Marketing

Discover the marketing landscape of 2025 with insights on AI integration, short-form video popularity, UGC strategies, and the importance of authentic branding. Because marketing is so closely tied to consumer behavior, no matter what area of marketing you specialize in, the effectiveness of your campaigns is susceptible to cultural ebbs and flows. To optimize your marketing plan for the modern consumer, it can be important to incorporate some trendier elements into your marketing strategy alongside the more tried-and-true efforts. In this article, we’ll discuss the 2025’s top marketing trends, which span social media marketing, digital marketing, brand marketing, and more. As you read through these trends, remember to keep your unique consumer base in mind because not all will necessarily translate across all audiences. To help you determine your consumers’ identities and foundational strategies for reaching them, consider enrolling in the University of Pennsylvania’s top-rated crash course Introduction to Marketing. Top marketing trends of 2025 To identify the top marketing trends, we researched a range of marketing reports and studies across several areas of marketing. Trends worth keeping in mind as you develop your marketing plans are: Artificial intelligence (AI) is boosting effectiveness and efficiency. Short-form video content, like TikTok, is driving social strategy. User-Generated Content (UGC) is increasing brand awareness. Community efforts and genuine branding encourage consumer trust. Quality editorial content persists. Case studies continue to drive brand recognition and sales lead generation. Search engine changes are shifting search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. AI-powered chatbots are expanding conversational capabilities. Personalization is enhancing the user experience. Let’s take a closer look at these trends and the data that informs them. 1. AI boosts effectiveness and efficiency. AI advancements have made a big impact on marketing. According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report 2024, 64 percent of marketers already use AI and automation. What’s more, consulting firm Gartner predicts that 80 percent of advanced creative roles in marketing will be tasked with using GenAI to enhance their marketing efforts by 2026. Two areas where AI frequently appears in marketing workflows are content production and marketing analytics. GenAI for content production Many marketers use generative AI (GenAI) across different stages of content creation, estimating that they save about three hours of work per piece of content, with 84 percent of those using AI reporting higher efficiency when creating content, 82 percent reporting producing “significantly more” content, and 56 percent reporting increased content performance. You can use GenAI tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to generate content ideas, build briefs and outlines, draft content, or even write complete pieces.  Build key GenAI skills with DeepLearning.AI’s Generative AI for Everyone course. In about six hours, you’ll learn how GenAI works, what it can be used for, and how to start incorporating this technology into your workflow. Using AI for marketing analytics Data-driven marketing isn’t a new trend, but the way marketers get their data is changing, thanks to AI. According to The Work Innovation Lab’s 2023 report, The State of AI at Work, 30 percent of workers already use AI for data analysis, and 62 percent of workers want to use AI for data analysis [3]. With AI driving your analytics, you can learn about your target audience, identify trends, predict behaviors, and optimize your marketing campaigns faster and more accurately than you may have without AI assistance. Strengthen your marketing analytics skills with the Meta Marketing Analytics Professional Certificate. You’ll learn how to gather and analyze marketing data, and how to turn your insights into actionable strategies. 2. Short-form video content drives social strategy. As marketers increasingly target digital-first generations, they’re meeting them where they are: scrolling short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. According to HubSpot, short-form video is the content type with the highest return on investment (ROI) and is primed to see the most growth in 2024, with 53 percent of marketers planning to increase their investment in TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels 3. UGC increases brand awareness. User-generated content (UGC) is any type of content that users post about your product on their social media profiles. The content itself may be similar to the type of content you’d see influencers or affiliate partners posting, but unlike those posts, businesses don’t work directly with the users to sponsor or produce the content. It’s more like word-of-mouth marketing, where users create content and share it with their audiences, and then businesses can leverage that content through tactics like social sharing or giveaways. Traditional influencer marketing and affiliate marketing programs continue to have a place in marketing strategy, but marketing professionals are also increasingly relying on UGC as a cost-effective way to promote brand awareness in a way that feels organic to the typical viewer. According to Gartner, over 80 percent of consumers believe that UGC improves product discovery, brand trust, and experience  Build important social media marketing skills with the Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate. Here, you’ll learn how to create an authentic brand across various social media platforms and build effective social media campaigns. 4. Community efforts and genuine branding encourage consumer trust. According to Gartner , authenticity is the third-highest value US consumers identify with, and nurturing a genuine brand voice will become increasingly important as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent in online spaces. The modern marketer’s response: lean into emotional connections with community-building efforts. A 2024 report from marketing platform TINT found that 70 percent of marketers agree that community building is key for customer retention and that 82 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase new products from a company with an engaging online community. 5. Quality editorial content persists. Marketers will continue to invest in editorial content, like blog posts and podcasts, to generate engagement, support conversions, and promote thought leadership. According to HubSpot, 82 percent of marketers surveyed plan to increase or maintain their investment in podcasts and audio content, and 92 percent plan to increase or maintain their investment in blogging in 2024 Gain in-demand digital marketing skills with the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate. You’ll explore the fundamentals of digital marketing, ground your performance with analytics, and learn about various marketing channels. 6. Case studies drive brand recognition

