Let’s be honest… social media looks a lot different than it did even a few years ago. Twitter isn’t even Twitter anymore. But here’s the thing: even as the platforms shift, some businesses are still treating social like a “nice-to-have” instead of a critical part of their marketing strategy. The truth? Social media can do so much more than rack up likes. It can put your brand in front of the right audience, build trust at scale, and even boost your SEO presence. And it’s not just for B2C brands, as B2B companies are finding huge value here too. By embracing current trends for social media, you can transform social from a passive presence into a proactive growth tool. Let’s break down what’s working on social media and how you can make it work for you.
Online platforms are evolving faster than ever, and current social media trends are already showing clear patterns that brands can’t afford to ignore. These trends for social media go beyond fleeting gimmicks; they’re fundamentally changing how businesses connect with audiences, spark engagement, and drive conversions. Staying ahead means understanding not just what’s popular, but what creates a meaningful and lasting impact.
Instagram has always been the place for visuals, but now, it’s getting serious about search. Earlier this year, all public content from professional business accounts became eligible to appear in Google search results. That means your Instagram posts can now drive organic traffic well beyond the app itself.
Why is this huge? Google handles 8.5 billion searches a day. If your Instagram content is optimized, your brand has a chance to appear in those results, making the platform part of your broader SEO strategy.
Here’s how to leverage this Instagram trend:
Authenticity sells. That’s why user-generated content (UGC) has exploded, making up over half of TikTok’s content and driving engagement across nearly every platform. Customers trust real voices over brand messages alone, which makes UGC and influencer marketing a powerful tool in both organic and paid campaigns.
To start, check your tags and mentions, search for hashtags tied to your brand, or simply ask customers for content you can share. Adding UGC into your strategy builds credibility, strengthens community, and keeps your feed from feeling like a sales pitch.
The latest social media trend marketers can leverage? Artificial intelligence. AI is changing the way brands approach social. From automating research to assisting with creative brainstorming, AI tools help marketers work faster and smarter without replacing the human touch that makes content connect.
Think:
When paired with strategy and human expertise, AI helps you stretch your budget and make better decisions faster.
Creating a social media plan is no longer just for engagement. Businesses are leveraging it as a direct sales channel. Top social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest are making it easier for users to browse, discover, and purchase products without ever leaving the app. Brands that integrate shoppable posts, live shopping events, and product tags can turn casual scrolling into measurable revenue. Beyond retail, even service-based businesses are experimenting with social commerce features to generate leads, offer bookings, or showcase premium offerings, making social a critical piece of the sales funnel.
Social media moves fast. For most businesses, trying to keep up with trends for social media while running day-to-day operations isn’t realistic. That’s where we come in. At Cork Tree, we help brands turn the latest social and advertising trends into strategies that actually work. From boosting discoverability to improving ROI on paid campaigns, we keep you ahead of the curve, so you can focus on running your business while we focus on growth. If you’re ready to make social media work harder for you, let’s talk. Book a call with our team today to learn more.
A strong brand identity is the backbone of how your business is seen, remembered, and trusted. For marketing leaders and business owners, it acts as the blueprint that ties every message, design, and campaign back to who you are and what you stand for. Without it, marketing efforts can feel scattered and fall flat. On the flip side? When you have a strong identity, your brand has a strong foundation and gains focus, clarity, and the power to build lasting customer relationships.
And it’s not just theory. Consistent branding across all channels can increase revenue by up to 23% according to sources like Forbes. In other words, a clear brand identity doesn’t just make you look good; it makes your marketing work harder for you.
Your brand identity is the entire experience people have when they interact with your business. It’s the promise you make, the voice you use, and the impression you leave behind. Think of it as your company’s personality. It goes deeper than your products or services and speaks to why you exist.
A strong brand helps you:
And trust matters. Statistics show that 81% of consumers need to trust a brand before buying, making your brand a key tool in shaping perceptions and influencing purchasing decisions.
Creating a strong brand identity starts with aligning your mission, values, and audience expectations. It’s about turning strategy into something tangible, including graphic design, messaging, and experiences that reflect who you are and resonate with the right people.
This process usually includes:
When done well, brand identity development ensures every touchpoint, from your website to your social posts, feels connected and intentional. And the payoff is clear: brands that present themselves consistently are 3.5 times more likely to enjoy strong visibility.
Your brand personality is how your business would show up if it were a person. Consider your audience—who they are and how they act. Now, think about how you want your business to come across to them. Meld these two ideas together to form your brand personality. Are you approachable and friendly? Cute and funny? Sophisticated and polished? This personality guides how you speak to your audience and helps create an emotional connection. For marketing leaders, this is a must. Campaigns built around a clear personality are more relatable and inspire stronger engagement.
Design is where your strategy comes to life. It’s your logo, colors, typography, and imagery working together to create instant recognition. Consistent design builds familiarity… and familiarity builds trust. Research shows that color alone can improve brand recognition by up to 80%. Crazy, right? Well, it’s true! But effective brand design is more than just aesthetics or looking “cool.” It’s about building a cohesive vibe that communicates credibility across every platform.
