Marketing Trends for 2025 – Tips for the Upcoming Year

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 13:28:00 +0200
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Next year's marketing trends emphasize the strategic use of AI, personalized experiences, brand authenticity, and streamlining marketing efforts with a clear focus.

It’s time to explore the marketing trends that will shape the upcoming year. Some of these trends have been prominent in previous years in slightly different forms, but each year also brings entirely new developments to the marketing landscape.

This year we saw AI strengthening its foothold, voice search gaining momentum, and social media undergoing significant shifts. In the coming year, key trends will emphasize the strategic use of AI, personalized experiences, brand authenticity, and streamlined, focused marketing efforts.

At the end of this article, you'll find a summary of trends we recommend incorporating into your marketing toolkit for 2025.

Marketing Trends for 2025

1. AI as a Strategic Ally in Marketing

2. Building Trust Through Personalization

3. Less is More

4. Efficiency Through Content Ecosystems

5. Stand Out with Authenticity

6. The Rise of Short Videos and Visual Content

7. Data Responsibility is Here to Stay

8. Zero-Click Search is Trending in Search Engines

9. Personal Branding Holds Strong in B2B Marketing

1. AI as a Strategic Ally in Marketing

The rapidly evolving capabilities of generative AI continue to solidify its position as a key tool for marketers. By 2025, the novelty of AI will have worn off, and as it becomes more widely accessible, it’s crucial to approach its use strategically and purposefully.

Next year, the focus in marketing will shift increasingly toward how AI can be used for strategic initiatives rather than exploring the broad possibilities it offers. AI can be a powerful ally in refining a brand's core messaging, effectively communicating these messages, and distinguishing the brand from competitors.

As we’ve already seen, AI is not a fleeting trend in marketing – it’s here to stay. However, leveraging AI requires careful strategy. Previously, AI was used primarily to achieve efficiency and scale, but in 2025, its role will be more about quality. The emphasis will move away from generic, sometimes inauthentic AI-generated content toward training AI tools to create authentic, meaningful experiences.

This shift demands marketers align AI usage with their brand’s long-term goals, focusing on genuine engagement with their audience rather than chasing trends. Inauthentic content, after all, risks damaging a brand’s credibility.

In short: Quality over quantity. Use AI not just for quick, tactical wins but for long-term strategic planning. This approach will help preserve your brand’s authenticity and distinctiveness.

2. Building Trust Through Personalization

Consumers expect increasingly tailored, seamless experiences from brands, and by 2025, personalization will need to go far beyond using a customer’s first name in an email subject line. AI can enhance personalization, for example, through product recommendations, but remember the lessons from the previous section – maintain authenticity and approachability to ensure personalized experiences remain impactful.

Next year, personalization will focus on fostering long-term relationships with consumers and building trust in the brand, as trust is cultivated through genuine interaction. Personalization will evolve from individual-level communication to creating a sense of community around the brand.

If you’re new to personalization, now is the time to familiarize yourself with the concept and start with the basics: get to know your customers and their needs, set up tracking, and invest in the necessary technology. From there, you can move on to more ambitious efforts. The more data you have at your disposal, the richer and more diverse your personalization efforts can become for your customers.

Read our article to learn why personalizing your WordPress site is worth it and how it can be done. We offer unique technology for WordPress site personalization, which you can explore here.

3. Less is More

This well-known adage (and a sort of absolution for marketers) remains relevant in 2025. Instead of constant prioritization, it’s time to focus: choose the most critical goals that align with business objectives and boldly eliminate unnecessary tasks. This is especially crucial in B2B marketing, where resources can easily be spread thin across multiple platforms.

Is your newsletter too long, with no one clicking the articles at the bottom? Trim it down. Don’t have the time or patience for six social media platforms? Narrow your channels. Can’t stretch your budget for four Meta campaigns? Reduce your ads.

The "fail fast" mentality applies to marketing too: experiment with new approaches but be prepared to abandon unproductive efforts just as quickly. What works for one audience might not work for another.

In 2025, marketers are encouraged to prioritize quality over quantity, streamline content production, and focus on the metrics that genuinely impact business success.

4. Efficiency Through Content Ecosystems

When preparing your content strategy for 2025, aim for consistency and continuity in your messaging. The goal is to ensure your brand is equally recognizable across all channels.

Streamlining content production can be achieved through content ecosystems. Use a single high-quality piece of content, such as an article, and repurpose it in various formats for different channels: highlight key points in a video, create a social media series, or feature an interesting perspective in a newsletter on the same theme.

