Digital marketing is a rapidly evolving field. Each new year brings with it marketing trends, emerging technologies, platforms, and strategies that are projected to be the “next big thing.”
For small business owners, this can feel overwhelming.
With limited time, energy, and budget, it’s important to prioritize the marketing activities which will truly drive results for your business, rather than getting distracted by trends that may pass quickly.
However, being aware of new trends, strategies, and platforms, can help you make more informed marketing decisions.
In this post, we’re outlining 6 areas of digital marketing to watch in 2025, based on changing consumer behaviour and emerging technologies. These are areas which we believe will stand the test of time, and have a lasting impact on your business.
As you read through these, consider how they could be integrated into your marketing strategy for 2025 and beyond, without overtaxing your resources.
01: Social Media & The Continued Rise of Video Content
Social media continues to be a powerhouse tool within digital marketing, helping businesses reach new audiences, promote their offers, and connect with their customers.
Consider these stats,
- Worldwide, people spend an average of 6 hours and 40 minutes per day on screens.
- There are over 5 billion social media users around the world.
- The “typical” social media user spends over 2 hours per day using social platforms.
- 83% of consumers want to see more videos from brands in 2025.
Platforms like YouTube, Instagram Reels, and Tik Tok (pending the potential ban) are popular for a reason. With dwindling attention spans and increased competition trying to capture that attention, videos offer a great opportunity to connect with your audience.
If you haven’t already tried testing out this content form, integrating short form video into your marketing strategy may help you hit your 2025 business goals. Tools like InShot, CapCut, and Canva may help to make video creation and editing easier for you.
At the same time, users crave a sense of authenticity that can’t always be shown in short video clips. They want to see behind-the-scenes insights. They’re looking for honesty. They yearn for genuine connection.
Striking a balance here between short-form and longer, authentic social media content is key.
Consider how this applies to your business:
- How have you been showing up online? Do you have a clear strategy in place for 1-2 relevant social media platforms?
- Have you integrated video into the content you post? Could you prioritize this moving forward?
- How can you strike a balance between short-form content and longer form, authentic content? For example, if you post a short Instagram Reel, can you expand on the topic with a longer caption? Or, can you integrate longer Q&A videos or live streams every so often into your content strategy to connect with your audience on a deeper level?
Social media isn’t going anywhere. So, let’s make 2025 the year you leverage these platforms to build your online audience, grow your business, and increase engagement among your customer base.
02: Search Engine Optimization (And Specifically, Optimizing for Voice Search)
Another marketing tool you’ve heard me talk about in the past is SEO. Looking at 2025 and beyond, it’s clear that search engine optimization will continue to hold value within marketing.
In addition to following general website and content recommendations for SEO, experts suggest that voice search optimization will become more important than ever in 2025, due to the growing use of voice assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri.
Studies show that around 35% of American households own smart speakers, and Siri alone has 86.5 million users in the United States.
As such, instead of typing “grocery stores Ottawa,” into a search engine like people may have in the past, users might be more inclined to ask Siri or Alexa, “what’s the closest grocery store to me?”
As you’re drafting content for your website specifically, this is something to keep in mind!
Focusing on relevant keywords and natural, conversational language within your content can help improve your visibility and searchability online.
How can you structure your website content to be more conversational and responsive to voice search queries? What questions are people asking that you can provide answers to?
Consider assessing your website as a whole to see where you could optimize and tweak content for voice search.
03: Community Connection
In this age of digital media, many experts are worried about increased risks of loneliness among social media and smartphone users.
Consumers are increasingly seeking real community and connection – both on and offline.
This is one of the reasons I like to prioritize networking events and speaking engagements! They are incredibly valuable for helping me connect with business owners, learn from other entrepreneurs, share my insights, and fill my cup.
It’s also why I’ve partnered with Marketing and Business Strategist Karen Wilson to bring small business owners the Magnificent Marketers Club.
The MMC is an intentionally curated community for digital connection. It’s focused on creating a safe space for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking to learn, connect, share, and grow.
The Club includes marketing tools, regular co-working calls, and monthly informative workshop sessions on various marketing topics. Plus, there’s a private online community for members to celebrate wins, ask questions, and connect with other business owners.
If you’re craving connection yourself in 2025, we’d love for you to join us in the Magnificent Marketers Club!
As well, consider how this applies to your own business. Are there opportunities for you to connect your audience members with one another?
For example,
- In-person networking events or workshops
- A digital forum or community (such as a Facebook group or a private Instagram broadcast channel)
- A membership portal
At the very least, prioritize engaging with your audience in meaningful ways.
Thoughtfully answer any emails you receive from clients or prospective customers. Respond to comments on your social media posts and in your direct messages. Ask for feedback. Let your audience know that you hear them and are there for them!
04: Artificial Intelligence Tools
Of course, AI is a huge topic of conversation, especially in the world of digital marketing. Artificial intelligence has already transformed many spaces and aspects of marketing, and things aren’t slowing down.
