What’s Hot & What’s Not: 2025 Content Marketing Trends

As marketers prepare for 2025, the challenges of capturing customers’ attention, maintaining engagement, and producing quality content remain critical. But what are the top 2025 content marketing trends? How do you know what types of content to prioritize in the coming year?

Those are the questions industry leaders explored in a recent REQ content marketing webinar. Four content marketing subject matter experts from Tricentis, ScienceLogic, SpyCloud, and Yext shared their insights, strategies, and learnings from 2024 while outlining the trends and tactics that will shape their content landscapes in 2025. The webinar explored a broad range of topics, including the importance of organizing content around themes, the use of creative risk-taking, the growing role of AI in content creation, and the essential balance between technology and human-centered storytelling.

Here are four key takeaways from the conversation that will help guide marketers as they craft their strategies for 2025:

1. The Power of Themes in Content Planning

One of the standout themes of the webinar was the importance of structured content planning. Developing an overarching plan that ties everything around specific themes can make a significant difference as content strategies become increasingly complex. Jess Lindberg, Vice President of Global Corporate Communications at Science Logic, shared how her company successfully organizes their content efforts around clear, predefined themes. This method helps teams stay focused, ensures consistency across various communication channels, and makes it easier to manage long-term campaigns.

By defining core themes at the outset, businesses can align their content with broader corporate goals, product messaging, and industry trends. “Having a really good strategy around themes of content that you're going to be putting out for the next year is a great place to start,” Jess said. For her team, this thematic approach has guided everything from blog posts and articles to larger content assets like white papers and reports. Themes act as a blueprint, allowing marketers to create content with a cohesive message and ensure their strategies stay flexible enough to adapt to changes in the market or industry.

In addition to improving organizational alignment, a theme-driven strategy ensures that the content addresses the right audience at the right time, no matter the format. Whether it’s an educational blog post, a research-driven white paper, or a thought leadership article, staying true to the theme keeps the messaging focused and relevant.

2. Balancing Creativity with Risk-Taking

Innovation in content marketing often involves taking calculated risks and trying new approaches. Kayla Kretzer, Director of Brand and Communications at SpyCloud, emphasizes pushing boundaries and exploring creative possibilities to engage audiences. In an industry like cybersecurity, where content can sometimes feel dry or overly technical, Kayla’s team embraced a unique, playful strategy to tackle serious topics such as identity theft and cybercrime. SpyCloud’s creative campaign used the theme of video gaming to present its message in a fresh and approachable way.

By framing cybercrime as a "game" that businesses should take seriously—while layering in gaming metaphors and puns—they made complex topics more compelling for their audience. “We wanted to broach those topics in a way that is engaging, digestible, and approachable,” Kayla explained. The campaign included a nostalgic, 8-bit style video game approach in their reports and visual assets, designed to break down the complexities of identity theft and ransomware in a fun and informative manner.

The result? Strong engagement and successful brand awareness. “We've had resounding results from that," Kayla noted. "We just hit about 200 downloads, and it’s an ungated asset.” SpyCloud’s willingness to deviate from the traditional cybersecurity content formats paid off in audience engagement and lead generation. 

Her advice to marketers was clear: Don’t be afraid to take risks. Whether through creative visuals, out-of-the-box messaging, or interactive formats, finding new ways to present information can capture attention in a crowded market.

3. Human-Centric Content Wins Over AI Alone

The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, and Grammarly AI has dramatically impacted content creation by allowing marketers to produce content more efficiently and at scale. However, while AI has proven to be a valuable tool for ideation, outlining, and even drafting certain types of content, the panelists unanimously believed that AI cannot replace the human element in storytelling and content creation.

Megan Radogna, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Yext, emphasized balancing AI’s capabilities with human oversight. “AI should save time, but it should not be the be-all and end-all of content,” Megan explained. She highlighted how AI is useful in brainstorming, generating content outlines, or suggesting different ways to present information. Still, it requires a human touch to ensure the content aligns with brand voice and messaging.

Jess’s team at Science Logic uses Jasper AI as part of their content creation process, but only after a human writer has developed the initial material. “All of our blog posts, thought leadership pieces, and articles are human-written,” she explained. “We then use Jasper to expand on that content, helping to create additional assets like speaker submissions, web copy, or ad campaigns.” While this use of AI has made the team more efficient, Jess emphasized that human oversight is always necessary to ensure the quality and accuracy of the content.

One fundamental limitation of AI tools is their inability to fully grasp nuances such as company-specific language, tone, and style guidelines. Megan added that while AI can help with ideation and formatting, it struggles to understand brand-specific elements, which makes human editorial oversight essential. “Robots use certain words that people don’t,” Megan joked, pointing out that seasoned editors can often spot AI-generated copy by its language. This is why AI should be treated as a tool to enhance content creation rather than replace human creativity and intuition.

4. Quality Over Quantity, Always

Striking the right balance between how much content organizations produce and the quality of that content has always been tricky. More content will often equate to greater awareness, but taking a less is more approach is frequently more effective.

That’s the mentality Tricentis is taking when building its content marketing strategy for 2025. According to Lanier Norville, Director of Global Content Marketing & Nurture Strategy, “Instead of hitting a certain quota of content offers, it’s about asking ‘What is the business need right now?’ ‘What’s going on in the market right now?’ ‘What’s going to keep our audience engaged?’” 

The answers to those questions drive the types of content Tricentis produces. Sometimes, that means more eBooks or white papers. Other times, it means more bylined thought leadership articles or blogs. The point is to tailor content to your audience's needs at a given time and always focus on ensuring that content meets high-quality standards.

Bonus Insight: Adapting to Audience Preferences

Another recurring theme throughout the webinar was adapting content to meet audience needs and preferences. Kayla shared how SpyCloud tailors content not just to its core technical audience but also to decision-makers who may not be as well-versed in cybersecurity issues. By providing more accessible, visually driven content such as infographics and short explainer videos, SpyCloud was able to engage a wider range of stakeholders.

Similarly, Megan pointed out that attention spans are shrinking, and audiences are increasingly drawn to short, visual, and interactive content. Her team at Yext focuses on creating content that is easy to consume and visually appealing, whether through heat maps to track user engagement or creating more interactive templates and tools that encourage engagement.

Conclusion: A Roadmap for 2025

The overarching message from the webinar was clear: Content marketing in 2025 will require a thoughtful balance between creativity, strategic planning, and the integration of new technologies like AI. Marketers can build stronger, more meaningful connections with their audiences by organizing content around themes, taking creative risks, ensuring that AI-generated content is guided by human oversight, and producing high-quality content. Whether making a white paper, launching a new video campaign, or simply tweaking your blog strategy, the key is to remain flexible, innovative, and focused on delivering value to real people.

As the industry evolves, so too must content strategies. The insights shared in this webinar provide a valuable framework for marketers looking to stay ahead of the curve, ensuring that their content stands out and truly resonates with the audiences they aim to serve.

Watch the full discussion below or explore other topics to help inform your 2025 marketing strategy, head over to the REQ YouTube Channel—and for any questions that may come up along the way, our team is here to help! Feel free to reach out to marketing [at] req.co (marketing[at]req[dot]co) for a 1:1 consultation with our team of experts.