While personality and design set the stage, your brand image is the impression your audience actually carries with them. It’s what they say about you, the emotions tied to your services, and the reputation you build over time. Here’s the upside: a strong brand identity gives you the tools to shape that perception. The payoff? The clearer and more consistent your brand identity, the stronger and more positive your brand image becomes.
For many businesses, creating a strong brand identity takes more than internal effort; it takes perspective, expertise, and a strategic approach. That’s where brand identity services come in.
Our team partners with companies to:
The end result is more than a polished look. It’s a brand that tells your story clearly, resonates with your audience, and strengthens every marketing investment you make. When your brand is strong, your marketing has purpose, and your customers feel it. Get in touch with our team to learn more about our branding services and how a strong brand image can make heads turn and audiences listen.
Great graphic design for marketing is essential. It’s not just about making things look polished; it’s about telling a story and shaping your brand’s identity in a meaningful way. Every element, from your logo and website layout to your colors and fonts, communicates something about who you are as a business. Think of it like getting ready for a date. You want your outfit to reflect your personality, style, and the way you want to be perceived. In the same way, your brand’s design is often the first impression a customer gets, and it should instantly communicate your values, tone, and uniqueness. Just like a great outfit can make you feel confident and attract the right person, great design helps attract and connect with the right audience.
But a strong visual identity does more than make a good first impression. It reinforces brand recognition, tells your story, and draws in your target audience. At Cork Tree Creative, we combine creativity with strategy to ensure your graphic design and marketing not only stand out but work seamlessly to elevate your brand.
So why is graphic design for businesses so relevant today? The answer is simple: it’s one of the most effective ways to communicate your message. Even with the rise of AI-generated content, data-driven campaigns, and evolving ad platforms, visual communication is still at the top of the chain. In fact, according to graphic design statistics, 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text, making design a critical tool for brand connection.
Let’s break it down. Ever caught yourself doom-scrolling for hours? Most of what you see, from images, videos, and graphics, is visual communication. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, with billions of active users, are driven by visual content. This is where consumers spend their time, and where brands have the best chance of making an impression. When graphic design and marketing team up, they become a dynamic duo that can amplify your message in a crowded digital space.
But design isn’t just eye candy. It shapes how your brand is perceived, reinforces your message, and improves customer engagement. Whether it’s a digital ad, a social media post, or a trade show booth, strong visuals make marketing efforts more effective. Well-designed content is far more likely to be noticed, remembered, and shared.
In a landscape dominated by automation and algorithms, graphic design in business is still one of the most reliable ways to grab attention, build trust, and drive action. Businesses that invest in thoughtful, strategic, and creative design are better equipped to cut through the noise and create meaningful connections.
Graphic design for marketing is vital to guiding customers through their journey, and Cork Tree knows how to harness it effectively at every touchpoint.
Beginning with social media, compelling visuals introduce your brand and spark interest. With one-third of US consumers beginning their customer journey on social media, this is the first step in building a relationship. From there, email campaigns continue the conversation, using design to nurture leads, prompt action, and guide customers toward making buying decisions, ultimately cultivating brand loyalty. For example, using catchy email subject lines is the first step to striking the right vibe with your consumers.
Then there are promotional items, which are more than just giveaways; they tap into psychological triggers, creating emotional connections and reciprocity. As customers progress through the omnichannel marketing journey, websites become the central hub for discovery, research, and purchase. Another often-forgotten idea is print design. Print design still matters more than you might think. It helps shape how people see and remember your brand. More people are craving breaks from screens, and print design allows them to re-engage with their senses in a way digital media doesn’t provide. Finally, packaging serves as the silent salesperson, attracting attention, building trust, and leading to profitability.
At Cork Tree, we don’t just check the boxes; we bring all the key elements to make magic for our clients. Our design team focuses not just on visuals, but the full experience, blending storytelling, usability, and strategy to create pieces that truly connect. Whether it’s guiding users toward a decision or helping a brand come to life on a page, every detail is intentional. We believe great design doesn’t just look good but also works hard for your brand.
As we’ve learned, graphic design in marketing isn’t just about logos and color palettes. It’s about how a brand feels when someone first comes across it. From the layout of a website to the typography on a flyer, design can spark curiosity, build trust, or even turn someone away. In business, those emotional reactions matter. That’s why graphic design in business is so powerful—it brings the buzz for connection. A brand’s tone, energy, and credibility are often communicated visually before a single word is read.
Marketing and graphic design work best when they tell the same story. Think about a website; if it’s cluttered, hard to navigate, and visually overwhelming, even the best content can get lost. That’s often when a business realizes it’s time for a website redesign. But when a site has a clean layout, thoughtful design, and intuitive flow, it draws you in and guides you exactly where you need to go. Design helps break down complex ideas, highlight key messages, and lead the eye through the page. Whether it’s a bold social post, a clean brochure, or an eye-catching email campaign, graphic design for businesses turns good content into an experience people want to interact with. When graphic design and marketing align, you don’t just get attention, you build relationships that stick.
