Seven Important Things to Keep in Mind About Your 2022 Marketing Plan

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There’s always an interest in strategic planning and digital marketing trends around the turn of the year, and 2022 is no different. But, considering the events of the past couple of years, making predictions has become increasingly challenging.

Nothing has returned to “normal” as expected, and no one is quite sure what normal should look like anymore. But law firm thankfully still have clients, and the overriding goal is to anticipate and meet their needs.

The face of marketing will continue to evolve as law firms become more connected, diverse, and nimble in the face of various challenges. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, here are seven important things to keep in mind about your 2022 marketing plan.

  1. The Client Experience is Everything

It seems like every year is the year of the customer. And that isn’t likely to change. But marketing has shifted for good from trying to convince people to work with your firm to providing a fantastic client experience instead.

About two-thirds of today’s consumers say that the client experience is an important factor in their buying experience. What does this mean? When it comes to the sales funnel, providing a lot of useful information to prospects is vital. Instead of telling people how excellent your firm’s service is, provide content that answers their most pressing questions and gives them some peace of mind.

  1. AI Is an Effective Digital Marketing Tool

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now used by many businesses across all sectors, including law, healthcare, retail, banking, and more. And it’s being used more frequently for marketing purposes to automate repetitive tasks and personalize the user experience.

AI can perform basic tasks like recommending keywords for SEO, reporting on website traffic, and managing customer leads. According to a survey by Epsilon, 80% of consumers admit they’d be more willing to do business with a brand that delivers a personalized experience. AI can help you hyper-personalize social media, email, and content marketing with increased data collection and insights.

  1. Consumers Like Chatbots and Voice Assistants

Consumers have become much less patient when it comes to getting their needs met, probably because there are so many technology solutions available to get the job done quickly. Instead of picking up the phone during business hours or waiting for a return email message, chatbots have taken over simple customer service and support tasks. An AI-powered chatbot can answer basic questions, schedule appointments, and even pre-qualify a lead 24/7, leaving more of the heavy lifting for your human staff.

Consumers are also increasingly using voice assistants to get questions answered and perform other tasks (like shopping). Digital assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant are projected to see an increase in use of 18% over the next year. When you integrate your digital marketing strategy with these solutions, you can expect to see even better results.

  1. Mobile-First Marketing is a Must

More people use mobile devices today to access the internet than any other type of device, such as a desktop. Businesses must create mobile-friendly websites and content or risk a reduction in search engine visibility.

In 2022, every website must have a responsive design that allows customers accessing the information with any type of device to do so quickly and easily.

  1. Multichannel Marketing Will Make a Difference

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic drove a lot of consumers online, people still want to visit physical stores and offices. And, if your firm is strictly online, it would be a mistake to concentrate all of your efforts on a single marketing channel, such as a blog or social media network.

A multichannel marketing approach allows brands to create a strong voice that resonates across as many channels as possible, meeting different customers where they’re at in their buying journeys. This might involve an ongoing combination of blog content, email newsletters and messages, video content, in-store events, and social media posts.

  1. Target Featured Snippets in Google Search

Last year, we mentioned Zero-Click Search Results as a growing trend. This is something brands should continue to target through Google’s featured snippets, knowledge graphs, and video carousels. Google introduced this feature in 2019 as a way to give searchers quick information at the top of the results page. It was so popular that the search engine giant continues to expand on it and give it more importance in terms of the user experience and SEO.

Consumers like to get their information in as few clicks as possible. If you can score one of these features on the first page of Google, you can still get exposure for your business as well as drive traffic to your website from people who want to drill down for more in-depth information. Depending on your strategy, you secure these positions with video content, bulleted lists, tables, and other useful data and statistics posted on your website.

  1. Video Marketing Produces Results

Finally, if you haven’t made video marketing one of your priorities, it is definitely time to start in the coming year. According to research by Cisco, video will account for 82% of all online traffic in 2022. Currently, about 84% of consumers have decided to make purchases after watching an online video.

