The Marketing Trends of 2022 The marketing world moves at the speed of light. And, in 2021, we saw just how quickly the marketing industry can evolve. In the last year, marketers embraced digital transformation more than ever as they adapted to constantly changing virtual and hybrid business landscapes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, as countries cautiously reopened -- and more consumers left the house -- some businesses saw slumps in the virtual engagement and online traffic they'd recently relied on.  As a marketer at any experience level, keeping up with these changes isn’t always easy. But, to succeed in the fast-paced marketing world -- and maintain a sense of relevance with your audience -- it's vital to stay ahead of them. To help businesses build cutting-edge and competitive marketing strategies in 2022, the HubSpot Blog surveyed more than 1000 global marketing professionals from both B2B and B2C brands -- while also talking to a handful of industry experts -- to create this bookmarkable guide of marketing trends to watch in the next year. 1. Influencer marketing will evolve from trend to a common marketing tactic. When we asked global marketing professionals which trends they planned to invest in for 2022, 34% said influencer marketing, putting it at the top of the list -- above other trends like mobile web design and short-form video marketing.  While 57% of marketing professionals that currently leverage influencer marketing say it's effective, 46% of them plan to increase their...

The Death of the Third-Party Cookie: What Marketers Need to Know About Google's 2022 Phase-Out What do marketers and Sesame Street monsters have in common? They LOVE cookies. For years, brands have been using them to track website visitors, improve the user experience, and collect data that helps us target ads to the right audiences. We also use them to learn about what our visitors are checking out online when they aren't on our websites. But the way we use cookies and Google ad-tracking tools could change dramatically with Google's efforts to phase phase out the third-party cookie on Chrome browsers by 2022. The third-party phase-out was initially announced in February 2020, but Google accelerated buzz around it this month when they announced that they won't be building "alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products." "We realize this means other providers may offer a level of user identity for ad tracking across the web that we will not — like PII graphs based on people’s email addresses," a Google post wrote. "We don’t believe these solutions will meet rising consumer expectations for privacy, nor will they stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions, and therefore aren’t a sustainable long term investment. Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-preserving APIs which prevent individual tracking while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers," says Google. How Marketers and Advertisers are Reacting to Google's Phase-Out While numerous advertising agencies criticized Google's...

How Consumer Spending Habits Could Change in 2021 As businesses and economies closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, consumers also tightened up their budgets. According to data from McKinsey, most consumers were more conscientious about purchases than before the pandemic. Because of this, most households primarily budgeted around essential products and services. But, now, as economies begin to swiftly reopen following mass vaccinations, business owners and marketers might also be wondering what this could mean for the next year of revenue. Specifically, many business leaders are asking, "Will consumers continue to spend cautiously, or will they spend more freely in 2021?" To help businesses prepare and navigate for the coming months, I asked nearly 300 random consumers, "Which best describes your budgeting plan for the next year?" Here's what they said and tips for how to navigate future spending behaviors. How Consumers Will Spend Money in the Next Year As economies reopen, people return to work, and household revenues start to rise again, you might think that people will be racing to online or physical stores to shop for all the things they didn't have the budget for in 2020. However, when looking at the results of our small survey, it seems that people are cautiously optimistic about their 2021 budget. Although one-third of respondents say they plan to "loosen" their budgets and spend more money than they did in 2020, a whopping 43% plan to keep the same budget they had in 2020. Meanwhile,...

