Feb 2022 MA Final MAL46 | Page 66

MARKETING TRENDS

From Surviving To Thriving: Marketing Trends To Watch Out For In 2022

By Geoffrey Sirumba
Marketers are constantly evolving with the world around them. 2021 was about recovering from an unprecedented shock. But this year is about responding, and for those best positioned, thriving in a postpandemic world. We explore seven trends to help marketers and those charged with building dynamic customer experiences rethink their people, data, and experience strategies.
Stunted economic growth
All businesses in Kenya are currently faced with two calamities. One, is how to recover from the pandemic and two, the negative effects of our ever-whirring political machine which in a few months, will reach fever pitch.
We are likely to witness accelerated economic recovery in the first half of 2022. However, the gains may not be realized immediately until the political tension caused by the intense electioneering period fizzles out. In the intervening period, we will experience reduced spending as companies adopt a wait-andsee approach. With this in mind, marketers need to formulate an aggressive six-month plan that will be able to cover for the anticipated slow growth during the political season and post-election period.
Social listening to guide personalization
Monitoring conversations around your brand can expose you to many insights. The learnings can, in turn, be used to improve your social media marketing efforts, better manage customer complaints, or come up with moves to counter competitors.
Most brands and businesses are still struggling to unify their personalization strategy across all customer touchpoints. Thus, to be truly successful, marketing personalization activities must occur seamlessly across every channel and on every device.
The rise of short form videos Edutainment video content is no
“ Monitoring conversations around your brand can expose you to many insights. The learnings can, in turn, be used to improve your social media marketing efforts, better manage customer complaints, or come up with moves to counter competitors.” longer just an option. Rather, it is now a must-have for any serious business that is keen on staying ahead of the curve. Short-form content is on the rise, and it doesn’ t appear to be slowing down. At the heart of its conception, is the fact that short-form video lends itself far better to the fleeting attention spans associated with modern audiences.
Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts are some top videobased content channels today. Another huge benefit of short videos is that they are just much easier to distribute. Short videos are more likely to go viral because of their unlimited replay value, easy to share and remember. Brands will need to make short-form video since the attention span of online viewers have reduced, increased competition amongst the different video viewing sites and limited time.
Acceleration of Digital, Tech, and analytics
Digital transformation is a journey that never ends. Over the past few months, there has been a transformation in the way we
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