Digital marketing is a marketing channel through which you make the right offer at the right time to your potential customers. Almost all consumers are increasingly active on social media, and digital marketing puts you in the same channels that your consumer base is present on, social as social media, blogs and websites. The best digital marketing courses train you in the art of taking calculated risks to gather clout around your business persona through online marketing.

As a business owner with experience in working through the traditional channels, you might be overwhelmed by the variety of tactics that are applied in digital marketing to engage customers, but IIM best online digital marketing courses will teach you that all marketing strategies online are structures around some basic principles:-

• Attracting prospects
• Nurturing relationships
• Being accessible and available to your customers
• Making offers that your target audience will respond to

Top Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2022

In 2020, the topmost digital marketing strategies are artificial intelligence (AI), data-driven marketing, and voice engine search optimization (VSEO). A decade ago, these were beyond the imagination of marketers. To remain competitive, marketers must adapt to rapidly evolving digital marketing trends.

The following digital marketing trends have become top priorities in the industry and will be heralds of competitive digital marketing in 2022.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI analyzes customer behaviour and search patterns. It follows keywords in social media conversations and blog posts to analyse customers’ buying behaviour. Artificial intelligence will soon replace many basic services currently provided by human beings. It has already taken over product recommendations, basic communication such as in chatbots and feedbacks, content creation, email personalization and e-commerce transactions.

• Chatbots

Surveys show that chatbots will power 88% of customer service by 2022. This AI-based technology uses messaging to chat with consumers in real time. Companies such as Facebook and Lyft are already utilising Chatbots, and they have become a favourite of consumers.

The top advantages of having chatbots on your website or services are:

• 24-hour service
• Instant response to enquiries
• Answers to basic queries

By 2022, chatbots will help businesses save over 8 Billion USD per year.

• Conversational Marketing

Most consumers today want an instant response to their enquiries. The primary objective of conversational marketing is to not deprive customers of instant response and thus, enhance user experience through a feedback-driven model. This cultivates stronger brand loyalty in your customers. Food delivery companies use conversational marketing to create a sense of dependability among customers availing their facilities.

• Personalization

Surveys show that 63 percent of customers are annoyed with generic advertisement pop-ups. 90% of customers are more likely to come back to a brand which personalizes their preferences.

Companies like the streaming platforms Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have garnered a huge number of loyal customers through personalization of content.

Cadbury’s created a personalized video campaign that matches a Dairy Milk flavour with users based on data from Facebook.

• Video Marketing

Video marketing is one of the most important digital marketing trends now, and will continue to be for the next five to ten years. The best digital marketing courses will teach you the importance of incorporating video into your marketing strategy. Studies show that 70 per cent of consumers say their video has improved their conversion rate.

With the onslaught of Reels on Facebook and Instagram, watch parties and live broadcasts, videos increase the chances of your brand getting noticed 50 times over.

• Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the most recent import among digital marketing strategies and has rapidly gained immense popularity. 63% of consumers find influencers’ opinions of products more authentic than corporate advertising.

Influencers can be celebrities, or Instagram or YouTube personalities who are well-known in a local circle. They have a huge following on social media platforms. Influencer marketing is a more modern take on the traditional word-of-mouth channel of marketing.

• Social Messaging App

1.3 billion users are active on Facebook Messenger. 10 billion messages are sent between people and companies on Facebook per month.

Social messaging apps are a very popular means of sending messages to customers directly, as they make the marketing technique a lot more personal. It adds value to the user experience.

• Visual Search

Through a visual lens, users can upload an image to conduct a search and get more specific results. The most popular visual search engines are as follows:

• Pinterest Lens
• Google Lens
• CamFind
• Bing Visual Search

Using visual search can give marketers an edge over competitors, given that there are over 600 million visual searches on Pinterest each month.

