The year 2022 is hours away, and while many companies are closed, senior teams of all sizes are pondering how to navigate another quarter in a global pandemic. Below are some of our most important takeaways from 2021 that are likely to bring success in the new year.

E-Commerce Growth Continues

Businesses that transitioned to mainly digital mitigated some of their losses, and the diversification of accepted electronic payments has helped businesses during these difficult times.

Having both a brick-and-mortar business and an e-commerce site can be very beneficial, as long as there are customer journey paths between the two locations.

Customer loyalty programs, special online-only discounts, early product reveals, in-store QR code scans are all great ways to bridge them together.

With many consumers working in hybrid situations, businesses should utilize marketing strategies to stay at the forefront of consumers’ minds, where shopping is a click away, unfettered by employer firewalls.

Is your product over $100? It might be good to implement Payment plan software like Klarna. Giving customers the option to pay off their purchases over installments.

While 2022 will surely bring its own challenges, keeping these lessons from a rollercoaster year will aid in your marketing strategy.

iOS and Tracking Restrictions Take Effect:

As marketing methods change, so should your marketing strategy.  This means investing time in high-quality content and focusing on marketing efforts that will bring you the most success in 2022.

The release of iOS 14.5 and the introduction of tracking restrictions have had a significant impact on how marketers are able to track user behavior.

Data privacy is important and it’s an unfortunate repercussion of the new policies. But there will be more opportunities than ever before to interact with customers and make a lasting impression on them.

App limitations make it more difficult and costly for advertising networks to target consumers easily. One tactic is app ownership merging. Only one prohibitive notification will appear via Apple’s system in this scenario.

Your list is so important to your company’s success. You’ll be successful in 2022 if you invest the time and effort into growing and nurturing your list. Email, SMS, Chatbots all become that much more important

Your marketing success depends on your list and why they signed up for it!

Email is Still a Very Effective Strategy

Email marketing is arguably more important now than it ever was before. However, while email marketing is extremely important right now, it can also be difficult to do well.

If you want to get all of the benefits of email marketing, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with all of the best practices and stay current with the latest trends.

Once again, grow and nurture your email list.

Your readers have no reason to provide you with their email addresses if they don’t think that you’re going to provide them with value.

The best way for you to grow your list is by providing as much valuable content as possible- this will allow your audience to trust you and see you as an authority in your field. Do not over-promote.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to use email marketing to its full advantage.

Once you have a strong foundation set up for your marketing, it will be time to expand into the world of marketing automation- where marketing tasks are automated so that they can run with minimal human intervention or oversight.

User-Generated Content Dominates

Social media has been a double-edged sword for companies pursuing e-commerce. As people share more content, interact digitally, it becomes increasingly necessary for companies’ strategies to integrate “what’s trending” in order to be seen.

This can be challenging for e-commerce departments without marketing support tracking data. As new platforms rise to the top of the social media food chain, challenges to stay current will increase.

Content does not have to be overproduced in the emerging world of story posts and TikTok videos.

Testimonials recorded on a cellphone are perfect for these channels. If you sell knives, record a video of someone making a meal and explaining why the knives are their go too when cooking.

Thought about influencer marketing?

Influencer product trades and testimonials are a great way to spread your brand’s message to new users.

*note that content produced with influencers may require more work than you are expecting.

If users respond well, it could become very time-intensive to manage the campaign.

Partnering with influencers in your marketing plan can be effective, but it’s important to have your core social strategy in place first.

With all of these lessons in mind and new opportunities in 2002, having a team to support your marketing efforts, might be a wise choice.