Nothing gets the internet talking more than an apocalypse. So it’s no surprise that every year, some pundit says SEO is over. And with the rise of AI (and Google’s AI Overviews), voice search, and an ever-evolving SERP, it’s hard to know the future. But no matter what, businesses will always want to be found by their audiences. In this article, we’ve gathered some predictions about future SEO trends to keep your content marketing efforts successful in 2025 and beyond. Artificial Intelligence Ah, AI. Here we are again. AI has been one of the most prevalent content marketing trends of the last couple of years. Everyone has a take on it. People claimed AI would kill content writing(Open Link in new window), AI would make writers obsolete(Open Link in new window), and even that AI writing isn’t real(Open Link in new window). And some people wonder if AI-generated search results will kill SEO(Open Link in new window). Here’s the truth. Yes, generative AI is revolutionizing how we create and produce content. But it doesn’t beat basic human psychology. Human beings are curious by nature. We’ll always seek out answers to our questions. And as long as we keep searching, SEO will be important. That doesn’t mean AI won’t have an effect, though. It can support your rise in the search rankings by optimizing your content for SEO. AI can also conduct research at superhuman speeds, produce data-driven insights, and create bulk supplemental content. You just shouldn’t use it for everything. Key takeaways: Think of AI as your SEO expert assistant, doing the heavy lifting when it comes to SEO optimization. AI platforms like Keyword Insights(Open Link in new window) can streamline your SEO research by generating thousands of keyword ideas in seconds and grouping them into clusters. Also, using the right input and prompting strategy, AI can edit and revise your content to increase its SEO optimization. High Quality, Relevant Content In February 2023, Google released a statement(Open Link in new window) saying it will always prioritize quality content, regardless of whether humans or AI created it. They also announced that using AI to generate content primarily to manipulate ranking in search results violates Google’s spam policies. Using generative AI to create bulk content quickly is one of the most common mistakes marketers make. That flood of mediocre content has led Google to increase the influence content quality has in its algorithm. So, as everyone creates the same generic AI content, those at the forefront will create top-tier content critical to ranking high. Even better if you can find experts skilled in SEO content writing. Creating high-quality content can also help increase your chances of being featured in AI Overviews, a Google search feature with AI-generated summaries that answer user queries. While Google does link its sources, the jury is still out on whether AI Overviews will help or hurt organic traffic. Regardless, keep your focus on high-value, well-structured content that meets search intent to improve your chances of ranking overall. Key takeaways: It’s kind of ironic. In creating the ability to generate average-level content at an unprecedented scale, AI has also created a new emphasis on high-level, human content. Implementing an airtight AI content creation strategy to ensure you bring a personal human touch to your marketing will skyrocket you up the rankings. Voice & Mobile Search In the first year of being readily available, voice search skyrocketed from a statistical zero to around 10 percent(Open Link in new window) of global search volume. That amounts to about 50 billion voice searches every month. By 2026, more than half(Open Link in new window) of U.S. internet users will use a voice search assistant. Voice search has caused two things to start happening already. First, people speak differently than they type. Voice searches are typically longer than typed-in searches. That makes tools like long-tail keywords more important than ever. Second, people often use voice search to find a product or service that’s near them location-wise, making local SEO critical as well. Voice search also goes hand-in-hand with mobile phones. Google has already prioritized mobile-first indexing, using the mobile version of a website as its primary source for indexing and ranking. That makes building a mobile-friendly website another of the SEO trends to watch out for. Key takeaways: Don’t just optimize for SEO; also aim for VSO (voice search optimization). The ever-growing popularity of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant makes treating every content piece as a potential voice search essential. Some tips for voice search optimization include: Incorporate questions and keep your content conversational Identify and optimize for long-tail keywords Make your website mobile-friendly Prioritize local SEO when applicable Increase site speed Aim for featured snippets “Zero-Position” or “Zero-Click” Searches Zero-click searches have been one of the more prominent SEO trends for awhile now. They occur when a user finds their answer without needing to visit any website outside the search engine results page (SERP). The majority of zero-click searches are a result of Google’s SERP features. This could be a featured snippet, an AI Overview, the Local Pack for businesses-near-me searches, carousels for recipes, or the expanded Google Shopping features(Open Link in new window). A featured snippet, sometimes called “position zero” is a rich result at the top of the page. It’s often in larger text. Google shows a sentence or two directly answering the search query from an organic result. Key takeaways: SEO experts worry about position zero because it can eliminate website traffic. But we think it’s better to embrace the featured snippet. When faced with zero-click searches, try to build helpful content that makes people want the long answer. How? Here are a few tips: Answer frequently asked questions Incorporate question words Structure information naturally Include imagery Use schema markup Topical Authority In 2022, Google added another E into the EAT mix. E-E-A-T(Open Link in new window) (sometimes called double-EAT in the business) stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Adding “experience” shows that an author’s real-world experience is another vital part of determining the value of content. But it all ties back to trust. Creating topical authority around your brand makes you the go-to source for a specific topic or