Top 2025 content marketing trends
This year, I’m seeing three big trends come to the forefront of content marketing. And they’re all good news for content!
A growing channel-specific role for content
35% of surveyed CMOs reported that increasing needs for content creation is a top challenge for 2025. And according to survey data MarketingProfs published in January, 2025, brand building budgets are going to be up by 79% year over year.
Amidst this growth, companies are realizing that it’s not enough to create a pillar piece of gated content, chop it into a few blog posts, and pull quotes from those posts into social posts. Real content strategy in 2025 requires a smart channel strategy including:
Zero-click content
Zero-click content lives somewhere other than your website. You don’t own the platform, which makes it inconvenient for you (how many times have you heard people, including me, say you should build where you own, not where you rent?). But the flip side of your inconvenience is better user experience for your readers. It’s easier for someone to read a post on Instagram or LinkedIn, get value from it, and then scroll on, than it is for them to click a link to get the value on your site. In fact, when people are on other platforms, they are there because that’s where they want to be! Don’t make life harder for them with an extra click, share the value where people want to hang out.
Conversion optimization within copy
Copywriters are often hired for their creative prowess. But having a way with words is now recognized as not being enough to get top copywriting jobs. Instead, knowledge of conversion optimization is a key component of hires in the copywriting space for both consumer brands and B2B brands.
Non-sales editorial content
There is a growing recognition of the importance of having high-quality content both for direct marketing and sales engagement, and non-sales uses. Non-promotional content works at all stages of the funnel, and all stages of awareness. Often, it’s thought of as a nice to have top of funnel play, but really, non-promotional content can also build brand loyalty among current customers, as well as serving as a value-add for sellers to use during sales conversations. This non-promotional content may take the form of blog posts, an industry newsletter, a lifestyle magazine, thought leadership social posts, ebooks, community posts, and even multimedia or in-person event sessions.
Old fashioned tactics are coming back, baby
The last 10+ years have seen a major focus on measurable marketing tactics, at the expense of traditional channels. With digital marketing, like paid search and social ads, you can track your results, in a way that you can’t with a billboard or magazines ad. This seemed like a huge boon to marketers, and to the C-suite revenue leaders they often report to.
But a decade in, the cracks in this model are showing. When you focus only on trackable channels, you naturally neglect the top of the funnel, the pre-marketing work of brand awareness.
You don’t really notice the impact right away, because you’ve still got high-intent traffic coming to your site, and as long as leads and customers are coming in, no one worries. But over time you start losing those leads to more recognized competitors. Fewer warm leads turn hot, and you don’t have a way of turning cold leads warm, because that would require finding them in their own space, which is not your space, so you can’t measure it.
For a fantastic explanation of this phenomenon, and why it’s driving brands to revisit old-fashioned, non-digital marketing, look no further than this brilliant blog by Rand Fishkin. And as proof, consider the MarketingProfs’ survey, which reports that traditional advertising budgets are indeed increasing for the first time in two years.
AI is permanently in the toolbox
AI has not replaced marketers, strategists, or writers. At least, not at smart brands who care about quality content. But even though AI doesn’t have a full seat at the table, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. It’s not fully embedded in the toolbox of leading content marketers, useful mainly in its ability to summarize and reformat existing content. It can also save many hours of research and brainstorming, essentially condensing work that’d otherwise require extensive googling.
Too many marketers are still trying to use it for a content writer, and the result is more garbage appearing on blogs, websites, and social media sites. Garbage content isn’t new. Many people would churn it out for a cheap price via UpWork, Fiver, etc. Now it’s just instantly available for even less money.
If I could get marketing leadership to do one thing it’d be to stop asking for AI-written content. It’s garbage, plain and simple.
On the other hand, if you’re not using AI as a tool to assist you in your own, very human, work, then you’re behind the times and had better catch up.
I listed AI last here because I just hate how much space it takes up in the marketing zeitgeist. Its abilities are way overhyped. But even I have to admit, it’s a priceless tool when you use it with a heavy human hand.
While situations shift, the importance of content remains
We’re a ways past the seemingly golden age of inbound content marketing, propelled by magical SEO traffic. We’re now in an age of maturity and sophistication. Content has to be well-researched, well-written, and perfectly matched to its purpose. And when it is, the brand awareness, leads, and sales still follow. I’m excited to see how these trends shape up in 2025, and what the future holds beyond this year.