Digital marketing success in 2022 requires that you focus strategically across all your digital channels. In addition, the coming year will present brands with many marketing challenges, chief of which is an increasingly crowded e-commerce ecosystem. Changing algorithms, new platforms, hybrid realities, and other trends will combine to make it an exciting year for small businesses.
Finally, as 2021 comes to an end, we typically look forward to the new year, mapping out resolutions or tasks that help us improve our personal and professional performance. So, now is an excellent time for this 9-step year-end checklist for digital marketing success in 2022.
#1 Your Marketing Goals
Pull out your 2021 marketing plan and analytical reports for the year.
**How did you do?
No analytics? You’re not alone. According to a Forrester report, businesses fail to incorporate between 60-73% of their data into analytics.
Make it a top priority to utilize digital analytics to boost your digital marketing success in 2022. It’s the only way to track and measure your digital marketing performance across all assets, including your website and social media channels.
Analytics data will tell you if your SEO and keyword strategies are on target, as well as provide you with critical information about your audience, such as,
- Who are you attracting
- Where do they come from
- What happens when they land on your website homepage
- Are they clicking on CTAs, opening other pages going to your online store, checking out
- What’s stopping them from buying your product or service
- Are the people reading and engaging with your social media posts going to become customers?
Analytics Tools
Your website and social media channels have built-in analytics, which is great if you’re a startup or solopreneur. However, as your small business grows, you’ll want to link your website and social channels to a more robust platform such as Google Analytics. If you have the budget, you might consider subscribing to analytics tools like Semrush, Ubersuggest, or BuzzSumo.
#2 Marketing Budget Performance
In 2022, you need a robust and realistic budget for digital marketing success. So take out your 2021 marketing budget.
Did you go over your budget? Was it realistic? How is the ROI?
- Your budget should be flexible so that you can redistribute allocations as soon as you see what’s working and what isn’t.
- Get rid of wasteful marketing expenditures, such as duplicity and services that aren’t delivering.
- Maintain a healthy balance between marketing technology and marketing staff or consultants.
Your marketing budget should be efficient and measurable. Utilize a measurement tool to help you determine your budget’s performance according to actual data and not anecdotal.
#3 Did You Define Your Target Audience?
As we’ve written in previous posts, everyone is not your audience.
- Did you define your audience in your marketing plan?
- Did you post the type of content your audience prefers?
- Did you invest in the right social media platforms?
In addition to demographic and psychographic data, you need to know where your audience hangs out. Social channels gaining strength today are TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Snapchat. Depending on your audience, you might want to increase your focus on these channels.
#4 Digital Marketing Success in 2022 Stands on Video
The digital world is crowded with content. But, at the same time, internet users have less time to spend interacting with your content. Studies show that the average attention span has dwindled to several seconds. So, the best way to keep your viewers engaged with your website copy and social content is to use video.
- Boost your use of video, especially short-form video on channels like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Stories
#5 Did You Repurpose Your Blog Articles
You put a lot of time and effort into writing and publishing your blog articles. Make the most of that hard work. Turn your blogs into
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Micro-blogs that you put on your social media channels.
Link everything back to your original long-form blog article.
Create bite-sized, entertaining content that allows you to control your brand voice and messaging.
#6 Are You Providing Real Data?
Readers may appreciate your opinion occasionally, but personal statements and musings are starting to lose favor in a crowded digital ecosystem.
Your audience will appreciate the work you put into publishing data-driven facts related to your services, products, or industry. By doing this, your consumer audience will trust you and your brand. They’ll turn to your website, blog, or social channels to get answers and read the latest information about products, services, and issues of importance. This is a simple way to acquire digital marketing success in 2022.
#7 Did You Make Use of Facebook Ads or Promos?
Unfortunately, there’s no way around it, especially if you’re a startup or solopreneur. You can set a budget that’s affordable for you, choose the number of days that you run your ad, and stop it if you see you’re not getting the results you want. Experiment with different content types until you see what’s working. Before starting, you’ll need to identify your ad campaign goals and know your target audience.
Facebook ads and promos also give you valuable insights that enable you to track conversions.
#8 Are You Paying Attention To Trends?
If you want digital marketing success in 2022, you need to pay attention to trends. If you fail to take note, you could find yourself marketing a service or product that is no longer in high demand. For example, do you remember the last time you saw a Blockbuster store?
By keeping an eye on trends, you’ll be the first to know what’s coming. In this way, you’ll be in a position to capture the market ahead of your competitors. Or, if needed, you can quickly adapt and pivot.
Trends can also be visual, such as colors, fonts, images, filters, and backgrounds.
Consider these digital predictions for 2022 from Indre Raviv, SVP Marketing of CUJO AI, published in Forbes,
- Hybrid events will be the new normal
- Artificial intelligence will become more prominent in digital marketing
- Publishing creative, engaging, informative content will boost brands to the top of the search engines
- Video marketing will dominate
- Purpose-driven brands will become more important to consumers
#9 Did You Build A Brand Community?
Building a brand community around your service or product will enable you to reach consumers who may not see your social media posts or website blog.
A community is an online portal where consumers can share their experiences with your products or service. As a result, you’ll build trust in your brand and recruit a team of ambassadors to help you achieve digital marketing success in 2022.
You can use your brand community as a platform for business updates and experiment with new products or services. The conversation in your brand community will also give you valuable insight that you can utilize to personalize your content.
Social listening
If you didn’t invest in social listening strategies in 2021, make it one of your priorities for 2022. You can monitor what is happening outside your social media channels with social listening tools. You’ll track keyword performance, discover frequently asked questions, trends, hot-button topics, and more to empower you to deal with crisis communication.
Personal Branding
People want to know who is behind the company brand, so don’t be shy about shining a spotlight on yourself. Showcase some of the things you do in your personal life, travels, nonprofit activities, and other updates that personalize your brand. Show your human side and that of your employees too.
If you’re a B2B brand, you already have a personal profile and your company profile. But, many B2C brands forget to maintain personal profiles on their social media channels. Doing so will help you build brand loyalty and emotional engagement with your customers.
Bottom Line
To say that the last two years have been abnormal would be an understatement. And there’s no certainty about what the new year will bring. However, we know that the “normal” we once knew is not returning.
Today, you need to be ready to adapt and or pivot depending on what comes along to disrupt the market. Flexibility is crucial, and so is staying on top of trends, maximizing your marketing budget, and constantly assessing progress toward your marketing goals.
Let us know in the content box below some of the challenges you faced this year and what you plan to do differently or do more of in 2022.
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