Author: Franz Malten Buemann

 

 

As in the Chinese proverb, we live in interesting times that challenge us to transgress our limitations and act more effectively—to put it simply, the lean way. In this article, we outline the most urgent challenges in today’s eCommerce Marketing and provide clues on how to brace for the change that is already here.

 

Interesting times

 

First, the COVID-19 pandemic has heavily changed the dynamics of growth in e-commerce. With the pandemic slowly fading, people had started to see the future in brighter colors, and everything was slowly getting back to normal. Yet reality proved to be different. 

Inflation more than doubled between March 2021 and March 2022. On the 24th of February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. These disruptions are having a crippling effect on all stages of the eCommerce business process (i.e., from sourcing to delivery and even consumption patterns and mindset).

Globally, eCommerce revenues have dropped by 3% in Q1 2022 and by 13% in Europe. At the same time, the world is going through an unstoppable process of digitalization, which requires further adaptation from eCommerce businesses. 

 

An urgent need for a new approach to eCommerce marketing

 

This all made marketing in eCommerce one of the most exciting areas of today’s business world—but at the same time, one of the most demanding. One could argue that all these global factors simply sped up the changes that were inevitable anyway. The fact remains that the new reality forced extra effort on eCommerce companies to deal with it. This resulted in new hyperaggressive competition strategies. In such a highly competitive environment, steadily growing customer acquisition costs suddenly skyrocketed. 

On the other hand, growing customer demand for individualized relationships and superior relevance has resulted in the increasing complexity of the omnichannel experience. eCommerce marketers are also confronted by significant fragmentation and the increasing costs of marketing technology solutions—which, of course, mean reliance on IT and other difficult-to-find kinds of expertise. 

All these challenges make it harder than ever to achieve acceptable conversion rates and returns on marketing investment. Marketers in eCommerce are supposed to act cost-effectively and deliver results faster in the context of increasingly complex marketing communication, the fragmentation of their toolset, and growing dependency on precious experts. These requirements seem to conflict with each other.

In reality, the implementation of strategies slowed, the impact lessened, and meeting revenue expectations became an ever-greater challenge. In their quest for growth, marketing teams are facing:

The never-ending demand for more resources while needing to be lean and differentiated;Shortsighted “spray and pray” tactics instead of a long-term vision focused on building value;The constant search for the ideal Martech stack setup and new tools instead of focusing on customers.

This creates a gap between eCommerce abilities and needs that must be addressed immediately.

 

State of eCommerce today: Pain points

 

To identify the major pain points of eCommerce marketing today, we simply ask our customers about them. The most prevalent answers we got were:

The inability to grow customer lifetime value; Competing with the best customer experience; The need to increase customer engagement as they are online; The inability to build loyalty with customers; The inability to bring customers back to your website and generate reorders; Problems with keeping customers’ interest high across their buyer journey; The inability to lower customer churn; The inability to increase order frequency; Problems with increasing the average order value; Problems with increasing the average order size.

 

 

How to become lean while increasing effectiveness: Three core principles

 

These are all very serious problems. Analyzing our customers’ answers, we turned to the lean marketing concept, which was developed to address the seemingly contradictory needs of marketing teams: to act lean and cost-effective, yet deliver the best results and meet the revenue expectations of the CEOs. To learn more about lean marketing, read our previous Insight.

From the standpoint of a martech company, we can only say, go this way. There are platforms specialized in managing lean marketing processes that utilize Kanban and other useful tools.

However, we also formulated 3 core principles that define what to seek in a customer engagement platform and how to use it in lean marketing processes. These rules both set out the path for us in the software development process and guide our customers in its effective utilization—the lean way.

Customer intimacy: We implement self-learning solutions that leverage zero- and first-party data. Sticking to this principle enables the marketing team to know their customers better than their best friends. This results in increased loyalty and authentic customer relationships.

 

 

How do you benefit?

A self-sustainable ecosystem that gathers manages, and uses zero- and first-party data (single profile; no-code approach);Capture all customer data automatically across all relevant sources;Data enrichment (#1 on G2Crowd) that is dynamically updated with visitor identification and behavior and data tracking (24/7);The customer is 100% in control of the gathered data.

