Digital marketing is an ever-fluctuating landscape, and the latest marketing trends are what businesses need to stay afloat. But just staying afloat should not be your business goal, leveraging the marketing trends for unbridled growth is the key to success for your business.

The problem is that with so many marketing trends out there, and a new one pushing through every other day, it can be confusing to decide which one is for you. Following a wrong marketing trend is not just pointless but can be a waste of resources and time.

Before you get lost in the plethora of marketing trends for small businesses coming up every other day, we have picked the top 5 latest ones small businesses should follow. These trends will shape the future of digital marketing and are the key to successfully staying ahead of the curve while still getting solid results. So, let’s dive right into it, here are the top 5 latest marketing trends small businesses should follow.

Top 5 Latest Marketing Trends Small Businesses Should Follow:

1. Social commerce

2. Video content

3. User-generated content

4. Inclusive Marketing

5. Local Targeting

1. Social Commerce

This is one of the best ways small businesses can make the most of social media. Social commerce is already a massive marketing trend in 2022, and it’s only going to gain a stronger footing in the future. How you ask, well, for one, social media platforms are becoming more and more business-friendly.

Have you ever come across a pair of glasses while scrolling through your Instagram feed with the “Buy Now” button right below? Yes, that’s it. Clicking on the button, you can add the product to your cart and place the order right there, without leaving Instagram. Also, you must have come across the trend #TikTokmademebuyit recently.

Different social media platforms have come up with their own, built-in, social commerce features. Consumers can now discover, explore, engage, and purchase on their favorite digital platform, without going anywhere. This has made the online shopping experience easier and more facilitating for users, especially millennials. And for businesses, this has made social commerce among the crucial marketing trends for small businesses to follow.

2. Video Content

They are not messing around when they say video is the future of content marketing. You must have heard this so many times that you cannot seem to escape it. It’s true, video content is one of the latest marketing trends small businesses need to follow. There’s no escaping video content now, so you better embrace it if you want to stand a chance in the landscape of cutthroat content marketing.

Video content marketing owes its success to the popularity it has gotten among consumers, especially short-form video content. Social media platforms are focusing more on short-form videos over static images and optimizing the algorithms to support reels and videos. Video has a wider reach than image content, it is more fun, digestible, and engaging, and tends to stick to people’s minds for longer.

According to stats, marketing campaigns with video content have 34% more conversion rates. Video content also ranks higher in terms of SEO and generating backlinks. If you want your products to reach a wider audience, increase awareness, and generate more leads, video content marketing is the way to go.

3. User-generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is a game changer when it comes to authenticity. There is no way around the fact that originality and transparency are what consumers demand these days. Large-budget, shiny, and polished advertisements don’t get into people’s heads anymore. A millennial consumer is smarter than that, your marketing game has to get smarter too!

User-generated content has taken brand authenticity to next level. UGC is the original content created by consumers for a specific brand. You can invite your customers to share photos and videos using your products which you can share on your social media. UGC can be in form of images, videos, reviews, or anything like that. Real faces, real people representing and talking about your brand with original, raw, unfiltered, content.

This is what attracts today’s consumers, authentic content and unbiased reviews about a product. With consumer-generated content, you can connect with your customers on a personal level and reach a wider audience. This trend is particularly a win for small businesses as it makes competition with big enterprises fair and equal. This makes it a must-follow marketing trend for small businesses.

4. Inclusive Marketing

When it comes to top marketing trends in 2022, something else that helps foster deeper customer relations is inclusivity. This is the age of social movements, millennials today are not held back from standing up for a cause and speaking up for important social issues. They like brands who reflect the same kind of wokeness and awareness. If a brand does not show any kind of support for important social and political issues, it cannot have an impact on the audience’s minds today.

Inclusive marketing is when your marketing campaigns highlight a social issue where a group of people faces exclusion, like racism. It is to show people that your brand is for everyone, irrespective of their race, color, or gender identification. Supporting diversity and having values that resonate with people make them feel seen and heard. This fosters loyalty and a deeper connection with your audience.

For a small business to have a big impact, it must focus on representation and inclusivity in its marketing campaigns. Staying neutral is not the way to go around anymore, this approach will not get you noticed by your audience. Purchasing from a brand having the same values as theirs make the consumers feel they are supporting a cause.

5. Local Targeting

What does local targeting have to do with the latest marketing trends in 2022, you may ask? While you might think that thinking global is the best and most successful approach for growth today, it isn’t as simple and straightforward as you might think. There are multiple reasons small businesses should target locally or at least do so in the beginning.

After Covid served a serious blow to the economy and businesses, people have grown to feel particularly supportive and encouraging towards local small businesses. This is something small businesses can leverage. This is the best time to maximize local marketing efforts because people want to shop and support local.

This can include tailoring your content according to the requirements of your local audience, using social media to connect with them, and targeting local keywords for SEO. Moreover, you can support and give back to your community, or even build one around your brand. Local marketing also saves money, helps you narrow down and reach your target audience easily, offers incredible ROI, and improves brand loyalty.

Bottom Line

These are the top 5 latest marketing trends that small businesses need to follow. Marketing trends for small businesses are everywhere. They are something that can give small businesses a chance to compete with established ones on level ground.

If you're looking to get a leg up on your competition in the business world, you must be familiar with these current trends. By following the right marketing trends and using the right strategies, small businesses can save a lot of time, resources, and effort.