Marketing Trends for 2025 Small Business Owners NEED to Hear
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scrolling through my feed, I was like, no effing way. No way that this actually got approved through probably like three or four people and they're running this ad, okay? There was a random arm sticking out of the backpack.

Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast where we celebrate the SOB that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business. We don't mean SOB. Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you,

If we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything. Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work. And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.

Welcome back to another episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast. Y'all, it's 2025. Yay! Congratulations, you made it through 2024. I don't know what kind of year you guys had, but it was an interesting one for me. I don't want to relive 2024. Not super sad to see it go, but I am super excited to be moving into the new year. And just as a little bit of a reminder, you guys,

Marketing is your life source to your small business. And if you have made a commitment to yourself in 2025 to, you know, just put marketing as a priority, then please hit subscribe to this podcast channel because

We want to be bringing you important marketing topics throughout the year just to help you along your way and to ensure that you guys are keeping your marketing top of mind because eventually that's what's going to drive the revenue. Okay, so please do that. Also, leave us a review if you're not new around here, if you've heard a couple of our episodes and for whatever reason you just haven't left us a review. Well, now is a perfect time. You guys didn't get us anything for Christmas, so you might as well just go ahead and...

Leave us a review. So Chelsea, oh, and one final thing.

Final piece of housekeeping around here, y'all. Remember, we have a TLDL section or chapter in this episode. We just started doing this. Too long, didn't listen. If you are short on time right now, Chelsea has your back. Go ahead and forward to that TLDL chapter. She's going to give you a really quick rundown of what we talk about in today's episode. And then when you do have more time, we want you to come back and listen to the full episode so that you get all of the context

behind the discussion. Perfect. So Vivian, today, this week, we wanted to start 2025 off right, which means we are going to be talking about marketing trends that we believe are going to continue to get popular, continue to grow, that are going to be super important in 2025 for small business owners. Yeah, I'm really excited about this discussion, Chelsea, because

I'm curious, and you guys let us know as you listen to this episode, if there are any marketing trends that we talk about today that really knock your socks off and you're like, whoa, didn't see that one coming, then please let us know. I'm curious about this. But for the most part, I get the inkling that you guys have maybe heard some of this rhetoric or some of these trends before. But

We hope to give you just more information and more context on how this might be morphing within the next year or two and what that might mean for your small business. Yeah, I also want to say, y'all, there is a lot of information out there. This is...

Our list of marketing trends, you know, we've done research. This is what we believe the research is showing and what we believe as marketing professionals make the most sense for 2025. This is not going to be the same list as all the other lists out there just because everyone has a different opinion. Absolutely. Chelsea, one of the funny ones, because y'all know Chelsea and I live...

eat and breathe this stuff, which means we do a lot of reading. We do a lot of watching videos. We just like to keep our, you know, our ear to the ground about what's changing and what's going on. I read an article that was 75 marketing trends for 2025. And I was like, first of all, who has time?

To write about 75 marketing trends. Even if you asked me to, that'd be a good challenge for me. Even if you asked me to write about 75 things, I'd be like, yeah, pass. Hard pass. Question. What makes it a trend and not just a strategy? Well, and that was the thing I couldn't... For me, when you talk about a trend, there shouldn't... Naturally, the word trend to me signifies that there shouldn't be a lot of them.

Right. Because like a trend in the sense of the definition by itself is something that a large part of the community or the population is doing. Right. So, I mean, you can't really convince me that there are like 75 trends that I need to prioritize as a small business owner. No. Yeah, absolutely. I can maybe I can maybe prioritize four, maybe five. OK, but like I ain't doing no 75.

Yes, 75 seems a little excessive, but let's go ahead and start with our first one. No surprise, it's going to be AI. Shocking. I hear a gasp. Everyone collectively gasped.

Yeah, right now, everyone is pushing to create new AI capabilities and to find new ways to use AI in their businesses. A great example of this is chatbots. And I personally love chatbots. It's a great use of AI, but businesses are working to make them more and more complex so that they can answer any question that your consumer may have. So

If you're not aware of what a chatbot is, it's when you pull up a website and, you know, you get that little message box and it goes, how can I help you? And then you can ask a question and it'll hopefully respond. Now, sometimes the response you get is, oh, we'll have to get a live representative for you or something like that. So people are trying to

minimize that as much as possible, right? So they want these chatbots to be able to answer any question a consumer would have, which if they figure this out, I think is a really cool thing. Amazing. Great for businesses.