 

Precision Execution: We combine the hyper-personalization of the omnichannel experience with clearly predefined processes. The effects are very straightforward: higher CR, AOV, and CLV and lower customer churn.

 

 

How do you benefit?

Predictive Modeling (#1 on G2Crowd) using Copernicus Algorithm drives CLV, churn, and Dormancy predictions;Dynamic hyper-segmentation;Recommendation Engine (#1 on G2Crowd);Campaigns executed with 1–1 precision across all relevant channels;Transparent multisource revenue attribution trail.

 

Growth Intelligence: Merging human and AI-based guidance to maximize the impact of your time, eCommerce budget, and strategy without dependency on IT. This enables your company to stay in full control of revenue outcomes.

 

 

How do you benefit?

Marketing intelligence informing what works and what doesn’t;Step-by-step guidance from the system and from SALESmanago’s personal support for the next best actions toward marketing excellence;A no-code design to help non-tech-savvy marketers execute fast and drive business change without relying on IT

 

Adapt. Overcome.

 

“Before we founded SALESmanago in 2012, I had been a marketer for over 10 years. The idea was very simple: let’s empower marketing teams and make them serious and trusted partners to their CEOs. Following that concept and thanks to the very hard and intelligent work of brilliant people, we have reached the stage of being one of the most recognized and fastest-growing providers of martech companies. I am absolutely excited to be a part of this excellent team supported by fantastic investors and partners and to benefit from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being on a journey to build the next unicorn and a global leader of technology solutions for eCommerce.”

Grzegorz Blazewicz, Founder and CEO

 

 