Where Will People Shop When Businesses Fully Reopen? For the last year and a half, many of us have gotten used to doing everything -- including shopping -- from home. Now, it seems full reopenings are closer than ever in the U.S. as the CDC now says that fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks or social distance unless there is a federal, state, local, workplace, or tribal mandate requiring them to. But as cities, offices, stores, and restaurants reopen to full capacity, many of us are beginning to think about how life will be after the global pandemic ends. As an individual, a post-pandemic world might be quite exciting to think about. But, as a marketer, entrepreneur, or manager, you might be wondering, "Will shopping go back to normal after reopenings?" To help brands in the U.S. navigate and plan for reopenings, we used Lucid to ask more than 300 North American consumers, "Which best describes how you'll shop once businesses fully reopen after COVID-19 shutdowns?" The results might or might not surprise you. Data Source Just over one-third, or 35% of respondents say they'll "shop almost completely online." Meanwhile, 21% predict they'll do an even mix of online and in-store shopping, while 18% will primarily shop online but go to stores when they're convenient.   If you've built a strong brick-and-mortar brand, don't panic. First of all, this is just one general consumer survey with a small pool of respondents. Additionally, aside from the respondents...

4 Ways Brands Can Gain Awareness on Clubhouse If you've been on social media, marketing news sites, or the HubSpot Blog lately, you might have heard about Clubhouse. The nearly one-year-old social media platform which allows users to drop into audio-only chat rooms has grown from 600,000 to 10 million active users in just a few short months.  Although the app is invite-only, more and more people are gaining access and tuning into discussions related to their industry, hobbies, and other interests each day. Users also love Clubhouse for its entertainment factor. When surfing through Clubhouse, you might find celebrities, like Joe Rogan, chatting with fellow influencers; audio-only musical productions, comedy nights; or even standup comedy events. But, when exploring Clubhouse's vast and highly-creative audio rooms as a marketer, you might wonder if and how you can leverage it within your marketing strategy. At this point, most Clubhouse content is still highly experimental. However, one major theme to note is that it's users want to hear from people -- not just brands. Because Clubhouse's users crave authentic human discussion, they'll likely disengage from rooms that prioritize promotional content over a relatable conversation. However, while building brand awareness on an ultra-personal app like Clubhouse takes time, energy, and lots of community management, we're already starting to see brands begin to connect with the channel's growing audience. To help marketers who are just learning about Clubhouse, I spent the last few days surfing the app to learn how brands are reaching...

Most Consumers Changed Brands in 2020: Research Explains Why Now that 2020's global pandemic has taught most of the world how to live and work completely from home, marketers planning their 2021 strategy are asking one big question: “Will this uncertain time change the way people spend money?” McKinsey -- which recently polled consumers in over 48 countries about their 2020 spending habits -- says, "Yes." One of the biggest findings in the McKinsey study was that 75% of consumers have changed brands at least once during the pandemic. McKinsey's research also noted four other key shifts in consumer spending behavior that could majorly impact brands in the near or far future. In this blog post, we'll walk you through all five shifts noted in the McKinsey study, while giving our insights on how marketers and brands can navigate them. How Purchasing Behaviors are Changing in 2020 1. Brand loyalty is being tested. At the beginning of the pandemic, as entire cities began to close non-essential businesses, consumers raced to stores or hopped online to order essential products they'd need in the coming months. This caused a major disruption in supply chains and product shortages around the world. And, even in the earliest days of the pandemic, consumers were paying heavy attention to how companies handled shortages and bursts in product demand. While some brands saw an influx of new customers that they once lost to bigger competitors, other companies lost customers to because they simply couldn't keep...

5 Brands That Won Australian Advertising Awards With all the work marketing teams are responsible for, it can be hard to make time to get reinspired and capture a spark of creativity that leads to a new, marketing strategy. This can be even more problematic for brands in physically isolated areas. Take Australia for example. Its distance from other English-speaking regions like America and Europe can make it challenging for marketers to spread brand awareness globally. Ultimately, to gain even regional awareness, Australian brands must build competitive and innovative marketing strategies to stand out and grab attention from audiences. So, what do you do when you work for a brand in a place like Australia, and just can't come up with a marketing idea that takes your company to the next level? Look to award-winning brands for inspiration. One great place to start could be country-specific award ceremonies. By following these competitions, you can learn more about how brands in your area are effectively working towards national or global awareness. In Australia, one major advertising and marketing award competition that brands and agencies look to is The Effies. The Effies is a marketing and advertising competition that includes regional and global ceremonies. Each year, brands are awarded for advertising strategies, rebranding tactics, effective marketing techniques, and innovative campaigns. Brands that win the Grand Effie in their region are also eligible for the global competition. Past global winners include major brands like Dove, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft. While this year's...

