Top 2025 Marketing Trends for Small Businesses

The new year has landed and it’s time to take a look at the current business context and dive into the key marketing trends that will define 2025 for small businesses. 

The last 12 months have seen many rapid shifts in technology and consumer preferences, but how will these changes impact 2025? What will change in the way small businesses operate, strategise or market their services and products? 

From the Search for Authenticity to a Polarising World 

While in 2023 AI felt like the new (often-irritating) kid on the block, in 2024 it became a steady companion for many small businesses. At times, it brought along changes that felt too overwhelming to track, while at others, it breathed fresh air into stale processes and dull tasks. 

All of this contributed to a different user experience and, as a consequence, new customer preferences – some born out of excitement, others out of frustration. Specifically, Accenture: Life Trends 2025 Report states that consumers have been feeling wary of technology and content overload, often unsure about who or what to trust in a world that feels both too opinionated and more polarising. The result? An exploration to find a healthier, more balanced approach to technology, a shift in priorities when it comes to how (and where) time is spent online and, most importantly, a pickier way to select a brand or business provider. 

Let’s take a closer look at the marketing trends that are being shaped for 2025 by this types of context and behaviours: 

1) Hyper-Personalisation

To counteract the effects of AI-generated mass content, personalisation is key in 2025 and it equals a strategic asset for any small business aiming to drive growth. According to a report published by Deloitte Digital, “75% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that deliver personalised content”, and that’s no wonder as consumers naturally gravitate towards brands that make them feel seen, connected or understood. 

Personalised content also improves customer loyalty, meaning you can, for example, increase individual customer value or customer lifespan with more ease, while also improving (or growing) your lead generation processes.

How do you make the most out of this trend? Leverage your existing data to segment your audience and create journeys aligned with their preferences, needs and behaviours. This approach can work for both service- and product-based businesses and can be easily implemented in email marketing campaigns or paid advertising. 

Customers also prefer businesses that align with their purpose, values and point of view, so don’t be afraid to leverage these things to design personalised campaigns that not only drive sales but also focus on growing customer loyalty as this will give you a competitive advantage. 

2) Omnichannel Experiences that Feel Authentic and Cohesive 

Omnichannel Marketing has seen a rise in popularity over recent years and that’s because customers want to be able to pick and choose how, when and where they interact with brands or purchase an item. This means that any modern brand is expected to provide a seamless experience, across multiple platforms, to allow their customers to engage with ease and authenticity, no matter if they’re browsing from their phone or grazing through racks in store.  

Especially if you run a product-based business with a physical presence, you’ll need to focus on creating so-called “phygital” or “click-and-mortar” experiences that are fun, functional and consistent. And even if you don’t run a physical store, you can still guarantee a cohesive omnichannel experience by leveraging transactional emails, app notifications, updates, eCommerce and social media integrations, and fun unboxing moments for your customers. 

Contrary to popular beliefs, Omnichannel Marketing can also be easily leveraged by service providers. How? By maintaining consistency in your visual brand, messaging, customer interaction and communications across all the channels (think websites, social media, brochures, emails, banners) relevant to your business or sector. Plus, if a part of your marketing or sales process includes events and meeting up with customers, you can leverage these offline opportunities to further create a consistent omnichannel experience that feels authentic and represents your brand values and competitive advantages.  

3) Social Media Trends: Creativity, Humanisation and EGC

Social media trends for 2025 would deserve an article of their own as there’s lots of changes happening! However, to keep things practical and relevant to small businesses, we’ve identified three macro-trends that work across any platform, regardless of your industry:

- Creativity Over Perfection
People are tired of picture-perfect feeds, gorgeous templates and impeccable captions. Any decent marketer would acknowledge that platforms now feel “contaminated” by an extreme amount of low-value, inauthentic content that relies on stock imagery, faceless content and AI-generated text. In order to stand out in this sea of generic content, it’s crucial to get more creative, experiment with original ideas, and push boundaries in terms of both visuals and copy. Video content will continue to be king to increase reach, while carousels will help improve engagement. Both formats allow you to be creative and to showcase more of who you and your team are (especially with video) in a way that feels truly authentic. 

- A Yearn For Human Touch
In line with the previous point, social media users are craving more realistic content that feels “human”, trustworthy, and reflective of their own reality. According to research, 50% of consumers can now spot whether a piece of content was created using AI, and three-quarters of those individuals admitted to stop reading or engaging once they realise it’s AI-generated. This means that simply leaning on good ‘ol ChatGPT & friends to lazily throw together a caption doesn’t cut it anymore. So the best way to stand out on social media is to re-humanise the way you create content (while still collaborating with AI on research, edit, brainstorming tasks, etc), shine a light on the humans behind the brand, spotlight your customers and showcase what makes you unique and relatable as a brand. 

- EGC: your Getaway to Authentic Content
Although early 2024 saw a preference for micro-influencers, the latter half slowly shifted beyond influencer-driven campaigns and heavily favoured user-generated content (UGC). While UGC itself is nothing new, 2025 is witnessing a twist: employee-generated content or EGC. What’s the difference, you ask? UGC leverages customers’ authentic content and feedback to enhance trust and brand loyalty, and EGC goes a step further by spotlighting employees’ own experiences, knowledge and personal brand. Major brands like Innocent, Marks & Spencer, Hootsuite, Dell and others are already using EGC and it works great because it gives them a chance to create a more approachable, trustworthy and transparent brand, while also providing potential new hires with a glimpse of the company culture. Of course, EGC shouldn’t be random. It requires a solid marketing strategy, clear guidelines, and training to align with your brand values and maintain high quality output that’s relevant to your potential customers. 

4) Rise of Social Search, Voice Search and a new SEO approach 

Gone are the days when Google was the only place to get your information! Gen-Z has radically changed the way things work by turning to social platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube for research and product/service discovery. This has led to the rise of “social search”, a more dynamic searching method that continues to grow, especially as the introduction of AI-generated pages has spurred on a bunch of low-quality content that’s gotten everyone frustrated at search results. This means that if social media is a big part of your marketing strategy, you need to pay attention to search keywords and create content that gives your audience the relevant information, in the most consumable format. 

At the same time, voice-controlled devices (Alexa, Siri, Bixby, etc) have been evolving beyond simple, standardised commands, enabling conversational queries and more complex internet searches just by pressing one button (or simply calling out “Alexa!”). This has created a new opportunity - as well as challenge - for marketers and business owners alike. In fact, the rise of voice search demands a fresh approach to content writing and search engine optimisation (SEO). In 2025, SEO will need to further mirror spoken language, address FAQs in a conversational way and account for the increasing reliance on AI summaries for search results. This could eventually lead to a shift from traditional SEO toward “Generative Engine Optimisation”. How do you successfully navigate these changes? Focus on optimising web content for long-tail keywords and ensure it is concise, easy-to-scan and features summaries. Review your copywriting or brand guidelines and opt for a conversational style of writing that might match the language and search queries of your customers. 

There are many other trends we could discuss for 2025, but these are the ones that’ll make the biggest difference and impact if you run a small business. Of course, trends shouldn’t just be implemented because… well, they’re trends! They need to be relevant to your overall marketing strategy and capabilities and should be scaled up or down to fit your budget. So, before jumping in and implementing one of these trends tomorrow, make sure you have a solid marketing strategy and plan in place – this is the foundation that will enable your business to grow and achieve great results.

If you need support with your marketing strategy or you need a dedicated team to successfully implement these trends, get in touch with us today.