Graphic design for marketing isn’t just there to make things look pretty; it’s there to pull weight. Strong visuals can keep your visitors on your website longer, improve click-through rates, and make your campaigns more memorable. Think about a social ad with a clean, bold design and a clear call-to-action, versus one that feels cluttered or off-brand. Which one would you trust with your time, attention, and money? That’s the impact of strategic graphic design in business. When brands invest in thoughtful, well-executed design, they set themselves up for stronger results across every channel. So, go beyond the logo and ask yourself: Are your current graphic design strategies helping you grow, or just taking up space?
The Stats Behind the Strategy:
The Cork Tree team brings the strategy and bold ideas you’re looking for. As a strategic partner in both graphic design and marketing, we understand how great visuals support real business goals. Whether you’re rethinking your brand, launching a new campaign, or just need a refreshing creative perspective, we’ve got your back.
Take a look at our design services, browse some of our recent work, or reach out to schedule a consultation with us. Let’s team up and make something that turns heads and gets results!
Marketing is constantly evolving, which can be a double-edged sword for business and marketing leaders. We are always exploring new developments, and there’s always an opportunity to get ahead, but it can be challenging to keep up with fluctuating content marketing trends. Some of these shifts include the introduction of AI for efficiency, and users expecting a more personalized experience across all touchpoints. If you’re aiming for success, we may have to make some changes to your marketing strategy. A well-informed content marketing strategy not only keeps your brand relevant but ensures your messaging truly resonates with your audience. By aligning your content with current content marketing trends, you create opportunities to improve engagement, build trust, and improve brand loyalty with your ideal customer persona.
The most successful companies aren’t just keeping tabs on marketing; they’re adapting, evolving, and reaping the rewards. But what exactly are the trends shaping the future of content marketing, and how can you leverage them to drive results? Luckily, Cork Tree Creative can guide you through the constant shifts in content marketing trends. Discover the seven leading content marketing trends shaping strategies and how you can implement them to make your customers listen, understand, and convert.
These content marketing trends explore the reasons why B2B brands are focusing on more personalized experiences with their customers, the growing dominance of short-form videos for media consumption, the relationship between SEO and content marketing, and much more. Each of the trends we discuss below will provide you with the knowledge to improve your content marketing strategy so that you can stay ahead of the game.
If you’re still relying on generic, overly polished messaging, it’s time to evolve your B2B content marketing strategy from dry, corporate lingo to thoughtful and detailed communication that speaks directly to the needs and concerns of your customers. One of the most important B2B social media marketing trends right now is the shift toward more human, relatable communication. Today’s audiences don’t want your usual facts and statistics; they want personality and authenticity. More brands are opting to move away from generic messaging and focus on creating unique connections and authenticity. This reposition has given these brands a new asset: a sense of humanity that can’t be replicated.
This evolution is driven by the exploding necessity for transparency and trust. Companies that embrace vulnerability, empathy, and a deeper understanding of their audience’s challenges are building stronger, more lasting relationships. It’s becoming more and more crucial to put customer empathy at the heart of your content decisions. For example, putting yourself in the customers’ shoes is a great way to try to understand their feelings, thoughts, and experiences, thus creating a stronger relationship with your audience. In the end, effective B2B content marketing isn’t about sounding perfect, but rather sounding real and being remembered for it.
Short-form video and visual content have completely reshaped digital content marketing, and experts only expect this trend to take root and continue growing. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have completely changed how people consume content. Whether it’s a short clip from a new movie, a trending dance, or an aesthetically pleasing informational graphic, these bite-sized videos and visual content allow brands to connect with their audiences more effectively (and quickly) than ever before, leading to higher views and engagement.
These adaptations have caused consumers to prefer content in a more convenient manner, making it easy to digest and visually stimulating. Short-form video and visual content meet all of these needs and expectations. It is the quickest and easiest way for brands to reach their target audience and make an impact. Short-form video content also strengthens discoverability and engagement, allowing brands to reach new users. Content marketing agencies like Cork Tree can help you develop a content marketing strategy that integrates short-form video and compelling visuals into your digital marketing efforts.
High-quality, relevant content is not just a branding tool, but an essential for ranking on search engines. Search engines progressively reward content that is not only keyword-optimized but also valuable, relevant, and aligned with user intent. Business owners and marketing professionals must focus on creating insightful content that addresses real audience needs while capitalizing on the latest content marketing tools to optimize performance. Principles such as Google’s E-E-A-T framework (experiences, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) must be applied to strategic keyword research and regular content refreshes.
Every piece of content should be designed with SEO in mind. Just like content marketing, SEO trends are also constantly changing, driven by several factors such as AI overviews, Google’s SGE, zero-click searches, and more. Staying in tune with these trends sets your company up for success and opens the door for sustained relevancy and visibility on a consumer’s results page.
