B2B Content Marketing Trends for 2022
One of the major things these past few years taught is that digital content and its marketing hold immense power over our current economies. Therefore keeping up with current trends in digital marketing is a must. In the far distant, pre-digital, past you could rely on the fact that trends stayed around for a while. This meant that you could research and optimize them. But with the advent of internet marketing trends, as well as all other trends really, have become very volatile. Some trends (for example in fashion) can’t even hold out for a year. Luckily digital marketing at least has the durability to hold out with yearly changes. This means that every year you can expect, at least some tweaks to past trends if not changes in entire concepts.
One of the biggest ideas in digital marketing is currently business-to-business (or B2B) content marketing. It centers around the exchange of content between businesses. Not only did B2B content marketing grow by the beginning of this decade, but it also skyrocketed. So much so, that by 2022 it crystalized new trends that are key to future business success.
Stronger video marketing
Marketing is one of those branches of the economy that can use any tool to further its goal. From traditional newspaper ads to shouting from the mountaintops, anything can promote your business. But as people went out less and less due to quarantines the strength of video marketing grew. Therefore to keep up with the competition, you’ll have to get on top of your video-making game. Videos are by far the most engaging and interactive forms of marketing. They mimic the same ideas such as customer-driven marketing, meaning that videos convey information in a more direct and friendlier manner. Therefore creating videos or utilizing other paid visual media (such as tv commercials) is key.
Increase brand personalization
Brand personalization equals brand recognition. It’s as simple as that. By personalizing your brand you’re guaranteeing its memorability. The memorability and uniqueness of a brand directly correspond to its growth. These brand personalizations can vary in intensity but they must be constantly present in your work. From a unique color pallet to a special writing style, everything you do counts up to your brand personalization. Not only does brand personalization help growth but it also creates a brand image. If you don’t take your brand seriously enough to create a strong image, then why would your customers pay attention to it.
Improve customer experience
Having great content is awesome. But latest data shows that no matter the quality of content customers will lose brand faith if the customer support isn’t up to par. So while your marketing creators are pumping out inspired content, your customer service may be driving their efforts down (as well as your overall business growth). So make sure to keep your content up to date to avoid confusion, adapt all your content so it’s easily accessible and readable on mobile phones, keep your websites fast to avoid frustration, and make sure your customer support teams are experienced and friendly.
Post pandemic empathy
The last two to three years have shown that people love emphatic marketing. People don’t want to see others living out their dreams, they want to see someone relatable going through similar experiences. Especially since a vast majority of people have been stuck at home and working online, escapist ads might be seen as salt on the wound. Instead, show them how and why your products and services may ease their everyday lives.
If you’re more empathetic towards your customers, your brand reception will surely rise. But this trend is also a warning, as brand reception is a two-way street. Sometimes empathy might be the wrong choice as it may come off as deceptive and ingenuine. This mostly depends on what your brand is and who you’re catering to. But in general, if you think through to properly integrate empathy into your marketing campaign you shouldn’t be having any issues with reception.
Make customers the focus of your content marketing
Everyone wishes their job was easy, and so do digital marketers. After all, creating a generic ad campaign and then copy-pasting it for cash sounds like a dream. But that’s all it is, a dream. Without proper customer personalization, your content marketing will never rise from the endless ocean of generic marketing campaigns. You need to know who’s interested in doing business with you and why. This way you develop a loyal following of customers and ensure that your marketing campaigns are targeted to the right people.
By focusing on your customers you’re also focusing on the end goal of your product or service, as you can adapt for that specific market. For example, if you’re a mouse and keyboard designing company you’d have completely different styles of machinery for teenagers who want to be the next Youtube star, and for working-class people that need the ergonomics for their long working hours. The same idea applies in digital marketing as well, you’re going to have a better conversion rate if you target your ads to a specific audience.
Conclusion
In short, 2022 is a year where the trends of the last few years finally crystallized. These trends show what the future of digital marketing might be, at least for the next few years. From increased personalization to new preferred media for advertisement marketing trends have changed and if you want your business to grow make sure to adapt to these trends as well.