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A Google Business Profile is a hidden gem that many small business owners can use to their advantage. Just as search engine optimization can fuel your growth in the Google rankings, Google Business Profiles are another way to direct eyes from organic searches to your business.We’ve highlighted the impact of Google Business Profiles for your business in Google’s search rankings. Now, we want to help you make the most of each post you put up on your Google Business Profile. So we interviewed Joy Hawkins, a GBP expert, on how to make your posts perform better. Joy shared a ton of tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your posts which we’ve included in this article. Oh, and don’t forget, you can now draft, schedule and share all of your Google Business Posts with Buffer. 🎉Choose the right type of post to shareYou can create four types of posts on your Google Business Profile :What’s NewOfferEventCovid-19 Updates.But Joy highlights two of them as being the most effective: Offer and Covid-19 posts.With Offer posts, Joy theorizes that they perform so well because they have a different display than other post types.“When you’re looking on the Google Maps app, they [Offer posts] display way better than any of the other posts, and come with tags so they’re a lot more visible. And I feel like most businesses are utilising the other types of posts in there but forgetting about offer posts.”Joy recommends using Offer posts – even if you don’t have an offer for your customers – but with a unique and creative touch so it catches the customers’ eye.Covid-19 posts may not be around for much longer and are limited in functionality (for example, they can only be displayed as text). But Joy says they are great for sending out updates that need to be communicated immediately. This is thanks to a feature called the knowledge panel, which is the box that shows up on the right side of the screen with all the information about a business. In the knowledge panel, a Covid-19 post has the highest placement. Joy says this feature makes it useful for all types of content.Harvard Bookstore’s use of the GBP posts in the Knowledge Panel“So if you’ve got a message you need to get out urgently like office closure or a short-term discount, you can use a Covid-19 post – even though they’re supposed to be about Covid-19.”Use every available element to draw the reader’s eyeIn any given post on your Google Business Profile (GBP), you have the option to include at least a title and accompanying text. So even though it’s optional, Joy recommends always including a title. “Always make sure you add a title. It’s an optional field, but we found that posts with titles got more clicks and more conversions.”In addition, elements like emojis and images help with post performance and conversions. Emojis are particularly interesting – this study found that emojis increase customer engagement, when used for emphasis and in positive contexts. And they seem to work great for GBP posts as well – Joy’s research found that posts with emojis got twice as many clicks.Source: Google Business Profile posts with emojis“We found that a conservative amount of emojis help with post performance and conversions,” says Joy. “We weren’t like listing six or seven emojis in a row. But having one or two that are relevant, helps catch people’s eye.”🖊️Tip: The Buffer composer comes with its own built-in emoji keyboard, so you can drop in some eye-catching emojis with ease.Another great way to draw attention is to show proof of work through before and after images if you have a business that lends itself to such. Joy mentions a lawn care client that showed the before and after images of a lawn they worked on that performed really well compared to their other posts.“[That type of image] is really visually appealing. So if you can make use of an image that way that really helps performance as well.”Include the keywords you’re already targetingIt’s important to note that your GBP posts don’t help you rank for keywords. But if you’re already ranking, sometimes it can help you show up in the search results for related keywords. So try including the keywords you’re targeting on Google in your posts. Don’t be spammy about it (that can get you banned).On thinking through your use of keywords, Joy advises, “Let’s say, for example, you’re State Farm doing a post about how much you’ll save on auto insurance. Everyone already knows them for auto insurance, and they already rank for that keyword. So they would want to say something like, ‘Save up to 40% on auto insurance’ in a GBP post. And by including the keyword ‘auto insurance’ in there, it helps the post show up more in the search results for related keywords.”Screenshot of the Local PackJoy also points out that Google will sometimes pull in a little piece of the post right in the search results in the Local Pack — the list of three that shows up with a map. These are little snippets that they sometimes will pull in with Google posts. And you can increase the odds of that happening by just ensuring that you utilize keywords in your posts.Avoid including anything that Google has bannedOne of the most important things to note about your GBP post is that they go through a review process. So, unlike other online publishing platforms where you can post and then be rejected, posts on your GBP must be approved before they appear on your Profile.Joy recommends reviewing Google’s Business Profiles post policy for what (and what not) to include in your posts. Here are some things that Google might flag your post for:Content that’s irrelevant to the business or that has no clear association with the business – this also applies to links and visual content like images and videosSpammy-looking content: Anything that’s misspelled, poor-quality, or directing users to harmful or irrelevant sites and softwareInappropriate contentContent that contains private or confidential informationIncluding a phone number – Google recommends attaching a ‘Call Now’ button to your post that links to your verified phone numberProhibited content according to the guidelinesJoy also mentions that, unlike other social media sites, including hashtags in your post – which don’t help your content regardless – can get your posts rejected and should be avoided.Treat your posts more like ads than social mediaWhile they are a great way to organically connect with your customers, Joy says your Google Business Profile should be treated more like a way to advertise than a social media platform.“It’s very different than what you’d want to post on Facebook, for example. With social media, people will say often that you should post about things that will engage people, like your dog. But that’s not the case for Google posts – you need to use them for promotions,” Joy says “The worst performing posts are informational, ‘how-to’ posts because the people that are seeing it already know about you or why they need you.”A better strategy is to think of your posts like coupons or magazine ads. “We had a car repair client that offered a $10 coupon off oil changes and that post got a lot of activity.” So if you’re selling a product of any kind, it could be beneficial to talk about any promotions, coupons, or the savings your customers could get from approaching you instead of any competitors they’ve come across.🖊️Tip: Looking to learn more? Save your seat at our exclusive webinar to learn our 10 top tips for gaining customers with Google Business Profiles! Use your posts to stand out in the search resultsPosts to your Google Business Profile can’t be optimized for search — rather, they enhance and support your existing SEO efforts. Traditional SEO has way more to do with your website and backlinks – that’s what helps you rank.In a final word of advice from Joy, “It [Google Business Profiles] is more about grabbing somebody, once you’ve already got them. It doesn’t get you there, it doesn’t get you in front of people. Once you already rank, differentiating yourself from the other people you’re ranking with, that’s where Google posts can make a difference.”🔌 Connect your Google Business Profile to Buffer and start publishing your own great posts today!  

As the world constantly changes, it can be hard to stay up to date with ever evolving consumer behaviors, preferences, and trends.