Third-party cookies, or information collected by a company that does not have a direct relationship with the consumers, are the talk of yesterday. It’s all about first-party data now, or data that companies collect directly from their customers through their own social media platforms. Third-party data has become a nuisance to brands due to its limited actionability, data privacy and security concerns, mixed data quality, and other issues. First-party data, on the other hand, provides these brands with accurate and reliable information that comes directly from their customers, enabling marketers to tailor their content more effectively to their specific customers, as well as enhance personalization and customer relationships.
By leveraging first-party data, brands can create highly personalized and targeted campaigns that drive deeper engagement and foster stronger customer relationships. In fact, 93% of marketers say first-party data is more important than ever. Having access to first-party data allows marketers to improve the accuracy of their messaging to their target audience. It allows them to base their Access to first-party data, enabling marketers to refine messaging accuracy and base content on real interactions. This facilitates better segmentation of customer demographics and personalized information delivery. Additionally, it improves companies' capabilities to accurately track return on investment (ROI) by linking engagements directly to their social media platforms.
One of the most important ideas of first-party data is that it allows you to stay ahead of the constantly shifting privacy regulations affecting consumers, thereby giving your target audience the confidence that their information is handled safely and responsibly. Our society today has become extremely privacy-conscious; therefore, building trust with consumers through transparency in data collection is an asset in content marketing. First-party data has become more than just a trend, but instead a strategic imperative for marketers looking to gain meaningful and measurable results.
The rise of AI-generated content and automation tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini has transformed how marketers approach content creation. These content marketing tools are able to streamline data analytics, automate routine tasks, and enable hyper-personalization, allowing brands to reach their audiences more effectively and efficiently than ever before. With the increased use of artificial intelligence in marketing, staying current with AI marketing trends is central for success. Paying attention to these trends gives a company the potential to boost ROI and enhance customer experience.
However, despite these convenient capabilities, AI is not a replacement for human creativity and strategic thinking. Human authenticity remains at the center of effective marketing. Without a genuine strategy that reflects your brand’s unique voice and values, content can feel hollow and fail to build meaningful connections with consumers.
Your content shouldn’t be a one-and-done deal; if it is, it’s time for a change. Stale or outdated content can actually hurt your brand’s visibility and performance. Repurposing and refreshing existing content has become a strategic move for forward-thinking marketers to stay relevant. Updating blogs with new information, turning long-form articles into social media videos, and optimizing old content and keywords for SEO can breathe new life into your marketing efforts. This approach not only helps maintain or improve search engine rankings but also extends the lifespan of your content, saving you time and resources.
Repurposing content allows you to reach different segments of your audience across multiple platforms while maintaining a consistent brand voice. It also maximizes your investment by extracting more value from the work you’ve already done. At Cork Tree Creative, our content marketing services specialize in revitalizing your existing content library, ensuring your messaging remains fresh, relevant, and impactful over time.
Relying on guesswork isn’t viable in today’s data-driven marketing world. Guesswork, or making decisions based on hunches, is too risky in a competitive landscape. For example, if you are making an assumption about your consumer and your guess is incorrect, you have misinterpreted your customer’s values, needs, or beliefs, which can ultimately harm your customer loyalty because they do not feel appreciated or understood.
Data-driven marketing enables you to connect with customers on a deeper level, improve customer loyalty, and overall customer experience. By focusing on tactics that deliver measurable results, you’re not only improving your connection with your customers, but you’re also spending your money more efficiently. In fact, every dollar invested in data-driven marketing is backed by resulting insights that can guide your strategy toward continuous improvement. If your marketing plan isn’t grounded in real data and audience engagement, reach out to Cork Tree Creative, and we can help you utilize and interpret analytics to build more aligned campaigns.
Take the time to look over your current marketing strategies and think about whether they’re truly maximizing their potential. Content marketing is changing on the daily, just like the customers who consume your content. Making sure your strategies stay relevant means adapting to current content marketing trends.
If you’re ready to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and develop a trend-forward, results-driven content marketing strategy, Cork Tree Creative is here to guide you every step of the way. Let’s collaborate to create content that not only captures your audience’s attention but also fosters long-lasting relationships with them, helping to grow your brand well into the future.
As a business owner or marketing leader, your energy can be divided between growth, branding, and marketing campaigns, while your website can quietly become outdated. There’s no need to let your site fall to the side. Keeping up your online presence is a great way to establish yourself as a reputable and dependable business. Digital first impressions drive the market, and an underperforming website could undercut your return on investment, reduce conversions, and erode trust with your intended audience. Knowing when to update your website is essential to the success of your business and your digital marketing presence. Cork Tree Creative can help spot and solve these problems before they impact the bottom line. We’ve put together a list of the top seven reasons for a website redesign.
Modernizing your visuals and design aids in your business’s credibility. If your website features outdated fonts, layouts, logos, inconsistent brand colors, or stock-heavy visuals, modern users are likely to click away. Sleek, cohesive website designs that look professional and trustworthy are more likely to capture the attention of your viewers. Avoid clutter, and get straight to the point with direct CTAs and a focus on quality over quantity.
