Day: October 6, 2022

The digital world is constantly evolving, but some trends are here to stay. Discover the 8 trends for 2022 you won’t want to miss to effectively prepare your 2023 local marketing strategy. Boost the online visibility of your retail locations and drive more traffic—both online and offline! 🚀 Consumers are looking for inspiration online Shopping is local Shopping is increasingly omnichannel Consumers are looking for added value Social commerce is here to stay Short videos are all the rage Micro-influencers: a marketing strategy worth investing in Position Zero, the holy grail of local SEO 4 Consumer Trends for 2022 1. Consumers seek inspiration online According to a recent Google study, more than 48 % of consumers worldwide say they look for inspiration online for their purchases. This trend is confirmed when they actually make a purchase: 91 % of consumers conduct an online search before visiting a store (Ifop, 2020). Our advice: Boost your stores’ online visibility by creating local pages on key platforms (Google, Facebook/Instagram, store locator, etc.). Develop a local content strategy tailored to the latest news from your various retail locations to attract customers to your stores. 2. Shopping Is Local Searches for terms like “open now nearby” have surged by more than +400 % year-over-year worldwide. These figures reflect an increasingly pronounced trend of checking online before heading out, and indicate that when searching for businesses, consumers are increasingly looking for immediate solutions. For example, in the early evening, people are more likely to search Google (Maps) for restaurants open nearby. Our advice: Invest in optimizing the organic search visibility of your retail locations on various mapping platforms (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, Waze, etc.). 3. Shopping Is Becoming Increasingly Omnichannel Who uses just a single information channel these days? Today, beyond traditional channels (TV, radio, print media, etc.), brands connect with consumers through multiple digital channels: Websites Social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.) Search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) E-commerce platforms (Amazon, Bol, etc.) Apps Newsletters and email campaigns … Marketing strategies (both online and offline) should be designed as a seamless experience across these different channels—and, above all, tailored to them: Each platform and medium has its own conventions; communication styles vary depending on the audience’s age and the supported formats. Our advice: Take the time to develop omnichannel communication strategies while ensuring your brand image remains consistent at the local level. 4. Consumers Are Looking for Added Value In a climate of economic uncertainty marked by post-COVID inflation, consumers are seeking added value—both in terms of corporate values (positioning, inclusivity, environmental commitment, etc.) and, above all, in terms of direct added value for themselves: deals and promotions. According to a study on French consumer trends, 52 % of them see their non-food budget stagnating, and 22 % plan to reduce their non-food spending. (source: Into the Minds, 2022) Our advice: amplify your retail locations’ campaigns and promotions through various channels (Facebook, Google, newsletters, etc.). Social media and Google 5. Social selling is here to stay First of all, what is social selling? Social commerce involves promoting and selling products and services through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. According to an eMarketer study on the number of consumers who have made online purchases via social media, there has been a 10% annual increase. Why? Social commerce enables a “frictionless” shopping experience: on a social media platform, a consumer sees a product that interests them, clicks on it, is redirected to an e-commerce site, and, if they wish, completes the purchase and receives their order (if everything goes smoothly and there are no glitches!). Examples of social commerce: Instagram Shopping: allows you to add product tags to images in posts, videos/Reels, and Stories. Facebook Shops: a new interface that lets users discover brands and buy their products within the Facebook app. 6. Short videos are all the rage Do you know what the average person’s attention span is? According to recent studies, it’s gradually shrinking and has recently reached an average of 8 seconds. This, among other factors, explains the success of platforms offering short-form video content, such as TikTok and Instagram. Instagram has nearly 1.4 billion users worldwide, followed by TikTok with 1.02 billion. This makes them extremely popular platforms centered around short videos (or Reels on Instagram). TikTok offers formats ranging from 3 to 60 seconds (via the app) and has also recently introduced “long” formats lasting 3 to 10 minutes. Instagram offers Reels with a maximum length of 90 seconds, as well as videos ranging from 3 seconds to 10 minutes. Why use these formats? These formats (on both TikTok and Instagram) allow for organic reach that can grow exponentially, depending on user interactions (number of views, clicks, likes, comments, shares, etc.). Furthermore, these platforms automatically display content similar to what the user likes in their feed. This means that videos are shown to an audience that is already qualified by its interest in similar topics and is more likely to engage with them. Videos under 15 seconds already account for 45 % of the videos posted in the feed. Guillaume Thévenin, Head of Content Creator Partnerships at Instagram for Southern Europe, via France Inter. 7. Micro-influencers: A Marketing Strategy Worth Investing In Micro-influencers (this includes[…]