5 Digital Marketing Trends B2C Companies Need to Follow in 2022

When it comes to digital marketing trends in 2022 and making big moves for your business, there is only one thing that really matters to your audience:

Convenience.

From stunning web design to top- tier user experience, utilizing the following tips will tie your whole online strategy together. Leveraging your social media in a way that makes the shopping experience easy and to-the-point should be the end goal for your business in 2022 and beyond.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital world has reached new heights of importance, as B2C companies have no choice but to go virtual. This is a great thing, because the digital realm has more opportunities than ever before. It is not clear if the world will ever go back to the way it once was, so B2C marketers ought to embrace the online world today.

Keep reading for 5 digital marketing trends to look out for in 2022 that will undoubtedly generate leads and boost conversions.

1) Facebook Pixel – Optimizing the World’s Largest Social Media Platform

The Facebook Pixel is an advertising tool powered by third-party cookies. It allows websites to gather more data about user activity for the purpose of leveraging retargeting ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Why should you focus on retargeting ads? To put it simply, it’s to put you back in front of your potential customers, and other customers that are similar to your existing audience. Maybe they started shopping and added stuff to their cart, but they never completed the purchase. Identifying who abandoned their cart and retargeting them with specific ads might give the motivation needed to place the order. Embracing the Pixel and using it to your advantage is one of the better digital marketing trends you can follow in 2022.

What is the Facebook Pixel? – Retargeting Ads

The Facebook Pixel is a tiny piece of code that you embed into your website. It tracks user activity, giving your ad set information about your prospects’ interests in specific products. As a business, it is convenient for you to use the Pixel in order to leverage your consumers’ user activity, especially on your website.

Having these insights is important so that you can create retargeting ads to appeal to other interests your customers may have. For example, using the FB pixel, you can recommend a similar product and convince your existing customer to come back and make another purchase. This is called cross-selling, and it can be more accurately leveraged than ever before thanks to the FB Pixel.

This brings us back to convenience. When your existing customer is scrolling on Facebook, you’ll want to take what you already know about them and use that to entice them to visit your website once again. A lot of people return to shops because they’ve been exposed to an advertisement of a product that they didn’t even know they needed. That’s all thanks to the data collected from the Pixel.

Finding New Audiences with the Facebook Pixel

The Facebook Pixel allows businesses to scan the Facebook database. This is to identify customers who are similar to your existing customers. Once identified, the Facebook Pixel puts your ads in front of those similar customers, in hopes to bring you more business.

The way that this is done is by tracking users behavior. What do they click on? What do they engage with? The Facebook pixel does this for you. It groups together a new audience that could potentially be targeted.

How Does it Work?

Now that you know what the Facebook Pixel is used for, it’s time to install it.

There are a variety of on Facebook Events Manager, which you can read at the provided link if you’re interested. One key step that you should not ignore is making use of all events, for the ultimate optimization.

The events are additional code you can add into your website to identify specific consumers’ actions. These events include: add to cart, purchase, search, subscribe, and several more that can make a huge difference in giving you the information you need to improve your conversion rates.

Why You Should Use the Facebook Pixel for Your Business

If Facebook and Instagram are your primary platforms for advertising, using the Facebook Pixel just might be one of the most beneficial things you can do for your business in 2022. Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in existence with almost 3 billion users- that alone should be a good reason you should use it for your business, along with these other reasons:

– It makes shopping much more convenient for customers

– Leads to less abandoned carts

– Increases conversion rates

– Provides opportunity to cross sell other products

2) Personalization – Creating Tailored Experiences for Your Customer

There is no better digital marketing strategy than knowing your customer and creating tailored experiences just for them. In 2022, if you’re not following the digital marketing trends of creating personalized experiences for your ideal consumer, then you’re hurting your business. When a customer feels that a business cares about them (like sending happy birthday emails with an attached coupon code), they’re more likely to return and keep shopping.

Thanks to the use of tracking tools and analytics, companies can track their ideal customers’ demographics and behaviors. Gathering important demographics information and understanding browsing behavior helps businesses to create personalized shopping experiences.

Who is Your Audience? – Creating a Personalized Customer Avatar

Before you decide who your ideal customer is to , you have to figure out what you offer to the world as a brand. You’ll have a hard time selling a hammer to a teenage girl, and a very difficult time trying to sell a makeup palette to a middle-aged man who happens to be a carpenter.

The first thing you should do when trying to figure out the details of your ideal customer is to understand their demographics. Where do they live? How old are they? Here is a list of things that you’ll need to figure out before creating your next advertisement::

-Age

Knowing your customer avatar is key to creating personalized experiences that will make your ideal consumers feel welcomed and enticed to make a purchase.