I think what's interesting about this, and as small business owners, we just want to remind you, Chelsea and I have had several conversations just personally between her and I because we use like chat GPT and stuff. But we often go back to our conversation internally about when it's appropriate for us to use it and when it's not. And so we do want to say that we don't think chat or

not chatbots. We don't think AI is going to morph in the sense of like, it's going to be like running your business or doing anything like that. What we're saying is, and what she's talking about in regards to the chatbots specifically on a website is y'all know there are some questions that you hear over and over and over again. Okay. Maybe it's something to do with your shipping. Maybe it's something to do with your refund policy. Okay.

Those basic questions, and you don't need to have a human answering that because it's very, you know, like just basic and repetitive. And so that's what she's saying is those questions, once identified, you can utilize these platforms to help you come up with some type of decision-making tree that kind of says like, hey, if, you know, if the conversation escalates past this types of

of these types of questions, then a human needs to be involved. But if it's not, then you can easily input information and data that a chatbot could, it feels like it's still a person answering you, but they're just answering the basic questions. Real quick, what a lot of businesses are also trying to do is to expand on what those basic questions can be.

so that they need a human customer support person less and less. Perfect. And think about this. If you're saying, well, Vivian, Chelsea, I don't plan on using a chatbot for my website. That's okay. Think of it in terms of if you are still answering a lot of questions in DMs and Instagram direct messages, chatbots like ManyChat,

right, can help you with setting up systems to where it will allow you a little more freedom and you're not having to stay in your inbox all the time. But instead, that system that you set up can't address some of these basic questions. And so that's the way to look at AI. I agree with Chelsea. I think this is a big marketing trend that we're going to see in 2025. And what I'm going to say is I feel like

Our perspective of how we use AI in a business is going to change drastically because as these platforms change the way that they're using it so that we can, you know, engage more on the platforms, we're going to start to see those examples and be like, oh, well, that's not weird after all. One of the things I saw in socialmediatoday.com, Chelsea, that I want to read, this is a direct quote from an article that they had.

Pinterest already has try-on options for makeup products along with selected furniture items that you can virtually place in your home, while it also has skin tone search filters and hair type discovery options to refine your in-app searches. Expect Pinterest to launch more of these types of tools powered by AI to improve its discovery elements.

What that means, y'all, is they're basically telling us the functionality on the back end. AI is what is allowing them to get very concise with these filter options. For example, I'm very pale compared to my baby sister.

Chelsea has beautiful skin tone. I am like white. Okay. Just super white, which means that I have a harder time finding makeup and stuff like that. So Pinterest therefore now gives us an option to be able to scale down, whether that be me uploading a picture of myself so that I can try on eyeshadow to ensure that it will look good on me prior to me making that purchase. They're doing more and more of that. Chelsea, you were just telling me, um,

You and Tim are redoing one of your rooms. Furniture is a big deal, right? Like, is it going to fit in the room the way I want it to?

Pinterest is basically like, oh, hey, girl, don't worry. We got you. Basically, you upload a picture of the room and then you can place the dimensions, a graphic of the actual furniture into that to ensure that it fits correctly. I needed this when we were buying a mirror to go above. Vivian knows this story. To go above our...

In our main bedroom, we have double sinks and I wanted a mirror to go above it. And Tim said, OK, let's go shop for one. And I said, well, don't you need to measure the area first? And he was like, no, no, no, I know the sizes. It'll be fine. Long story short, we bought a mirror that's too big. So now it's on the other wall.

from the sinks. And I have no mirror above my sinks because I was like, forget it. So see, Pinterest is low-key wanting to save relationships because it's like...

It's like, just take a picture of the space beforehand, find the mirror on Pinterest, and then we'll tell you if it's going to fit in the space so that you can visually see it, right? But I think that's where, going back to what I was saying about AI, when you start doing or using AI outside of just what people think about these days, which is chat GBT, y'all, let's just call it. When we say AI, everyone thinks chat GBT and everyone's like, yeah,

Great. Like I can use it in my small business, but like, is that really going to change too much? Right. When we start to see this conversion in functionality and how AI is just helping us to have more of these filter options and create a better customer experience, I think in 2025, I

We're going to pay more attention to AI because it's going to start to click for us as small business owners. We're going to be like, oh, wait a second. I can maybe somehow integrate AI in this way. And so if you guys want to just be sure that you're staying present and on top of this AI conversation, highly recommend that you go and join our email list at

simply because and you could do that just by going to the season marketer.com nice little pop-up will appear just give us your email address in there opt-in because we'll keep you guys informed as the year progresses with it in the coming weeks we will have a another podcast episode specifically about ai ai do's and don'ts so we haven't recorded it yet y'all but we have it on the schedule and

Definitely when it comes out, listen to that because like Vivian was just saying, the way that we think about AI is going to change and that is a good thing. ChatGBT is a great tool if you're using it correctly. Do not just copy and paste posts and stuff like that from ChatGBT. We'll talk about it. We'll get into it in the episode, but

There are ways to use AI and there are ways to use chat GBT and there are ways that you don't want to use it. Absolutely. It can be used for good and it can be used for quote unquote evil. We'll call it evil, but menacing. You know what? For once, I'm going to be like, no, we don't mean evil. You know, it's more like marketing is about standing out. Yeah.