But, as marketers, knowing your buyer persona — and what motivates them — is absolutely vital.
To help both marketers and business professionals alike, we surveyed over 1,000 consumers across the U.S., talked with industry experts, and did a deep dive into generation-by-generation data to learn:

What trends they’re following.
Which online platforms they use.
How and where they prefer to shop.
What they think about returning to the office.
and much, much more.

With this look into the minds, interests, and purchasing motives of today’s consumers, we hope we can better help you meet your target audiences where they are.
Without further adieu, let’s dive into the biggest consumer trends you’ll need to know about in 2022 — and beyond.
The State of Consumer Trends in 2022 [Top Findings You Need to Know About]
1. More and More, Gen Z Differentiates Themselves From All Other Age Groups One of the most fascinating things to dig into when looking at survey results were the vast differences between Gen Z and other age groups — including their closest predecessor, Millennials. 

When taking a deeper dive into our generation-by-generation data, we found that Gen Z:

When it comes to shopping, generations are highly influenced by price, quality, and product reviews. Gen Z especially values brands that have active communities around them.
TikTok and Instagram are the most used social media apps among Gen Z women, while men spend much more time on YouTube.
Gen Z is all about YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Not only for social networking and entertainment but also for discovering (and buying) products.

The findings above weren’t the only interesting points to call out. Our lead researcher and analyst, Maxwell Iskiev explores the differences between how all age groups shop and discover products with this follow-up guide:

How Each Generation Shops in 2022 [New Data from Our State of Consumer Trends Report]
2. People trust recommendations from influencers more than their loved ones.
For decades, word of mouth has proven to be a solid source for product referrals or recommendations.
But now, word of mouth from friends or family is seeing competition from a somewhat surprising source: online influencers. 
And in 2022, 30% of consumers now report influencer recommendations are one of the most important factors in their purchasing decisions, compared to 27% for recommendations from friends or family.

The Shopping Trends of 2022 & Beyond [State of Consumer Trends Data]
Why do people prefer to get recommendations from perfect strangers instead of friends or family?
To them, a great influencer might not feel like a perfect stranger. In fact, a great influencer might feel like a down-to-earth, but well-trusted expert or thought leader in an industry they’ve zoned in on. 
 Think about it this way, would you rather take a makeup recommendation from a friend who knows less about the beauty industry, or an influencer who’s gained a following by doing countless makeup tutorials and reviews on TikTok on Instagram?
In this post, Sr. Content Strategist Caroline Forsey dives even deeper into the shopping trend above and a handful of others you should keep in mind this year and beyond.
3. While social media channels are fun and emerging, search is the most valuable tool.
While age groups like millennials and Gen Z are quick to dive into new and emerging channels, especially those in the social media realm, they still turn to online searches, TV, and other utility channels to learn about everything from trends to products.
When asked where and how they discover new products, most consumers — regardless of age group — pointed to web searches.
To learn more about the other top channels consumers discover products or brands on, as well as the content they love to see when they’re there, check out Maxwell Iskiev’s post: The Top Channels Consumers Use to Learn About Products [New Data] or our FREE and downloadable State of Consumer Trends Report PDF.
4. If you don’t have a mobile-friendly strategy — you could fall behind.
It’s no secret that each new generation gets more and more mobile and digitally connected. And, as the years go by, technology, websites, and social media networks are getting more and more mobile.
But, today Gen Z and Millennials aren’t the only ones finding themselves surfing the web on mobile devices. Now, most consumers regularly use mobile devices for everything from search, to social media, to even online shopping.
These findings aren’t surprising to us. In our 2022 Web Strategy Report, web managers we polled described mobile optimization to be an incredibly effective strategy for marketing and site growth. 
5. Some consumers are stepping into Web3, but most don’t even know what it is.
While some consumers, especially those in younger generations like Gen Z and millennials, are ready to throw their whole wallet into the metaverse and cryptocurrency, most are still getting their first taste of the Web3 world.
In fact, 51% of our survey participants say they don’t even understand what Web3 even is yet.
While Web3 experts believe this technology will continue to grow in the coming years, businesses don’t need to pivot their whole strategy to get ahead of it right this second.
However, as the technology gets more prominent and accessible, it’s still helpful to learn about the potential opportunities and risks of the Web3 space. 
That’s why Caroline Forsey interviewed a handful of Web3 experts to learn more about how it could impact how consumers use the world wide web in the future.
Here is a quick, overarching summary of what Web3 could mean for future internet usage from Anna Seacat, VP of Marketing and Web3 Community at Proxy.
While Web3 might be a new concept to many, expect to hear more about it as the technology becomes more accessible to consumers and businesses in the coming years. For more expert predictions around this, hear what our CMO Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan, our SVP of Marketing, have to say about it in this episode of Marketing Against the Grain.