Personalized Website Content – Increase Dwell Time and Provide Value

Unless you’re offering just one product or service, a one-size-fits-all website won’t work. Every visitor is different with their own unique interests. That’s why you want to create a personalized website experience that is appealing to a diverse crowd.

The first thing you’ll want to do is understand how your visitors are interacting with your website. This could be through clicking CTA’s, reading blog posts, subscribing to email lists, signing up for free trials, etc. The behavioral data will show you what your visitors are looking for. Here is a list of things you can add to your website now that will personalize the shopping experience and boost conversions:

-Focus on the key landing pages. Depending on what the customer is looking for, they can be sent to different landing pages with different messages and imagery. The average customer will leave a website in 15 seconds if the page quality is low. To decrease high bounce rates, you’ll want to create headlines and CTA’s that consumers can’t ignore.

-Optimize customer reviews. If you’ve already made some sales and have good reviews, it is to your benefit to feature those reviews and make it one of the first things that people see when they visit. People trust real customer reviews, especially if a product photo or video is added. This is a great way to build brand credibility.

-Feature blog posts. If your website is informational, you’ll want your ideal consumer to easily navigate and find the content they are looking for.

Personalized Influencer Marketing – Building Relationships and Credibility

The grip that influencers have in the social media realm is astronomical. They are influencers for a reason. Their followers trust them.

As a business, you want that same trust and credibility. Therefore, it is worthwhile to reach out to specific influencers within a certain niche for collaborations and partnerships. At first, you’ll want to reach out to an influencer with more followers because they could get you more business. That is true, but it might be a better idea to collaborate with micro-influencers.

Influencers with massive follower counts typically do brand deals with anyone and everyone, which is why working with micro-influencers might be better for your business. They cater to a specific type of audience, not just anyone. If you sell activewear, you’ll want to partner up with fitness gurus. It depends on your business size and influence as well.

At the end of the day, it is a give-and-take relationship, so the collaboration needs to be mutually beneficial.

3) Using Video – Visual Element is Key

One of the best digital marketing trends to hop on in 2022 is using video to advertise your business. Instead of boring infographics, capture the eye of your ideal customer by showing a compelling video that they can’t ignore. Here are some reasons why using video is one of the best moves you can make for your business:

– Search engines love video. The more video content you have on your social media, website, and blogs, the more that search engine algorithms will favor you over others.

– Video ads are mobile user-friendly. Almost everyone is on their phone all day every day. When scrolling on social media, it is easy to scroll past infographics and stock images. People are more likely to stop and watch if a video ad crosses their timeline, meaning more leads for your business.

– Video is the best format to tell your story. Compared to other formats, video ads offer a visual element that images just can’t compete with.

Read on to determine which platform might be best for your business video advertisements.

TikTok is massive and has over 850 million users worldwide. Every day, that number grows bigger. People use TikTok for entertainment and to learn new things. It is the place where people go to go viral or upscale their business with confidence today.

The engagement is out of this world, meaning that your campaign can reach crazy success overnight. With this, there is a catch. TikTok ads pricing starts at $10 per CPM (cost per 1000 views). However, some posts still get a lot of organic reaches. So, depending on what you’re advertising, you may not have to spend a dime.

This higher price should not scare you away but is something to be aware of. In this case, the saying is true. You do get what you pay for. Advertising on TikTok can provide you with a higher ROI than its competitors. TikTok is growing every day. In 2022, it would be wise to utilize the platform and keep an eye on the evolving digital marketing trends.

Instagram Reels

Thanks to TikTok’s rise in popularity, Instagram stayed competitive and is no longer just a photo-sharing app. The algorithm now loves and prefers reels. Reels are a video format that is guaranteed to get your profile more views.

When you search for something on the explore page, the best reels are shown at the top in bigger dimension squares than stand-alone images. This is to make the reels more “eye-catching”, in effort to get people to view them.

One of the best things about Instagram reels is that they allow you to reach a new demographic of people without spending too much on ads. With a little bit of creativity and a clear message, it takes little effort to climb your way to the top of the explore page. Doing this will help with organic reach, and lower the amount you have to spend on ads.

Leveraging Facebook Video Ads

Utilizing Facebook video ads can revolutionize your business in a way that you never thought possible. With over 3 billion users worldwide, odds are that your ideal customer is on Facebook. In fact, the average US adult .

Knowing where your ideal customer spends their time is important when deciding which platform to advertise on, but we can guarantee that a great bulk of them are on Facebook right now. You can also feature your Instagram ads on Facebook, which could mean more conversions for your business.

People like to scroll, so it is important to keep the video content short. Hook your audience and get straight to the point within the first few seconds, otherwise you’ll risk a drop in engagement. One of the most important aspects of a Facebook video is to have an eye popping thumbnail that grabs peoples attention.