Y'all, you can tell when someone has copy and pasted a caption from ChatGBT. How is that helping you stand out? Agree. And also, Chelsea, you say this all the time. It's almost like these big brands that like try to be hip and cool and people can see right through it. You know, you're a small business. You have a really big advantage in the sense that,

People want to buy from you because it's from you. It's from your business. It's, you know, and so like Chelsea said, if you're just using chat GPT to write all of your communication, to write all of your social media posts, to, you know, write all of your copy on your website and stuff, it's diluting your advantage. Okay. Because branding.

Yeah, because then you look like everybody else. And people are like, what is this person, a robot? I mean, kind of. They got it from Chad GVT. That's right. Related to AI, another trend that I believe will continue to grow. I saw this less when I was doing research on it, but I do agree with it. It's voice search and voice commerce.

Because voice search is becoming more and more prevalent. When I say voice search, I mean Alexa. Alexa, find me the nearest waxing salon. Or you could say, Alexa, purchase this cat food again. That's voice search and voice commerce. So making sure that your content and your small business is compatible with voice searches and just kind of keeping that in mind for 2025.

great for your small business. I think this is also a great topic that we can uncover, Chelsea, in a future episode too, because as a small business owner myself, I've read up on it and I kind of know the basics where like they tell you, kind of like you look at SEO or you think about SEO, same vein for voice search. However,

I want to get very clear on what that means. Like what can a small business owner do to ensure that they are doing everything they can to show up on these voice searches? So you guys, if you're

If you need just one more reason to go ahead and subscribe to this channel, that's something that we'll put in queue for a future episode just so that we can bring you the latest and greatest information from 2025 about voice search. Our next marketing trend is, again, one that is no surprise. And it's my favorite, I guess, video content trend.

Y'all, video content is not going anywhere. If anything, it's growing even more. I saw recently that it's even become like becoming a leading trend in B2B marketing. So business to business marketing. I thought that was very interesting. Vivian, I want to ask you.

When I was doing research for this, I saw two separate opinions. I saw one opinion where they were saying, you know, educational content will continue to grow. It will continue to be relevant.

And especially in video marketing. And then I saw the opposite saying educational content is dead because people don't want to learn anymore. They just want to be entertained, not educated. They don't want to be educated anymore. They just want to be entertained.

What's your take? I will pick option C. It's called edutainment. So it's a mixture of the two. I do think, first of all,

Education is never going to go away, y'all. Education is not. If somebody says that to you, that's stupid. Can we just like, ooh, hot take from Vivian. Can we just say that? That's dumb. Okay. Dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's like assuming that we live in a culture of just idiots who don't want to like learn anything new. People are hungry for information. Shocking. We talk about marketing. It's all about the packaging.

And so, you know, think about the way that you utilize Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. We have one of our close friends, Karen. We joke that she's like the spreadsheet queen. She loves a good Excel spreadsheet. And she gets on TikTok. And I kid you not, she loves watching Excel spreadsheet hashtags.

hacks on TikTok. For one, it's entertaining. She likes the particular person that does these videos because of their presentation style. Then on top of it, she loves it because she's learning a new role or a new way to go about doing something that saves her time, education. Y'all just know if you're

Education is not going to go away. Do people want to be entertained? Yes, absolutely. Because think about it like you're getting meshed in there as a small business with all of this other video content that's floating around. So it's kind of weird that and I'll tell you the one place that I've kind of seen this, Chelsea, the Post and Courier, the newspaper here in Charleston, South Carolina. I think it's one of the oldest newspapers.

They are more and more. I've had to adjust. I used to think this is cringe. I'll be honest. I still kind of think it's cringe. I grew up in a time where I watched the nightly news with mom and dad. I'm used to having a reporter sitting behind a desk.

telling me the news. So it's been an adjustment for me, but they have actually, they've realized, hey, our content, our videos are getting meshed in with all of this other entertaining stuff. So therefore our reporters, when they create reels on news stories, have to be a little more creative.

And so you've seen them do a little more out of the box stuff. And, you know, kudos to them, I think, for realizing that the only way they're going to get views on these important headlines and local stories is to package it differently because that's what the consumer wants right now. I'm so glad that you...

picked option C, right? And I feel like we do this all the time, y'all. We say, oh, it's whatever works best for you guys. It's, you know, not yes, not no. It's a mix of in between.

