My 5 predictions for the online business space in 2022

Every year I like to take a little gamble and see if I can predict a couple of things that are going to shift, or that might be trends in the year ahead. And this year is no different.

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#1. More fear and uncertainty around businesses

So the first thing that I predict for 2022 is that people are starting to feel a lot more fear and uncertainty now. Going into the third year of the pandemic, we're starting to see a bit more of an impact on businesses, because especially where a lot of businesses were propped up by government support. And maybe they're not as much anymore. We're going to see a lot more people who didn't need to pivot at the start of the pandemic. We're going to see them pivoting or perhaps even closing. And this is going to have a big ripple effect.

This is going to have a lot more fear and uncertainty. And even though this might not be your business directly, and I hope, I really hope that most of us in the online space will be okay. But even though this might not affect us directly, there's going to be a ripple effect. It's going to be, maybe your clients. It might be friends. It might be other people you know. And it's hard not to worry about that. And I suspect this might make people a little bit more reluctant to spend money. Now, does this mean that people aren't going to buy from you? Absolutely, no. No, it doesn't. It just means that you need to really know what problem you solve, how you solve it, and what transformation you deliver. Because without any of these things, you're going to struggle to sell anything. If you don't know what problem you're solving, you can't solve a problem for somebody who has that problem, if you can't articulate it.

And it's hard enough to sell in the best of times, if you can't articulate what the problem is, let alone in a time when people are a little bit more reluctant to spend money, right? You need to know, you need to really be able to explain why somebody should buy from you, instead of anyone else. And I think also, especially in times when people are a bit more reluctant to spend money, it might be that people are more willing to spend money on things that do solve a problem for them, rather than things that are just a nice-to-have. Having said that though, there was a scientific study done years ago. I remember learning about this in university economics, where they found that during times of, I think it was a recession, or I can't remember if it was a recession or a depression, but they found that women actually spent more on little luxury things like lipsticks, because these were things that they could afford, that still felt like luxury. So there's always a little counter example to everything, right?

 

 

#2. Peak content saturation

The second prediction that I have, and I'm pretty sure I predicted it for last year as well. But we're really reaching peak content saturation at the moment, which means that you need to be really fussy about what content you're sharing. People don't want noise anymore. They don't want noise. They want good content. They want something that is remarkable, not just another piece of the same thing that a million people have said. And especially these days, because now you can pay $20 to Copy.AI and have them write you a decent blog post, right? It's written by a robot, literally a robot. Piece of AI is writing your content for you. And for 20 bucks, everyone's going to be churning those out. So how can you stand out, how can you be that human element that AI can't replicate?

It's more about sharing the stories, the human emotions, the vulnerabilities. It's not going to be about content for content's sake. So what I really want you to focus on this year is, how can you understand your audience better? How can you answer the questions that are in their mind? How can you show them that you understand them and that you care about them. Not just being somebody who's spitting out the same 10 tips for how to get more Instagram followers that everyone else is spitting out.

I also want to talk about launch content for a second. Now, launch content is not about sharing value so that your audience thinks you're valuable and will want to buy from you in return. That's not what it's about. Instead, I want you to think about how can you shift their perspective? How can you understand them? How can you show them that you understand them? How can you get them to think about something differently? These are all important pieces of content that AI can't do. AI can't replace that.

 

 

#3. Rising ad costs

The third trend that I suspect we'll see this year is that rising ad costs will mean we need to place a bigger focus on lifetime customer value, not just what we're getting from the one transaction. So really focusing on how can you get those customers to come back and buy from you again and again, and again. You know, over-deliver, surprise them, delight them. And then also think about how you're moving people through your different products in your business. Do you have that journey that people are going through? This is the first product that they buy from you. This is the second product, and this is the next, as they learn more, as they improve, as they grow, they go through the different stages and the different products. How can you maybe also increase your average order value? So can you add some upsells or order bumps. Anything like that will help to counteract those rising ad costs. Because if your value per customer is higher, you can afford to spend more on ads to acquire each customer.

 

 

#4. The importance of your email list

The fourth thing that I predict is that your email list has never, ever been this important before. Now, ads are absolutely more expensive. Social media organic reach is down, and it's probably only going to decrease even more. I hate to be negative, but it seems realistic, right? We've only ever seen it trend down. And we've seen that we can't trust social media platforms. Last year, we had Facebook and Instagram going down. So we want to make sure that we have our own database, that we own our own audience.

And that's where the email list comes into play. Once someone is on your email list, you can market to them for free. You can't do that with paid ads. And social media, yes, you can, but not quite to the same extent.

 

 

#5. Niching down

The fifth trend that I predict is that those who haven't already niched down are going to need to niche or die this year. It sounds a little bit dramatic, I know, but it's really getting too expensive and too difficult to market to the masses. Marketing to the masses is for brands like Spotify and Airbnb with a massive marketing budget. As a small business, if you can't tell me what your niche is, you're in trouble, right? If you can't clearly tell me who you serve, you're going to really struggle to serve those people. You're going to struggle to reach those people.

And your niche isn't women aged 18 to 35 in Sydney. That's not your niche, right? Your niche is people who have a digital product and want to launch it online so that they can scale their business. That's a niche. Your niche, isn't about serving a small market. It's about serving a specific market, right? It's not about serving a small market, it's about serving a specific market. We're not looking at limiting the number of people you can help, naturally, yes it will, but we're not looking at limiting those. We're looking at getting specific on who you are serving. That is it for my five trends.

 

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