Best Marketing Strategies for 2022 

2021 was a defining year for many businesses, especially in light of the pandemic. 

One thing is for sure, more businesses’ have now seen the need to be more strategic about their marketing. After all, marketing is a core aspect of any business.

As the year draws to a close, it is important to create a solid plan for the coming business year.

So if you’re trying to be more deliberate with your marketing effort for your business, or you need a guide to help re-evaluate your existing marketing strategies for the new year, then read on as we explore the ten best marketing strategies for 2022. 

The importance of marketing strategies

Marketing is essentially the steps taken by a business to promote its products and services.

At its core, marketing increases brand awareness, ensures quality goods and services delivery, and post-delivery experience to ensure a seamless customer experience. 

However, for your marketing efforts to work, they have to be grounded in solid market strategies. This is important in today’s world where marketing is very dynamic with tactics changing year in, year out. 

Those changes that affect a business in an industry over a period of time are called business trends. 

Sometimes, they are short-lived. Other times, they can last for years. Therefore, you should consider them when planning your marketing strategies for the new business year. Examples of these business trends include the rise of AR/VR in marketing, online shopping, etc. 

Thus, to craft an effective marketing strategy, your techniques must revolve around the trends in your industry and how to cater to the resulting problems customers will face. 

What makes a successful marketing strategy?

A successful marketing strategy depends on a variety of factors. Here, let us look at four things that you should take into consideration when coming up with a marketing strategy for your business. 

They include :

• Alignment with the current and forecasted market trends
• Company size and revenue numbers will help determine which strategy to prioritize.
• Budget allocation, and capacity of employees to bring the results to life.
• Your business goals and objectives, which should be reflected in your brand’s positioning and messaging.

10 Best Marketing Strategies for 2022

It is indisputable that online marketing has become one of the core elements for most businesses. In fact, online marketing has been so ingrained into the fabric of our economy that it is all but impossible to scale any business without it. Therefore, for the purpose of this article, we will largely concentrate on digital marketing tips and tricks for 2022. That said, even if you work in traditional marketing, you will find these tips valuable. 

1. Learn more about your customers 
2. Refine your product and offer
3. Have a marketing plan
4. Build a personal brand
5. Email marketing
6. Content marketing
7. Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
8. Create your advertising budget
9. Try out Influencer marketing
10. Have a social media strategy

Learn more about your customers

This is coming first and deliberately so. Sometimes, in the middle of a business year, you may have pivoted to a new business model without carrying your target audience along. Unfortunately, this means that the crowd you think you’re serving is no longer able to relate to what you do. Therefore you’re leaving money on the table by not being sure about who your customers are. So while thinking of creating marketing strategies for the new year, you should start by revisiting your audience. 

Create a solid buyer persona that allows you to understand your prospects and customers thoroughly. Questions to ask your team are:

• Is there a product-customer mismatch?
• Do your customers even understand the benefit of our product? 
• Can they create a solid and convincing case on our behalf to get people to buy? If your answer is NO, even at this moment, then you should go back to the drawing board and make the necessary corrections.

Refine your product and offer

Good marketers know that your offer must match your product for the sales to roll in. And just as we mentioned above in the point about researching your customers, it’s also essential for you to examine your product. Does your current product or service offer go in line with what your industry niche demands? Is the pricing for it too high or too low? 

Understanding the place of your product and offer in your industry helps you make more informed decisions for the growth of your business.

Have a marketing plan

If you already have an existing business, chances are you already have a marketing plan in place for it. Or maybe not. Whichever the case, starting the new business year with a plan helps you understand where your business is coming from. Know how far you’ve gone in achieving your goals. Plus, how well you know and meet the needs of your target customers. 

This is why you have to start from the first two points mentioned above, as that information will be needed when drawing up a solid marketing plan.

Your business’ Integrated Marketing Communication(IMC) should also be carefully stated in the marketing plan to make it as comprehensive as possible. The IMC hinges on your business advertising, promotion, sales, and branding methods. This ensures consistent branding across these areas.

Build a personal brand

This cuts across employees and business owners. Building a personal brand, even an employer has many long-term and short-term benefits. And now, with social media, it is way easier to hop on content creation as the first step. 

The business is just a body of people. So the perception of these respective individuals in the audience’s minds goes a long way in affecting the business growth.

Email marketing 

2021 was an interesting year for email marketers. Email marketing is certainly alive and well. Companies across a wide array of industries are increasingly building stronger relationships with their customers and target audience using email marketing. This is particularly true in light of the changing landscape of third-party data. 

Understanding the trends transforming email marketing should be the first step in crafting an email strategy.

Hence, you don’t have to back down from the challenge of having a solid email marketing strategy in place to grow your business. If you’re staying true to customer-centric marketing, then you’ll love the kind of close relationship it allows you to have with your target audience. 

Content marketing 

Every year, content marketing makes the list for marketing strategies to be implemented, and here’s why:

• It’s at the core of digital marketing, which is the most popular type of marketing in these times.
• It’s pretty inexpensive to start but highly scalable.
• It has long-term benefits, and assets generated over time will always be helpful.

However, it doesn’t stop there. The world is still recovering from a pandemic that greatly affected customer behavior. So you might want to take note of the new trends for content marketing in 2022. Things like increased video content and the rise of podcast content. Also, storytelling should be at the core of your content marketing efforts to form a clear narrative about your business. Plus, it works well in inbound marketing for your business.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

This works well for both B2B and B2C companies, and in 2022, we don’t expect the results to change. It’s mainly because it depends on your ability to create valuable content that will continuously drive traffic to your site, alongside authority-based techniques like link building. 

As stated earlier, a significant trend we can expect to see in 2022 is the use of content to gain authority. Another factor that builds authority is a ranking website for your company. And your ability to bypass Google’s algorithm and keep your website on the first page of the Search Engine Results Page says a lot.

Create your advertising budget 

Advertising is a significant business investment that, when done properly, almost always delivers for businesses of all kinds. With as little as a $100 ad budget, you can expect a return of $400. That’s a 4x return on your investment. 

When you consider the different media channels you have available, you’ll realize that advertising is not something you should ignore. Even those in the traditional advertising sector aggressively use billboards and other ad platforms to build brand awareness and increase conversion.

The ROI of advertising is more immediate than that of content marketing. And with companies still eager to recoup the losses from the pandemic year, having a separate budget for advertising might make a huge difference in giving you a profitable year come 2022.

Try out Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has long been an important tool for business growth. With the proliferation of social media platforms, among other things, it has become even more important. Thankfully, advertisers have a lot more choices now than they used to. There are multiple levels of influencers available, including many micro-influencers on different platforms whose audience you can tap into to increase visibility and amplify your product. 

As with some marketing strategies, it can be a bit difficult to get the metrics for understanding the success of your platform. But depending on your product or service, be rest assured that it will reach an audience that would have been harder for you to get on your own.

Have a social media strategy

Social media offers a low barrier to entry for all and sundry and should be a part of your B2C or B2B marketing strategy in the coming year.

The most important thing is to be clear about the channels to use, set your KPIs, and scale up whatever works for you. Plus, it’s an excellent way to showcase your brand’s creativity.  

This list is not exhaustive, but it should provide a clear path when creating a marketing strategy for next year. You can implement and tweak your marketing strategy to meet your business goals and objectives as the year unfolds.