Uh, because that's how the world works. Okay. I have a hot take. I mean, I would say I'm shocked, but I'm not. You are full of hot takes. Well, my hot take, uh, if someone's telling you this is how you have to do something or this cannot be done, if they're giving you absolutes, you shouldn't be listening to them. I agree with you a hundred percent. The, the,

You guys know this. Anytime, they always tell you when you're arguing with your spouse, and I learned this a long time ago, when I'm arguing with my spouse and I say, you always do X, Y, and Z, he's probably going to find examples of when he didn't do the thing I'm claiming he did. And so therefore, the word always isn't necessarily true, right? So when people say the words, never do this or always do that, it's not necessarily true.

you're always going to find examples of businesses that have not done what they're telling you to do and have come out okay. And so you're going to always find the exception to the rule. So agree with you, Chelsea. Absolutes, not a good way to kind of navigate. I mean, you can give people tips and stuff, but...

at the end of the day, it's just not a smart thing to take advice from people that are claiming. It's a little click baity. I feel like, yeah. And you guys, I just want to remind you, like Chelsea said, video content, we're going to see, even though it's not shocking and it's not new information that we're bringing to you, uh,

The way we utilize it is going to continue to grow. And we know this for a fact because I was recently reading up on something that was saying that Facebook is going to lean so heavy on video content. If y'all think they've already done this, you ain't seen nothing yet. Okay. Like they, they are saying they're going to lean even more into this video content and prioritize it simply because of what is possibly occurring with TikTok and

And so they have found Meta, who owns both Facebook and both Instagram. And look at the fact that Instagram basically just copy and pasted what TikTok was doing onto their platform with Reels.

So Meta is saying like, hey, we see how popular it is. We see that it's a, you know, there's a secret sauce in there. And so we're going to utilize it and prioritize it and make it even more so, you know, something that we're going to be doing in 2025. Yeah.

And y'all, if you are part of the SOB community, you would have heard this conversation already. We were talking about Facebook and their push for video. One of our community members was actually talking about how he's noticed an uptick in views on video content on his Facebook page. So we're seeing it firsthand.

that Facebook really is going all in when it comes to video. Can we also talk about, I'm going to merge two marketing trends, AI use in video, video editing, video creation. Vivian, I don't know if you've heard about this. And y'all, if you want a deeper dive into what I'm about to say, again, join the SOB community because I'm going to be bringing it to one of our weekly events

meetings to talk about this, but Instagram recently announced that they're going to be, they are currently exploring with AI and video, being able to change what you're wearing in a video, being able to change the background so you're in a different place.

They're playing with how to incorporate AI when it comes to recording on Instagram. So

AI and video marketing kind of merging together. I had not heard that. And I have mixed feelings about this because I already hate that y'all be using so many damn filters on this thing. Like, can I just tell you, I'm not going to name names, but I sometimes will see people's pictures and I'm like, you definitely do not look like that. Like, yeah.

Like you are out here catfishing people, okay? So I just feel like they're opening up Pandora's box with catfishing even more because now we're going to be swapping out backgrounds. We're going to be swapping out outfits. Like, you know what I mean? I would love for us to have this conversation later on in the year. When it's actually happening? When it's actually happening, one. And two, to see how people are actually reacting

reacting to this, you know, particularly with businesses. Like, are consumers going to like the fact that you're changing your background or is it going to be super obvious and super off-putting? Can I tell you what this reminds me of? And I can't believe I haven't shared this with you yet, Chelsea. I think I took a screenshot of it. If not, I remember the business that did this. You know how more people are using A&I...

AI, not A and I. AI to generate content for their business. Well, apparently there was a business during Christmas time that was running a Facebook ad and it's one of those survival businesses. Do you know what I'm talking about? They sell backpacks and camping world sort of thing. Yeah, but not... It's more of like this...

of survival products that people want. So think about if you were maybe-

Y'all, if you can't tell, I'm not surviving. If there's an apocalypse, I'm just... Chelsea's the first one to go. I am the first. Tim told me already he'd leave me. He's like, you're a liability. You're just going to get us both killed. Forget it. Well, come over here and hopefully your big sister can help you along a little bit. But I will just say you're going to be the first one that I eat in the group, okay? Okay. So anyways...

it's one of those types of companies and they sell gear like backpacks and stuff. Well,

The ad, the image was obviously created by AI. And when I saw this one thing that I'm about to tell you about, when I was scrolling through my feed, I was like, no effing way. No way that this actually got approved through probably like three or four people and they're running this ad. Okay. It is a picture of like rubble.

All right. So like think of like a city that's kind of looks like it's I don't know, like not a war zone, but a city that's in rubble. OK. And then. Yes. In ruins. And then there's like a family. So it's got like a mom, a dad, a kid and then like a baby. Right. And.