This way, well-crafted content reaches a broader audience, and a thoughtfully prepared article finds new life in multiple channels. Don’t forget to recycle previously published but still relevant content with a fresh angle.

Liana's monthly newsletters deliver content in a variety of formats.

5. Stand Out with Authenticity

In 2025, customers expect more authenticity, humanity, and approachability from companies. Building an authentic brand involves the following key elements:

Visible mission and values

Genuine customer understanding

Consistently fulfilling value promises

Transparency in words and actions

It’s about going back to basics: communicate transparently about your company’s values, keep them in mind when planning new initiatives, aim to foster genuine relationships with your audience, and most importantly, remain consistent in your actions. Focus on the why before asking what and how. For instance, with each piece of content, consider the added value it brings to your target audience.

In the post-glossy social media era, consumers crave authentic connections. The less “perfect” a piece of content seems, the more likely it is to be perceived as genuine. Creative and high-quality content will be especially valuable in the social media landscape of 2025: even paid advertising won’t guarantee visibility if your content fails to resonate with your audience.

6. Short Videos and Visual Content Are on the Rise

Short videos and user-generated content will continue trending in 2025 marketing. Authenticity is key in videos as well: bloopers, behind-the-scenes footage, and genuine customer appearances will gain traction, while overly polished advertisements become a thing of the past. Future ads must blend seamlessly into social feeds, engaging audiences just as effectively as organic posts.

Live videos, which allow for real-time interaction with audiences, are making their mark in the marketing world. Their appeal lies in their spontaneity. If you decide to explore this trend, avoid scripting every line – leave room for organic conversation in the moment.

7. Data Responsibility is Here to Stay

In 2025, businesses and organizations must invest in collecting their own data, as first-party data becomes invaluable with the decline of third-party cookies and browsers phasing them out entirely.

Companies that are transparent about data storage and usage will stand out. Additionally, data-related legislation will evolve in 2025, with new regulations like the EU’s Data Act coming into force. This law aims to create a functional internal market for data across the EU and improve data availability and sharing conditions among different stakeholders.

The legislation will also bring new obligations for businesses, such as adhering to ethical and responsible practices when collecting and utilizing data.

8. Zero-Click Search Trends in Search Engines

Search engine algorithms are increasingly deprioritizing content that redirects users to external sites or apps. This means that content requiring users to click a link to visit another website is less likely to perform well. In 2025, this trend will intensify, particularly in search engines, with the rise of Zero-Click Search. This phenomenon aims to provide users with answers directly on the search results page without needing to navigate to another service.

The key to addressing zero-click searches is Zero-Click Content – crafting content optimized to appear in search snippets by directly answering user queries. To succeed, focus on concise, easily digestible answers using formats such as answer boxes, tables, and lists, as these are more likely to be featured in search results. Utilize question-based headlines, FAQ sections, and Google’s schema markup for enhanced visibility in rich search results.

Outside of search engines, such as on social media platforms, impressions and engagement rates become more critical metrics than clicks. Marketers should aim to deliver value directly within the platform, for instance, through short videos.

9. Personal Branding Remains Strong in B2B Marketing

The popularity of personal branding has been on the rise for several years, and there’s no sign of it slowing down. This trend persists because personal brands are often easier to build than corporate brands, as people can more quickly forge emotional connections with other individuals. Today’s thought leaders leverage the fusion of entertainment and information – referred to as infotainment – to captivate their audience. Examples include behind-the-scenes glimpses or stories that blend personal lifestyle with professional insights.

Businesses can capitalize on their employees’ personal brands by enlisting them as employee ambassadors. This approach offers a genuine way to showcase the organization’s expertise through authentic voices.

Key Takeaways for 2025 Marketing:

Explore how AI can support your strategic marketing efforts.

Dive into content personalization if you haven’t already, and envision how it could work for your organization.

Focus on essential goals rather than endless prioritization, and feel empowered to eliminate unnecessary clutter.

Streamline content production by building cohesive content ecosystems.

Embrace authenticity and humanity as the foundation for all marketing activities.

Experiment boldly with spontaneous short-form and live videos.

Prioritize data responsibility before regulations require it.

Adapt your SEO strategy to accommodate the growing prevalence of zero-click searches.

We’ve compiled the marketing automation trends for 2025 in a separate article. Read it here.

Liana Tools Stay Ahead of the Trends

Liana Cloud provides all the tools needed for impactful marketing and communication. With LianaMailer, you can conduct data-compliant email marketing, and LianaAutomation enables efficient collection and use of first-party data.

Respond to increasing customer expectations with content personalization. Use GrowthStack to enhance and optimize personalization for your WordPress site.

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