Try not to underestimate a user’s emotional response to brand consistency. Avoid design methods of the past and look to the future of your business to connect with your audience. Consider who your target audience is and what your company represents, and tailor your content and design to these two pillars.
For many companies, websites are shifting toward a mobile-first design philosophy. Of all internet surfers, 62.9% use desktops or laptops to access sites, and 95.8% use mobile phones. Google’s mobile-first indexing approach recommends responsive design that adjusts the content of your site to appear in a similar format across all screen sizes, from tablets to laptops to mobile devices. Poor mobile performance will damage your SEO and the user experience. Responsive design eliminates frustrating and common mobile issues like pinching to zoom, tiny buttons, and broken layouts.
Today’s users expect intuitive, frictionless experiences. There are a few ways that your website’s navigation might be too complicated. If your site features crowded menus, hard-to-find information, broken links, or confusing CTAs, your audience will get frustrated, increasing your bounce rates.
A website redesign could eliminate these issues. The right website development and design partner could help you focus on user flow, accessibility, and conversion-focused design that is simple for your audience and invaluable to your digital presence.
If your website is not performing well on search engine result pages, there’s a chance that your dated site might need a revamp. SEO is more than just optimized content and meta details—having an optimized page structure that loads fast and combines SEO with user experience will improve your result page presence and lead to increased conversions. If you aren’t ranking, take advantage of the opportunity for a website revamp and team up with the right partner to look into your digital performance.
As your business grows and evolves, your brand will change, and your website needs to reflect that. Your brand voice, services, logos, and audience targeting methods must align both digitally and literally. Inconsistent branding and design can confuse users who might be seeking your services online. This confusion will weaken your connection with the user. But a website redesign that embraces your modern branding and fresh approach will communicate the relevance of your services and products, providing clarity to your audience.
Your marketing efforts are essential to keeping your business afloat. If your website doesn’t align with your marketing goals, it might undermine the effort you’re putting forward elsewhere. Struggling blog functionality, missing landing pages, poor lead capture tools, or failing email integration and customer relationship management strategies could devalue your website and decrease your conversions. Modern marketing tactics like omnichannel marketing recognize that you need a seamless website that mirrors your marketing goals and builds upon your well-established brand.
Be honest with yourself. You’re the best judge! If you hesitate to send your URL to your customers or competitors, or if you feel like your site doesn’t represent the quality of your business, that’s a problem. A website redesign can restore your confidence, elevate the perception your consumers have of your business, and turn your site into something you’re proud to share with clients, partners, and prospects.
A website’s influence on your business’s brand should not be understated. Site design and functionality are a strategic tool used for growing your business and establishing your reputation. Assess your website using this guide, and consider how you might be able to implement change.
Cork Tree Creative is a trusted website redesign company, working with businesses local to St. Louis and the Metro East as well as nationwide brands. We know your site can make or break a business, and we recognize the importance of your digital presence. Book a call with Cork Tree today to discuss your business’s website redesign.
SEO in 2025 is rapidly evolving, and staying ahead of the curve with SEO trends could be essential to your business. It is not just about keywords and backlinks like it has been in the past—modern SEO is about user behavior, AI, search intent, and visibility in a world that avoids clicks. Marketing and business professionals need to approach digital content and marketing with care. Cork Tree Creative can help guide this SEO evolution. By keeping up with the changes and partnering with the right experts, your company could set the standard for the future of SEO.
AI-driven content is changing the future of the SEO industry. AI overviews, Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience), zero-click searches, and voice and visual search provide search results that vary from the results of the past, and trending SEO is a response to this evolving digital landscape. Catering to these new search engine optimization trends is a great way to make sure that your company’s message stays relevant and visible on result pages. Our team of SEO experts has pulled together the top six SEO trends your company needs to know for 2025 and beyond.
When SEO first entered the marketing scene, the landscape resembled a no man’s land without any rules, leaving optimizers to stuff keywords everywhere possible with the hope of ranking. Now, however, SEO trends are phasing away from keyword stuffing and focusing on user intent instead. With search engines being more competitive and with AI-generated content taking over the SERPs, modern SEO trends prioritize personalization, context, and relevance to better serve the user.
Prioritize your marketing by making intentional choices. Focus your content on catering to semantic searches. These search engines make more advanced connections between the words in the search than just searching for the keyword itself. If your site is organized in content clusters that draw contextual connections between your content, the search engine is able to recognize that there is a relationship between topics. Create nitty-gritty blog content, provide strong CTAs, consider areas where you can implement omnichannel marketing strategies, and incorporate long-tail keywords that dive deeper into your content so you’re more likely to rank higher on result pages.
Due to advancements in search results pages, users commonly look for answers to their queries on the result page, making the digital space a zero-click environment. Users are less likely to click on links or tap through your website if the information they need isn’t immediately made available.
