2022 Predictions Series: User Experience Above All
January 20, 2022
User experience is important to integrate throughout your entire marketing landscape. From search to digital marketing options and experiential marketing strategies, the recent explosion in options means too many choices to succeed. The best organizations focus strategies on fewer channels to do fewer things that better connect with their audiences.
Experiential Marketing Makes a Comeback
Experiential marketing will make a big comeback in 2022, with audiences looking to participate in live, immersive experiences. This will come in many forms, whether it is physical, live-streaming, or virtual experiences on augmented reality platforms. Though VR/AR platforms offer questionable ROI and continue to be challenging to break into, they are still a noteworthy trend.
Alternatively, in-person, immersive experiences continue to be fun, compelling, and highly shareable on social media. During an in-market activation with Visit Tampa Bay, consumers showed that audiences value these types of experiences. Destinations should balance in-destination and target market origin locations, especially if there is an opportunity to engage the creator economy, their platforms, and the ability to go live at any moment.
Curating Better Digital Experiences for Consumers
With nearly one billion people using ad blockers to avoid ads, there is no doubt that consumers want a better digital experience. Knowing this, it’s important to focus less on creating online ads consumers are predisposed to dislike and instead acquire audiences on their terms. Turn to collaborating with trusted influencers and emphasizing video advertising on platforms like TikTok.
We are also seeing a re-emergence in native advertising. Storytelling campaigns are a non-disruptive approach to content that seamlessly blends in with the design of sites. With compelling calls to action and engaging imagery, it is not surprising to see native ads perform over 10 times better than banners ads that went through multiple rounds of design and concepting.
Do Fewer, Better
It would be best to focus on doing fewer, better within your social channels. Quality outperforms quantity. Instead of posting multiple times a day, optimize for the best quality content and supplement it with paid amplification. While viral videos can happen, the algorithms are designed to make that an exception and not a rule.
- Focus on being there with the content for a social audience
- Focus your ads and content around seasonal themes
- Curate location-specific content
- Write brief stories that promote live events specific to geographical locations
This will help drive your organic local community members and lead to growing opportunities to collaborate with your partners and other brands.
Want More Tips & Insights?
Learn more about what 2022 will look like by following our blog, or on Facebook and LinkedIn, where we’ve shared a series of predictions from our team.