From chatbots to writing assistants, there are an increasing number of AI tools you can implement into your business to support your customers and make your life easier.
Can you automate tasks to boost productivity or streamline your work? Can you use generative AI to get ideas for new content? Could you use AI to interpret data or offer potential solutions to issues you’re experiencing?
In this post, I outline a number of ways you could start using AI in your business to save yourself time and effort, particularly around repetitive tasks.
Of course, artificial intelligence also comes with limitations and concerns.
As you experiment with different tools, remember these key principles:
- Avoid solely using AI, without your input. Make modifications to any generative content pulled from AI, so it better reflects your brand and unique insights.
- Avoid using AI to complete tasks that require your unique knowledge or perspective. Canned responses or generic content can come across as impersonal, causing a disconnect with your audience.
- AI doesn’t cite its sources. This makes it challenging to confirm whether the information it’s providing you is uniquely written, or incredibly similar to the original work that inspired it. Make edits to any content you pull from AI to personalize it and mitigate potential copyright issues.
- Avoid using AI for the sake of using it. When it comes to your business, ensure you have intention behind the tools you’re implementing and the purpose they serve.
- Recognize that AI might not have all the answers (or worse, might make them up). Do your own research and fact check everything.
- Don’t rely too heavily on AI. You don’t own these tools and therefore have no control over their availability or functionality. Stay involved with your business processes, so that if the tools you’re using change or disappear, you aren’t left feeling lost.
I outline these guidelines in more detail in this blog post. The bottom line? Don’t shy away from AI, but proceed with caution.
05: Personalization
More and more often, consumers are expecting personalized experiences across digital channels. As business owners, you can fulfill this desire by,
- Segmenting your email audience based on their interests or behaviour. This allows you to target your emails towards specific groups of people within your audience, based on the offers or information that will resonate most.
- Developing marketing campaigns and email sequences that speak to your audience at the various stages of the customer journey. For example, creating content and offers for people who are brand new to your audience as well as creating content and offers for those who are more knowledgeable about your business, and/or have worked with you before.
- Allowing subscribers to opt out of specific email campaigns that aren’t relevant to them.
- Responding to comments, direct messages, and feedback authentically and in a timely manner.
- Limiting use of generic, canned responses via chatbots or auto-emails. While automation can be a useful tool to streamline your work, ensure you have other avenues available to people in case these generic responses or emails do not suffice.
06: Mobile First Design
Internet traffic on mobile devices has surpassed that of desktop computers.
Of course, many people will still visit your website on desktop devices. However, you need to be thinking about your website and email marketing design from a mobile lens first.
How is user-experience on your website via mobile devices? Is everything functional? Can you read the text? Is your website responsive to different screen sizes, or does it stay the same width (requiring people to zoom in and scroll left to right to read your content)?
If your website is not already optimized for mobile, this should be a key focus for you in 2025. Creating a user-friendly mobile experience will help:
- Build trust with your audience
- Allow for a streamlined user experience, likely resulting in a lower bounce rate
- Increase conversions
- Boost SEO (Google most often uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking)
Here are a few ways to optimize your website for mobile:
- Use a responsive design to ensure your website looks good and is legible on all devices. Regularly test your website on various mobile devices to confirm things are working and responding appropriately!
- Optimize images. Keep file size small, and opt for JPEG or PNG images. There is also a WebP file format for even better compression, though it may not work on older browsers.
- Make buttons thumb-friendly. Ensure buttons and touch targets are large enough to press easily on small devices.
- Avoid pop-ups, which can be frustrating on a small screen (or, at the very least, exclude return visitors from your pop-up, and make a mobile friendly pop-up which is extremely easy for users to close)
- Simplify forms which can be challenging to navigate on mobile devices (for example, reduce the number of fields, and make them minimal with large buttons and large text boxes so they are easy to fill out)
- Streamline your navigation. Consider creating a hamburger menu for your pages. In general, limit menu depth to avoid long, nested navigation.
If you need help with a website redesign to comply with these guidelines and recommendations, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I’d love to help bring your vision to life.
It’s Time For Implementation
I’m confident that implementing any or all of these marketing strategies or trends would be impactful in your business for 2025 and beyond.
However, trying to tackle all of these at once will likely be more overwhelming than supportive.
Be intentional with what you decide to dive into this year. Don’t rush the process. Ensure you have the resources – including time, budget, and energy, to remain consistent in any new initiatives you decide to take on.
Consider,
- Do you have the time and energy to commit to these consistently, for the foreseeable future?
- What budget do these initiatives or strategies require? Is this feasible for you?
- Do you require additional support to take on these strategies or trends? How does this fit into your budget and business?
- Do these trends integrate seamlessly with your overall marketing strategy and business goals? Or, do they seem a little “out of left field”?
- What makes sense for you? Your business? Your customers?
Be strategic! Make time to set goals and audit your previous year’s insights to see what changes might be most impactful, and to know where you should focus your efforts.
Your priority should be building a sustainable business that helps you reach your goals without burning yourself out.