As Google and other search engines transition to this layout and users turn to AI chatbots for answers, it’s possible that interaction with your site will dip. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to incorporate SEO trends and increase the likelihood of your copy showing up on results pages. By paying attention to your site’s meta details, “People Also Ask” boxes, knowledge panels, map results, and most searched portions of your copy, your language could still reach your intended audience.
Users are less likely to scroll to find what they’re looking for. AI-powered searches require clear and concise copy to optimize for user behavior. Your site can maintain result page visibility by giving users something to interact with, like a video to watch or an image reel to scroll through.
AI search engines have implemented predictive text, offering possible searches to users before they even finish typing their queries. These AI-generated summaries are likely to provide content that feels conversational to the user. Optimize your site by focusing on ease of navigation and interactive appeal.
Digital spaces are oversaturated with information, from AI-generated content taking over SERPs to video and photos being users’ favorite forms of content. To combat this, businesses should be sure to focus on local SEO. By hyper-personalizing your content, search engines can provide curated results for your intended audience, helping you tactically reach potential customers right in your area. Searches like “best dentist near me” or “floral shop in St. Louis” should be able to find your site based on location, previous user behavior, and intent.
Visual platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Google Lens, and YouTube Shorts are changing how consumers engage with content and the market. Your thumbnails must be clear and eye-catching to instigate clicks. Your captions and alt text should connect with your audience. Even hidden features like video transcripts and image metadata are essential to SEO strategies.
Successful SEO looks different today than it did even a year ago. Traditional ranking metrics don’t encapsulate new factors such as topic authority, engagement rates, dwell time, zero-click searches, and search volumes like modern SEO trends do. Cork Tree Creative can work with your team to establish SEO goals, provide an audit of your current content, and offer places for improvement. With services like content creation, conversion rate optimization, and link building, the right marketing agency can help your website skyrocket.
Staying vigilant and adaptable as technologies change is critical for long-term return on investment. Businesses should embrace a user-centric, data-driven approach to SEO strategies in 2025. Don’t let SEO become a technical afterthought. Put your content first, and consider working with an expert partner like Cork Tree Creative to grow your business.
Work with a marketing agency that doesn’t remain stagnant, but rather anticipates trends in SEO. Cork Tree Creative monitors algorithms, utilizes the latest tools, and understands search engine trends both technically and from the perspective of branding and storytelling. Book a strategy call or audit with Cork Tree today.
Omnichannel marketing is all about consistency. More than just being present on various platforms, your marketing strategy should ensure personalization and interconnectivity between online and offline touchpoints for consumers. Omnichannel marketing is a cohesive, integrated approach to creating seamless customer experiences across multiple channels. If your marketing approach has a unified story across the board, including places like your website, mobile apps, social media, in-store products, and emails, you’re likely to strengthen your brand and drive noticeable conversions.
Why wait for customers to find you? By establishing a seamless marketing strategy, you can show your customers that you are a reliable brand that keeps up with advancements in technology and incorporates the needs of consumers at the forefront of your mission. Understanding omnichannel integration starts with learning why it matters.
The omnichannel customer experience caters to the increasing consumer demand for dependable, personalized experiences when interacting with brands. There are multiple places where a customer might interact with your brand, both in-person and online.
An omnichannel marketing approach will create a seamless transition between these platforms, creating a consistent story that consumers will respond to. Forbes says omnichannel marketing has “evolved into a marketing must-have.” Additionally, Omnisend found that omnichannel campaigns using three or more channels had customer retention rates of over 66%. They also found that consumers are 6.4% more likely to make a purchase from omnichannel marketing companies than from single-channel campaigns.
Gain a competitive advantage by making your products recognizable and familiar to your audience. By adopting this omnichannel approach in your business, you can better cater to the needs of your customers and increase brand loyalty.
Creative aspects of your brand, such as typography, color palettes, logos, brand voice, catchphrases, values, and more, should be echoed throughout your various modes of communication with consumers. If a consumer accumulates points in-store, they should be able to find those points on the app. If a customer receives an email providing a discount code, that code should work on your website.
Creating a successful omnichannel strategy requires foundational operating principles to cohesively blend with your branding and image altogether. Discover the first five steps you can take to customize your marketing and sales strategy for a more multifaceted approach to the omnichannel customer journey.
It’s important to make sure that your business knows your audience. Tracking consumer insights with data analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) software like Salesforce and HubSpot can help you understand customer preferences, behaviors, and purchasing histories. To tailor and optimize your outreach methods, understanding the customer is step number one. Keep them engaged by catering to their needs.
Consumers expect ease of navigation, transparency, and consistency from brands. An omnichannel marketing approach does just that. A seamless marketing experience blends the needs of your customers with the mission of your brand to create a customer experience that your audience will love.