And there's one of them is wearing a backpack. But here's the funny part is there was a random arm sticking out of the backpack. Oh, my God. Maybe they did it on purpose. And there was no there was no.

I was like, wait a second. Because you know how we talk about how AI hasn't quite figured out how to really do well with images and stuff yet? Okay, just a random arm sticking out of the backpack that they were carrying. And I was like, that's kind of creepy. And then, of course, because you know me,

I was about to comment on it and I clicked on the comments because I was like, clearly, I cannot be the only one who sees this, right? And sure enough, first the comments are like, I love this brand. I love this product. I have this backpack. It's great. And then I get down further and it's like...

Does anybody else not see the hand, the random arm coming out of the backpack that has no body attached to it? So that's an AI fail. Y'all don't be using AI to create your Facebook ads, please. Okay. Because stuff like this will happen. Are you a small business owner feeling overwhelmed by marketing? We understand. That's why we created the SOB community just for you.

Imagine having access to expert marketing advice every week through our interactive Zoom calls. Network with fellow small business owners in our community, share valuable insights and grow together. Dive into our comprehensive training videos covering everything from social media to SEO. And all this for just $50 a month. Empower your small business without breaking the bank. Join the SOB community today.

So our next trend for 2025, our next marketing trend is social commerce. Oh. Y'all shopping on social media will continue to grow. And these platforms will continue to push for it. And if you guys need proof of this, I was reading something recently in regards to TikTok. So obviously TikTok,

TikTok has a Chinese version, and they often talk about the difference between the TikTok we see here in the United States and the difference that they see in China. One of the big differences they were talking about is that they have had such an uptick in these type of profiles on TikTok that are just live streaming profiles.

selling product. And it's like fast paced, like think QVC on steroids. Okay. Yeah. And live. And so what I was shocked by, and I didn't write the numbers down, was the amount of

sales that these people were doing was insane. And so that's where this trend is kind of, if you need proof that it's already started, a lot of times like some of these other countries get ahead of these trends and then the U S just kind of like follow suit, but you're probably going to see more and more of this. And funny story, um,

I don't know how many of you out there have, I'm a big Facebook girl. So I was on Facebook and I'm in some of these Facebook groups. There are some of them that are resident groups for like the area we live in or like mom swap groups. Recently, I kept seeing these women, it was women, it wasn't men. So I hate to even say that. It sounds a little sexist, but I didn't see any men posting this. Women were posting these links to their TikTok posts.

saying like, Hey, if you click the link, share your link and I'll click it for you. And I was like, what is this all about? Well, apparently during the holidays, TikTok is running this thing where until January 1st, so we're recording this January 1st. So it ends today. Anytime somebody clicked on your link and let's say they joined TikTok, they would give you $75. Right.

Okay, so these women would get on these big groups so that they could like cash out, make some extra money doing this because to them, they're like, I don't have to do anything. They just click the link. Interestingly enough, when I logged into our TikTok account, I noticed that we had $6.34 like in the little bank thing. And I was like, what is this even? Because like I'm not on there doing anything. Chelsea's not on there doing anything. And sure enough,

Just to prove to you guys how valuable this is to TikTok, the $6.34 was an accumulation of activity that either Chelsea and I had gone in there at some point and just while we were watching TikTok, it told us and timestamped our activity. Like it said, you were on TikTok shop for this amount of time. We gave you 50 cents. You were on TikTok shop for this amount of time. We gave you a dollar.

All right. So think about this. They are incentivizing people. They are gamifying a way to get people onto their platform to spend more money. I feel like this is also connected to the ban. So y'all, we are in the United States. The U.S. is more than likely going to ban TikTok.

sometime this month in January. When TikTok gets banned, it means that it's no longer in the app store. If you have it downloaded on your phone already, you will still have access to it. Now, at some point, you won't be able to get the updates or anything like that. So at some point, you won't be able to use the app anymore because it'll just be so outdated. But until you get to that point, you still will be able to use the app. So I

I feel like they're trying to get as many people to download TikTok and to get used to using it so that it's at least on your phone.

So that when it does get banned, at least they will still have that U.S. audience for the time being until they either figure something out or it becomes outdated and you can't use it anymore. I do agree with you on that. I do think it's partially due to that. But I also do think that there's a lot of value in the fact that... I guess what I'm trying to say is...

there is so much value in those live shopping experiences to them that they are now going to be promoting, prioritizing, trying to get people to spend even more money on TikTok shop. And so I guess let's move away from TikTok, Chelsea, and you're saying social, social commerce. That's what you called it, right? Yeah. All right. So what, what other areas can

Can we look for that in? Are you saying like we'll see more of that in Instagram maybe? Oh, absolutely. Instagram, Pinterest. I actually was reading an article that was saying platforms like Instagram are looking to expand their intuitive shopping features. So, for example, Instagram...

is working on creating the ability that if you see a travel photo from an influencer, you can click on the clothes that that influencer is wearing and buy it. So it'll be able to tell where the product is from. And y'all, I don't know. I think I've told Chelsea this. Listen, if...

