2025 Marketing: Tips on how to lean into trends of the new year
Last week, we discussed three marketing trends to lookout for in 2025; sustainable marketing, user-generated content, and AI advancements. Today, we’re going to discuss ideas for marketing teams looking to lean into these trends in the new year.
Grab your caffeine, put on your comfy clothes, and let's dive in.
Trend #1: Sustainable marketing
Sustainable marketing practices have continued to grow in importance over the last decade.?Consumers globally are becoming more environmentally conscious and socially aware and have increased their expectations of companies they support. Let’s look at two ways marketing teams can improve sustainability
?Create sustainability goals
One of the best ways to increase sustainable marketing practices is to set specific objectives related to sustainability. Creating goals and sharing how you plan to achieve them shows your internal staff and your audience that your organization is committed to contributing to and creating a better world. Companies that are vocal (and authentic!) about their commitment to making a positive environmental impact and/or societal impact often see support from existing and new customers.
Purpose-driven campaigns
Once your team has identified specific sustainability goals, the next step is developing purpose-driven campaigns. These campaigns can be executed through email campaigns, social content, ads, podcast series, strategic partnerships, and more. A few examples of purpose-driven campaigns may include:
Trend #2: User-generated content (ugc)
User-generated content is one of the most powerful and impactful marketing tactics to fully emerge in recent years. As we discussed, research cited by SocialMediaToday in 2021 found that 80% of consumers say UGC impacts their buying decisions. Let’s look at a few ways marketers can take advantage of UGC in the new year.
Understand the voice of the customer
Reviews, testimonials, social tags, etc. all provide valuable insights into how your customer is speaking about your brand. The natural queries and conversational language used by real customers is incredibly important for your SEO (we’ll get there!). Understanding their voice also allows you to create content, both visual and written, that speaks directly to your customer in an authentic way. Be sure your team is consistently reviewing UGC and is creating content that speaks directly to your audience.
?UGC Campaigns
UGC should be amplified and highlighted, as it is some of the most authentic content and budget-friendly marketing social media avenues. Consider creating specific UGC campaigns such as:
Trend #3: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is set to see advancements in 2025, specifically in two key areas:
Let’s look at how we can keep up with ever-evolving AI.
Technology advancements
Chances are you already have a system in place that executes machine learning, but technology is constantly updating policies, algorithms, etc. To improve customer journeys and analytics, we must (1) understand the current algorithms and data from our systems and (2) stay in the know about technology advancements, system improvements, and privacy or ethical concerns that may arise. It may sound cliché, but knowledge is power and the better informed we are, the more likely we are to see success through data-driven decisions. Stay in the know!
Voice search engine optimization
Voice marketing has key opportunities for marketing teams to take advantage of in the new year. The first, voice search engine optimization, relates to the voice of the customer. Once your team understands how consumers talk about your brand, we should use that language to optimize search engine results. Creating written and visual content using the natural language queries and conversational words found through user-generated content boosts SEO. Boosting SEO through natural language and conversational words increases the likelihood of reaching new audiences.
Voice assistant adoption
Siri? Alexa? You there? Siri and Alexa are two examples of voice adoption AI tools that skyrocketed to success. Voice marketing is set to see advancements in their assistant tools for websites and other navigation tools. With the advancements of AI, website and chatbot navigations are quickly trending toward the adoption of voice assistant tools similar to Siri and Alexa.
Voice adoption tools not only increase accessibility, but they improve efficiency within the customer journey by listening, answering, and navigating consumer asks.
Purpose driven marketing, authentic UGC content, and advancements in technology are expected to take flight in 2025. ?What trends have you seen emerging and what are you keeping an eye on? Let me know in the comments!?
?Talk next week!
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