Even though it’s starting to feel like New Year’s Eve was 6 months ago, a quick check of the calendar can confirm that it is still January. Whether you’re off to a flying start to the year by taking official ‘Get Organised Month’ by the scruff of its neck, or your new year’s resolutions are already a fading memory and your 2022 doesn’t officially start till February, we are already almost one month down - 11 more to go. 11 more to make a marketing impact. Why wait any longer? Here’s part two of our tips and trends to pay attention to so you can up your marketing game in 2022. And if you’re looking to catch up on part one, just click here!
Within branding and marketing, as is the case for many aspects of life, people do (unfortunately) judge books by their covers. Image is everything. This is why it’s so important to figure out the right one, and then establish the best and most authentic way to communicate that brand image to your target audience. Now, we can all be very quick to judge. When we’re flicking through our Instagram stories or scrolling our feeds it doesn’t take us much time at all to come to our judgements about the brands whose sponsored ads bookend our online activity. With just so many ads and sponsored posts out there, the first impression is everything. And an impactful brand image can help deliver a strong first impression, as well as building a valuable long term connection. Whilst other forms of advertising and communication are going to continue becoming more and more expensive, finding ways to organically and authentically raise brand awareness and build a better brand image could be a cost-effective solution. Unlike other, more expensive, short-term forms of marketing, building a stronger brand image can provide long term value to your audience instead of the hard, overdone, sell.
Your brand image should feel and come across as authentic. Like everything you do and communicate is genuine and straight from the very core of your brand. Taking social responsibility that’s relevant to your brand or your industry can help your ethos shine through, turning your brand into a market leader and giving your audience something to relate to and appreciate – beyond the products and services you offer. By letting your human side out, you can show your audience that you’re more than some faceless organisation but rather a brand your audience can rely on and trust, one with its finger on the pulse and ear to the ground to issues that align with their own values and interests. By creating a better following and stronger connections, you’re building brand loyalty and a better image. It’s all about helping them get to know you, so you can get to know them.
We’ve all had our fill. The cookie jar is very nearly empty. As Google looks to phase out Third-Party Cookies in 2023, many brands and businesses should be using 2022 to plan ahead and look at how they can find alternative routes and solutions to targeting consumers through Google Chrome. Initially scheduled to phase out in early 2022, the plans have since been pushed back to next year, allowing just that little bit more breathing room for marketers to come up with a plan to find new ways to capture data of potential customers. With its ability to track key information and metrics such as the websites users frequently visit, purchases they make, as well as interests they’ve shown on other websites, third-party cookies, for many, have been the crux of building robust visitor profiles online. But, as Google looks to put a stamp on their usage to help protect users who have been asking for more privacy, it’s time for marketers and brands to evolve along with the increasing demands for transparency and control among users. A year should be plenty of time, right?
Although there are still other providers who will continue to offer a level of user identification that Google Chrome no longer will, Chrome does have an incredible 65% of web browser market share - making it the most popular browsing option out there. The truth is though, for too long brands have been relying on third-party cookies to help them understand their audience and target them with the right ads as well as tailoring their online experiences to suit their needs based on the data captured. As the web ecosystem grows and evolves based on users’ motives and concerns, it's time marketers started to respect these needs. Moving forward you should be looking at building greater relationships outside of data tracking and its often ‘one-size fits all’ approach to learning about users. It’s time to experiment and find new, innovative, modern and privacy-respecting tools to learn about our consumers that reflects well on the most innovative and skilled brands out there rather than over-reliance on mass targeting and the flurry of in-your-face pop-ups.
As a general rule of thumb both in life and marketing, don’t cut corners. It usually comes back to haunt you at a later date and you’ll only ever regret taking the easier option. In marketing, this can be translated to a single-channel approach. Whilst it is certainly cost and time effective, I’m not really too sure about how successful it is in the long run. The marketing equivalent of putting all your eggs in the one basket, it’s not a great idea. Limiting where your brand has a strong presence (or any presence at all), single-channel marketing restricts the potential places your brand could be seen by your audience whilst betting too heavily on the marketing landscape to stay the same – something we all know doesn’t happen very often. Any sudden change in the market leaves your brand stranded. Instead, it’s time to nail your multi-channel approach.
Now, this isn’t an endorsement to go gung-ho and target every channel available. Instead, take this year as your chance to refine your approach and look at the channels that are best suited to your brand and what you hope to achieve over the next 12 months by diversifying your output and providing enough variation to avoid the risk of single-channel issues. One route closed? That’s fine, you’ve mastered another! By regularly reviewing your channels with key metrics like KPIs, leads, sales, and interactions, you can learn on the go. A multi-channel approach allows you to find out how certain channels serve your brand and which ones are better to focus on, readjusting your approach so your brand can continue to develop and diversify throughout the year and beyond.