If you're just a nosy little Bia and you want to know what your friends are wearing or where they bought, like let's say they have a pair of sneakers on in a photo and you're like, oh, where'd they get these sneakers, right? I like them or whatever. You can take a screenshot of the photo, go to Google and use their picture search, their photo search, upload it, and it will show

show you how much the product is, where you can buy it, all of that stuff. Like it matches the image to the product. So to your point, Chelsea, I feel like the technology has already been there, but the application hasn't quite been out.

as intuitive and it hasn't been an AI version of it, right? So if Instagram is going to, it's interesting that they're going to take something that's already kind of in use, but they're going to amplify it and they're going to say, you know what, like now when you upload a picture, we'll tag the products in there and then people can buy them. I am very interested in seeing how that comes out. Agreed. Yeah, they didn't say when exactly,

Of course, because, you know, they're still working on it. So I guess what I'm interested in is to see how they make money off of it, because I don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to use that type of technology, that AI stuff, and then go to these brands and be like, hey, you know, we'll turn this on for your brand. Right.

If you pay us X amount of dollars or there's got to be something there for them, right? To where they make money off of it. Or it could just be like, hey, if you buy it from Instagram, we're taking a cut, a percentage of it. And so therefore it's in our, you know, it behooves us to increase those product sales just because we get a portion of it. Really interesting. So let's move on to our next trend. We have talked about this all year.

And it's following us into 2025. Y'all, personalization. I want to say it one more time. Personalization no longer means, hi, name. Say it louder for those in the back, please. If I had a nickel for every time someone forgot to actually insert my name, I'd only have two nickels. But that's too many nickels, okay? It's weird that it's happened twice. So you'd only have 10 cents?

Well, okay. So the last time Chelsea and I got a big kick out of this, because I can tell this is now, this is going to be a thorn in Chelsea's side from here on out. Okay, y'all. She forwarded me an email that we got from someone who's trying to be a guest on this podcast. And what did it say, Chelsea?

It said, hi, podcast name. They didn't even bother putting our podcast name in there. And you want to be a guest? Like, come on. Should have, you know what? I think...

we need to be nice. And from now on, when we receive these, we need to respond back and we need to be like, yo, the answer is no. And it's because you didn't even bother putting our podcast name in there. You know what? Yes. We probably should do that. Like, hey, you need to pay attention before you hit send. Yeah. Personalization is not a luxury at this point. Okay. It's an expectation. Your consumers, your customers,

They respond better to personalized ads, not generic ones. They want to feel like you know who they are without it being invasive. And Ken, I just encourage you. I don't know if maybe how popular this sentiment is amongst small business owners. I understand we get it. You guys deem yourself small businesses and,

However, that should not take away from the fact that you need to be collecting data. Data is power. And the reason we say this, you don't need to be creepy about it. You don't need to be, you know, Uncle Sam trying to figure out, you know, tapping into people's phones, listening to their conversations. We don't need that kind of stuff. But the reason we say that is for a couple different reasons.

The data you collect, whether that be, let's say you have a home decor store and at checkout, maybe you ask people for their first name, last name and their email address. Right. And of course, goes without saying, you always ask people to opt into these things, guys. OK, or let's say you sell stuff online. You ask people for their first name, last name, their mailing address, all of that.

The information that you are collecting on the product, hopefully you guys have software or are using platforms where you could pull reports to see products sold, services sold, and attach it to individual purchases. But the reason you do this is because when Chelsea's talking about the personalization and how personalization

personalizing something like high insert name is so 2000 and y'all that was 25 years ago. If I need to remind you of that, that was so 2000 now in 2025 personalization is I knew that Vivian Walton came in and she bought these products. And because of her product purchases, I also know she might be interested in these other similar products or extensions of that product. Um,

And therefore, I'm going to create communication, emails, text that are specific to that and send it to her and the group of people that fall into that little bucket that I've created. And so, Chelsea, I know you were telling me Amazon does this. So you guys think Amazon except better, right? Yes. Think about I have three things I want to say. One.

You get to only say one thing. No, I'm saying all three. This is why you need to segment your target audience. This is why you need to do it. Amazon, you're right, does it okay. You know, if you're searching for, let's say, new headphones, Amazon will then show you

Oh, here are some other new headphones. Maybe you want a different set of headphones. Now, where Amazon kind of loses me is that after you purchase the headphones, they're still going to continue to show you other headphones. Well, I already bought them. Like, I don't need new headphones now. Stop showing me these recommendations, right? But...

