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If you’re staring into the abyss, trying to pull together your marketing strategy or action plan for 2025, but have no idea where to start, you’re not alone. With a deluge of experts, tools, influencers and channels, it’s pretty easy to feel bombarded with options and ideas.
So rather than add to the noise and the BS, we’re giving you 25 tips you can consider. Bringing calm to the calamity that is marketing.
And we are aware of the irony of adding ’25 tips’ to an already crowded and deafening topic!
However, our approach this year focuses on simplicity – and doing a few things exceptionally well – rather than chasing unicorns and trends.
Why? Because when you are consistently concise it is easier for your customers to understand your message, who you are and what you offer.
We’ve split our tips into five important categories; planning, creative, content, digital and promotion, helping you navigate to the area(s) most relevant to your circumstances.
PLANNING
1. Talk to your customers
Whether you’ve been in business 5 minutes, 5 years or 5 decades, understanding your customers will help you build better products, promotions and positioning for your brand.
We can all be guilty of believing our own hype, without getting important feedback or input from the very people we intend to use or buy what we’re building.
So, what questions should you be asking? At the very least, you need to know:
- What you do well
- What you need to improve on
- What customer needs are unmet
- How does the customer describe you, your brand or product in their own words?
Remember to also reach out to past customers and even prospects that didn’t convert. You don’t want to be preaching to the converted.
2. Nail your brand positioning
Your positioning shouldn’t be complex. If it takes a whole slide deck to convey who you are and what you do, that is far too difficult to manage and maintain.
Pick two or three attributes, max.
In the words of Mark Ritson, these should adhere to the 3Cs. Attributes of your positioning should be what the:
1. Customer wants
2. Company can deliver
3. Competition can’t do as well as you.
If you’ve ‘talked to your customers’ as highlighted in tip 1, you will have a head start in identifying what your customer wants.
Many businesses struggle as they try to look for things that makes them unique. Whereas in reality, there is very little unique in the world. And that works in our favour because the customer comes to the table with some understanding of the world.
Instead, pick attributes where you have relative differentiation.
Remember, just two or three attributes are enough.
As an example, Forte Marketing’s positioning attributes are:
1. Confidence – providing clients with confidence that we deliver the best solution to meet their needs.
2. Partnership – through collaboration, we excel in understanding your market, business, needs and opportunities.
3. Growth – collaboratively, we develop and execute marketing strategies and web tools that drive business expansion. Ultimately, we always obtain growth for our clients, employees, and our agency.
3. Protect your brand identity
To achieve salience in your customer’s mind, you must be ridiculously consistent in how you position and present yourself.
Whether your marketing is done in house, or through an agency or multiple freelancers, you are the guardian of your brand.
With the emergence of Canva it can be tempting for you, or your agency to introduce different fonts or colours because that’s what’s trending.
It’s vital to remember that your brand identity should be unique, recognisable and, most importantly, unchanging.
This means having well-defined brand assets or codes and sticking to them.
4. Measure success
I know. This is a no-brainer. But it’s incredible how little transparency or focus is placed on the results that make an impact on a business’s bottom line.
The first step is to have clearly defined KPIs for your marketing efforts. And yes, these should be KPIs that the CFO, or CEO would like to know.
Once defined, the next challenge is ensuring you have a measurement in place that you can easily and regularly access and evaluate.
To facilitate this, avoid overcomplicating these critical KPIs. Sales, revenue, number of qualified leads, and pipeline value are all examples of metrics that should be readily available.
Operational KPIs such as website visits, likes, and reach are still important, but these should be kept in the marketing department.
5. Have a marketing budget
2025 will see the end of businesses not knowing what budget they have available for marketing.
A general rule of thumb is that your marketing budget (including staff) should be between 2% and 5% of your revenue.
Depending on your industry, competition and how ambitious your goals are will affect where you sit on the scale between 2% and 5%.
It doesn’t matter if your budget is slightly off on the first take, but by simply having one, you will find that:
1. You focus on fewer, bigger, better projects. .
2. You will understand which activities drive the results.
3. Each year your marketing will become more effective and efficient.
CREATIVE
6. Create a brand kit
Having a fully comprehensive kit with your brand assets and templates will allow you to easily roll out marketing campaigns.