 
For more insights, check out these guides:

How Web3 Technology Will Impact Consumer Trends [Expert Insights]
How Businesses Could Shift in Web 3 [Executive Insights & Podcast]
Everything Brands Need to Know About the Metaverse

6. Consumers crave video, and effective brands are taking notice.
By now, you know that video has played a powerful role in the lives of consumers. Not only do consumers stream more video than ever, but year-over-year, HubSpot researchers find that most brands consider it to be their most effective type of marketing content. 
But, not just any video will result in a conversion, purchase, or view. While you don’t need a huge budget to woo your audiences, you will need to create content they’ll actually enjoy, keep their attention on, and be persuaded by.
This video interview and post from Wistia CEO, Chris Savage goes into great detail on his tips for leveraging video to humanize your brand.

For more on how marketers are benefiting from video in 2022, also check out our 2022 Video Marketing Report.
7. Stores and online retailers aren’t going away, But social commerce is growing.
A few short months ago, it seemed like social commerce features on Facebook and Instagram were just launching and gaining visibility. And although consumers still prefer to shop at stores and on the sites of online retailers they know and trust, some have started to make purchases via their favorite social platforms. 
When we asked consumers to select the top three ways they prefer to buy products, a whopping 73% still prefer to shop in-store, while an unsurprising 53% said they like to buy from online retailers.

Despite how new social commerce is, one-tenth of consumers or 12% like to buy products directly from social media. And, with this trendd starting to grow, we’re already seeing some brands thrive on social commerce channels.
Take Pink Tag Boutique for example. The Kentucky-based clothing and accessories business saw immense growth on the Facebook Shops. They attribute $44,448 in incremental sales from the tool, and have seen 66% greater average order value from social commerce buyers compared to those who bought directly from the company site.

For more examples of brands that are already excelling in social commerce, check out this post.
You can also find more shopping trend data in this follow-up report from Caroline Forsey: The Shopping Trends of 2022 & Beyond [State of Consumer Trends Dataa]
8. Back to the office? Consumers would rather quit.
For the last two years, consumers — for the most part — have been stuck working at home. And, while many initially found it to be a tough new transition, a lot of us have learned to love it. 
Now, as offices turn the lights back on, and managers expect their teammates to come running back in, some currently remote or hybrid employees are saying, “Not so fast.”
While there still is a large chunk of consumers who would return to the office if asked to (roughly 46%), most survey participants (54%) would rather quit.

Even in times of financial uncertainty, it seems that consumers care more than ever about job flexibility — even in a time when job security is of larger concern.
It’s likely that some of the key things consumers and employees are craving at work are flexibility and work-life balance.
After all, countless studies show that it’s not healthy to make your job your entire life.
So, if you’re managing a team or planning an office re-entry strategy, keep your employees’ needs in mind. Below are just a few of the other workplace factors that could keep employees from looking elsewhere. 
For more on this, stay tuned for our upcoming coverage on workforce trends.
9. Many consumers consider themselves “creators.”
When looking at our survey results for the question, “Would you consider yourself a creator?”, we found that 30% of 18-24-year-olds and 40% of 25-34-year-olds call themselves content creators.
What’s great for brands here? Your very own audiences might jump at the chance to create content for you, which could in turn help them build online influence.
But, what exactly IS a “creator”? Check out this deep dive by Caroline Forsey to learn more: If Everyone’s a Content Creator, Is Anyone?
10. Consumers care about their privacy. Brands should too.
Throughout the last two years, marketers have been pivoting due to privacy changes like Apple IOS 15’s email privacy rollout and the looming phaseout of third-party cookies. But, they might not want to stop there when it comes to considering consumer privacy.
Across generations, our data found that consumers are more likely to trust, interact with, and purchase products from brands that they trust with their data.
And, while lots of data is certainly helpful for brands when learning about audiences, consumer trust is the best way to earn loyalty.
In fact, in his post about fostering a privacy-first world, HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar gives tips on how marketers can create strategies that feel personalized, but use data in an ethical, trustworthy, and transparent way.

