Mourn these Strategies in 2025

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💀 The 3 Marketing Strategies That Will Die in 2025 (And What’s Replacing Them)

Marketing is shifting faster than ever. What worked yesterday won’t work tomorrow, and brands that fail to adapt will be left wondering why their ad spend is underperforming.

Some strategies are already on their deathbeds. Here are three marketing approaches that won’t survive 2025—and what’s replacing them.

1. Driving Traffic to Your Website Instead of Selling Where Customers Are

For years, brands focused on driving traffic to their websites. That playbook is breaking. Walled-garden commerce is taking over.

TikTok Shop, Instagram Checkout, and Amazon Buy Now are designed to keep users on-platform. Sending people to your website adds friction, increases drop-off rates, and kills conversions.

What’s Replacing It?

Native selling. The best brands aren’t trying to move traffic—they’re selling where the traffic already is.

Instead of directing TikTok users to your Shopify store, sell inside TikTok Shop. Instead of pushing Instagram users to a website, use Instagram Checkout. The fewer clicks, the more conversions.

2. Overproduced Ads Instead of Creator-Led Content

Highly polished, corporate-style ads are becoming less effective. People scroll past anything that looks like an ad. On platforms like TikTok and Reels, native-style content is king.

What’s Replacing It?

Creator-driven ads. Consumers trust real people over brands. The best-performing brands aren’t making ads—they’re running user-generated content that looks like recommendations.

Find micro-influencers (1k-50k followers) in your niche and pay them to create authentic short-form videos. Run Spark Ads and Boosted Reels instead of traditional paid ads.

If your ad doesn’t blend into the feed, it won’t convert.

3. One-Time Sales Focus Instead of Retention-Engineered Funnels

Relying on new customer acquisition without a strong retention strategy is a recipe for rising costs and declining profits. Brands that don’t build post-purchase systems will struggle.

What’s Replacing It?

Retention-first funnels. Top brands don’t treat every buyer as a cold lead.

Offer exclusive perks right after purchase, introduce loyalty incentives, and retarget past buyers differently than first-timers. The more repeat customers you have, the less you rely on expensive ad spend.

Final Takeaway: Adapt or Be Left Behind

🚫 Website traffic playbook? Dying. Sell natively.

🚫 Overproduced ads? Outdated. Run creator-led content.

🚫 One-time sales focus? Suicidal. Retention = profit.

Brands that adapt now will dominate in 2025. The rest? They’ll be stuck paying for customers they never get to keep.

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🚀  Reel of the Day

What Works:

This reel masterfully blends virality hacking, suspense marketing, and product storytelling, optimizing engagement on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.

It starts with borrowed virality, using the viral courtroom killer clip to instantly hook viewers. The shock factor and suspense-driven humor create pattern interruption, forcing users to stop scrolling.

The Zeigarnik Effect (incomplete narratives increasing retention) keeps them watching till the punchline.

The fear-based humor (not looking at the camera to avoid death) seamlessly integrates the brand into the story, making the product plug feel organic and entertaining rather than forced.

The deadpan delivery and suspense buildup enhance shareability, while the delayed tension keeps viewers engaged, triggering algorithmic boosts.Instead of a hard sell, the product breakdown feels natural, engaging, and in-character, ensuring high recall.

The use of a pre-established viral meme makes it instantly recognizable, maximizing social currency and increasing organic reach.

Broader Insights:This reel is a gold-standard execution of viral trend-jacking and comedic brand integration, proving that entertainment-first marketing outperforms traditional product ads in today’s digital space. 

Thanks for reading this edition! Keep pushing boundaries, testing ideas, and staying inspired. See you in the next edition with more ways to ignite your marketing success. 🥰