17 Marketing Trends in Australia 2022

The world has seen a tremendous flux over the last two plus years, and it continues to influence how consumers relate to brands online. Several marketing trends in Australia stand out for their ability to help marketers meet their goals and drive revenues for their brands.

1. More than Written Content

Increasingly, consumers have choices. They despise thinly veiled sales pushes and disingenuous attempts at making a connection. They won’t interact with the brand that delivers blah content.

The brands that can move beyond seeing content as a means to an end and instead demonstrate that they value the reader will succeed in marketing.

Yes, written content is still effective in Australia in 2022. But it must be visual, inspirational, high-value and apply other marketing trends in this list.

2. Consumer Priorities Changing

During lockdown, many brands thrived as customers spent indiscriminately on staying entertained, managing stress, and experiencing some semblance of normal life. But those days are over.

Consumers are again exercising restraint and prioritising their purchases. You’ll find consumers more discerning and gravitating towards brands that both share their values and deliver what they need right now in the buyers’ journey.

Consumers are looking for mutual respect between the brand and buyer. They will leave if that respect is not there.

We shouldn’t discount this more selective consumer. Among them are your most loyal customers and vocal supporters. Continue to engage them with the right message at the right time.

Generate content that guides them through the buyer’s journey to stay top of mind and poised to earn their business.

3. Generating Connection

Trying to create a connection is nothing new in marketing. But how we do it is changing. We have more and better tools, budgets, and the capacity to take the time to get to know customers and connect with them through shared values.

You now have the ability to allow consumers to guide their user experiences and to make that experience most relevant to them through automation, segmentation, and personalisation.

This allows you to truly put your customer experience first and consistently meet marketing goals.

4. Voice Optimisation

These days, more and more people are speaking to search engines rather than typing. Those search engines must parse through millions of potential websites trying to answer that query to deliver the best answer.

Search engine optimisation certainly has its similarities to voice optimisation (SEO). But the latter requires a more direct approach to answering voice questions, which has led to a revival of the FAQ style of writing.

It’s important to understand who your customers are, what they ask, and how they use Voice. It’s equally critical to understand how the competition is attempting to answer these questions so you can do it better.

But just like SEO, it’s important to create content for people, not just search engines. Content that seems overoptimised for Voice can be hard to consume otherwise. Marketers are continuing to work toward that balance.

5. Serialised Content

The way people consume media is changing. They’re moving away from big-budget media companies and expecting more content from the brands they buy. This can quickly become overwhelming for marketing content creators expected to constantly release new content — and win at it every time.

For these reasons, serialised content is gaining acceptance and a following. Instead of releasing your next big content asset at once, you release it in a “stackable” series. Engage people over a period of time, get your fans talking about the series and anticipating what will happen next.

6. Shoppable Posts

Another carry-over from the pandemic, shoppable posts further integrate the buying experience into everyday online behaviour.

Shoppable social media posts allow consumers to click a post and buy a product without even having to the social platform. You create a seamless buying experience through these posts, and social media platforms love you for not guiding their users off the platform.

This is a win-win-win for all involved and clearly a winning trend in 2022.

7. Greater Email Personalisation

In comparison to other digital marketing technologies, email seems ancient. But it’s still highly effective when used correctly.

In 2022, marketers are focusing on increasing email relevance to each person rather than delivering one-size-fits-all.

Of course, no company has the resources to create an individual newsletter for every subscriber, so they’re employing some advanced technologies to deliver that more relevant experience using:

• Automation
• Segmentation
• Machine learning
• Event-triggered emails

8. Social Media Messaging

When social media messages were first introduced, most people used them to communicate with friends and family. Later, more people used them to access customer support after buying. Then Sales began using it to stay connected with prospects and nurture leads to close.

Social media messaging continues to evolve. People are now using it earlier in the buyer’s journey, during the awareness and consideration phases of their journey.

Marketing companies need to be available to converse with customers through messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, as well as social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram Direct Messaging.

9. Viral Video Focus

New tools make it easier for individuals and brands to produce excellent video content. More and better videos are quickly becoming the norm in both marketing and everyday life. It’s important for brands to capitalise on this trend and become part of video culture.

