By Richard Garfield, Specialist Content Writer
Over the past couple of years, businesses have had to quickly adapt and change the way they promote their products and services. While the ever-changing marketing landscape may seem daunting, here are five key trends to keep an eye on during 2022 to ensure your content marketing plans stay on track.
#1 Empathetic marketing
Recent events have led marketing teams to take a more empathetic approach, which we are likely to see continue throughout 2022.
It’s a way of seeing your customer through their eyes and speaking to them as people and not simply as potential buyers. To do this you need to be clear who your customers are, what challenges and pain points they face and what motivates them into action. Answering these questions will be useful in producing content that evokes relatable emotions which will build trust, create better customer experiences and develop more authentic relationships.
#2 Hyper-personalisation
It’s well known that customising messages will improve customer engagement, especially when it comes to email marketing.
While this has become pretty much standard practice, a newer trend is now emerging with hyper-personalisation. This goes deeper than simply using a customers’ name as it taps into an individual’s preferences, desires and needs.
Basically, this uses data to deliver more personal and tailored products, services and information to create unique interactions with individuals. Hyper-personalisation can increase customer loyalty and create more enjoyable interactions.
#3 Shorter video content
During 2021 video content became a central part of many content strategies. TikTok alone grew by an impressive 173% and with Instagram embracing a shift towards video, so the importance of video content will surely grow in 2022.
As average times for watching videos continue to fall, short videos suit fast-paced social media platforms. According to Hootsuite just over 39% of businesses already use short video content to sell their products and services, with 30% reporting that it provides a higher ROI than their own websites.
When done well, video can create a deeper connection and capture the attention of potential customers more readily.
#4 Audio content and podcasts
Audio content has become more and more popular in part due to podcasts which are available live or on-demand. In a recent survey from HubSpot, 80% of businesses polled said they plan to invest either the same or more into podcasts and audio continue for the year ahead.
We expect this trend to continue in 2022 with more content that is directly linked to a brand being available as they are a great way to share information while listeners are doing other things such as driving to work, doing household chores, or working out.
#5 Optimising content with infographics
We expect to see the trend of consumers actively choosing content with visual displays such as infographics over content that is purely text in 2022.
Studies have shown that people can process images 60,000 times faster than text and in the same vein, people tend to remember only 10% of information through sound, while they remember up to 65% of information they see visually.
While images can be powerful on their own, when mixed with text they have even more impact, as audiences respond well to the combination of words and images. Articles with relevant images receive 94% more views compared to articles without images. Well-designed, attractive visual content, such as infographics, photos and animations, can increase visual interaction with consumers can drive emotions and help them along with their buying decisions.
Content teams must keep abreast of key marketing trends if they want to attract and retain their target audiences in 2022 as after all creating exciting content is what gets businesses and their brands noticed. However, this does not mean they can simply jump on new trends and ignore basic marketing practices, as without a unified content and marketing strategy this is unlikely to pay off in the long run. Making sure your content and marketing is aligned with the rest of your business and by clearly defining your marketing goals, will allow you to make the most of these trends.
If you have any questions or would like some help with your content marketing, get in touch with us.
