Want to begin the New Year with a head start on the competition? Or maybe you're looking to make a few tweaks to your existing business strategy? Here's our predictions for key marketing and advertising trends for 2025.
Social Commerce
Social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are seeing a staggering rise in brands using their apps to sell their products, known as ‘social commerce’. According to Accenture, The global social commerce industry is valued at $492 billion and is projected to grow three times faster than e-commerce, reaching $1.2 trillion by 2025. This growth is down to many factors including easy discoverability of products - as well as primary social media users such as Gen Z and Millennials, using it as their go-to search tool for shopping online.
Pinterest has recently seen an 140% increase in users utilising the apps latest ‘Visual Lens’ search discovery tool, created especially for social commerce purposes. This clever search tool scans images and highlights each potential item or product in the picture. When they’re clicked, it displays exact or similar products for sale online. This function is so simple and effective for delivering quicker sales and return on investment (ROI).
Visual & Voice Search
With the increasing adoption of voice-activated devices, according to Medium, around 50% of searches are expected to be voice-based by 2025. Take inspiration from successful brands such as Dominoes, who takes voice orders via Alexa or online UK supermarket Ocado, who allows users to add groceries to their shopping list via their smart AI assistant. Local businesses could use this to their advantage by having a targeted approach to local voice search engine optimisation, or investing in voice-activated ads and sponsored audio content which can be broadcast through smart speakers.
Sticking To The Rules
Consumers worldwide are growing wiser when it comes to marketing, and prefer to feel in control of how they’re targeted. As a brand, look at how you can build trust with your target market - because loyal and engaged customers equal better retention and a higher ROI. According to the 2024 consumer report by Twilio, around 66% of people polled didn’t purchase from a brand in the past due to a lack of trust.
Easy and effective ways in which you can build trust with your target market are as simple as making sure your marketing plan adheres to important data regulations such as GDPR or CCPA (US) rules. Consumers are very cautious about spam and unwanted communications, largely down to the increasing rates of fraud via phone and online. Branded calling and text messages displays your company logo, name or a verification badge, so customers know it’s legitimate.
Micro or Nano Influencers
Many brands are seeing higher engagements from consumers when they team up with niche influencers or accounts with a smaller number of followers (approx 1000 - 100,000 followers), which tailor their content to specific interests or values. This trend is due to consumers preferring marketing and advertising campaigns with a real and authentic feel, with like-minded people who are highly engaged within the community or social media platform.
What’s more, this type of influencer marketing can be cost-effective for smaller brands and business wanting to get their message or product out there. As a brand or business, take time to research your market further to spot these potential niches, and then consider using the relevant social media hashtags to see if it makes a difference to your posts engagement.
Long Form Content
2025 sees the return of longer written articles and 10 minute videos with audio, which have already been spotted this year on platforms such as YouTube. This also ties in with the modern consumers need for authenticity and connection from brands and influencers - if someone has taken the time to understand and create considered content, rather than a quick and cheap nod to a topic - it’s considered much more real by the audience.
New research by the agency Billion Dollar Boy has found that 70% of marketers and 72% of content creators are planning on including even more long form content in their 2025 marketing plans - dispelling the stereotype that the Gen Z market don’t all have short attention spans.
Wrap Up
In 2025, it really seems like marketing and advertising trends are leaning towards highly considered campaigns, with personalisation, depth, trust and value being key words to remember. Authenticity and awareness reign when it comes to targeting markets like Gen Z and Millennials. This change moves us away from engagement-centric feeds, where the goal was sheer volume, to more interest-based content designed to reach niche communities.
Invest in the best quality your marketing and advertising budget can afford and include longer forms of content such as podcasts, blogs or an episodic series of videos. Make sure your brand values and best marketing practices stay aligned by checking that your business adheres to the correct regulations and laws, which will all help build consumer trust and keep customers happy. Here’s to a fantastic year ahead!
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