But to get the most out of video, it’s important to also keep up with video trends and tools like:

• Video memes — Short videos that tell a story or joke or communicate a “feeling” or common human experience.
• Mobile video enhancement tools — It’s easier than ever to create high-quality videos on your smartphone and apply advanced features like augmented reality (AR) without expensive video editing tools.
• Trending Audio — Trending audio tells you what songs are trending on a platform, so you can choose the right one for your video.
• Auto-captions — Auto-captions add captioning “automatically” to the video to make videos more accessible to those with hearing loss and those who view videos with no volume (a prevalent way to watch videos, especially at work)

10. Creative Expression

Australian brands are finding new ways to attract their target audience and inspire consumers along the buyer’s journey with creative videos, imagery, and brand storytelling that think outside the box and seek a reaction.

11. Authenticity and Brand Transparency

People want to feel respected and appreciated by brands. They want to know what you really have to offer and what to expect when they become customers.

How you communicate authenticity and transparency online provides them with a glimpse of your true nature and can build trust you leverage to earn a customer.

Over-edited images, artificial ingredients, and trying to hide every flaw and imperfection are all out. People want to see the real you.

Put a face and name on your marketing emails and social media posts.

Focus on content that showcases real people from different walks of life using your products. Show the employees behind the scenes, making your products possible.

Don’t be afraid to own up to your mistakes and laugh at yourself in the right setting. But don’t force it. If you’re not the lighthearted brand, trying to be that seems inauthentic. Find your voice and commit to it.

12. Interactive Content

Interactive content allows the user to guide their own experience. Some consumers love visuals, numbers, charts, and diagrams. Some want to learn about a product by reading, and others — videos, quizzes, and calculators.

For many, it depends on the day. All of these and other forms of content can support the buying journey.

Current marketing trends in Australia include generating the same information in various content formats and allowing consumers to choose which they want to view today.

13. Diversity

Social media has allowed the world to showcase diversity in media. As it does, consumers are increasingly aware of brands that lack diversity or inclusiveness.

Find ways to respectfully include various sexual identities, ethnicities, religious beliefs, ages, body types, “perceived imperfections”, and those with other abilities. Show that all kinds of people can enjoy your brand.

14. Automation

Automation continues to be crucial for the modern marketer.

It eliminates the tediousness of marketing and allows your team to focus on more stimulating, creative tasks.

It helps you do more on a smaller marketing budget, combining the management and analytics across marketing channels to keep your target audience engaged 24/7 without losing sleep.

15. Social Media As a Tool for Change

We continue to see people unite for causes on social media to bring about change in the real world. As a marketing trend, it’s essential to be aware of these movements to avoid appearing oblivious to them.

You don’t have to participate. But you must know enough to not unintentionally insert yourself into the conversation.

16. Marketing-Customer Support Alignment Through Chatbots

Chatbots aren’t just for customer support. They serve a vital role in helping a potential customer effectively navigate the buyer’s journey.

The presence of chatbots on a website demonstrates how much your brand values the customer before and after they make a purchase. This builds trust, leading to a purchase decision or a willingness to buy more from your brand. Chatbots unify marketing, sales, and support with consistent messaging and the use of technology to appear coherent from the consumer’s point of view.

Chatbots start as a basic question-and-answer resource, helping consumers find the information they’re looking for on the website. But by using artificial intelligence and machine learning, they can learn from interactions with people on your website. Over time, they can more quickly and reliably deliver the best answer first.

17. More Influencer Marketing

Influencers continue to drive brand awareness as they share their unique experiences with your products. They encourage their followers to check out the brands that support them, making supporting your brand an act of supporting the influencers they love.

In 2022, we’re seeing more influencer collaborations where influencers work together either directly or indirectly to generate awareness for a brand that sponsors their content.

Influencer marketing continues to be popular because it helps marketers achieve marketing goals faster. But that does come at a cost.

So it’s vital for brands applying this trend to prepare for the influx of orders they’ll receive once the campaign is launched. And leverage this exposure to improve marketing performance among other marketing trends on this list.

That way, you’ll get the highest return on investment for that influencer marketing effort.

Takeaways

A lot of the usual suspects continue to top the list of marketing trends in Australia. But how marketers apply these trends is ever-changing. And that can become a trend itself.

It’s important to look at the trends and how successful marketers are using them to get the best results.

Consider your target audience and how they interact daily with digital content. Continue to analyse your marketing performance and adapt to connect and influence customers.