Carrying your audience from one platform to another doesn’t have to be a challenge. With the right foresight in mind, your voice and goals can build a trusting relationship with your customers. If your products and vision are recognizable, consumers are more likely to interact with communication channels like email and trending social media, driving engagement with promotions, discount codes, seasonal sales, and campaigns. Consistent brand messaging ensures that your customers feel connected and understood at every touchpoint.
With a proper brand guide and cohesive creative design, your brand messaging can stay consistent and pull in new and returning customers. Cork Tree Creative is a StoryBrand-certified agency that strives to unify your brand voice and keep your messaging and brand consistent.
In-person operations simply aren’t enough in the competitive business landscape we experience today. A digital presence is a necessary and helpful part of maintaining seamless customer service. Tools like marketing automation, CRMs, and AI-driven personalization can help roll out a digital presence efficiently and effectively. Incorporating a digital advertising strategy, videography, search engine optimization, analyzing data, and understanding your target demographics contribute to an omnichannel marketing approach that embraces advancements in technology and utilizes a variety of channels available for communicating with your audience. Streamline your communication and maintain consistency by taking advantage of omnichannel digital marketing tools and strategies.
Rather than just responding to the demanding changes of the market, get ahead of the curve by implementing a proactive approach to customer engagement. The omnichannel customer experience should be tailored towards future user interactions by making predictions based on past behaviors and preferences and appealing to their cross-platform needs. Your website, social platforms, and emails all provide unique opportunities to communicate your mission. When you find a brand voice that resonates with your customers, implementing that strategy across the board will appeal to your intended audience.
Draw on the individuals who connect with your story by marketing for and with your personalized audience. Don’t get caught up keeping up. By making changes to your branding strategy and company voice today, you can enhance engagement and root your business in the industry.
There is always room for improvement. Your business’s forward-thinking decisions should be driven by data and maximized for impact. An omnichannel marketing agency can help you keep track of your analytics. The right team can design and suggest new strategies for bettering your omnichannel campaign. Keep up with your omni branding and seamless marketing by partnering with experts.
Cork Tree Creative is an experienced omnichannel marketing agency that knows how to confront the complex challenges of omnichannel marketing. From content creation to digital advertising to brand consistency, we help businesses develop cohesive strategies that produce personalized solutions to their business goals. Make your message resonate across platforms by booking a call with Cork Tree to start your omnichannel journey today.
Current trends in artificial intelligence are making waves with advanced approaches to consumer engagement, internal productivity, and communication. AI tools have the ability to strengthen your campaigns and analyze data to better connect you with your intended audience. As AI marketing trends begin to embrace AI’s capabilities, now is the time to adapt to the changing landscape of AI and develop a reliable, secure, and affordable AI implementation plan that stays ahead of the marketing trends and keeps your business from falling behind the curve.
Marketing has always been a human-centered industry. Adopting AI trends in digital marketing for your business doesn’t have to change that. It’s important to remember to use AI to enhance human work rather than replace it. Whether you’re using ChatGPT for analyzing data, Grammarly to review your writing, or Google Gemini to help with your research, you have total control over when and where you and your team utilize AI’s potential to avoid oversaturating your content.
Some of the latest marketing trends benefit marketers and business leaders by enhancing data comprehension and quickly repeating tasks. Here at Cork Tree, we have experience melding real-life marketing with artificial intelligence to produce the best results at the best price for our clients, and we understand how the current trends in AI can benefit businesses like yours. We’ve put together a list of five AI marketing trends to make your day-to-day life easier.
So, which current trends in AI should you keep an eye out for in 2025?
AI has quickly evolved to provide insights into consumer behavior, target specified demographics, complete routine tasks, kickstart creative brainstorming, and analyze raw data. AI is improving digital marketing by delivering fresh perspectives and intuition to projects, changing the way that marketing reaches audiences. It is important to stay up to date with the future of marketing by implementing AI marketing trends that will keep your business engaged and successfully increase your return on investment.
One major AI marketing trend is anticipating consumer behavior through data collection and predictive analytics. By collecting information about online presence, consumer statistics, patterns, and trends, various AI systems can foresee how consumers will likely respond to marketing strategies.
A 2021 Gartner Marketing survey found that only 14% of businesses have a fully comprehensive, 360-degree view of their customers. Commonly referred to as a “digital twin,” AI can produce a digital simulation that imitates real-world scenarios to tackle this obstacle. Digital twins can test strategies and methods that optimize your consumer engagement. If provided with the most accurate data you have available, digital twin algorithms can be highly effective in test-running and monitoring your infrastructure to recognize pitfalls before your strategy is implemented in the real world.
In order to establish a reputable rapport with your customer base and avoid losing their business to a competitor, consider how digital twins or predictive analytics might benefit your company. Cork Tree’s experts can work with you to discuss implementing marketing services that align with your vision and compete with the trends.
Alongside AI’s customer behavior prediction capabilities, it can also recognize patterns in varying demographics. Your marketing strategy will need to appeal to your audience across the board. AI programs like Census GPT analyze demographic data and purchasing and website histories to organize consumers by their interests, location, income, age, etc., allowing you to cater your marketing plan to the needs and desires of your current and potential customers and clients.
