How to Thrive in 2025: 10 Marketing Pros Give Their Top Tips

A lot has changed since last December. SERPs look different. Attribution doesn’t work the same way it used to. And, of course, AI has somehow made marketing easier, harder, better, and worse all at the same time.

I was curious what other marketers think it all means for the next 12 months. So, I asked 10 experienced marketers for their top marketing tips going into 2025.

No surprise, there were several mentions of AI, but not in the way I expected. It wasn’t about bigger, faster, cheaper. The throughline was a return to providing unique points of view, personal experiences, and original data to stand above the oncoming torrent of mass-produced mass communication. And even using AI to help beat AI content.

If you’re about to put pencil to marketing plan, consider these top marketing tips for 2025 from the pros.

Contents

1. Embrace negative reviews
2. Create what AI can’t
3. Think outside the blog for SEO success
4. Empower your internal influencers
5. Expand your marketing channels
6. Train AI to write like you
7. Focus on solving problems
8. Make a marketing moat with customer insights
9. Break through selective attention
10. Leave negative space in your campaigns

10 best marketing tips for 2025

These marketing tips aren’t just good advice. They say a lot about the mood of marketers moving into the new year.

1. Embrace negative reviews

A perfect five-star rating sounds pretty awesome. But Allen Finn, VP of Marketing at heatmap, said those less-than-stellar reviews are critical to revenue growth.

Bad reviews hurt, but Allen Finn of heatmap says they’re also good for business.

“Ecomm brands showcasing one-star reviews are driving 40% more revenue than those hiding behind five stars,” he said.

That’s a pretty counterintuitive conclusion, and Allen brought the receipts.

“The heatmap team analyzed the review and testimonial sections of 50,000+ ecommerce websites,” he explained. “What we found was shocking: Users who click on one-star reviews drive about 40% more revenue than users who click on four and five-star reviews.”

Allen said one-star reviews paradoxically improve conversion rates for several reasons:

• Authenticity: “The presence of negative reviews suggests that the feedback is genuine and unfiltered, enhancing overall trust in the brand’s transparency.”
• Expectation management: “Negative reviews can highlight potential issues, allowing customers to set realistic expectations and reduce post-purchase dissatisfaction.”
• Trust in positive reviews: “The existence of negative reviews lends more credibility to the positive ones, as it suggests that all feedback is published, not just favorable reviews.”

The study results highlight the “power of authenticity,” Allen said. “Negative reviews can significantly contribute to building consumer confidence and, ultimately, improving revenue.”

Of course, it’s not a great idea to ruin customer relationships in hopes of nabbing some negative feedback. But when you do get a critical review, use it as a learning experience, and don’t try to cover it up. It may just be the revenue boost you’re looking for.

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2. Create what AI can’t

The commoditization of content started long before AI hit the scene. But AI copywriting tools in the wrong hands have hastened the race to SEO sameness. Kristina Rule, a content strategy consultant, said the best marketers will rise above the digital noise in 2025 by creating things AI can’t.

“With so much generic AI content flooding the internet in 2024, the demand for something more authentic will likely increase in 2025,” Kristina said. “Lean into creating memorable, specific, and useful content for your audience.”

Original studies are high on Kristina’s list of content to focus on in 2025. We previously got a similar rec from Beam Content’s co-founder, Brooklyn Nash. He has a strategy for using one set of original data to fuel months’ worth of unique content (which you can read about here).

Original content, like this report created by Beam Content, is the counterweight to generic AI output, Kristina Rule said.

Kristina also suggests writing with a distinct brand voice and creating bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content that’s based on “actual customer questions vs. keywords.” Those things will become the audiences’ Turing Test to tell whether something was created by human hands or built by a bot.

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3. Think outside the blog for SEO success

Informational SERPs aren’t just a list of links to blog posts anymore. Krisette Lim, a content marketing specialist with Appetiser Apps, said if you want SEO success in 2025, you’ll need to think beyond the blog.

“In 2025 and beyond, SEO and content marketing will cover a broad spectrum of channels where your brand is represented—from websites to social media and community forums,” she pointed out. “Search on Google will capture these touchpoints—not just your website—as user-generated content (UGC) becomes more prominent on search results.”

Here’s an illustration of Krisette’s point. Try searching something like “How do I get out of a shadowban.” Below the AI overview and “People Also Ask” feature, you’ll see results from Reddit, Quora, and YouTube. That’s because SERPs now surface snippets from social media sites, online forums, and video platforms.

If you’re the one answering that question on those platforms, you’ll garner some brand awareness and have more shots at SERP placements.

But even if that’s not in your bandwidth, Krisette suggests mining these topical troves for content ideas. “Read and listen to people’s questions on these forums and answer them on your blog,” she said. That’s a sure-fire way to publish posts people want to read and search engines want to promote.

