To Keep an Eye on
As a marketing solutions company with lots of interest in innovation and change – we’re big on knowing what’s trending and what’s to come. 2021 was filled with a ton of new trends, some – because of changing times and innovation – others, because of big events and worldly occurrences. To stay ahead and prepare for the new year, we’ve looked into the top marketing trends – within design, print, and digital, to keep an eye out for in 2022.
2022 Design Trends
Visual Inclusion
Recent movements around the nation, and even the world, have sparked a broader portrayal of diversity and inclusion in visuals. When crafting your marketing, think about how you can show diverse people in a variety of ways – in your photography, graphics, and iconography. And, even more, think about including imagery of people that your target audience(s) can relate to.“The default for people icons and images are no longer white, male, and able-bodied. There is more representation from marginalized groups in marketing visuals.” The more open, inclusive, and inviting your marketing is, the more likely you’ll bring in a diverse range of interested (and trusting) customers.
Bold Backgrounds
Bold and bright backgrounds and backgrounds with patterns are on the rise. These types of backgrounds attract attention and stand out from the pack, among otherwise modern – and primarily dull, gray, or white – busy feeds and mailboxes. Try using a brighter, bolder background to stand out among other marketing materials. This tactic can be “quite stunning when paired with more simple typography or other design elements,”but, to make this trend work for you and your brand, “ensure that everything has a place and there’s good eye flow between elements.”
Unique & Fun Typography
The year 2022 will be all about typography that “breaks standards”, such as “one single letter…upside down, bigger or smaller, in a different font, or completely missing.” Forecasters expect “lettering that pushes the bounds of easy legibility, creating forms that are expressive in and of themselves.” This unique and rising design tactic can also make for more internationally understandable text and imagery that can be read from culture to culture.
Authentic Imagery
Authentic, realistic imagery that your audience can connect with is always important – but will be increasingly popular in 2022. People don’t want to see fake stock families and disingenuous product photos. They want to see real. “Even commercial photography is shifting to look more like snapshots for these projects” instead of planned, posed imagery. This tactic may be a little less polished and intentional, but it works, because it’s relatable. “More authentic imagery is not amateurish; it’s just a different style.” Yet, this doesn’t mean taking blurry or “thrown together” photos. It means shooting high-quality photography that’s just a bit more casual and realistic to real, day-to-day life.
2022 Digital Marketing Trends
Conversational Marketing
This will be a big one for 2022, as it’s already been on the rise for quite a few years. Why? People want to connect with, and relate to, real people. And, they want fairly immediate responses from those real people. Customers feel more connected with and trusting of companies that tell their story, as well as the stories of their products. They want to hear and see real life examples of what the product has and does, and what sets it apart.
A recent study found that 41.3% of consumers use conversational marketing tools before making purchases. “Unlike traditional strategies, this form of marketing is now available across multiple channels, allowing brands to meet customers on their terms: on the devices, platforms and time schedules that suit the customer best.”
Read more about customer communication and relatability, here.
Video Marketing
This trend isn’t new, and is likely to continue in popularity for the next 5-10 years. It’s no surprise to us (and likely not a surprise to you) that 61% of marketers see video as a “very important or extremely important” part of their marketing strategy. It’s a useful tactic not only because of its visual appeal and high rate of easily digestible content, but because it can be republished on several platforms, and cut and manipulated for repurposing. A recent study recorded that “84% of consumers have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a video.”
To read more on video marketing, click here.
Interactive Content
This year, there will be a noticeable marketing shift from “traditional text-based content toward dynamic, engaging content” like quizzes, augmented reality, polls, 360-degree videos, and more. These tools give customers a more memorable connection with both the product and the company, and get them involved with the brand – not just get them to see it. In fact, 91% of customers are interested in seeing more content they can interact with.
First-Party and Zero-Party Data
We’ve talked a bit about this topic before in a fairly recent blog post, and this trend is sure to skyrocket into 2022. This year, “first-party cookies will force marketers to be mindful of the data they collect and how they use it,” primarily because companies can now only use their own collected data. This also means that companies will need to be much more authentic and transparent with their customers. Along with first-party data, zero-party data – data given to a brand or company directly from the consumer, will also be a key focus. Some examples of ways to acquire this data are through surveys, forms, or email.
2022 Print Marketing Trends
Combining Print & Digital
This particular trend – we’re very well-versed in. Combining print and digital can do wonders for your campaigns, meeting your customers with mulitple touches on and offline. A great example of this combination is using a personalized URL and QR code on a printed piece. QR codes on print marketing not only give customers an easy way to get to know your company better, but can be vehicles to get customers to purchase or sign up for a program – immediately. These types of combination tactics are flexible, dynamic, and cater to many differing age groups.
Creative Customer Personalization
Also, a great online or offline tool? Personalization. When your company caters to a specific type of audience, or even specific customers rather than a blanketed group, you’re more likely to meet customer’s needs and turn them into loyal ones. Additionally, personalization can be cost effective. Why’s this? In order to personalize, you can’t target everyone – just the right ones.
