Where is Marketing Headed in the New Year?
With the first quarter of the 21st century nearing its final year (yeah, time flies), we’ve come a long way since the turn of the millennium — from the rise of electric cars to the dominance of digital in our everyday lives. As with all industries, the marketing world has had to evolve and adapt to the changes, in particular new channels, new products, and changing consumer behaviors, wants, and needs. It’s important to keep track of these variables, or trends, in order to stay ahead of the competition and utilize the best strategies for the times.
Heading into 2025, here are 6 of the most important marketing trends to track and consider when developing your own marketing and communications gameplan:
1. AI Rising
The speeding locomotive of artificial intelligence continues to gain steam, reshaping our world in nearly every aspect, including the business landscape. While too much AI in creative elements like design and copy can lead to unoriginal messaging and an air of inauthenticity, AI tools are transforming marketing in other inescapable ways, especially efficiency.
From search engine results to automation, AI is increasing ease and speed, saving time and money in the marketing realm. For instance, AI-powered chatbots continue to enhance the online shopping experience by engaging with customers, answering their questions, and directing them through the sales funnel in real time. AI is also improving areas such as targeting and predictive analytics as well as personalization, helping optimize campaigns and forge better relationships with customers. Meanwhile, with the rise of AI search assistants such as Google’s Gemini, AI-powered personalized recommendations will only increase across platforms.
2. Short-Form Video Popularity
From websites and emails to TikTok vids and Instagram Reels, short-form video (usually under 60 seconds) is now one of the most popular communication channels heading into 2025, whether for information, inspiration, or entertainment. With consumers gravitating toward quick, engaging videos over long-form video or text, it’s no wonder that short-form content has also become a powerful tool in marketing. Concise, engaging, high-quality video that immediately captures the attention of your audience and maximizes your reach across owned-media channels, i.e. the channels your brand owns and/or controls.
3. More Geolocation Marketing
More sophisticated than ever, marketing through geolocation technology has also become more prevalent than ever, thanks to its effectiveness and ability to hyper-target consumers. Allowing brands to target consumers and send them personalized promotions based on their specific locations, geofencing is used to engage customers on their phones, digital displays, and more in their own stores, at trade shows, and even in competitors’ stores. Great for increasing brand awareness and driving foot traffic into brick-and-mortars and online, you may want to consider adding geolocation marketing to your overall strategy.
4. Increase in Membership/Subscription Programs
Subscription services, like Chewy, Dollar Shave Club, Netflix, and Hulu, are becoming more popular by the day, due in large part to their convenience and cost-effectiveness. Meanwhile, according to a late 2022 survey, seven out of 10 Americans considered loyalty programs a leading factor in them being loyal towards brands. More brands are expected to offer subscriptions, memberships, and loyalty programs providing special savings, products, and experiences to those who sign up, from free shipping to exclusive packages. While not every business can or should incorporate such models, it’s something to keep in mind if and when it suits your brand.
5. SEM Evolving Through Voice & Visual
While in-store shopping is still the preferred shopping method for most American consumers, online shopping continues to grow steadily, and brands ignoring ecommerce do so at their own peril. The online shopping journey often begins in search engine queries, which makes search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) more vital than ever in order to place at the top of relevant searches and attract consumers to your brand.
For two decades, text has been the sole way to initiate a search, but recently, voice searches have become a popular option, as vehicle infotainment systems, wearables, smart home devices, and other hands-free channels have proliferated. More recently, voice search, which allows users to search the internet using an image, entered the fold, offering even greater convenience to users. Together, the addition of voice and visual to text SEM is changing how products and brands are discovered, affecting search patterns, personalization, and more.
This makes voice and visual search optimization a factor for which brands and marketers have to account in their SEO strategies, turning toward more conversational, question-based queries.
6. Continued Importance of Omnichannel Marketing
With so many channels out there now, it’s essential that you take advantage of every relevant one you can, at various touchpoints along your target audience’s journey, lest your competitors reach them when you do not. That means having a strong omnichannel strategy featuring a professional, user-friendly website; a robust email, social media, and digital ad presence; print, out-of-home marketing, broadcast, and other traditional marketing when applicable; and getting your message out there everywhere it matters. No longer an option but a necessity, omnichannel marketing creates a seamless, consistent brand experience and a unified customer journey that breeds interest, patronage, and loyalty.
These are just a handful of the most intriguing marketing trends heading into 2025. At M:7 Agency, we stay on top of the latest marketing trends so that our clients have the best, most effective tools at their disposal — from geofencing to drip email campaign automation. Connect with us in the new year so we can help take your marketing and communications to new heights.