As a marketer, it’s important to identify which data points you really need and don’t need from your consumers and transparently explain how data like cookies or contact information is used when consumers are asked to give it out.

What’s Next for Consumers, According to Trend Analysts
Now that you’ve read through the biggest findings of our Consumer Trends Report, you might also be asking, “What trends and themes could come in the next six months — or beyond?”
To give you a taste of just a few trends to keep on your radar, we reached out to Julia Janks of Trends.co to learn what she and her team of trend analysts will be focusing on. Here are three of the nine trends they’re keeping on their radar.
1. Gifting strategies could catch the eyes of consumers.
Forget loyalty points — gifting is the new customer retention strategy. As remote everything continues to rise, keeping connected to clients and loved ones will be key.

Source: &Open
Gifting powerhouse 1-800-FLOWERS had a record-breaking year in 2020, and venture capital is flowing into startups like &Open ($7.2m last May) and Gracia (~$14m since its 2017 launch).
Companies will also use gifting to target employees, since worker retention is at an all-time low, and the average cost of replacing an employee is about seven months of their salary.
2. Voice search and audio SEO opportunities will grow.
The world of podcasts is growing faster than the entire internet did back in the early 2000s. Spotify alone now hosts 3m+ shows (that’s ~43x the number of titles on Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+, combined).

3. Consumers will visit pop-up shops — in the metaverse.
Pop-up shops in the metaverse are a thing now. And, brands like Hogan are already testing them out.
We could see the metaverse shopping industry continue to grow with consumer interest, as 30% of consumers HubSpot surveyed think more brands should consider virtual stores.
For the Julia’s full list of trends to watch, check out 9 Things Trends.co Analysts Will be Watching in The Next 6 Months & Beyond — and don’t forget to check out Trends.co for more business news, innovative ideas, and industry trend coverage.
Dive Deeper into Consumer Trends
In the post above, we gave just a few highlights of our State of Consumer Trends Survey, as well as our predictions for what’s to come. To learn more interesting themes, check out these follow-up posts:

The Top Shopping Trends of 2022 [State of Consumer Trends Data]
The Top Channels Consumers Use to Learn about Products in 2022
How Each Generation Shops in 2022 [State of Consumer Trends Data]
9 Things Our Trends Team Will be Following in the Next 6 Months & Beyond
How Web3 Will Impact the Future of Consumer Trends [Expert Insights]

Want all the data in one place? Click below to download the full findings of the survey in our State of Consumer Trends Report

Consumer Trends Post Authors

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“Your next business idea, delivered weekly.” That’s our job over at Trends.
And, when we say “business ideas,” we’re not just talking about businesses you can start. We’re also talking about the next idea that’s going to help business operators, including insights on emerging consumer trends they can leverage in their marketing strategies.
While you’ve likely learned about some of the latest consumer trends to watch in the State of Consumer Trends Report, we wanted to dive even deeper into the future business trends we plan to follow in the coming months.
Take a look at the following nine trends that we think will pop over the next six months, including NFT subscription services, virtual pop-up stores, direct mail marketing, and more.
9 Trends We’re Watching in the Coming Months
1. Gifting
Forget loyalty points — gifting is the new customer retention strategy. As remote everything continues to rise, keeping connected to clients and loved ones will be key.