Direct Mail
Lastly, not a new or surprising trend to us, direct mail will continue to grow in popularity in 2022. “With the content marketing boom and remote working becoming the new normal, many consumers have become ‘numb’ to digital marketing campaigns.” So, if you haven’t, why not give direct mail marketing a go? Trying out this re-emerging marketing trend could bring a ton of new customers to your site, as 70% of people engage with a brand online after receiving their direct mail.
Read more on why direct mail is so impactful, here.
Interested in ramping up your marketing in 2022 using one or more of these solutions? We can help! Contact the experts at Strata, today.
Where We Are & Where We’re Going
Operation Eco. The name we’ve chosen to represent our environmental initiatives – big or small. The term “operation” has many meanings. One: performance of a practical work or of something involving the practical application of principles or processes. Two: the fact or condition of functioning or being active. And three: an act of surgery performed on a patient. Not only does our team plan to perform practical work that holds true to our principles and values, but we plan to be active in our environmental choices, not just passively checking off a box. And, although we’re not doctors here at Strata, we plan to operate with knowledge, meticulous research, and care for wellness (for both our earth, and our employees).
Our Mission, Vision, & Values
As a team, Operation Eco is dedicated to guiding Strata on an impactful, research-driven journey to evolve our workplace (and even perhaps, ourselves). The workplace is its own ecosystem, affected by our operations, vendors, consumers and our team. Reducing our total eco-footprint and achieving long-term sustainability will be a journey of both small and large challenges. We’re striving to make the largest positive environmental impact as well as encourage positive change in our individual habits. According to the EPA, the largest contributor to carbon emissions is transportation, which is just one example of how we all can make an impact by our individual decisions.
We may just be one small company, but we believe our impact can be greater than our size. To make this impact, we’ll continuously research, test, implement and adjust our eco-focused strategies in order to figure out what tactics have the biggest influence on our efforts and our environment. We plan to stay true to our mission yet be flexible with our timelines, because we understand that a more environmentally conscious, sustainable, flexible, and modern workplace culture is an ongoing, team-based journey, not a singular destination.
Among other things, we value research, accountability, flexibility, communication, partnership and teamwork, innovation, long-term sustainability and efficiency, and modernization. Our value statements are as follows:
- We understand that eco-first decisions should not be made in a vacuum and should be driven, and backed by research.
- We acknowledge that as members of the Operation Eco team, we must be thoughtful about and accountable for our actions, lead by example, and communicate our knowledge and values of sustainability to the company.
- We know that Strata’s eco-first initiative is a journey, and therefor acknowledge that we must be flexible with our decisions, processes, timelines and overall goal for the future.
- We are open to partnering with sustainability experts, knowing that this in uncharted territory for our company, and understanding that industry leaders can help us further our journey and reach our end goal of becoming a carbon neutral company by 2030 and fully sustainable by 2035.
- We are willing to continuously educate ourselves and others in the company on the principles and possibilities of sustainability and are willing to pursue innovative solutions along the way.
- We will continuously keep the wellness and morale of our employees in mind as we go through this journey.
The Operation Eco team’s goal is to work together to guide Strata, and our broader “eco system” on a journey to sustainability that’s driven by research, collaboration, and innovation. We will be thoughtful about all of our actions, open to opinions, and actively communicate our progress. Again – to put it simply, we’re determined to help Strata become a carbon neutral company by 2030 and fully sustainable by 2035.
You’ll notice that we’ve chosen a logo to represent Operation Eco that is quite simple, yet contains an arrow moving towards the right (forward). We’ve included this arrow to symbolize growth over time, as we know our plans and vision may change, but our overall goal will stay the same.
Our Past
Strata has always kept an eye on the environment and our impact – with roots in the printing industry, we’ve always known that we have to pay closer attention to it than most. Over the years, we’ve done our best to handle waste chemicals with care and efficiency. We’ve paid attention to what was available to us to keep waste low, and have recycled or given our waste to a reclamation company.
Safety-Kleen, a leader in waste disposal services, is the company we’ve used most often for waste reclamation. They specialize in “proper handling, recycling, and disposal of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste” and “ensure that your waste solution balances your objectives, operational demands and budget, while eliminating your environmental burden.”
We’ve also worked with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) who ensures certification of paper offerings that are from renewable sources. What does this mean? That this paper was made with the least environmental impact, and the organization responsible for it “shall maintain, conserve and/or restore ecosystem services and environmental values of the Management Unit, and shall avoid, repair or mitigate negative environmental impacts.” We’ve also worked with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), who provide “solutions to local and global sustainability challenges.”
Strata also uses (and has used for many years) vegetable dye inks. Additionally, the largest chemical waste from our digital printers, imaging oil, is now reusable dramatically reducing this waste stream.
Although we’ve strived to be environmentally conscious in the past, we believe that our Operation Eco team will help us to hone in on what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and what we can do to make our company as environmentally neutral as possible.
Our Future
As we stated in our mission above, Strata hopes to conduct ample research and seek out experiences that help us to figure out what tactics have the biggest impact on our efforts and our environment. Our first and current focuses are renovations and remodeling and eco-friendly and efficient chemistry. Check back for next steps.
Interested in following along with Operation Eco’s journey? Keep an eye out for future StrataBytes blogs on our website, and connect with us on social media (Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn) to follow our eco initiative.