That's why segmenting your target audience, looking at what they're purchasing will allow you to be smarter than Amazon. And instead of saying, hey, you bought this table, this desk,

Instead of saying, hey, do you want a different desk that I sell? Instead of being Amazon, you can say, hey, you know, we have these table lamps. Or, hey, we're doing a sale on our home decor. You know, because you know what they purchased, you can personalize what you show them. And I think, too, if you're thinking, yeah,

I can't get any more narrow in how I divide up my target audience. You can, you guys, I'm going to give you an example. You, your target audience is mothers. Okay. Let's say you sell, um, car seats. Okay. So parents, target audience, parents to a newborn, um,

very different parents to an infant, parents to like a toddler, right? And because car seats, you're able to purchase them. I think kids have to wear them up to like, wear them, kids have to be in them up to like a certain, you can tell Chelsea and I do not have children, up to a certain weight, right? And so I think I,

and knowing like saying, yes, my target audience because I sell car seats are parents. However, within that group that

that scope, I can create ads or create communication emails that is very specific to, let's say, newborns. And the way we would be able to tie that data or information is, let's say people are having a baby, they go do a baby registry. And so if you're able to tie like, hey, someone included in a baby registry, our product is

Then we know or we can naturally connect the dots and say they're going to be parents of newborns. And therefore, I can send them content that is geared towards newborns to stay top of mind. And then perhaps I have other products that

would fit into that particular scope. But that information necessarily would not apply to, let's say, parents of a seven-year-old who just happens to be teetering on that 45 pounds. And y'all, I don't know if kids weigh 45 pounds at seven. I don't know. Okay. So like this, this could be entirely made up. Okay. But, but that's what I'm saying. Like,

There are ways. And I think the better you get at marketing and the better you are at kind of walking through this stuff, you start to identify groups within your target audience. And it sets them apart enough to where you can specifically target them and tap into have them feel like, oh, wow, this brand, this business really knows what, you know, what I'm about and what I'm going through. Go

Going back to my two other things, making sure that you get that consent is really big when it comes to being intrusive and not being intrusive. For one, legally, you have to get consent, y'all. Please don't just start emailing or texting people. Some people still do it anyways. I went to a business recently, purchased something, filled out all the stuff, but I did not consent.

to getting any messaging because I didn't want to. And yet I still got a text later on. And it wasn't like a, oh, you can opt out, but we've added you to it. No, it was like just a promotional text. Well, now I'm mad. If I had consented to those texts and if I wanted to receive those texts, I would have been like, oh, cool, thanks.

But because I did not give you consent and you did it anyways, now I feel like my privacy was violated. It's funny because you know how in my head I always take a story and I magnify it and I just let it run wild. I'm sitting here thinking that you're going to be the reason for this business's demise simply because...

You're going to report them and then it's going to create this whole domino effect and Chelsea would have taken down that one business that didn't get consent. Y'all, I promise not to take down any small businesses, okay? I'm not here for evil. I do like to say I'm in my villain era, but that's like a personal life thing. I promise not to come.

For all you small businesses out there. You guys are safe. Trust us. Yes. The third thing I was going to say, just random, when you were talking about, oh, that's so like 2000s, I thought of the Black Eyed Peas song where it goes, I'm so 2008, you're so 2000 and late. Yeah.

And I'm like, dang, 2008 is late too, man. I mean, 2008 is a long time ago nowadays. Well, so as you guys know, Chelsea's a big music buff. So I'm not shocked that you related it back to some lyrics. Yeah. Okay. So personalization, the key takeaway here, we just want to remind you guys that

It's evolved. And if anything, just remember, the more information you have on your customers or potential customers, the better. If you're thinking, you know, it's still hard for me, you guys, if you're using free downloads to get people onto an email list, that's data.

Okay, what type of free downloads do they like? What can you pull from that? All that. So just be sure that you're leveraging that going into 2025. And if you need a little inspiration or help, you guys can always email us and I'm sure Chelsea and I can, you know, can help you along or just join our $50 a month SOB community, y'all, because that's where the good conversations happen.

the one-on-one attention. Our last marketing trend for 2025, experiential shopping. And wow, we sound like broken records at this point because I was going to say, if you're part of the SOB community, you would have heard about this already. Yeah, we did cover this one too. Yes, we did. But people want an experience when it comes to shopping. Just think about the rise of markets and craft fairs.

People want to walk around and shop. So what else, Chelsea, though, let's say I'm not a business that necessarily wants to do markets or set up shop. What would that look like for me? How can I incorporate experiential shopping? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking record stores, just because you have your records behind you. Yeah.

