Every business professional should have their eyes on young and upcoming entrepreneurs and influencers. What these budding stars and innovative brands create and promote will have a direct impact on what consumers are looking for in stores, exploring in their careers, and chasing in their personal lives. If you aren’t aware of emerging trends for 2022, you’re already behind your more in-tuned competitors.
Innovative Growth Strategies
Growth is a continuous mission, whether you’re a young influencer on social media, an entrepreneur ready to disrupt an industry, or a CEO leading one of the largest companies in the Middle East or Africa. The pressure to end the year bigger, stronger, and more competitive is always there, but the focus is on growing through innovation in 2022.
Working with a strategic planning consultant is the fastest way to come up with innovative ideas for significant growth, but we have some other suggestions based on the current focus of young entrepreneurs and influencers.
Create Engaging Content with Storytelling
Have you noticed a shift in how your competitors are writing their website content, blogs, and social media posts? Leading brands in all industries are embracing storytelling to resonate more with readers and stimulate engagement. The basic focus is on descriptive language that provokes mental images plus stories of real customers, brand leaders, and everyday workers.
More engagement with your target market is essential to business growth. You want to connect with real people online because those connections are now what make or break many businesses.
Enhanced Email, Text, and Phone Marketing
The value of growing an email list and developing an email marketing strategy isn’t new. What is new to some are the added channels of marketing with a list of telephone numbers. Voice broadcasting services are becoming widespread and affordable. They allow you to send hundreds or thousands of messages simultaneously without relying on live call handlers.
If you have an extensive email marketing list, spend some time exploring voicemail marketing, SMS marketing, and phone broadcasting. You may find some innovative ways to make your marketing plan more effective. Working with an information technology consultant may help if you aren’t up to speed on the technology that makes these new marketing channels work.
Explore New Markets
All the big political and cultural shifts happening around the world have an immediate and long-term impact on businesses in all industries. If you spend some time looking at the aftermath of the pandemic, you may already know that products in the home goods sector skyrocketed as billions of people were forced to stay home and even work from home for years.
Other shifts and significant events occurring in your local area and around the world will have a similar impact on consumers. If you can identify products and services that are now in demand or are likely to surge in the near future, you can expand your business in lucrative directions.
Eco-Conscious Production
It’s now common for clothing and home goods brands to openly discuss the fabrics used to create their products. Many businesses are opening their manufacturing processes to the virtual world and advertising their commitment to eco-friendly practices. It seems like businesses big and small are making strides to conserve natural resource while keeping their products as healthy for consumers as possible.
Moving through 2022 and into the future, it’s likely that more consumers will start demanding such transparency. If you haven’t started moving your company toward eco-conscious production, now is the time to get your eco-friendly strategy in line.
Creator-Focused Marketplaces
In the future, new brands, rising influencers, and businesses of all sizes are likely to invest heavily in marketplaces that cater to creators. There is an enormous market opening up for virtual services that allow creators to easily connect with a paying audience. There are many ways your brand can utilize this market:
- Market your services to an expansive market and connect with new customers
- Find new creators interested in partnerships or shared marketing ventures
- Create a new marketplace or service that connects creators with their intended audiences
Shift to Video Content Partnership
Video marketing has come a long way since the introduction of YouTube in 2005. The days of producing videos and putting them online with the hopes of receiving a few comments have given way to interactive video content that can go viral immediately or years after release.
We’re seeing big connections between broadcasting companies and social media channels as well as partnerships between influencers and brands. Video content is now interactive with the use of chat and comment threads. Influencers and brand leaders are also taking advantage of live streaming to connect directly with their markets.
Video marketing can make your company feel more available to consumers when you do it right. Partnerships one way to get it right.
Renewed Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
The world is full of individuals, and they all want to feel included, understood, and valued. Influencers are taking to social media to create a sense of inclusiveness, and many new brands are embracing humankind with a focus on diversity. Businesses can join in by creating more inclusive and welcoming offices, manufacturing plants, products, and services.
Open Sharing of Financial Intellect
It was once incredibly hard for most people to access venture capital, but we now have open crowdsourcing platforms online. It’s easier than ever to gain access to funds when you’re starting a new business or launching a new product. That’s largely due to the open culture of financial knowledge sharing.
Some of the most successful social media influencers gain their followers by openly sharing everything they know about specific industries. They tell everyday people how to gain funds for a new business, find paying gigs online, and improve their health while earning some spare change. Whatever you know well, you can increase your following and gain the trust of your market by simply sharing your financial intellect.
Making the Remote Workforce Work
Working from home was once a dream held by most and a reality enjoyed by few. We can now say that has flipped upside down. The pandemic forced businesses in all industries to quickly adjust to virtual work. While many are now moving back to the office to resume business as usual, the reality of a remote workforce is far from dying out.
Social media platforms are still buzzing with influencers sharing tips on finding work-from-home opportunities, adjusting to work-at-home arrangements, and making real money as freelancers or gig workers. Businesses are exploring virtual solutions that save time and money. The remote workforce and gig economy are trends to watch in the future.
Building Strong Habits
Finally, habit building is essential in 2022. Influencers are talking openly about self-care, mental health, and work-life balance. There’s a mood of positivity and self-love spreading around the world. From taking daily walks to connecting with friends and eliminating toxic relationships, everyday people are getting excited about building strong habits in their professional personal lives.
Consumer Goods Consulting | Retail Consulting Services
Ollen Group is one of the leading consumer goods and retail consulting firms in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region offering consumer goods consultancy services and retail consultancy services from strategy to execution, as well as design, development, and deployment. We focus on helping our clients plan, develop, and implement innovative strategies that change the game for everyone in 2023 and beyond.
Read our latest insights, ideas, and perspectives that explore the trends shaping the future of business and society. Our consultancy services go hand-in-hand with these insights, confirming our position as industry leaders. Get in touch to find out more about our consulting services and industry expertise.
