Digital Marketing Trends 2022: Top 5 Ways for Nonprofits to Innovate

What are you looking forward to next year? Even if some areas of your nonprofit’s work still seem uncertain, there are exciting things on the horizon to give your awareness-building and fundraising efforts a boost. But not to worry: our favorite digital marketing trends of 2022 aren’t all that fancy or expensive.

As you’ll see in these nonprofit marketing predictions, it’s possible to achieve your big goals with practical strategies that can scale to even the smallest organizations.

From the Experts: Digital Marketing Trends 2022

Building out a marketing plan for the year ahead is a heavy lift. Even so, we often talk to communications folks who are looking to add in one or two new tactics as a way to stretch their skills and determine if the nonprofit trends they’re seeing will work for their mission, too.

We’ve rounded up advice from leading marketing experts that nonprofits can use to influence their plans for the coming year.

Social media drives shorter, snackable videos

Dipping your toes into video creation doesn’t have to mean documentary-length storytelling. At the same time that social media platforms like Instagram push for more video DIY content, the overall trend for online videos is less than 2 minutes in length.

According to a new social media trends report from Hootsuite, you can still get away with longer videos on YouTube, but savvy marketers should focus on snackable pieces of video that can be shared across multiple channels (and are more mobile-friendly to boot).

Mobile-first email marketing meets mobile-friendly websites

The push for a mobile-first strategy isn’t new to the list of nonprofit technology trends, but organizations that have been slower to adapt to responsive design on their website will continue to feel the push to optimize other areas of their communications for mobile devices. 

In its post on email marketing trends for 2022, the CoFounder blog identifies mobile optimization for emails as an area that deserves more attention now that mobile-friendly web design has become the norm. (Please stop the newsletter pinching and zooming!) A mobile-optimized email that links people to a mobile-friendly landing page puts you on the fast track to marketing results.

Peer-to-peer fundraising becomes a timeless undertaking

When we’ve previously written about peer-to-peer fundraising (like how to get started and a strategy for year-end giving), the assumption has been that it’s a short-term effort tied to a specific campaign or event. That’s no longer going to be the case, according to the nonprofit fundraising trends identified by David Hessekiel.

And why not give people more power to fundraise whenever they like? Creating mission-centric and timeless fundraising challenges that happen throughout the year could be a way to continually connect with and retain motivated supporters. Just make sure you have the organizational capacity to keep up with them.

Increases in ad spending put pressure on measuring success

As The Nonprofit Times covered recently, nonprofit spending on advertising has continued to grow over the last two years. The average spend has been around $1,000/month according to the 2021 Nonprofit Advertising Benchmark Study. As you’d expect, larger organizations (but not necessarily older ones) also tend to have larger budgets.

But regardless of how much money you spend, you can expect to see mounting pressure to measure the success of your advertising campaigns in terms of organizational goals. The same goes for nonprofits that take advantage of the Google Ad Grants program, even though they aren’t spending “real” dollars. 

Now’s the time to get up to speed on the best ways to measure the outcomes of your ads (like online donations, event registrations or program applications) so that you can justify time and money investments going forward.

Web design continues to fight for more accessible experiences

Last but not least, no list of digital marketing trends for 2022 would be complete without a look at where web design is heading. I’m sure there are lots of opinions out there about new, hot colors and ways of making more interactive sites, but the trend that gets the Wired Impact team the most excited is…

Accessibility!

The Bureau of Internet Accessibility reports that a new set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is coming in 2022. Known as WCAG 2.2, this latest set of guidelines will help developers and designers like us create websites (and other digital tools) that better serve visitors with a wide range of abilities. 

We are more committed than ever before to creating accessible website themes—and keeping our own site accessible. The larger conversation around accessible design continues to grow louder across the sector. If you need somewhere to start that’s not making a whole new website, test your site’s current accessibility and brush up on creating accessible website content (no coding required).

2022, Here We Come…

If you’re planning to expand your network of supporters, cultivate relationships online, and engage your audience in new ways, find a trend that piques your interest and map out what it might look like at your organization given your goals for 2022. Marketing is ever-changing, and there are opportunities to innovate and experiment everywhere you look.

Anything to add to our list of digital marketing trends for 2022? What nonprofit trends are you most interested to see play out over the coming year? Or what trends do you hope disappear as quickly as they came? Add your predictions and thoughts in the comments below.