• Social Media Stories

Social media stories are a new and hip way of engaging with your customers. Snapchat was the very first to come out with the concept of ‘My Story’, and Instagram and Facebook reels jumped on the bandwagon. Stories disappear after 24 hours or another designated period, and they have become extremely popular among users, possibly because of the fear of missing out. Stories are connected to posts on Instagram through hashtags, which are coded under a particular algorithm.

Some ways to utilize social media stories are:

• Using polls within Instagram stories
• Adding location tags
• Live videos
• Geofilters
• Adding links or hashtags to social media stories

• Social Commerce and Shoppable Posts

E-commerce brands have made huge gains by abandoning the risk of requiring users to enter an app for making purchases. Shoppable posts are a great way to leverage the massive number of users on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram.

• Browser Push Notifications

85 percent of online stores and even blogs, magazines and websites now use push notifications. Only 10 percent of email marketers achieve a newsletter sign up rate. On the other hand, push notifications are immediate and require just the click of a button. Thus, push notifications are a trend that will take over the market in 2022.

You now know the major digital marketing trends that are competing in the marketing industry. To remain competitive in the digital marketing field, you have to cultivate these trends within your marketing campaigns, to make life easier for the growth of your brand. IIM Raipur digital marketing courses can help you hone skills that allow you to identify these trends before they even emerge and make a real difference to your online marketing campaign.

Digital marketing is destined to take giant strides in the future based on the advancement in digital technology. An ET survey reveals that digital advertising is expected to grow at 32% CAGR to reach somewhere close to INR 19,000 crores in 2022. Digital media spend which stands at 15% at present is likely to go up to 24% by next year. This data shows that digital marketing is growing at a very fast pace and to become an expert in digital marketing in 2022 some concrete steps need to be taken.

Technology & Marketing Integration

• Prepare an end to end customer experience

AI is going to play a big role in merging marketing insights with technology. The importance of customer experience is coming to the fore and organizations are realizing the value that customer experience has in their business growth.

• Automation

More personalized and customized content is expected to evolve with marketing automation.

• Investment in AR/VR

The use of AR and VR will bring further transformation in the process of collection of information by business organizations and customers. Digital innovations will have to be brought in to improve the overall online experience of consumers.

A separate Budget for Marketplaces

Amazon has emerged as the biggest player in digital marketing. Investment in the Amazon Automation tool, therefore, makes a lot of sense. Industry insights show that Amazon is the first choice of 56% of customers who shop online and 51% cross-check with Amazon if they are buying on some other platform. This behavior is slated to increase by 10 to 15 % by next year. It is very important, in the light of these figures, to use Amazon optimization in any e-commerce SEO strategy. Google Shopping is expected to make inroads in this segment.

Adapt to Major Changes

AI devices have made their niche in the market. Everyone is familiar with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. A big jump is expected in voice-based advertising in the coming years. The number of people using voice searches is increasing every day. Mobile display advertising revenue is predicted at 63%. Advertising on Whatsapp and focusing on private and customized messaging and establishing a strong presence on social media are areas that digital marketers need to pay attention to. Reflecting on these changes and the strategies that need to be put in place would be a good option.

Certified Digital Marketing Programs

To become an expert in digital marketing enrolling in a certified digital marketing program is highly recommended. IIM Raipur offers an Executive certification in Digital Marketing and Social Media Strategy. This digital marketing program promises to make you a digital marketing expert by specializing in Social Media & Content Marketing, Branding & Marketing Analytics. The syllabus of this digital marketing program includes SEO, SEM, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing Analytics, and Social Media Marketing.

Talentedge has several certified digital marketing programs in collaboration with IIM (Raipur) and XLRI (Jamshedpur) apart from MICA.

2022 is going to bring with it massive changes in digital marketing. To be well prepared for this a digital marketing program is strongly recommended.

More Information:

Why choose digital marketing as a career?

Top 5 Reasons to Choose Digital Marketing as a Career

10 Best Digital Marketing Courses to Advance Your Career

Kick-Start Your Career With The Best Digital Marketing Course