Top Marketing Tips for 2022

If you have some time over the festive period to work ‘on’ your business. It’s a great time to think about how you can develop your marketing in the New Year. I’ve compiled my Top Marketing Tips for 2022 with a few key tips and trends to take into your marketing planning.

The Top 10 Tips

Top Tip 1 – Own Your Audience

Think about owning your audience. What do I mean by that? Well, you may have thousands of followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, but you don’t own that data. If you start collecting emails and data directly it means that you can message your audience whenever you want without relying on a social media platform’s algorithm. Social media is becoming more competitive and noisier. So, if you are not keen on social media, perhaps interacting with people more directly could be for you. Also, we saw a social media outage earlier in the year. If you rely on social media for your business you need to future proof for outages and think about other ways to communicate with your audience.

Top Tip 2 – Personalised Content

Content marketing is big business, not only that, but personalised content. All the content you share on social media, blogs, website, emails etc is content marketing. However, it is no good just churning out the same old same old anymore, you really need to think about personalising your content marketing. Really make it relevant to you and your business, tell stories, share personal information be real. People are more selective in who they follow and their expectations are going to increase, so you need to think about if your content really appeals to your target audience. Put yourself in their shoes, or even ask them what they think and what they want to know from you.

Top Tip 3 – Brand Image

Building a strong brand image is key in 2022. We live in a world where image is everything, so how your brand appears in your marketing and social media, online and offline really counts. People look at that and if it looks a bit shabby, or inconsistent it may get by passed. Brand can be your visual identity, but it is also your values as a brand. Think about creating an experience, great customer service, beautiful packages, personal touches to get brand loyalty, word of mouth recommendations and great reviews.

Top Tip 4 – Be The Expert

People have become immune to the hard sell on social media and in other marketing platforms. You know yourself if you see something that is overtly ‘sell sell sell’ constantly from a brand (unless you love that brand) you switch off. Think about giving value, be an expert and educate your audience.  We are all experts at what we do. So show your audience why you are an expert, help them, give advice, give tips, show you care and forget the hard sell as it just won’t cut it anymore.

Top Tip 5 – Make Connections

One of the most important things you can do in marketing is to make connections and be social. It is great to see so many of you here today, but how many of us are guilty of forgetting to connect with people afterwards, making relationships and growing our community. Networking is so important – in person, on a webinar or on social media. But it is even more important about continuing to develop those relationships afterwards. Word of mouth is undoubtedly the most important marketing tactic that you have, so make sure you nurture it.

Top Tip 6 – Become A Storyteller

Become a storyteller. Stories are big in marketing now. It’s not always about why your product is the best, but how your product helped someone. Did you product help achieve a goal – tell it? Did your service increase productivity – tell us? Have you helped someone overcome a fear – showcase it? So, instead of direct selling, think about showing results, how you’ve helped people, showcase customers or clients. Also, think about telling stories about you – why you are passionate about what you do, how you’ve helped people, how things that you did in the past got you to where you are now, or have influenced you? These stories may not sell directly, but they may make someone think ‘ohhh maybe I need to do that/buy that?”

Top Tip 7 – Automation

We’re all busy right, 100 jobs a day to do, run a business, run a home, keep the kids alive and everything else rolled into that. We want to make running our business and doing our marketing as easy as possible. Then think automation. Think about automating any sales funnels you have, any emails you send out. If someone signs up to an e-newsletter, automate the responses they receive. Also think about scheduling social media posts. Plan your content in advance and schedule posts to save time, so you can get on with running your business. Look at talking to a virtual assistant in how they can streamline your business and your marketing.

Top Tip 8 – Video

We have seen a rapid growth of short form video over the past year or so with Tik Tok leading the way and Instagram following suit with Reels and YouTube shorts. Love it or loathe it, video is a fantastic way to really get your brand out there and seen by a new audience. Video is a great way to raise brand awareness, advertise products and increase revenue and it will be a key trend for 2022, so think about how you can incorporate it into your marketing strategy. Even if you hate showing your face, being filmed, are an introvert or feel awkward, there are ways you can incorporate video into your marketing. It’s time to embrace it people because it’s not going to go away!

In addition to video content becoming more popular in 2022, so too will audio. There has been a boom in people using audio marketing, with the launch of Clubhouse (not a fan btw) and also podcasts (which I love). Video is still going to be really powerful, but audio marketing is creeping in too. So, perhaps this could be something to think about for your marketing in 2022 too. Maybe audio fits better with you, as well if you really can’t stand being videoed.

Top Tip 9 – Social Responsibility

Social responsibility is becoming even more important to consumers. In light of COVID and COP26 as well, people are very aware of brand’s social responsibility to the community, the public and the environment. So, think about how you as a business owner, or a brand can use social responsibility in your marketing. Not just for marketing’s sake, but to actually make a difference. Think about the issues that are important to you. Whether that is helping the homeless, reducing your carbon footprint, or volunteering. Show that you mean business, but that your business can help others too.

Top Tip 10 – Think Outside The Box

We also need to think outside the box. Marketing changes constantly and what we did 2 years ago may not work as well now. I know this may be a pain for many of you as you start getting to grips with social media for example. Then the algorithm changes and what you were doing worked and now it’s not doing much at all. But this is the changing landscape of marketing and in marketing. We always need to be aware of exploring new techniques and ideas.

Take a step back and really look to see if what you have been doing is still delivering results?  If not, it may be time to change. I know change is scary, but the marketing landscape has really changed over the past couple of years. People are buying differently, engaging differently and brands need to change and keep up with this too.

So, hopefully that’s not scared you off too much. Marketing should be challenging and fun and exciting. Take a leap of faith. Try new things and embrace change as it could be the making of you and your business.

Now, to help anyone that struggles with social media and needs a bit of creative wisdom now and then when you’re planning content. I have created “A Day for Everything” calendar for 2022 with all the key dates, anniversaries and celebrations.  You can download this from my website here.

In addition, I am offering £20 off my ‘ course, which you can download on my website using the code 2022TREAT – so if you really want to kickstart your marketing in 2022 you will be equipped with lots of tools there to help!