To say that the marketing and advertising landscapes have changed in the last year is an understatement. These areas are constantly evolving with new channels, platforms, and opportunities emerging at a seemingly-impossible speed. It can be hard to distinguish between the new trends that will become a permanent part of your media mix and the “shiny objects” that will lose relevance as quickly as they earned it. Here are a few principles, strategies, and tools that marketers can use to cut through the clutter in 2022.

Third Parties are Top of Mind

Whether you place media with the assistance of a third-party agency or file e-tickets with a help desk solution, you are working with a third party that represents your organization. In the world of remote and virtual offices, there’s a good chance someone is handling some of your customer service and marketing needs from across the country. This also means that they’re probably working for dozens of clients at once.

What does that have to do with marketing? All things in advertising are about relationships. While it may seem difficult to cultivate a friendship with a third-party vendor, you should make the effort to always be polite, treat them well, and thank them for their help. Not only is this just the right thing to do, but it may move your name higher up in queues when you must submit a request.

Digital is King

We’re a generation away from the days when “digital marketing” meant getting a free static ad on a website as added value. By some metrics, digital has become the dominant adverting channel, overtaking even broadcast and radio. Most media buyers recommend a mix of digital and traditional media, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one who advised you against a digital presence.

You still need to be savvy about what forms of digital you’re buying. Don’t just set aside an arbitrary chunk of your budget for “digital.” Take the time and evaluate where the value is between banner ads, paid social, video pre-roll, and other opportunities that fall under the wide umbrella of “digital.”

Smart Paid Social Strategies Can Generate Huge ROI

Focusing on one of those opportunities for a moment, it’s important to understand that paid social can deliver huge dividends. That’s dependent, however, on applying a smart and thoughtful strategy to your social dollars. Should you be posting organically? Yes, but don’t expect that to generate much on its own. Should you boost posts? It depends on your industry, but oftentimes, boosted posts don’t reach your specific target customers. Should you invest in paid social ads? Absolutely.

Paid social ads on the major platforms offer a powerful suite of demographic tools to allow you to serve ads to incredibly precise audiences. You can run separate sets of creative for men and women, for example, or focus your ads to deploy only in certain zip codes. You can’t get that granular with broadcast or radio, can you? Paid social should always be considered for every campaign.

SEO is Only Getting More Powerful

Search engines aren’t going anywhere. Quite the opposite. That makes the PPC (pay-per-click) ad inventory at the top of results pages extremely valuable. Like social, it can be delivered very strategically to a narrow audience. Unlike social, you’re getting motivated customers coming to you. 

Be sure to buy both positive and negative keywords, keep your copy brief, and include a strong call to action. While it’s important to monitor the results of any marketing campaign, it’s even more important with SEO, as it is very responsive, easy to interpret, and easy to tweak when needed.

Geo Targeting and Geofencing Can Work!

For a while, geotargeting (serving ads that “follow” customers across sites and apps) and geofencing (pushing ads within a certain physical radius of a business or event) seemed novel. They’re now major tools in the marketing game. Don’t dismiss them without thoughtfully considering whether they can help you meet your goals. 

The tenets of marketing never change, but the means of distribution do…constantly. Keep these tips in mind to elevate your strategy and tactics in 2022!