For one, record stores already have an added like edge because people like flipping through records. It's a good experience. Like it's fun, right? But you could also do listening parties. I know you were telling me the other day that our friend Melinda over at Cotton Down South, she now does classes, correct? Now this is a storefront, okay? She's got a storefront. She has home decor. One of her...

One of the products she's known for are these candles that they make in-house because they have like a sweet tea scent to them, okay, which is very Southern, y'all. We live in South Carolina. We love us some sweet tea, okay? So it's a very nice scent that she's known for. Well, she...

uh, the way she sells the candles is in these dough bowls that once the candle is finished, you can actually reuse the bowl, um, for like centerpiece or just like to hold little keys, tchotchkes, all that stuff. So she has taken to creating classes for groups of people that you can book. She charges a flat fee. You come in there. She has all of the, um,

material needed, and you guys, they'll walk you through creating your own candle. And so you leave with a candle that you've created, but what she's done and what's interesting about that as far as the vein of what you're talking about, Chelsea, is she's taking a product that she's well known for. She's launched a service off of it.

So it's added revenue, but on top of it, it's an experience that people can have, right? And if they already know her for her candles in the store, this just adds to that. So there are ways, and I know Chelsea and I both gave you examples of like stores, you

that are doing this people with storefronts, but if you're an online business, you can still do this in terms of like, think about, um, if you can do anything virtually, right? So maybe it's doing webinars of some type. Uh, we have, uh,

one of our previous guests on here, Haley, who does wine tastings, she has an actual like virtual component to it that people could do. And that's still an experience that they can have no matter where they're at. The other thing is she also has the, you know, one-on-one where she could walk you through stuff, you know, in person. And so it's just thinking a little more about that,

customer experience because we know that is what sets people apart. I love that example. I love that we have a storefront and virtual example. Let's do one for markets as well. I know I said markets and craft fairs are already like an experiential shopping. It's a shopping experience, yes. But

As a small business, you can take it one step further. A great example of this is our friend Rae, the design demon and her charm bar. So she listened to her customers.

because people were coming to her and they were saying, oh, I love these earrings. But you know, like I want a gold hoop instead of a silver hoop. Or people were saying, oh, I love these two charms. I'd rather have these charms on my earrings instead of the ones you have here. She listened. She was like, you know what? I'll do a charm bar. So here are the hoops that you can pick from. Here are the charms you can pick from and build it yourself. This is the fee that it would be.

And I will build your earrings right there in front of you. You pick out what you want. Yeah, I really love that example because for one, it was also one of those realizations for her where she's like,

Why am I trying to guess what people want when really all I have to do is put all of the material there, charge them one set fee, and then basically let them have at it? And then, you know, the price is dependent on how many you put on there or what you want. But it's kind of, think Build-A-Bear experience, y'all. That's the, you know, anything that you can take a product or a service and you could give someone that added value.

you know, thing. I think that helps quite a bit. It's like it sets you apart from others. All right. So Chelsea, are we ready for the TLDL? I was going to ask you. I think we are ready for the TLDL. So if you guys skipped ahead to this chapter, TLDL too long, didn't listen.

I'm glad that we got you here and that you're listening to the synopsis. When you get a chance, go listen to the entire conversation. There's some good stuff in there. Marketing trends that we are expecting to see in 2025 either continue to grow, to become more prevalent, or to pop up. Experiential shopping. Personalization. Social commerce. So that means purchasing stuff on social media platforms. Video content. That

That's not going away, y'all. And AI. AI definitely not going away as well. So those are the marketing trends that we expect to see in 2025.

And again, go listen to the entire conversation if you want to hear our reasoning and why we are keeping an eye out on all of these trends. Friendly reminder too, if you guys are making marketing a priority in your small business, we have free resources for you. Number one, we want you to sign up for our free email list. Once a week, we send you an email with

even more marketing information. Number two, we want you to go follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Number three, we want you to look at our YouTube tutorials under the seasoned marketer. We have a ton of them. So if you're looking for just basic marketing information or you're trying to figure out a

take a look, take a peruse on some of the topics that we've already covered. Also, number four, hit subscribe to this podcast channel. And finally, number five, you guys, why have you not joined us in our SOB community?

Okay. High priority for 2025. You guys want the marketing conversations. We want to hop on Zoom with you once a week. We have other community members there. We want to talk about your business and just give you the option to ask us questions about, you know, how you can go about promoting your small business.

Can I just say these questions can be personalized to your small business? Yes. Like you can ask a very specific like this is what my business is going through. How do I market this or something like that? Like it can it doesn't have to be like a very vague marketing question. Absolutely. So y'all we hope to see you in our SOB community and just go out there and be the best SOB you can be.