4) Interactive Content – Being Social on Social Online

The sky’s the limit when it comes to interactive content. Not only does focusing on engagement add convenience, it increases actions taken by consumers, can exponentially grow organic reach, and leads to better conversions.

– Embed an interactive quiz into your website

– Create fun surveys with incentives

– Include webinars in emails

In order to increase engagement on your digital platforms, you have to be social with your audience. This includes responding to comments in a non-bot type of way and engaging in return. The more your audience feels that your brand feels more like a person and not a bot, the more they will visit your social media profiles and website.

One of the best ways to get in front of your ideal customer is to create interactive content that people can engage with. According to , visual content is 40x more likely to be shared. This can be as simple as adding images to posts.

Polls – Adding a Unique Spin to the Conversation

Polls aren’t a new concept, but if you’re not occasionally leveraging them online, you are missing out. In 2022, you’ll want to frequently do a poll on either LinkedIn (especially for B2Bs) or your Instagram story. Polls are a unique way to figure out what your audience likes and doesn’t like. This helps give a trajectory of what your content calendar could look like going forward.

– Instagram stories are a great way to figure out customer preferences. You can add “yes/no” polls, and even add a sliding heart emoji scale

– Facebook stories are relatively the same as Instagram stories, but still great for engagement

– If you have a product or service to offer to other businesses, then creating your polls on LinkedIn is the best bet

Engage Your Audience With a Question

While Polls are kind of like asking a question, being a little more specific is more beneficial at times. Every so often, you should be asking your audience a question that makes them scratch their heads or leave a thorough response.

Posts with high engagement rates, specifically comments, are more favored by the algorithm. If the question is engaging enough, the likelihood of getting more shares is higher. More shares mean more leads and higher conversions for your business.

Video and other Interactive Imagery

Video content really is the future when it comes to advertising. In 2022, these video digital marketing trends will be even more prevalent. Compared to plain images and infographics, video and things like 360 images give an edge. Some may not think so, but visually pleasing content is probably more important than plain images or boring blocks of text.

A great example of interactive video is interactive quiz videos.

Giving your audience an active viewing experience, you get to ask multiple-choice questions which keeps the viewer glued to their screen. These types of videos are really great especially if you want your customer to learn something.

While there are several ways to use interactive video to keep your audience engaged, it is best to not overdo it. You’ll want to be relevant, but not spammy. Choosing diverse interactive content for certain days of the week always keeps the news feed fresh and keeps them coming back for more.

5) Social Media Commerce – Click Product Within Post to Shop

Adding a shop to your social media profiles is a vital marketing trend you can embrace in 2022. It adds a level of convenience that saves time and effort. What’s not to love about that?

Too many small businesses have closed their doors because of the pandemic and lockdowns. Because of this, more and more businesses are moving online to stay afloat.

Read more for information about social commerce and how it can up your social media marketing game.

What is Social Commerce?

To put it simply, social commerce is the buying and selling products and/or services on social media.

Buyers used to have to go to the sellers page, click the link in their bio, and shop from there. This takes up quite a bit of time, especially if the buyer isn’t sure what they want. Sellers can make the process easier by simply attaching product links to the products within the post.

The coolest part? US based companies have access to Instagram checkout, meaning that their customers don’t have to leave the app to purchase. Now that is the level of convenience that every business needs to implement.

The fact that shopping can be done directly in social media apps has changed the game for several businesses. If you sell products, setting up a shop could revolutionize your business for the better.

Setting Up a Shop in Instagram

As long as your business meets the requirements and follows Instagram’s commerce guidelines, setting up is easy. All you have to do is follow these steps:

1) Switch to a business profile.

2) Link to your business Facebook page.

3) Add product catalog to Facebook shop (you’ll need a Shopify store to do this).

4) In the Shopify dashboard, add Instagram as a sales channel.

5) Wait for approval.

That’s it!

When creating product posts, you can add up to 5 products per post, and 20 products per carousel. This way, you can feature several products at once, allowing consumers to see the variety you have to offer. Just remember to add even more convenience by adding Instagram checkout (available to US merchants only).

Facebook Shopping

Creating a Facebook shop is free and easy. It is synced with Shopify (where you then set up your Instagram shop). Businesses can customize catalogs, pick accent colors that fit their brand, and more.

The customer service is straight to the point. Customers can directly message the seller through messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram DM. Because of high demand and the convenience of shopping online nowadays, providing great customer service should be something to focus on more. If a customer feels ignored or not helped in the way they need, they might not return.

Once you have all your ducks in a row, starting up a shop on social media is simple and fun. Moving your shop online (social media specifically), you’re helping more people discover your business. Opening up this avenue is nothing but beneficial for all small businesses.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdowns have changed the way that B2C marketers reach their audiences and how users shop online. To be successful in the online space, following the trends listed above in 2022 will almost certainly guarantee more success for your business.