Here’s what you should include:
- Your brand vision, mission and values
- Your brand identity
- Logo
- Colour Palette
- Typography
- Codes (e.g. the ‘M’ golden arches for McDonalds, the Dulux Dog, etc.)
- Brand personality
- Tone of voice
- Writing style
- Archetypes.
7. Don't follow trends blindly
While it's important to stay current, don't choose colours based solely on current trends. Trends change quickly, and your branding should have a timeless quality.
It’s lovely to know that Pantone’s Colour of the Year for 2025 is Mocha Mousse, but really, that shouldn’t impact an established brand.
8. Minimalist maximalism
As we look ahead to 2025, the design landscape is poised for an exciting transformation. Bear in mind that we shouldn’t follow trends blindly (see the previous tip 😉), but if you’re considering a rebrand or revamp, this could be useful.
While minimalism has long reigned supreme, we're about to witness its evolution into something truly dynamic.
Imagine the essence of minimalism—clean lines and open spaces—brilliantly intertwined with the bold vibrancy of maximalism.
Get ready for a captivating mix of striking colours, daring typefaces, and an eclectic array of elements that will infuse fresh life into the minimalist aesthetic. This trend promises to be not just visually stunning but also an expressive celebration of creativity!
Source: Creative Boom
9. Creativity matters more than ever
According to recent research, spending on digital ad formats now accounts for 70% of all ad spending globally (source: Statista).
The problem is the deluge of content and advertising found on most platforms and because of this, customers are increasingly tuning out from ads. In order to capture and maintain their attention and be effective, creativity is the difference between you and the plethora of other advertisers. According to Marketing Week, 80% of marketers deem creative quality key to marketing effectiveness.
With this in mind, you should test:
- How to disrupt, attract or maintain the attention of the customer you are targeting
- Different ad placements (story, reel, posts, banners etc)
- Different ad formats (image, text, video, HTML5 etc
And if you’re selling online…
- Shopping ads imagery and descriptions.
10. Responsive logos
Today, a brand needs to work seamlessly across platforms and devices.
Brand assets, such as logos, are expected to adapt fluidly regardless of screen size, and transition smoothly from online to off.
A well-designed logo can exist in several versions, simplified for mobile while remaining recognisable and retaining personality.
(Source: Medium.com)
CONTENT
11. Why are you creating content?
It’s a serious question. Why are you creating content?
It helps to understand how you will measure performance by knowing the purpose of the content you are producing.
Don’t be afraid to admit it’s to grow sales – if that’s what’s important to you, then your strategy should focus on developing content that moves people through the sales funnel.
If it’s to showcase your portfolio, knowledge or skills, then that’s a completely different approach altogether.
However, this year, be absolute in the reason why you are investing in content.
12. Customers don't care about you
As harsh as it sounds, customers don’t really care who you are, what you sell or your brand story. The only thing customers care about is themselves.
So, if you want to sell, share, or grow more, your content must show how your product, service or brand transforms their lives.
It should be all about them.
If your content is filled with ‘we’, ‘I’ or ‘our’s’ the chances are you are too busy talking about yourself.
Brands and personalities that succeed, are masters at flipping content on its head, to show how they are all about ‘you’.
If you are planning content, demonstrate how you can:
- Solve their problems
- Achieve their goals
- Make them feel amazing.
13. Being dull costs you money
As mass consumers of content, we are all careful about what we pay attention to.
If we want to hold someone’s attention, we need to ensure our content is considered entertaining, interesting or unique.
If we are honest, we often scroll past or click away from content because it's dull, overly sales-focused, or irrelevant.
We know this. Yet, a lot of content created by business owners is boring, safe and/or out of touch with modern-day formats.
In 2025, if you are investing your time, money or resources in content, for it to give you the best return possible, you need to ensure it’s none of the above.
Instead, in 2025 ensure your content is one of the following:
Disruptive
Particularly useful for reaching out to new audiences and grabbing attention. Be unconventional. Share unpopular opinions.
Aspirational
We all have desires and needs that drive us, and our products or services should facilitate these. Therefore, content should demonstrate how you realise these.
Relatable
Let your audience see themselves in your content. Whether that’s through relatable content or user generated content (UGC). Demonstrating ‘people like me’ helps convince and convert.
14. We've said it before, and we'll say it again - TikTok!
We all know reaching new audiences and building followers without advertising on Facebook and, to some extent, Instagram has become increasingly challenging. While TikTok continues to enjoy rapid audience growth and engagement, brands have been reluctant to adapt.