4. Empower your internal influencers

If you post social media content on your brand’s account, you know how tough of a slog it can be to grow organic engagement. Most people don’t feel connected enough to a faceless brand to drop a comment or even tap “like.”

As Brianne Fleming, author of the marketing newsletter By Popular Demand, put it, “We connect with faces, not logos.”

That’s why her top marketing tip for 2025 is to help your employees step out from behind the logo, especially on LinkedIn. “LinkedIn is having a moment, and your employees are your biggest influencers. Hearing from the people behind a company is the best way to humanize it,” Brianne said.

While individual results will vary, I can vouch for how this works. When I share a content link from my personal LinkedIn account, it gets as much or more engagement as a similar post on our business account. And I have way fewer followers than the company page has.

The repost on my personal LinkedIn page accounted for nearly 80% of the total impressions for this content.

Brianna says the trick is that you can’t just ask or force your people to become instant influencers. “Empower your teams to share their thoughts and proudly celebrate their work.” That means helping them use the opportunity to build their personal network and become thought leaders in their own right. Give them content and topics to share. And maybe even create post templates so it’s less of a burden to stay on brand.

5. Expand your marketing channels

Have a scroll through Jeff Baker’s LinkedIn feed. Tucked in amongst the industry trends and Taco Bell takes, you’ll see frequent callouts to subscribe to his Work From Anywhere Job Alerts newsletter. He chose to house and promote the newsletter on LinkedIn instead of through the traditional blog and SEO strategy.

Jeff publishes his newsletter natively on LinkedIn, which lets him avoid the volatility of search algorithms.

Even as an experienced fractional SEO consultant (and fractional CMO), Jeff said the money move in 2025 is to explore beyond search. “With the volatility we are seeing in search due to algorithm changes, AI Overviews, and ChatGPT, it’s going to be more important than ever for marketers to expand their channels.”

And which channel did Jeff suggest marketers focus on in 2025? Good old-fashioned email marketing. “If you have a large enough email list, you’ll be able to sell your products and services, period.”

Growing your email list takes time. But when it becomes your goal, you’ll start seeing all sorts of ways to do it. Here are a few of the ways I’ve seen brands speed that process up:

• Run a contest or giveaway.
• Offer lead magnets like big content assets.
• Put subscription forms in page popups, sidebars, headers, and footers.
• Ask new customers to sign up and incentivize them to invite friends.

Instead of trying to wring more site visits from an unstable traffic source, consider Jeff’s advice and invest those resources in building an audience on a platform you have more control over. “I would take 10K email addresses over 100K visitors per month.”

6. Train your AI to write like you

AI isn’t going away. Nor should it. You can gain so much efficiency—and free yourself up for more creativity—by letting your AI tools shoulder repetitive work.

But you can’t just throw in an AI prompt and expect to get a marketing asset that stands out from the rest of the robo-content, said Ehtisham Hussain, a fractional head of marketing with AI experience. “Your competitors will flood the internet with AI-generated written, audio, and video content like never before.”

Ehtisham reckons you don’t need to ditch AI to be different. “Your biggest challenge will be making your content rise above the noise. To do that, I recommend training your AI tools on past, human-written content that embodies your voice and brand identity.”

We’ve seen people cajole AI into writing like Shakespeare and C3PO. It can because it has content in those voices to train it. You probably have lots of content in your preferred style. Ehtisham suggested feeding it to your AI copywriter. “By doing so, you will get your AI tools to produce new content in your voice and style,” he said.

Once you have your AI co-writer thinking like you, Ehtisham said to apply it to content others aren’t writing. “Lean heavily into POV-driven content. Everyone will do the AI-generated ‘what, why, how’ pieces, and they will all sound the same. Your real stories, opinions, and advice based on personal experiences will give you a better chance of standing out.”

7. Focus on solving problems

Your customers are arguably busier and more distracted than ever. Goran Mirkovic, Chief Marketing Officer at Freemius, said next year will be all about exposing value over describing products.

“In 2025, B2B SaaS marketing needs to continue to shift from ‘here’s our product’ to ‘here’s how we can help you succeed,’” Goran said. “At Freemius, we’ve seen firsthand how content that focuses on solving problems, not just showcasing features, builds real trust with our audience.”

Freemius’ website copy leads with benefits and clearly calls out who can use them.

At ground level, that means content and marketing copy that hyper-focuses on your customers’ challenges, Goran said. And then going the extra mile to give them real actions they can take to solve them.

He added that marketing that leads with customer challenges will help people find and trust your business. “As search engines prioritize expertise, thought leadership pieces, case studies, customer stories, and how-to guides will rise above the noise. And they position your brand as a go-to resource.”

