Marketing Automation Trends to Watch for in 2022

Effective marketing requires a significant investment of time and effort.  Its value is undeniable, but what if your business simply does not have the resources to establish a dedicated marketing division?

Marketing automation is the ideal solution to this problem. This technology allows you to automate many aspects of your digital marketing activities, and it will be more popular than ever in 2022. Our list of upcoming marketing automation trends will help you catch up on the latest developments in this field and better understand how you can use it to benefit your business.

Top 9 Marketing Automation Trends for 2022

1. User Quality Data

A single high-quality lead is worth more than a dozen low-quality ones. User quality data tools allow you to automatically score your users based on how well they conform to your ideal lead profile.

User quality data scores might incorporate information such as:

• What content users view when browsing your site
• How long they spend on each page
• Where they went next

Users with high scores behave in a way that is consistent with high interest in your product.

If your website is attracting users with low user quality scores, you may need to adjust aspects of your marketing activities to correct this problem. For example, you may need to invest in more mid-funnel content to keep users moving through your desired set of actions.

User quality data can be a complicated topic for beginner marketers to grasp, but professional help is always available. A digital marketing agency in Toronto can help you set up user data quality tools and make ideal use of the data those tools collect.

2. Funnel-Driven Content

Marketing automation allows you to direct targeted content to leads to funnel them closer to conversion. However, this strategy only works if you have a wide range of content available for each stage of the buyer’s journey. If you do not, you cannot use this feature to its fullest potential.

In 2022, consider adding more content to your roster to fill in these gaps. One good way to ensure your content covers all stages is to think about which questions a lead might ask in each stage. If you have a sales or customer support team, you can ask them for their input.

Think about the type of content you will produce and the subject matter. For example, video marketing typically works well for leads in the middle of the funnel. A video helps these leads get a better look at your products and what they can do, which may give them enough information to decide to buy.

Finally, consider hiring an SEO company to plan and produce this content for you to ensure it can be used for ranking purposes as well. Content that serves more than one function generates twice the ROI of content that does not.

3. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Machine learning and AI are set to revolutionize many aspects of modern life, and marketing is no exception. These sophisticated technologies allow you to collect detailed information on your users’ preferences and behaviours, then automatically analyze that data to create useful insights.

Using these findings, you can optimize your site with personalized content that engages and delights your audience. Your users will come to know your website as the place that always has a solution to their needs, creating an immensely valuable sales opportunity.

4. Personalized Content

Personalized content fits a lead’s unique needs and interests based on their demographic data profile and browsing habits. The more information you have about any particular lead, the better the content you offer them will match what they are looking for.

Marketing automation gives you the tools you need to collect lead data and generate custom content that nurtures that lead closer to conversion. For example, you might add a plugin to your website which tracks a user’s previous browsing sessions and remembers which products they viewed the last time they visited. This allows users to pick up right where they left off and possibly complete the transaction this time.

5. Customer Service Chatbots

Have you ever woken up to so many customer inquiry emails that you thought you would never get to the end of the list? Thanks to marketing automation, there is a better way. A chatbot can help you automate some of the most routine aspects of your customer service.

Users enjoy chatbots because they allow them to access customer service functions at any time without delay. If the bot cannot give them the information they were looking for, they can always send that email to you instead and wait for a response. Users are happy to receive prompt service, and business owners are left with just a handful of the customer service work they had to do before.

There are plenty of tools to help you set up a chatbot on your website in just a few minutes, but the hard part of this process is finding the right information to load into the bot. If you fail to include responses for common customer questions, the tool will not be able to do its job correctly. A digital marketing agency can help you identify some of your business’ most frequently asked questions and formulate comprehensive responses to each.

6. Automated Social Media Marketing

Social media is a well-known and highly effective modern marketing tool, but it requires a lot of work to keep running. In 2022, you can save time by automating your posting schedule. Special tools allow you to pre-load your content schedule and set the times at which you want each piece of content to be published.

Automating these tasks allows you to ensure consistent and optimally timed posting without worrying about these things yourself. If you get enough content ready in advance, you can even automate your posts a whole month at a time. This reduces hours of ongoing administrative work to just one simple task at the beginning of the month, which is wonderfully efficient.

7. Personalized Email Marketing

Email marketing works best when it speaks to your leads’ specific needs and goals. Personalized email marketing allows you to reach users with targeted messages based on their recent activity on your website.

For example, you might send them an email reminding them about those tempting items in their abandoned cart, hopefully enticing them to come back and complete the purchase. You can also offer them information about products similar to what they were looking at during their last browsing session. This data-driven automated strategy makes it effortless for you to deliver hyper-specific content to each lead, so start using it this year!

8. Conversational Marketing

Now that marketing automation has become more commonplace, many users have begun to recognize the often stilted, overly formal tone of an automated message. When they do, they often become immediately turned off. 2022’s consumers crave authenticity and a genuine sense of connection with brands. In short, they want to see more conversational marketing.

To help with this, look for marketing software that incorporates newer technology. Recent advances in natural language processing have made automated responses much more fluid and human-like than what was possible with past versions of these tools. If you choose the right software, you should be able to satisfy your customers and save valuable time all at once.

9. Mobile Marketing Automation

You know that your website needs to be mobile-optimized in 2022, but have you considered other ways you can reach your leads on their phones?

Mobile automation allows you to send SMS updates, offers, and surveys directly to your leads’ mobile devices to enhance your customer experience. A well-designed landing page campaign or discount promotion can help you collect the phone numbers you need to implement this strategy.

If your business has its own app, you can also use push notifications to draw users’ attention to new content. This is one more reason to consider creating an app if you have not done so already.

Upgrade Your Marketing Automation Efforts Today

If you are not already using marketing automation to promote your business, it is time you began. You can get access to cutting-edge marketing automation technology by partnering with WSI Comandix. As a major digital marketing agency in Toronto, we are always looking for new ways to leverage digital marketing advances for the benefit of our clients. Contact us today to discuss your marketing needs and arrange your initial consultation appointment.

Also Read:

• Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2022
• SEO Trends for 2022
• PPC Trends for 2022