6 Outdated Marketing Strategies in 2025: And the New Ones That Have Replaced Them

New marketing strategies climb the skyscrapers each year, while the old ones are mostly ignored. We’re just at the edge of 2024, and some marketing tactics will be wiped out with the lowest conversion rates, as witnessed throughout this year. 

Marketers and business owners must be wary of this shift because now is the best time to ditch the tactics with the lowest conversion and focus all their efforts on the new ones. 

Let's first identify why the following marketing channels and tactics should be abandoned in 2025: 

6 Outdated Marketing Tactics

1. Print Marketing

If you have been relying heavily on newspaper ads, hoardings, and pamphlets, now is the time to stop draining your money on this tactic. Since the emergence of mobile-optimised ads, there’s been a drastic downfall in print marketing because customers are stuck to their screens and there is nothing that can’t be advertised on a screen. 

Year after year, the sales of newspapers and magazines have been declining. Pamphlets and hoardings have been centric on in-store marketing that is profitable to drive more footfall to shops. Explore this blog by us: What is Guest Posting in SEO? 

Hence, the budget that you are spending on print marketing should be reduced significantly, and digital marketing channels should be brought to the table. 

 

2. TV Commercials

This segment of advertisement has been dominated by big brands that have a gazillion dollars to spend. For emerging brands, TV commercials are not profitable because the ROI is significantly uncertain, with the younger audience shifting to OTT platforms and social media channels. 

Instead, if your brand caters to this younger tech-savvy audience, you can consider advertising on OTT platforms. It is comparatively cheaper and allows a number of ad types that meet your budget. 

It is important to note, however, that you must connect with the OTT platforms’ advertising team to get this done. In many cases, your appeal might even be rejected because their Traffic is too high to risk in terms of the quality of the ads. But it's honestly better than spending money on TV commercials if you are a small or midsized brand. 

3. Newspaper Advertising

Newspaper sales have been diminishing like never before. Newspapers have now been replaced by e-newspapers because, of course, people are more likely to read news on their phones instead of reading it in the morning newspaper. 

Your marketing budget should now be spent on e-newspapers if that brings conversions for your business. Each newspaper brand has multiple ad formats to offer, like banner ads, video ads, carousel ads, etc. 

If you are looking to save time, you can approach an agency that specializes in e-newspaper ads and promote your brand through them. They will provide you with customized packages and their pricing so that you don’t have to converse with different newspaper brands to get the best price. 

4. Heavy Reliability on Email Marketing

Email Marketing is saturated. Hands down, it is not at all rewarding, in my opinion. Every website you visit and each application you use sends your emails. Sometimes, these brands send promotional emails to you multiple times a day. That’s daunting for customers; this leads to the lowest-ever conversion rates through email Marketing. 

If you are a small business and you send weekly or biweekly emails, they are most likely to be lost in the stash of emails that the users receive from websites that they signed up for years ago. 

In 2025, make some distance from email Marketing and switch to some other marketing platform for your business. 

5. Irrelevant short-form content

You might have witnessed the power of reels by now. And that may have motivated you to create Instagram reels or YouTube shorts. However, it is crucial to create relevant content for these platforms. In the pursuit of maintaining frequency, brands usually neglect the value that they provide to the users. Check out 5 Viral Marketing Campaigns of 2024

 

Ensure that your short-form content is rich in quality and speaks directly to your customers. Having fun sometimes with memes and funny short videos is fine, but information on your niche and valuable knowledge goes a long way. 

Your social media strategy needs heavy modifications if, despite being consistent, you are getting no results from the short-form content. Maybe it lacks the value that your users have been searching for desperately. 

6. Bulky Long-form Content

Attention spans have been declining like crazy! The first 3 seconds of any content decide its fate. No matter how good the remaining stuff is, the users will either scroll away or hit back if your content does not hook them in the first three seconds. 

For small businesses, I will advise that they must capitalize on relevant and catchy short-form content. And discontinue bulky, long-form videos and blogs that do not drive much returns. The efforts and money can be spent mindfully on other marketing channels. 

 

To balance the odds, let us now glance over the marketing tactics that will help you the most in 2025. They are trendy, and they are driving better conversions than the ones listed above: 

What to do instead

1. Pay Per Click advertising

Digital Marketing is a lot cheaper than print marketing. But if you do not have the time to grow your business through organic digital marketing, switch to pay-per-click advertising. Promote your business on popular platforms like Google ads, Instagram ads and Meta ads. They have a well-built spectrum to cover your target audience, and the best part is that you can control and track every penny that you have been spending. 

If the existing campaigns do not work out for you, you can always modify or pause the campaigns at any time. This not only saves your money but also ensures that you reach a wider audience time and again on their devices. 

2. Theme-based / Festive Offers

Customize your offerings and products according to the festivals that resonate with your brand. Festive offers are a great way to connect with the organic audience and sell more. Create a strategy for selling your products at discounted prices in 2025 during the festive season. This will keep your audience hooked on your social media accounts, and they’ll always be on the lookout for festive sales. 

Also, this creates a personal connection with your customers because they realise that you value their festivals as much as they do. And each festival, you have something planned. 

3. Influencer Marketing

Find the ideal influencer and work alongside them. This goes a long way because their audience already trusts them. Building trust takes time, but through an influencer, you can reduce this time and make your product reach new customers. 

 

Influencer marketing can be costly at times, but when done right, it brings a lot of business instantly. In 2025, each social media platform will have influencers for each niche and size. Plus, you can tailor the form of content according to your budget. 

If you create a reliable database of influencers who are willing to work alongside you, your brand can be promoted multiple times each month. 

4. Interactive Content

Social media reach relies heavily on interactive metrics such as comments, reports, mentions, and unique hashtag usage. This informs the algorithm that users are interacting with an account more than usual, and it is supposed to rank higher. 

Maybe you can provide some free ebooks or marketing templates when someone comments on your posts or when they repost your content on their profile. This is how you can create interactive content for your business to bring in more comments and save from new potential customers. 

 

5. Relevant Short-form Content

Short-form content is ruling social media. You need to bring fresh ideas to the table when creating short-form content like reels and shorts. Simply by following what other brands are doing, you won’t make much of a difference. Instead, you need to creatively convey your brand values and highlight your USPs. 

If you need to use memes, ensure that somehow they are relevant and speak directly to your business. If not, there’s not much point in using these memes, no matter how funny they are or how many brands are using them. 

 

Final Word

Draining money on marketing channels that don’t drive many conversions is no good. As a marketer, you must stay updated with the evolving patterns of the industry and how customers perceive advertisements. 

Promoting your products to the right people at the right time and with the right form of content will make a huge positive impact on your business. 

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