Source: &Open
Gifting powerhouse 1-800-FLOWERS had a record-breaking year in 2020, and venture capital is flowing into startups like &Open ($7.2m last May) and Gracia (~$14m since its 2017 launch).
Another new player, Goody, sent 10,000 gifts in its first two months and has raised $32m since its 2020 launch. Co-founder Edward Lando told TechCrunch that the app serves as an additional acquisition channel for early D2C brands and a “giant shopping mall” for Gen Z consumers.
Companies will also use gifting to target employees, since worker retention is at an all-time low, and the average cost of replacing an employee is about seven months of their salary.
Wellbox, for example, is a platform for businesses to send gifts to their workers that made $4m+ in revenue in its first year.  
2. Direct Mail Marketing
Seth Greene, the bestselling author of seven marketing books, told Trends.co that “with all the changes in online media platforms like Google and Facebook, direct mail delivers better results than ever, with fewer restrictions.”
Our research backs this up, particularly when it comes to “digital interactive” — physical mail used to drive readers online — where response rates are ~9%-10%, roughly double what they were five years ago.

Source: 25 Direct Mail Trends for 2021
Some niches we expect will emerge in this space include:

Voice-activated calls to action: Integrating smart-speaker apps into direct mail campaigns so readers can take action with an Alexa command
VR integrations: Physical mail that pairs with a VR headset to provide deep, interactive experiences
Old-school postcards: Direct mail marketing companies focusing on postcards, like PostcardMania, which reportedly made ~$84m in revenue last year

3. Return of Retro
The resurgence of direct mail is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the bigger trend of all things retro.
Subscribers to the r/Retro subreddit have doubled to 10k+ since 2020, and r/80sDesign has hit 86k+ subscribers.
Retro search terms are also going wild on Amazon. For example, weekly searches for “retro home decor” have increased 290% in the US in the last year, according to Jungle Scout.
Here’s how we expect to see the trend manifest over the next 6 months:

Shutter-Lovin’: Film, old-school cameras, and darkrooms
Experiences: Roller rinks and arcades
Gaming: Old-school games and accessories
Advertising: Brands leveraging the ’80s aesthetic in their ads

Can you tell which are from the 1980s vs. the 2020s? Only the top right one is original ’80s (Source: Eye on Design)
4. Audio SEO
The world of podcasts is growing faster than the entire internet did back in the early 2000s. Spotify alone now hosts 3m+ shows (that’s ~43x the number of titles on Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+, combined).

Source: Internet Live Stats and The Podcast Host
But the tools that help listeners discover new content haven’t kept up.
Sixty-five percent of people who’ve never listened to a podcast say the reason is that they don’t know where to start. Meanwhile, great new shows struggle to get recognition, and audiences tire of seeing the same old suggestions.
Audio search is due for an overhaul. Some solutions we may see emerge in the coming months include:

Audio search engines, like Fathom, which recently raised $15m for their AI-driven podcast player and audio search engine
Tools that let podcasters turn audio into snackable visual content for platforms like TikTok, similar to Audiogram
Audio SEO tools, like the Ahrefs or Keywords Everywhere equivalent for audio
Interactive/immersive podcast apps, like Entale and Adori, which allow podcasters to include relevant links, images, polls, and offer codes so that they appear on the listener’s screen at the right moment

5. NFT-Powered Subscription Services
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is one of the most popular digital art collections in the world. BAYC NFT owners have exclusive licensing and commercial rights to their apes, leveraging many token holders to build their own startups.
One such startup is the Bored Breakfast Club. It’s a coffee subscription service and NFT collection that uses NFTs to establish an exclusive online community of coffee enthusiasts.
In their subscription model, anyone who owns one of the 5k Bored Breakfast Club NFTs is entitled to receive free shipments of exclusive coffee blends.
The NFTs also unlock access to an online community, live events, content, and discounts on additional bags of coffee.