Your firm has many options when it comes to video content. It can use video to create product demos, produce webinars, and even host live video events. You can post explainer videos that answer people’s questions and introduce your business to viewers.

Is Your 2022 Digital Marketing Plan Ready?

Now is the time to start planning your 2022 marketing strategy. Make sure you start with a clear idea of your goals and how you plan to achieve them. Marketing trends will continue to evolve, but a firm understanding of your audience and its needs will ensure you are able to establish strong relationships and make fast adjustments when needed.

If you are ready to drive more traffic to your website and keep your audience engaged, find out how we can help. Too Darn Loud Digital Marketing is dedicated to offering its clients results-driven digital marketing solutions that work in the current environment. Contact us today at (800) 649-1764 or reach out to us online to schedule a free consultation.

REACT and Adapt Your Marketing Plan

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Have You Updated Your Marketing Plan This Year?

For all businesses, both big and small, marketing is one of the primary considerations when it comes to short and long term strategy. But what happens when the landscape and your business change overnight?

Understandably, most people will immediately think of COVID-19. No one (hardly) saw it coming, and few businesses were prepared to deal with a global pandemic that resulted in a shocking number of deaths in such a short period.

From a human standpoint, it’s been nothing short of devastating. From a business perspective, it’s been one of marketing’s greatest challenges. How do you speak to consumers? What’s the right message? Or the wrong one? How can your company survive this crisis?

If you’ve been in business long enough, you know that wisdom and the keys to success come from many different places. Retired Navy SEAL Jason Redman knows a lot about surviving through tough times. To overcome any crisis, Redman recommends a specific formula that he calls REACT.

REACT to Adapt Your Marketing Plan

When you’re on the battlefield, what you do in the face of adversity can be the difference between life and death. In the business world, you can transfer some of these same hard-won lessons to ensure the survival of your business.

Even better, when circumstances change, how quickly you adapt and the way you do it can set the tone for something even better. In business, just as in war, everyone gets stuck or “ambushed” at some point.

The behavior formula that works to overcome any crisis is called REACT, which is an acronym for the steps your business can take to adapt its marketing plan.

R – Recognize Your Reality

It’s tough to move forward if you fail to recognize that there’s a problem. History is full of companies that have failed to recognize their reality, only to suffer the consequences.

  • Months before Equifax experienced its unprecedented data breach, a security researcher warned the firm that it was vulnerable to a large-scale attack.
  • Netflix approached Blockbuster video in 2000 with a $50 million buyout offer. The company refused, thinking that digital was a niche market. It went bankrupt ten years later.
  • Kodakwas once the world’s largest film company, but it couldn’t keep up with the digital revolution because it didn’t want to compromise its core business. Instead of embracing digital technology, it watched competitors, like Canon, do it instead.

The common theme in these examples is that these companies failed to recognize their reality. In some cases, it can be attributed to a lack of situational awareness.

Many businesses fall into the trap of having departmental silos, where there are unnecessary barriers that prevent the free sharing of information. If your business isn’t working as a cohesive unit, there’s a good chance you will miss opportunities for growth and fail to recognize when there is trouble on the horizon or at your doorstep.

In short, you want to make sure you have a team and the right processes in place that will allow you to sound the alarm bells when you are in crisis. That way, everyone can assemble quickly and figure out the next steps to move forward.

E – Evaluate Your Current Assets

Business issues can be overwhelming. And it might be tempting to throw money at a problem, ignore it, or toss out the first solution that comes to mind. None of these options is the best approach.

When a major crisis hits, take a breath and consider what tools you have to address the problem. A few of the things you’ll want to put on your list include:

Find Your People

Before you make any drastic adjustments to your marketing message and approach, get your team together. Internally, be sure you are speaking with your senior managers as well as frontline people about what has changed. Externally, tap into your peers, mentors, and networking groups to run ideas past people you trust before launching something that takes you in a different direction. If you have a trusted digital marketing partner in your corner, even better.