One of the main issues is defining ‘how you will show up’ on the platform. Its more authentic approach, conversational tone and community-based ethos scare some businesses, but it shouldn’t.
Learning how to make TikTok work for you in 2025, should be high up on your list of to-dos.
15. AI and Automation
While the promise of fully automated and AI-generated content has delivered a dearth of quality output in the last few years, we should still be looking at ways AI can simplify or streamline our processes. Particularly when it comes to creative and content.
We’ve been vocal about what we think AI can and cannot do well, however that doesn’t mean that will always be the case. AI tools are increasingly more “intelligent” and nuanced, and users become more sophisticated at using them.
So, it’s likely that they will evolve from spitting out horrid, generic blog content and instead, will be able to assist us much better in our marketing efforts.
Combining AI with human creativity, businesses will be able to anticipate consumer needs, manage campaigns, and generate content more effectively.
Stick with it. But don’t trust it blindly!
DIGITAL
16. Search is everywhere, not just Google
Search is no longer solely conducted on Google, so this year, your SEO efforts should focus on multiple platforms.
There are 46 billion daily searches conducted online. Only 8.5 billion are completed on Google. Instagram, Baidu, Snapchat, Amazon, YouTube and LinkedIn are also responsible for 25.5 billion searches between them.
Although Google is the leader, your SEO strategy must account for where your product, service or brand will likely be searched, discovered and found.
As Neil Patel has said, SEO is now ‘Search Everywhere Optimisation’ and not ‘Search Engine Optimisation’.
(Source: Neil Patel on LinkedIn)
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17. Remember to email
Email marketing boasts one of the highest ROIs for digital marketing channels – as high as 36:1 (source: Design Rush). Yet, a lot of businesses do not include it in their marketing mix.
The first challenge is to maintain an updated and targeted mailing list that includes current, past, and prospective customers.
Email marketing goes beyond just sending newsletters. The most effective emails are personalised messages, such as birthday or anniversary greetings, reminders about abandoned carts, or notifications about time-sensitive deals and exclusive offers.
We’ve helped many ecommerce stores set up a whole range of action-based emails to drive sales successfully. Yet so many brands forget to include it in their marketing mix.
This year, ensure you have this in your plan.
18. Use specific landing pages for marketing campaigns
You can boost conversion rates by using dedicated landing pages for marketing campaigns instead of generic pages like your homepage.
A well-designed landing page targets a specific goal and audience, guiding visitors to desired actions like leads, quotes, downloads, or purchases.
In contrast, generic pages often contain multiple distractions and CTAs that dilute the message. A focused landing page presents clear messaging, compelling visuals, and a single CTA that aligns with the campaign's intent, creating a seamless experience for visitors.
19. Implement tracking pixels and use its data
Most businesses are familiar with Google Analytics or have heard of it as something added during website development. Yet, for many business owners, that’s often the extent of their engagement.
In 2025, it’s time to change that. Start by regularly visiting your GA4 account or scheduling monthly reports to familiarise yourself with the data. Focus on understanding trends and campaign performance rather than diving into overcomplicated dashboards or irrelevant metrics.
Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can go beyond a standard GA4 setup. Tracking pixels can help you:
- Build better audience segments: Use behavioural data, or custom data fields, to target specific audiences.
- Measure conversions: Set up events to track both simple actions like form submissions or phone clicks, to more complex sales funnels (cart abandonments).
- Optimise ad spend: Focus on campaigns that deliver the best ROI.
- Personalise marketing campaigns: Deliver custom ads based on user behaviour.
In 2025, we expect an inevitable increase in cookie consent banners to ensure compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Google Tag Manager is a great option, not only to centralise pixel management (Meta Pixel, GA4, Linked Insight Tag, etc), but also to facilitate compliance with these regulations.
20. Prioritise website speed and performance
In most cases, you don’t have to build a new website to improve performance and reduce load times – but we know there are plenty of other reasons to do it.
A fast-loading website:
- Enhances user experience
- Reduces bounce rates
- Boosts search engine rankings.
As we have said before in the blog, the easiest way to accomplish this is by moving your site to a premium hosting platform. We have seen up to 80% increase in speed when moving a website from a shared hosting platform to a dedicated cloud-based hosting solution.
