Here’s What We Learned From 7 2022 Marketing Forecasts

You know the saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” We’ve all been through a rollercoaster of emotions the past year, so time has definitely flown! Amidst all the craziness we’ve been through in the past few years (that’s right, years), we’re gearing up for 2022 and preparing you for what’s to come with digital marketing.

We’ve combed through 7 different long-forms, e-books, and guides to create this condensed version of what you need to know for your marketing channels in 2022.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Passage Indexing

Google continues to deliver new updates and changes in how they deliver search results and rank them. They use various ways to display results, including featured snippets, “People also ask…”, videos, news articles, and SERP features.

Enter a new kind of search result — passage indexing.

Instead of a standard featured snippet showing a sentence or two to answer a question, a passage result is exactly that — it crafts a long paragraph of information related to the user’s search query. Fortunately, there are no extra steps needed to force this. Google will determine a passage to pull through its highly-intelligent algorithm. But if you are putting out long-form content, you have a higher chance of having a passage rank in this way.

Core Web Vitals Are Here to Stay

We’ve been talking about core web vitals for a while now, but they aren’t going anywhere. Google prioritizes fast, user-friendly sites, especially on mobile devices. The good news? Desktop is now being considered part of this consideration. So if you have a fast website on both desktop and mobile, you’ll reap the benefits this year. If you’re still dealing with a slow website, let’s talk. 😊

SEO Meets Video

Just like dipping french fries in your milkshake, unexpected combinations can prove to be sweet. If you create a lot of video content, you can boost your SEO efforts by simply time-stamping your videos. YouTube provides a great opportunity for you to divide and label sections of your videos to improve your search appearance. Instead of someone sifting through a 10-minute video to find what they need, they are directed to a specific section of the video instead while being crawlable on SERPs.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

First-Party Data

Privacy is super important. As we navigate a digital space hinging on privacy and ethical data collection, you’ll need to be smart about how you attract and expand your audience. It’s important to collect first-party data from your current audience so you can then build a sound retargeting strategy in the future. Don’t rely on pixels and tags to do the heavy lifting. Being intentional about how you nurture and build upon your current contacts is huge for PPC success.

Death of the Expanded Text Ad

We’re saying RIP to Google’s expanded text ad this year. For so long, this search ad style has been old reliable in a Google Ads strategy. Google made the call to move towards its responsive text ads that leverage automation and customization through different variations of headlines and descriptions. You’ll no longer be able to edit expanded text ads after June 30, 2022.

Automation Is Your Bestie

We’re no stranger to the automation wave that has entered our businesses and our homes. As it relates to your PPC efforts, it’s important to explore Google’s host of automated tools to decrease time spent on creating, monitoring, and optimizing your Google Ads. Things like smart bidding are opportunities to explore and create more streamlined ad processes. But a word to the wise, don’t let things sit on autopilot. Success is found by balancing the right rhythm of automation and some manual elbow grease.

Social Media

Shorter Is Better

According to Hubspot, social media was the #1 marketing channel used last year. Competing for attention and engagement on social media has become even harder as Tik Tok (and now Instagram Reels) has shown the unprecedented success of short, consumable content. If you can’t capture attention and entice action in mere seconds, you won’t find success.

Don’t stress about learning a Tik Tok dance this year to have your social media strategy work for you. Instead, spend your time identifying ways to create high-quality, consumable content pieces to share on social media. Quick behind-the-scenes videos, answering common questions, or showing a day-in-the-life are easy wins for you and your organization.

Advertising Requires Out-of-the-Box Thinking

As we’ve seen Apple’s crackdown on Facebook ad targeting, advertising on social media requires extra creativity these days. Targeting is limited more and more often, while success is more elusive to find. However, it’s not impossible.

Similar to PPC, retargeting on social media by using your current audience is the perfect opportunity to stay top of mind with your clients and doesn’t rely on the limits on targeting.
Plus, digital word of mouth through brand sponsorships and user-generated content is still a viable way to increase awareness, drive more conversions, and keep your clients growing.

Content Marketing

Quality Over Quantity

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times, but it still rings true. Google and users both look for relevant, trustworthy, and high-quality content. Putting out content for its sake is a waste of time and precious digital real estate. It’s more important to craft 1 intentional content piece than what it would take you to put out 3 blogs. You will be rewarded for taking the time to fully identify areas to speak into and on which to provide your expertise.

Variety, Variety, Variety

Variety is the spice of life and the secret ingredient to a well-rounded content strategy. Don’t limit your content to just your website or blog posts. There’s a whole world of opportunities to explore. Where is your audience currently? Meet them where they are with the content you produce, including podcasts, videos, social media live videos, long-forms, and infographics. But a word of caution — don’t stretch yourself to do them all. If it doesn’t make sense for your brand, don’t feel guilty about not producing it.

Email Marketing

Have the Right Priorities

Email marketing provides high ROI if your priorities are right. According to Litmus, you can receive on average $36 for every $1 spent on your email marketing efforts! Your priorities for email marketing are 3-fold. You should have segmentation practices in place to aid you in better grouping your contacts. Second, your messages should be personalized to the needs, wants, and interests of your email recipients. Finally, you should seek out ways to automate your email messages. At PHOS, we’re a big proponent of MailChimp’s variety of automations, like subscriber sign-up, triggering actions after form submissions, and drip campaigns.

Action Over Open

After the iOS 15 impact on email marketing, we know to put more value in the action of your email (click rate) over someone simply opening your email (open rate.) When measuring success, consider the actions users take and how to improve them. This is found heavily in the content you send, the email destination, and the CTAs you promote.

Find Marketing Success in 2022

It’s a lot to take in, but you’re not alone. Our marketing team consistently stays on top of the changes affecting today’s digital channels. Because of this, our clients can rest assured that their businesses will find success no matter what curveballs may come our way.

Don’t navigate your marketing strategy alone. Connect with us to discuss your 2022 business goals and see how we can help you reach and exceed them!