The global pandemic has changed marketing. From more remote working to less predictability, organization & process are more important to marketers now than ever before.
CoSchedule’s 2022 Trend Report on Marketing Strategy uncovers how successful marketers around the world work. Review the report alongside tips to help you improve your own strategy to drive better results.
According to our survey data, organized marketers were nearly seven times more likely to report success than their peers (a jump from 3x more likely in 2018. Here's why.
Having a documented strategy directly impacts marketing success. Survey responses revealed top marketers were 414% more likely to report success when they document their strategy. View full details.
Highly successful marketers plan their marketing strategy in advance. The study revealed marketers that proactively plan their marketing are 331% more likely to report success than their peers. Learn more.
Marketers surveyed reported the most success with social media ads, email marketing, & blogging. View the breakdown across all popular content types.
The use of agile processes, including Scrum or Kanban, are directly correlated with successful marketing. See why.
Goal setting is key for driving desired marketing results. Survey data found that marketers who are actively setting goals are nearly 4 times more likely to have success than those who do not set goals. Learn more.
The survey found marketers who use project management software were more than 4x more likely to report success than those that don’t. However, 65% of marketers still don’t use project management software. View details.
Survey results found organized marketers are 674% more likely to report success than their peers.
Compared to the data from 2018, the correlation between organization & success in marketers jumped from being almost 4 times more likely to almost 7 times more likely in 2022.
This increase isn’t surprising as we look at the way the global pandemic has impacted marketing over the last few years.
Is your marketing successful?
The most successful marketers we surveyed regularly plan their tasks, marketing campaigns, & projects with clear, established processes.
Take a second to reflect on your own processes. Are you as organized as you hope to be?
Organizing your marketing can sound daunting, but don’t worry – we have materials to help you get started quickly!
Once you integrate consistent processes, established workflows, & better planning into your marketing, you’ll likely see more success.
It’s easier to stay focused on what and how you will execute your marketing in order to drive the success you are hoping to achieve.
Whether it’s growing your social reach, increasing leads, or driving more sales, getting organized can help you get there.
The correlation between successful marketers and marketers that document their strategy has strengthened significantly since 2018. Yet almost 40% of marketers report they have no documented strategy.
A documented marketing strategy keeps everyone on the same page. It creates a universal record of what you’ve done, what you’re working on, and what is up next.
This is even more important when you have remote team members collaborating together & various stakeholders interested in what the marketing team is doing.
If you’re among the 40% of marketers that do not document their strategy (or you’re looking for a better way to do it), getting started doesn’t have to be overly complicated.
Do you have a documented strategy that drives all of your marketing efforts?
Start by documenting what you already know. Audit what is already in flight or planned for the foreseeable future, including:
Having your marketing strategy documented is critical to success. Things inevitably come up – employee illnesses, time off, vacations, quarantines. Documenting your strategy allows your team to stay productive, easily share progress updates, & adapt as plans change.
Marketers that reported they proactively plan their marketing are 331% more successful than their peers. However, there are still 15% that cited that they rarely or never plan their projects ahead of time.
The pandemic has resulted in a less predictable marketing roadmap for many teams, yet survey results show that proactive planning is still crucial for success.
Do you proactively plan marketing campaigns ahead of time?
Do you have a backlog of marketing ideas? Are you planning ahead for upcoming events or busy seasons?
Now is the perfect time to start looking ahead to plan tasks, campaigns, and projects in advance.
When you plan ahead, you can make sure your entire team has enough work, enough time, and enough flexibility to successfully execute project requests & campaigns.
Our survey found the highest performing content types include social media ads, emails, and blog posts.
Key Results:
It’s clear that blogs, social media ads, & emails drive the best results for the marketers we surveyed.
To double down on successes, focus your time creating content that performs well & publish that content through the channels your target audience is most active.
We know that although these are the top performing content types for the marketers surveyed, this may vary based on your target audience, industry, company size, etc.
In order to help you pinpoint your own top-performing content, check out the resources below.
Compared to 2019, top marketers are two times more likely to report success when using agile processes like scrum or kanban.
This isn’t surprising. Agile processes are designed to help marketing teams handle the pace of digital marketing, respond to new opportunities, and stay aligned with business objectives.
According to the State of Agile Marketing Report presented by Agile Sherpas, 84% of those surveyed already using agile found it important or very important in handling the volatility of 2020.
When you can easily adjust your strategy, the easier it is to handle unexpected changes to timelines, priorities, or resources. Beyond making your team more successful, agile processes make it less stressful to shift responsibilities & adjust as needed.
Do you implement agile marketing processes?
If you haven’t adopted any agile processes, it’s simple to start integrating them into your workflows. Not sure where to start? Checkout these key resources to start adopting agile marketing.
Without defining what success looks like, it’s impossible to measure success. If you aren’t setting goals, it’s time to start.
Of the marketers surveyed, 70% reported setting marketing goals for their marketing initiatives, projects, & campaigns; almost 47% of marketers who set goals noted achieving success most of the time or always.
Do you set marketing goals?
A study by psychology Professor Dr. Gail Matthews at the Dominican University of California confirms the importance of setting goals: The results of her study showed that 76% of participants who wrote down their goals & provided weekly progress updates successfully achieved their goals – over 33% higher than their peers.
Time and time again, the data has shown that people who deliberately set goals have much higher success rates. Yet 30% of marketers surveyed do not set specific goals.
Luckily this is easy to fix. All you need to do is identify goals & start building your strategy around those objectives. We’ve included resources above to help set your goals.
Our data found that Marketers who use project management tools in their tech stack are more successful than marketers that don’t.
But according to the survey results, 62% of marketers surveyed do not use any kind of project management software to manage their marketing.
What kind of tools do marketing teams use?
According to G2Crowd, project management software assists teams with managing team goals and long-term projects, as well as coordinating individual tasks.
Despite project management tools being readily available for marketers, there are still many who do not have the right tools in place to achieve success.
With more teams working remotely, adopting a project management software has never been more valuable.
With a project management software, you can stay connected with your team, see exactly where projects and tasks are, and achieve full visibility into your marketing strategy.
Marketers have the opportunity to make adjustments to their approach, strategy & the tools they use in order to achieve maximum success.
Our survey found marketers who are organized, plan ahead, document their strategy, and set goals are more likely to be successful.
Follow these steps to level up your marketing & set yourself up for success in 2022 - 2023:
You Still Have Time To Make This Your Best Year Yet
Get Started Now to organize your projects, plan your marketing campaigns, manage your tasks, and stay on top of your marketing strategy.
The 2022 Trend Report: Marketing Strategy was produced by CoSchedule. The online survey, from which the results of this report were generated, was emailed to a sample of marketers subscribed to the CoSchedule Marketing Blog and shared via social media.
A total of 515 recipients from around the globe – representing a large range of industries, businesses, and company sizes – completed the survey through December 31, 2021.
Note: This report contains comparisons with findings from The 2019 survey results—reported on in The Marketing Management + Strategy Statistics You Need to Know in 2019—in instances where we observed notable differences. Find all our past research here.
Social Media, Email, & Blog Posts Among Top-Performing Content