversations, and providing value. To keep your ideal customers top of mind, you must embrace these principles in your digital marketing strategy.
Automation can save you countless hours developing, tracking, and launching these new campaigns. Check out SharpSpring’s extensive features to help you create the perfect digital marketing strategy for 2022 and beyond.