Identify Your Top Resources

In addition to your people, consider what tools you have that you can immediately bring to the problem. For example, if you have a strong social media presence, this is something you can leverage to adapt your marketing message fairly quickly.

Some brands like to use video marketing to get their message out and engage with their audience. If you’ve done this in the past and have the pieces in place, it would be an ideal choice. Likewise with email marketing or paid ads.

A – Assess Possible Outcomes and Options

Once you’ve identified the assets in your toolbox, it’s time to assess the various possible options and outcomes. Some companies have ready plans in place because they’ve engaged in scenario planning, where they sit down, figure out all of the potential things that could go wrong (like a global pandemic), and then come up with pivot plans to execute when certain events take place.

If you haven’t engaged in scenario planning, this might be something to put on your list. But, you can still respond to changes in the market and unforeseen events quickly and appropriately.

Gather your team together and figure out the different options and outcomes. Here are a few things to consider:

Gauge Customer Behavior and Sentiment

Long before COVID-19 showed up, consumers had begun to show less trust in big brands and more in local businesses. No matter where your business lands with regards to size, you can work to establish trust by focusing on the customer with your actions.

First, listen to your customers to understand their wants and needs. Use social listening tools and other solutions like surveys. Also, make sure you are completely transparent in your response about what your company can and can’t deliver.

Anticipate Operational Impacts

Speaking of what you can and can’t deliver, make sure your team assesses its capacity thoroughly in light of any market changes. Were your supply chains interrupted? Will you need to find alternative resources? Once you figure out operations, re-assess your budget with respect to optimizing your marketing message.

Look at Your Competitors

For a bigger picture understanding of what’s going on, make sure you take a close look at what the competition is doing. This way, you can see what is working and what isn’t with regards to shifting messages and even taking your business in a different direction. If nothing else, it can give you a fresh perspective as you work through these issues.

Don’t Forget Your Core Values

When weighing your options, don’t forget the mission and core values that drive your company’s strategic objectives. Encourage your team to think about the practices and ideals that make your brand unique. Any solution you come up with should remind customers why they enjoy being one of your partners.

As you go through this process, it’s important to remember that the best long-term solution might also be the most uncomfortable path for your business. Even if you have to endure some short-term pain, it will be worth it if you can achieve long-term success.

C – Choose and Communicate Your Direction

At some point during this process, you’ll need to choose your path. When the unexpected happens, it’s not surprising that you may not have a clear path forward. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting in digital marketing by using the tools at your fingertips, such as engagement analytics and A/B testing.

But, at some point, you need to seize the moment and move forward. Decide how your business is going to address the situation and get everyone on board. The more buy-in you have from your team, the greater your chance of success.

Schedule a meeting to discuss why you are adapting your marketing plan this way and then outline the logistics of your approach. Don’t forget that you also have an opportunity to bond with your team through adversity and make sure you are acknowledging their stress and efforts.

T – Take Action

Finally, the longer your team stays in planning mode, the tougher it’s going to be to get momentum to address the shift in events. Swift execution is vital to the success of your plan. Your customers may be waiting to hear what you have to say, and you want to get your message out there in front of your competitors.

A big part of marketing is being able to adapt and pivot to changing events quickly. For example, when COVID hit, many brands transformed their live events into virtual ones. People who were forced to stay at home were also increasingly drawn to live streaming events over recorded videos. Brands that made these quick shifts were able to achieve quick success as well as make lasting connections with their audience.

Get Help Adapting Your Marketing Plan

When you understand your audience, deliver consistent communication, and adapt your message quickly to market changes, you’ll be able to successfully guide prospects through your business’s sales funnel. These are the ingredients to produce greater brand loyalty and higher revenue.

Sound like a tall order? Too Darn Loud Marketing wants to help your brand get heard in a complex and noisy world. Contact us today, and our specialists will dig into your business to develop a customized plan for success.