Goran explained that this is less of a tactic or strategy than a mindset you have to apply to all your campaigns. “For us, it’s not about convincing customers to buy—it’s about earning their trust over time by showing we understand their needs and are here to help.”

8. Make a marketing moat with customer insights

The best marketers have always used customer feedback to guide decisions. Unfortunately, there are precious few opportunities to sit and chat with a customer. Stella Inabo, a Content Marketer at Float, said you may already have all the customer intel you need.

“It is hard to get people to agree to a 30-minute chat. Instead of opting for direct conversations, I’ve found reading transcripts or watching video recordings from past customer interactions to be a good substitute.”

Diving into customer interactions will help make your messaging more relevant. But the real gold is that it can create a marketing moat other businesses can’t cross. “None of our competitors have access to this information, so it made our articles unique,” Stella explained.

For example, Stella said she recently conducted a series of customer interviews. The initial goal was to publish case studies and move on to the next job. “However, as I rewatched the recordings, I realized they held so many insights into our audience,” she said.

Stella listed a few of the takeaways from those interactions and how she used them:

• Their pain points became article and webinar topics.
• Their workarounds for problems highlighted objections to address.
• Their processes provided expert tips for how-to articles.
• Their language helped shape the words and phrases on our homepage and in customer-facing content.

Where else can you find these hidden collections of customer comments? Try sales call recordings, onboarding documents, and customer service tickets/recordings.

“Depending on the questions asked, you can use these internal assets to find out who your customers are, what they need, how they buy, and where they go for information,” Stella said. “Just to be safe, you should definitely check in with your customers to ensure it’s okay to use their words and ideas in articles.”

9. Break through selective attention

Colby Flood, Founder at DataAlly, said that in 2025, marketers will need to really think about what they post on social media.

“People are on social media to find content that entertains, educates, or connects with them emotionally and will likely filter out everything else due to what we call “selective attention,” he said.

Selective attention is our brains’ defense mechanism against being overwhelmed in buzzy environments. It’s how we filter out the drone of a city street but can hear a favorite song from half a block away. It’s also how we can scroll through a dozen posts at speed and automatically stop on one that interests us.

So, how do we stop speedy scrollers?

“Lean into UGC and influencer content to craft authentic, engaging ads,” Colby said. “Consider ways to naturally incorporate your product into stories or scenarios that resonate with your target audience.”

User-generated content works well because it’s peer-to-peer marketing. The content creator will naturally hit themes that resonate with other people like them.

UGC features people relevant to your target audience, cutting through their selective attention.

Don’t stress out trying to be the next GoPro of user-generated content. Here are a few easy ways you can turn product users into social media content creators for your brand:

• Add user-generated FAQs to your website and share them on social media.
• Post snippets from user testimonials.
• Promote your reviews.
• Ask users to add a branded hashtag like #[product]results when they post about the great things they’ve done with your product.
• Use social listening to find positive conversations about your brand, then ask if you can share them on your feeds.

We’re talking about marketing here, so Colby added a reminder to use those same attention-grabbing tactics to convert social scrollers. “Cap it off with a powerful CTA that speaks directly to your audience’s needs, sparking action that feels rewarding, not forced.”

10. Leave negative space in your campaigns

“Negative space” is the blank area that separates design elements on a page. It makes important text and graphics feel more important and helps viewers process the information they’re receiving.

Rease Rios, Director of Content at Qase, says that you should apply the same principle to your marketing calendar.

“Don’t become white noise,” she said. “Space out your big launches so your audience has time to get curious about what you’ll come up with next. If you run back-to-back major campaigns all year long, you’ll burn out your audience.”

It’s not just your audience’s attention at risk, Rease warned. “Know when it’s time to push and when it’s time to rest,” she said. “You’ll also burn out your team. They need room to be creative.”

The right cadence depends a lot on your business, especially its size and structure. One large campaign a quarter is a great goal for most, though. That allows time to gather results from a few tactics (like repurposing) that’ll inform the next big campaign.

The main marketing tip for 2025: Connect authentically

I didn’t use AI to write this article, but if I had, this is where it would say, “In the quickly evolving landscape of marketing, you’ll need new strategies and ideas to succeed.” And it wouldn’t be wrong.

Just a few years ago, none of us probably thought that Google would use AI to shove our links further down the page. We couldn’t imagine spinning up a dozen clone articles to heist SERP spots. Nor would we guess at the dramatic changes in how Twitter (ahem…X), Facebook, and TikTok operate.

But what’s interesting to me is that the marketing tips I got weren’t a bunch of complex, technical processes to hijack algorithms or game Google Ads. They all described some version of making marketing more human, which makes sense. No matter how many tech tools we throw at the job, we’re still people selling to people.