But there are other techniques available such as:
- Compressing large images using modern formats like WebP and using tools like TinyPNG.
- Implement lazy loading for media elements to defer loading until the user scrolls into view.
- Compressing scripts, using a Content Delivery Network.
And the list goes on.
Remember you don’t have to do this yourself. Let the experts do the job!
Optimising speed is particularly critical as Google continues to prioritise fast, user-friendly websites in its search algorithm updates and Google Ad campaigns – what they call the Landing Page Experience.
PROMOTION
21. Attention, Interest, Desire and Action (AIDA)
Understanding, appreciating and following the AIDA model is vital if you're seeking to build a brand.
While many performance marketing strategies focus on the very last step (Action) - obsessing over conversions and leads, at a campaign or ad level - its short-term nature could leave your business exposed.
Over time, you want more people to look for your brand name, not the generic one. You also want to reduce your dependency on channels (think Google or Facebook) just in case their popularity or performance fades. Finally, you want to build your pool of potential customers.
To do that, you need to fill out the funnel from the very start (Attention).
So, when planning your marketing campaigns in 2025, avoid using 100% of your budget for sales or leads. Use some of your budget to build Attention (sometimes called Awareness), Interest and Desire.
While that may sound counterintuitive, be mindful of the fact that only 3% of your total audience is ready to buy; another third is starting to warm up to the prospect.
And, if you ignore them, in the long run, you’re going to miss out on more Action.
22. Under the influence…
Collaborating with influencers whose values align with your brand will drive more meaningful engagement and brand loyalty. However, finding the right influencer and fan base is crucial to delivering a decent ROI for your campaign.
In Shopify’s round up of influencer marketing statistics, it predicts that the influencer marketing industry is worth $24 billion (for 2024). And it’s a particularly important promotion strategy when targeting Gen Z, as 74% of this age group confirm that influencers are their primary product discovery source.
The report also identifies that nano-influencers (have between 500 and 10,000 followers) have the highest engagement rates. This is great news for small businesses, as you don’t have to always beg for bigger influencers to support your product or service.
How much do influencers cost in 2025?
One of the hardest things for a small business to navigate is negotiation of rates for influencer marketing. With a lack of standardised rates, it really depends on the person and the project.
However, the Influencer Marketing Hub has published some averages to help you budget.
(Source: Influencer Marketing Hub)
23. Audience size vs Budget
The Rule of 7 states that a customer needs to see your brand at least 7 times for they commit to a purchase decision.
Now, there have been some updates and re-evaluations of this 1930s rule; the principle remains the same. It’s common sense that people take time to build trust and desire to buy from you (see tip #21).
With this in mind, when planning your advertising campaigns, you need to ensure your budget isn’t spread so thin that the frequency is so low that prospects don’t get the chance to warm up to you.
Most advertising platforms will give you an indication of audience size, daily reach, and a real-time update on ‘frequency’.
In 2025, you should ensure that you have a healthy frequency in your campaigns to stand the best chance of winning new customers over.
24. Dial in to LinkedIn
LinkedIn is quickly becoming the hotspot for B2B marketing. With its focus on professionals and industry-specific content, 65% of B2B marketers claim they will increase their LinkedIn usage next year.
LinkedIn’s advertising platform allows for some really unique targeting such as job titles, companies, industries, experience and seniority. Enabling you to niche down to your B2B audience far better than consumer focused platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Our experience with advertising campaigns shows us that carousels outperform static single image and video ads when it comes to calls to action. However, video is better for engagement. As we’ve said previously, test different ad formats to see what works for you.
25. Streamline online sales with shoppable ads
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, streaming services and even Amazon’s Prime TV allow advertisers to run shoppable ads.
But what are they?
“Shoppable ads are interactive ads that allow consumers to purchase products directly from the ad itself, creating a seamless shopping experience from discovery to checkout.” Neilpatel.com
Removing the friction from ad to checkout helps to increase conversion rates, customer experience and ultimately ROI.
This example from TikTok, demonstrates just how easy shoppable ads make purchasing your product natively within the platform.
And that brings us to the end of our 25 tips for 2025. WOW. If you reached this point, give yourself a pat on the back, we hope you smash your 2025 marketing goals. If you want to learn any more about anything we discussed or want expert guidance and support for your 2025 marketing plan, contact us today.