Why is content marketing still king in 2025?

1. Introduction

Humans’ decreasing reading habits, fewer organic clicks from search queries, and the growing number of AI models trying to conquer markets all suggest a negative trend. These factors seem to indicate that the importance of content marketing has declined in recent years.

However, our article will demonstrate that even if these trends are all with us, content marketing won’t disappear. Instead, it will evolve to a more entertaining and solution-focused level. But how can you organize your content marketing so that it can still attract attention? That’s what our article will try to share with you.

2. How has content marketing evolved in the last few years?

In this part, we highlight the biggest changes in content marketing over the past few years.

a. Videos over articles

Some content marketers love their work so much that they forget what is the main task of a content marketer: to encourage the visitors to buy a product or a service. It’s not about showcasing their own writing style or creating poetic imagery—it’s an addition to the main attraction: the product.

Recent trends show that visitors don’t just want written content about a product’s features or instructions—they want to see the product in action. That’s why adding videos to website content is a must-have feature: your visitors will be more excited about your product, your brand, or your whole view and happily be committed to your goal.

But, be aware: too many videos can slow down your site, which can frustrate potential buyers.

b. The rise of AI generated content

Fooling visitors is the wrong way. When the first AI tools were introduced to enthusiastic audiences, content marketers started to calm everybody down with messages like:

• AI will never write as thrillingly and excitingly as a human writer can
• AI will help content marketers, but as an extension and not a substitute

Well, these times are gone. The 2024 Thedrums’ study pointed out that 50% of visitors could not detect AI generated content from human written ones. Also, another study found that in November 2024, more articles were being made with AI alone, than with human help, or without any AI assistance at all. 

AI content is on the rise for a reason: it saves brands time, and its quality is often only slightly below that of top-tier human marketers.

c. Increased competition

Today, the internet is not just for futuristic entrepreneurs. It also hosts conservative sellers, 400-year-old family businesses, and companies targeting older audiences.

It is rather an industrial standard. In the last couple of years the yearly domain name sales exceeded the previous year’s numbers. That means more and more businesses can be considered your online competitors.

So how can you handle this situation? Provide new, unique solutions to your target audience, and highlight yourself from the mass.

3. How does content marketing remain essential?

In this part of the article, we will tell you why you should still not neglect content marketing in 2025. Because even if all pundits say otherwise, content marketing has not lost its power.

a. Establishing a brand personality

We mentioned the increased competition earlier, but we did not explore its causes. It’s not just that all brick and mortar shops started to launch their online shop, but many markets became worldwide. It means that an American company can now serve the demands of European buyers, without more transactional fees than a European company has. So now – in certain industries – your competitors not only belong to your own and the neighbouring countries, but the whole world.

In this tight race, being one out of the million is just not enough. You need additional characteristics that help buyers perceive you differently from your competitors. Brand personality can help you achieve that, but it’s nothing without an effective content marketing strategy. 

Let’s explore Ryanair’s example: 

Ryanair is an ultra low-cost airline group, which delivers its passengers to the designated locations for a very fair price without any extra services. That means their passengers need to lower their expectations in some cases: the seats are uncomfortable, additional bags are charged brutally, and extra money is needed to sit together with your family, or friend group.  

Their brand personality fits right with their market position: they commonly communicate on social media platforms, where they mock their unsatisfied passengers. They make fun of complaints and highlight that those same dissatisfied customers will still fly with them tomorrow because their prices are unbelievably low. This marketing strategy works well with their humorous videos and written content, and with the help of this, they remained in the market leading position on low-cost airlines. 

b. Meeting Google’s evolving SEO requirements

There are two main ways to drive visitors to your site: organically (SEO) or through paid advertising (SEA).  Well, both have advantages, and disadvantages, but to maximize your numbers the best way is to use them both simultaneously.

However, as SEA grows into a separate segment with Google ads specialists, and whole notebooks on how to do that effectively, SEO has a separate way. Google tries not to communicate the exact method how it evaluates the site’s optimization scores, which decide whether you can achieve a great organic rank in search results, or not.

And that’s why SEO is less quantifiable, and less science-based, as all experts basically only work from clues. However, Google still shares some of its basic evaluation criteria. One of them is “organic content”. According to this, if your website uploads original (and human-written) blog articles, Google will reward its hard work.

c. Building a community

Establishing a community on your website is the real game-changer. Just think about it, recent research consistently concludes that acquiring new customers are 8 to 10 times more expensive than convincing loyal ones. And if there’s one thing that can turn a one-time buyer into an engaged one, it’s building a community.

However, business communities thrive only when supported by personalized messages, exclusive offers, and engaging content. Effective content marketing can still inspire buyers with your philosophy, mission, and vision—and motivate them to join your community.

There are still myths suggesting that building communities isn’t suitable for every industry. But based on our experience, there’s only one real criterion: the need for repeat customers. If your business depends on them—whether you’re selling web hosting services, electronic devices, or online English classes—then building a community will benefit you.

Conclusion

In this article, we shared the recent content marketing trends, and revealed why we still believe in the power of content marketing. Don’t forget: change is necessary, but it doesn’t always mean a complete U-turn. You need to take note of what potential buyers still want, and shape your content strategy accordingly.