10 VR Marketing Examples to Inspire You in 2020 I won't lecture you on the importance of incorporating virtual reality (VR) into your marketing strategy. What I will do, however, is share a few fun facts about VR and show you nine examples of this technology used for marketing a product or a brand. This year, the economic impact of virtual and augmented reality is predicted to reach $29.5 billion. By the end of 2017, the number of shipped units of VR software and hardware from Sony, Oculus, HTC, and others totaled $2.4 million, up from $1.7 million in 2016. By the end of 2020, the number of VR headsets sold is predicted to reach 82 million -- a 1,507% increase from 2017 predicted totals. VR is being adopted quickly, and adding it to your marketing channels is something you should definitely think about for the coming year. What Is VR? VR, short for virtual reality, is a form of interactive software that immerses users in a three-dimensional environment -- usually by way of a headset with special lenses -- to simulate a real experience. Ideally, VR allows people to simulate the experience in 360 degrees. Numerous industries are now finding uses for VR in order to transport people to places they might otherwise have to travel to, or simply imagine. While movie companies, for example, are giving audiences the opportunity to experience the movie as if they're a character in the scene, conventional businesses are now...

21 Interactive Content Stats That Marketers Need to Know in 2020 In December 2018, Netflix viewers were introduced to the platform's first interactive film, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Bandersnatch followed a character named Stefan, a tormented game developer who was forced to make a number of simple and tough decisions to release a video game. Each time Stefan had to make a decision -- such as eating Sugar Puffs or Frosties for breakfast -- two options would appear on the screen. Stefan's fate was then in the Netflix viewers' hands as they could choose what happened next. The choose-your-own-adventure film -- which allowed viewers to go down one of nearly one trillion paths based on their choices -- was a viral hit. Bandersnatch generated a ton of buzz on social media for Netflix, and the streaming giant was also able to use data from the decisions viewers selected. At one point, the streaming site released data to show which choices users commonly made. Since Bandersnatch's success, the entertainment industry and brands have continued to jump on the interactive content bandwagon with high-priced AR/VR and even video-game based campaigns. But, as a small or medium-sized business marketer who isn't ready to dabble in AR/VR just yet, you might be wondering, "Is interactive content really worth its price?" Yes, interactive content is highly engaging, attracts customers, and provides value. But, you don't necessarily need expertise in emerging technology to leverage it. Below are 21 stats that highlight how interactive content is growing,...

How HubSpot's Report-Based Acquisition Campaign Hit 150% of Our Lead Goal in 30 Days Acquisition marketing campaigns are critical to bring in new customers and revenue. At HubSpot, we run these campaigns quarterly. Despite the rapid cadence, every quarter we work to create new, remarkable ways of reaching, informing, and converting our audience. I wrote this post to share with you how we crafted our latest acquisition campaign to hit and exceed our acquisition targets. Establishing the Campaign The beginning of our Q1 2020 Acquisition Campaign started with a blinking cursor. As we brainstormed how to start our research, we had a few inputs to work with. First, we knew our target audience consisted of marketing managers, as we were re-launching our Marketing Hub Enterprise product that month. We knew that reports were a content type that worked well for us in the past. We saw our 2019 Instagram Engagement Report and a 2020 Social Media Report successfully attract new audiences. At the very least, it was a motion that our audience was familiar with, which meant there was less of a barrier to show the value. Additionally, seasonality played a large role in our planning. We wanted to build content to support marketers planning their strategies for the upcoming year. With the combination of 1) a target audience, 2) an understanding of high-performing content types, 3) timing, and 4) our additional user research, we wanted to create a remarkable go-to resource for marketing managers building their strategies...