If you’re wondering where to invest, for your 2022 recruitment marketing budget, Paul Clegg, from Coconut Creatives offers some crucial insight.
Are you wondering where to invest your marketing spend for 2022? It’s a big area and the landscape seems to be constantly changing; so if you invest in one area, how do you know what will pay off? The short answer is: You don’t! HOWEVER, before you panic, and refuse to spend anything, anywhere, there are stirrings within the marketing world, which I want to highlight, to help you prepare for 2022. So, hold on tight!
Last month, I looked at how your target audience, and their priorities, have changed dramatically since March 2020, highlighting where people were most focused. Now, let’s look at where marketers are already honing in on, to grab their target audiences’ attention.
Digital domination
According to a number of sources, this is where we expect to see an increase in spend, over the coming year. Especially as brands shift their focus more in to digital marketing, because this is where you can expect to receive a stronger return on your investment.
The biggest benefit of digital marketing, one which we cannot stress enough, is the power to remind your target audience you’re there. The worst thing for any brand is to cut back in this area, and give your target the time to forget about you.
So, what does digital marketing entail? According to Smart Insights, the places where brands are focusing their spend is in their website, digital ads, search ads, retargeting, and… yes, you’d better believe it – email, which is making a bounce-back! Gone, though, are the long-winded, wordy newsletters with multiple messages. Emails are becoming sharper, more focused, and include shareable content, like infographics and videos. So, don’t underestimate the power of the right kind of email!
Embracing “other” platforms
If you’re seeing low engagement on your Facebook marketing, rest assured: you’re not alone! According to Search Engine Journal, marketers are already looking at options away from Facebook, following a drop in organic content being seen. The average reach for an organic Facebook post is 5.2% and the average engagement rate is 0.25%.
Alternatives, which are seeing a surge in users and engagement are LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, which has over 1 billion active monthly users worldwide.
The other, somewhat surprising platform experiencing a resurgence in activity, is YouTube. Based on the increasingly active number of monthly users using these video-based channels, is proof – as we’ve said so many times in the past – of the power of video. You can’t hide away from videos, much longer. So, you might as well learn how to make them work for you, your franchise network, and your brand.
Hybrid events, hybrid opportunities
In a recent Forbes article, Covid-19 instilled a sense of the importance of community within people. This means, people are not always prepared to travel long distances, for a meeting, if they don’t have to. So, you will need to continue using remote, online, opportunities, which appeal to your target audience – especially for those early, initial conversations.
Zoom, Teams, and all those other video-meeting platforms, aren’t going anywhere, for a while. Investing in utilising these for one-to-ones, discovery days, even for the occasional live webinars, is definitely something you’ll need to incorporate more of. However, a word of warning: “Zoom fatigue” is a real phenomenon! So, you’ll need to invest your energy into finding clever, engaging ways to host hybrid events, and attract your target to eventually engage with you, offline. Franchising is all about building relationship, and trust, so there will always be the need to meet in person. Remember when we all used to do that?
This might seem like a lot, but – as you say to your franchisees – you’re not alone. The Coconut team are well-versed in all of these areas, and are more than happy to offer you guidance for your 2022 strategy. Feel free to drop me a message.
