2025 Wrapped: Marketing Edition

A year in marketing: Deep dive into this year’s marketing innovations, highlights, and tips for the next chapter. 

As we approach the end of the year, we have been reflecting on what shaped marketing over the last twelve months for professional services businesses. In the B2B professional services space, 2025 marked a clear shift away from reactive trend-chasing towards more informed, integrated marketing strategies, driven by AI and changing client behaviour. Like a Spotify playlist, our clients’ marketing strategies became more personalised, automated and integrated. Here are our thoughts on the marketing highlights from 2025...wrapped! 

Top technology: AI and automation

In 2025, Artificial Intelligence (AI) only got bigger. For those who may have dismissed AI early on as over-hyped, this year proved that it is becoming essential infrastructure to future marketing operations as it continued to present opportunities for streamlined workflows, efficient research, ideation, optimisation and customisation.  

In her blog 'Leveraging AI in Professional Services’, Erin predicted 2025 would be a pivotal year where professional services begin to seriously adopt AI to maximise resources and create a better client experience. And it’s true, AI has developed from an experimental tool to a core asset, helping businesses stay competitive with the emergence of omni-channel marketing, Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), AI Overviews (AIOs) and AI search habits. 

AI also played a growing role in personalisation this year. In B2B marketing, firms increasingly used AI to create more joined-up experiences across channels. With social media now appearing in search engine results pages (SERPS) and prospects using a wide variety of tech to search, this has never been so important. And to accompany this demand, AI-powered tools have seen a considerable increase in adoption; from a business’s CRM to predictive content suggestions, as always, AI works best when it acts as an extension of a skilled marketing team, rather than a substitute. 

However, despite the rapid adoption of AI this year, consumer trust remains a challenge, particularly within professional services. This should act as a reminder as we step into 2026 for professional services businesses to ensure that their marketing still has a visible ‘human touch’ alongside showcasing real expertise in client communications to build trust and authentic engagement. 

The digital highlight: AEO is the new SEO 

The traditional SEO rulebook evolved significantly this year. While SEO is still essential to a successful digital marketing strategy, AI and changing search habits have led to Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), an essential practice going into 2026. 

The expansion of Google's AI Overviews (AIO) meant that traditional keyword rankings became less important for click-through rates. The new goal is to be the definitive, concise answer that appears within the search engine results page (SERP). Erin's blog, ‘Answer me this! Why AEO is the New SEO’ expands on this insight further as one of the most crucial updates of the year.  

Digital strategy has shifted from simply ranking on Google by using keywords alongside the E-E-A-T framework, to ensuring content provides the most comprehensive summary and answer possible to a specific query. For businesses that had successfully adapted their content to this new structure, they saw over 10% growth in visibility. This improvement required a fundamental shift to highly structured, question-and-answer formatted content designed to be scraped by AI models. To master AEO, businesses need to get the foundations right, meaning that SEO isn’t truly dead in the water. In her ‘Blogging for SEO’ article, Alison reminds us why having a digital shop window isn’t just ‘nice to have’, but essential. Blogging, as she explains, not only establishes authority and trust, but also increases visibility on search results through SEO.   

Trending: video

In a world of AI and short attention spans, people want to see authenticity, which made video crucial for professional services businesses in 2025. Whether video was used to convey expertise, facilitate customer retention or craft a winning recruitment marketing campaign, it has significantly impacted demand, making it a must have for professional services businesses this year. 

In our blog ‘Why Video Content Matters in Professional Services Marketing’, we highlighted this major marketing shift, with the FT Adviser even coining it “an evolution in how advisers connect with their clients.” With social media becoming increasingly central to many marketing strategies, video is becoming the new shop front for appealing to accountants, lawyers, financial advisers and property professionals. Whether short form clips on social platforms, or detailed expert webinars, video consumption and content volume have increased significantly. 

With increasing search diversification, the number of people using platforms like YouTube and TikTok as their primary search engines has also continued to accelerate this year, encouraging many businesses to invest more seriously in video marketing. Those businesses that have stayed ahead have adapted their marketing to a video-first approach to reach current and prospective clients, as well as referrers. As the year progressed, video content consistently demonstrated significantly higher engagement rates than static content. 

The strategic focus: niche, user-tests, and agile  

In 2025, many professional services firms returned to more focused, quality-over-quantity marketing strategies, reinforcing the importance of truly understanding your client. In a crowded market, specialisation was the key differentiator. 

In May, Alison covered the ‘Advantages of Being a Niche Professional Services Business', exploring how leveraging a clear industry niche allows firms to target their marketing spend and become the undisputed authority in a specific area, leading to greater commercial advantage. This focus feeds directly into AEO, as niche expertise is more likely to be deemed the best, most relevant ‘answer’, communicating trust and expertise according to Google’s E-E-A-T framework. 

Erin also highlighted the need to get under the skin of client needs in her 'Benefits of User Testing' blog this year. With 51% of CMOs prioritising user testing investment, firms acknowledged that digital success is directly tied to a flawless user experience. In 2025  testing websites, content navigation, and conversion funnels increasingly became non-negotiable for improving conversion rates. 

Preparing for 2026 

As we close the door on 2025, the overriding theme is strategic integration. Success in 2026 will be shaped by how well businesses bring together AI, AEO-led content, video-first distribution, and a clear focus on turning interest into enquiries. The year ahead will see the continued emphasis on Search Everywhere Optimisation, catering to conversational AI queries and visual and voice search. The professional services business that can deliver expert, niche-focused advice through a tested, frictionless, and video-enabled digital experience will be the one that dominates the market in the new chapter ahead. 

What elements of your 2025 marketing strategy are you most excited to scale up in the new year? 

New Year, new marketing partner? 

We're an award-winning specialist marketing and social media agency made up of CIM Chartered marketers, collaborating with a range of professional services businesses, including law firms, accountants, financial advisers and property professionals, helping them to attract their ideal clients, referrals and best in class talent. 

Given our professional services industry experience and backgrounds, we understand our clients' target audiences and the challenges they face; in turn, we are in the best position to set up and deploy testing to unlock the full conversion potential of your digital presence.  

Get in touch for a free, no obligation consultation to see how we can help your business. Complete our contact form, call 0333 050 6015 or email hello@calpartners.co.uk.