Business Marketing Trends to Follow In 2022

The biggest minefield for a lot of Business Owners is their Marketing, we all find it challenging at times, for a number of valid reasons:

• Not sure what direction to go or where to start
• There are so many channel choices to reach your Ideal Client
• There are so many vehicles to choose from
• Limited time, budgets and resources so you need to select channels and vehicles carefully 
• Digital marketing strategy changes and evolves rapidly it is so hard to keep up 
• Marketing tasks take up a lot of time, you want to put your efforts where they make the most impact

Our aim at MentorsOnline.Com is to help our clients make more money but also make their lives easier and save them time.

With this aim in mind and knowing how challenging marketing is, we have put together this list of Business Marketing Trends to Follow in 2022.

1. The Swing Back towards Inbound Marketing Vs. Outbound

Inbound marketing is about attracting and drawing in potential clients by creating valuable content and experiences customised to your ideal client versus outbound which is typically more aggressive and interrupts the prospective client with broadcast style content designed to appeal to the masses rather than a specific individual.

With more clients pushing for personalised outreach and the market becoming more and more jaded and wary towards aggressive outbound marketing strategies, Inbound Marketing strategy is on the rise.

Financially Inbound Marketing is making a lot of sense. According to Mashable, inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing which leads to higher ROIs. HubSpot adds to the argument for an inbound marketing focus with this statistic: “inbound leads are 50% cheaper and close 100% more than paid leads.”

This shift towards Inbound Marketing and creating valuable content and experiences tailored to the client has boosted the focus on the next Business Marketing Strategy you need to know.

2. Thought Leadership and Authority Marketing

With prospective clients demanding valuable content that relates to them and better marketing and sales experiences, Thought Leadership and Authority Marketing content strategies have stepped into the spotlight.

Thought leadership is all about sharing ideas, insights, and valuable information with the goal of solving the prospective client’s pains, frustrations, and challenges and essentially improving their lives rather than just selling them something.

If you establish yourself, your business, and your brand as a thought leader you become an authority within your market and to your clients and prospective clients. You create credibility, trust, and loyalty.

If your content is valued and you create memorable experiences for your ideal client, you are more likely to grab their attention and compel them to act and start a conversation or purchase faster (which outcome will of course depend on the steps in your funnel).

Research by Edelman-LinkedIn surveying more than 1,200 decision-makers found that 58% of them spend one or more hours reading what thought leaders in their industry have to say each week.

In the same study by Edelman-LinkedIn, almost 60% of business decision makers said that thought leadership directly led to their awarding of business to an organization. Just 26% of sellers believe that thought leadership can lead directly to closed-won deals.

With so much content readily available to everyone, businesses putting out content that speaks directly to their ideal client and positions them as thought leaders and authorities are standing out as beacons in the crowded and noisy marketplaces.

3. Repurpose Content

With so many digital channels at our fingertips, we can easily spread ourselves and our marketing budget too thin trying to get out over multiple channels. Many experts suggest it is better to dominate one channel and less is more.

There are other experts on the other side of the fence like Neil Patel, CMO & co-Founder of NP Digital who suggests a single focus strategy no longer suffices: “All good channels eventually get saturated. In 2022, brands will prioritize all channels and go more omni-channel…It’s the only way to stay competitive.”

“All good channels eventually get saturated. In 2022, brands will prioritize all channels and go more omni-channel…It’s the only way to stay competitive.”

Neil Patel

The key takeaway I get from the advice on both sides of the argument is that marketers need to aim for quality over quantity. I would suggest trying to dominate one channel to start (if you aren’t currently already doing so) and create an automated system to repurpose your thought leader authority content created for your dominant channel and disseminate it to 2-4 other channels where you want to gradually increase your brand presence.

An omni-channel approach is good in theory however if you can’t achieve it by putting out quality content that attracts and engages genuine sales opportunities is there really any point?

4. Linkedin

Linkedin is the dark horse in our digital first-world. According to Forbes “Each quarter they show considerable gains in monthly active users and engagements on the platform.”

Linkedin is launching new features and capabilities that drive business results like LinkedIn Live which enables businesses to LIVE stream across multiple channels to interact and engage with their targeted audience.

According to HubSpot and their data, “the top channels used by B2B marketers are social media likely because of LinkedIn (which is reported as their most effective channel). It’s filled with business-minded individuals, which is exactly who you want to reach as a business-to-business marketer.”

If you haven’t investigated LinkedIn and what it can do for your business in a while it is definitely worth a closer look going into 2022.

If you are looking towards inbound marketing strategies incorporating thought leadership authority content, LinkedIn could be the ideal channel to help achieve your business marketing goals.

5. Influencer Marketing

Influencers are no longer a fad and Influencer Marketing is no longer just for retail sales and fashion. Influencer Marketing is when a business partners with a person in their market that has the ability to influence potential buyers by promoting and recommending products and services on social media.

It seems logical if customers are looking for more inbound marketing and thought leadership authority content that Influencer Marketing is also on the rise.

I think Influencer Marketing is greatly untapped and has huge potential if done right.

Hubspot tells us “It’s a valuable marketing channel, and 71% of marketers say that the quality of traffic generated from influencer marketing is better than other ad formats.”

“It’s a valuable marketing channel, and 71% of marketers say that the quality of traffic generated from influencer marketing is better than other ad formats.”

Hubspot

If you are building your thought leadership and authority an Influencer has the potential to boost you further towards that status by leveraging the influencer’s trust and authority and building your brand awareness and social proof.

6. Video Content

How often are you using video content in your marketing? 2022 could be the year to ramp it up.

72% of customers said they would rather learn about a product or service by way of video and 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

Optinmonster

More great reasons to boost your video content:

• With Smartphones, video production is no longer an expensive and time consuming process
• Video adds personality to your content
• Embedded video can improve your website SEO and page rankings
• Live streaming video services are widely available enabling you to connect and create an interactive experience for your ideal client

7. Podcasts

Podcasts are hugely popular and in high demand.

According to Hubspot 55% of the U.S. population, aged 12 and above listened to podcasts, and 37% listened in the last month for an average of six hours per week.

Podcast streaming services and development applications are widely available making it super easy and cost-effective for businesses to create their own podcasts.

Podcasts offer brands the opportunity to create a relationship with the listener and interact with them in a different way from other channels that require the audience to sit in front of a screen.

Both video and podcast content are great vehicles for thought leadership authority content and if you are strategic and develop your content to be repurposed on a variety of other channels the content creation doesn’t have to be burdensome to your business.

8. Don’t Sacrifice Your Marketing Bedrock

It is always fun to look into the next bright shiny new trend, technologies, and strategies especially in marketing.

Yet everything I read up on researching this article talked about bedrock marketing strategies like websites, blogs, SEO and email marketing are still key and are not going away but will continue to be a major focus for businesses in 2022.

It is worth mentioning that optimising the marketing strategies you already have in place will more often provide a better return on investment than experimenting with every new tool, technology, or strategy that comes along.

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