Source: Bored Breakfast Club Website
Many big brands like Cameo, Wrangler, and Time magazine are already experimenting with NFTs for exclusive community access, but the Bored Breakfast Club is one of the first to tag on a subscription component.
It’s still early days, but should the model prove successful, it will open up a whole new world of potential NFT subscription products, way beyond coffee.
6. B2B Influencers
The B2B influencer space is currently underdeveloped and largely unmonetized. While the overall influencer marketing industry was pegged at ~$9.7B in 2020, the bulk of that was focused on B2C campaigns.
But that is set to change, as ~80% of B2B brands surveyed in 2020 say they plan to either maintain or increase their influencer spend.
Not surprising, since research from Demand Gen shows that B2B clients consider sponsored third-party or co-branded content more trustworthy than content straight from a vendor.

Source: Oktopost
We expect to see a number of tools and services emerge to help brands identify and manage influencers and document their influencer strategy.
This could take place in B2B industries where subscription spending is highest, such as engineering, sales, HR, and customer service.
Influencer marketing more generally might grow stronger with each new generation. While 26% of social media users ages 25-34 have purchased a product marketed by an influencer in the past three months, 33% of social media users in the 18-24 age range have done the same.
7. Virtual Pop-Up Shops
Pop-up shops in the metaverse are a thing now.
Italian fashion brand Hogan recently took part in Decentraland’s Fashion Week with a virtual pop-up store, and jewelry label Pandora teamed up with Animal Planet to launch an in-game virtual pop-up called “Pandora Island.”
The new metaverse shopping industry could continue to grow with consumer interest. In a HubSpot survey of more than 1k consumers, 30% of participants said more brands should consider virtual stores in the metaverse.
While we’ll definitely see more of these, brands won’t necessarily need to dive headfirst into the metaverse in order to participate in the trend.
A virtual pop-up shop is essentially anything that creates a unique online shopping experience for your customers, separate from your existing website. This could be an event or even a landing page dedicated to a new product line.
They first gained popularity as an alternative to the real deal during national lockdowns, and, despite a dip in 2021, interest is picking up again.
Some big bands that have already experimented with this format include Lancôme, Hoover, and Dunkin’.

Source: Dunkin’Shop
8. Luxe Eco-Friendly Products and Packaging
Conscious consumption is in vogue. Younger generations in particular are driving up demand for products like this 0.56-oz. container made from recycled plastic ($14) and this chair manufactured from old fishing nets ($375).
They are also demanding more from brands, and are willing to pay to save the planet.
While eco-friendly shampoo bars tend to be more cost-effective than traditional shampoo, consumers are happily splashing out for the high-end options: A single Viori bar costs $16, ~3x the price of a comparable amount (20 oz.) of Dove shampoo.

Source: Subreddit Stats
We expect that eco-friendly packaging will also boom as the rapid rise in ecommerce continues to drive demand for sustainable packaging.
Solutions could include compostable packaging from leftover bamboo and sugarcane pulp, like those made by Ecoinno, which recently raised $6m in funding.
9. Gamified NFT Marketing
NFT platform Neon launched the world’s first NFT vending machine back in February.
The machine accepts fiat currency, making it possible for people to invest in NFTs using their credit card — without the need to convert to crypto first.
We expect to see similar NFT marketing initiatives like arcade machines or mobile games that allow players to collect NFTs as they play.
Louis Vuitton has already released a “Louis the Game” mobile app, which includes 30 embedded NFTs that could only be collected by playing the game.
GAP is another big name brand that has incorporated a gaming component into their NFT collection to encourage continued customer engagement.
Source: Twitter
How to Stay Up to Date
Staying up to date on today’s trends and data can be crucial to building marketing or business strategies that meet your audiences where they are. But with trends always moving quickly, the idea of tracking them can be overwhelming. Here are a few handy resources that can help your brand in its quest to stay fresh, relevant and up to date. 

HubSpot’s State of Consumer Trends Series: This month, HubSpot will be publishing a series of blog posts, like this one, and a brand new data-driven PDF all about the latest consumer behaviors, preferences, shopping habits, and trends marketers and brands need to know about in the coming month. Click here to see our State of Consumer Trends Report, where you’ll find links to the content in our series and a handy, free PDF.
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