5 email marketing trends to embrace in 2025 (+ a free workshop)

Note: We have a replay available for the free workshop mentioned below. It's at https://creativefierce.com/email-2025/, and the password is mentor.

2024 was bumpy for a lot of businesses, big and small.

Owners and founders are getting more careful with our investments — not just in cash on? hand, but also in time and energy.

And in my experience in more than 20 years as a professional content marketer, the wisest investment in business is nurturing and growing your audience..

The Internet turned clients and customers into “audiences,” made up of both buyers and loyal fans.

An audience includes the people ready to buy soon, the ones who will need us down the line, and the ones who can refer us to perfect-fit buyers.

And in 2025, your relationship with that audience is the single most valuable asset in your business.?

• Do they respect your skills and ability to solve problems?
• Do they trust you to keep your word?
• Do they believe they can count on you?

Last week I talked about five trends in content marketing that I was happy to leave behind. Today, I want to talk about five that i think we should keep.

“I don’t set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.” - Dick Clark

I like that rather ruthless-sounding quote by Dick Clark — so let’s see which trends we can lean into for better results.

#1 - Human-first automation

This is stronger than ever before, and it’s not going away any time soon.

Taking your best (human-first and written with plenty of G.A.S.) content and automating it so it finds your best buyers is the most efficient use of your marketing budget. No contest,

It means going beyond vague customer journeys or avatars and paving carefully designed paths to purchase.

It’s not the cheapest copywriting you’ll ever pay for. But when it’s done well, it’s some of the most evergreen and enduringly useful.

#2 - The newsletter renaissance

When I started out as an email copywriter, the conventional wisdom was that we should never call our work a “newsletter.”

“No one wants to read your newsletter.” - Them

In 2025, that advice just sounds silly.

Newsletters let you cultivate a strong relationship with a well-defined set of people who have the potential to become excellent customers.

And they offer additional revenue streams including sponsorships and partnership deals.

Newsletters take an ongoing commitment, so map out your scope carefully. You can go short and chatty or long and thoughtful — but make sure you have the capacity to commit for the long haul.

Pro tip: If you go with a platform like Medium or Ghost, make sure you know in advance how you’re going to export your subscriber emails to a focused email platform like Kit.?

You’ll want the additional functionality to implement thoughtful automation (see point 1).

And you need the ability to port your audience to another platform if the one you’re on starts to fall apart.

Given that we saw two major platforms slip and fall in the past year — one to U.S. legislation and one to explosive founder delusion — this is non-negotiable.?

You can't nurture a relationship with your audience if you're trying to reach them on a broken platform.

#3 - Thoughtful vulnerability

I can’t tell you how many creators and publishers I’m seeing who are focusing on being less flashy, less fancy, and even less conventionally authoritative.

Bragging about your luxurious lifestyle comes across as clueless and insensitive in a moment when so many people are facing real uncertainty.

And boasting doesn’t make you look like an authority — it makes you look like a blowhard. (One that’s probably wildly inflating your numbers.)

Authority has always come from how deeply you can serve others.

If you've been reading me for awhile, you've probably seen me quote this corny one more than once — because I think it's spot on.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

Humility is in, and it’s going to stay that way for awhile.

Play up your ability to help, not the number of expensive toys you've bought.

#4 - Smaller audiences, deeper connection

"Yeah, big lists are cool, but have you tried actually talking with the people you’re writing to?" - Me

Most email sent out today drifts sadly to the bottom of inboxes, unread and unloved.

No one digs your messages out of the spam folder, because no one cares enough.

it’s enough to break a content marketer’s dark little heart.

Instead of chasing a giant list, build an engaged one.

A list of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say, and who will share your work with their friends and colleagues.

It's better for your deliverability, for your business model, and for your bottom line. Serve fewer people more deeply.

#5 - Find the trends beneath the trends

“I think music follows the trends of the collective conscious.” - Pharrell Williams

Trends — good and bad — are manifestations of the ways we're connecting to one another in the moment.

We’re hyper-connected in 2025. We’re also socially fragmented. That gives us a trend environment that churns relentlessly and generates a ton of noise.

But when you’re open to what your audience is doing, saying, and feeling, the right trends for you will rise up out of that noise.

That’s why thought mentorship is the natural evolution of thought leadership.

Thought Mentors don't just aim to inspire the masses — they connect more deeply and help customers to create meaningful change.

I created the VESPA content framework for Thought Mentors who want to form a more profound relationship with the audiences they're serving.

Everyone’s expression of VESPA looks a little different — which means we can create content around the exact same topics (and even for the same audience) and it will look completely different.

You can read more about VESPA here:

The VESPA framework for business-building content

If these kinds of trends sound like the kind you want to embrace this year, you should come to my workshop:

Free workshop (replay): The state of email marketing in 2025

Tuesday, January 14, 3:00 PM Eastern U.S. Time

We had a great session and a lot of terrific questions. The password is mentor. Here's the replay for The State of Email Marketing in 2025 with Sonia Simone

We'll start with a discussion of what always works — the evergreen backbone that you can rely on year over year.

Because keeping your strategy focused on evergreen best practices is your best burnout preventative. (And managing burnout is non-negotiable skill for content creators.)

Then we'll take a look at what's new for 2025. We'll talk about how Google is treating your email, myths that are more harmful than they used to be, and how to stay under the tight spam thresholds.

The workshop will run for about 90 minutes, including a quick break or two, and we’ll make time for questions.

header photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST via Unsplash