Consumers can get overwhelmed by the vast availability of products and services out there. They are not interested in being sold to, so your marketing strategy should instead seek to appeal to their interests and organically draw them in. To identify groups of people who are likely to be interested in what your business offers, your marketing strategy should strive to understand the right crowd.
In 2025, AI is no longer going to be used solely for productivity, but it will become a proactive resource for growing businesses and maximizing ROI. How can AI best lend a hand to your team? What sort of monotonous tasks are hindering your progress? It’s important to recognize where your team could use a little support and implement AI for completing repetitive and mundane tasks to make sure that your team can put their time into creativity.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by taking notes during your Zoom meetings? There are AI tools like Otter or Circleback that can take your notes for you, even differentiating between who says what. This way, you can spend less time scrawling and more time engaging. The future of marketing will continue to rely on human organizing and strategizing, but it will embrace technical advancements.
Authentic human creation resonates with human consumers. AI can’t do all your brainstorming for you, but it can be a great tool for getting your team out of a creative slump. AI can offer keywords or phrases to get your creative team talking. It prompts the conversation and leaves the birthing of innovative ideas to you!
Your marketing strategy should remain human-centered. The Harvard Business Review found that consumers don’t enjoy human-like AI. They want real human interaction. Use AI services like ChatGPT to kickstart your ideas, but make sure the concepts and interpretations are your own.
Web traffic patterns are shifting as AI search engines, like Google’s Search Generative Experience, perform searches for consumers. Your website will need to cater to this new crowd looking for keywords and quick answers.
Analyzing raw data is a great use of AI to improve your marketing for strategies like SEO, Google Ads, and more. AI can provide algorithms that process large quantities of data from websites and web traffic patterns. What draws consumers to your website? How can you cater to your intended audience? Which aspects of your website are successful at this, and how can you make it even better? Adjusting to provide simple, quick results to web traffic searches will require minimizing your cluttered content and streamlining your website’s content.
AI will not take over digital marketing and advertising, but it will absolutely influence it. Marketing tools in 2025 can help with efficiency and marketing decisions informed by accurate data, but it’s also important to avoid producing generic content that loses its human qualities. AI can be intimidating. Though businesses are often hesitant to try it out, AI is bound to evolve, and you should be ahead of the curve when adapting to the changing marketing landscape.
Your business cannot properly integrate AI without first understanding and developing an insightful marketing strategy that works for you. Create marketing for the future by partnering with Cork Tree Creative to learn how your campaign and products can keep up with AI marketing trends and balance the ethical challenges of current trends in AI.
Cork Tree Creative is a local marketing agency that knows how to balance human innovation with artificial intelligence. Implementing AI strategies that align with your brand’s goals is an essential way to keep up with trends in digital marketing. We can help businesses like yours avoid AI bias and responsibly achieve a brand strategy that competes with the forecasted future of AI and content marketing. AI can save you time and money and provide well-developed optimization initiatives that can transform your business. Consider using these tools to develop an innovative website, prompt some exciting brainstorming exercises, take notes, and share your voice with your audience.
Cork Tree offers digital advertising, branding, video content, and website-enhancing services from experienced professionals. Book a consultation to hear more about our services and revitalize your approach to AI marketing.
In 2025, video marketing is more than just a trend; it is an essential tool for businesses looking to foster meaningful connections with their audience. But what are the benefits of video marketing, and how can strategic video content help your business drive more conversions?
The data is compelling: landing pages featuring videos can increase conversions by as much as 80%. Additionally, 73% of consumers report being more likely to make a purchase after watching a video explaining a product or service. Marketing videos for businesses is no longer optional—it’s a proven method to captivate audiences, communicate value, and turn potential leads into loyal customers.
At Cork Tree Creative, we understand the benefits of video marketing in today’s noisy digital world. When your business isn’t seen or heard, you miss out on valuable opportunities to turn communities into conversions. Our St. Louis video marketing services are designed to help your business create strategic, results-driven videos that enhance your marketing strategy, not just make noise.
By leveraging visual storytelling, businesses can not only convey their messages more effectively but also drive engagement and conversions. Here are three key benefits of video marketing for organizations like yours:
At its core, video marketing is about connection. Business video marketing bridges the gap between companies and their audiences. By combining customized videography with heartfelt storytelling, videos build trust, address customer pain points, and guide viewers toward action.
Here are three types of marketing videos that can deliver the conversions you’re looking for:
These formats don’t just capture attention—they create the “aha!” moments that turn customer curiosity into conversions.
Creating marketing videos that deliver real results takes more than hitting “record.” To maximize the impact of your videography efforts, follow these three best practices below:
At Cork Tree Creative, we craft stories that drive results and meet your marketing objectives. Our videography services are designed to help your business connect, engage, and convert like never before. From concept development to production and analytics, our team delivers comprehensive video marketing solutions tailored to your business’s unique needs. Let’s make your vision a reality. Contact Cork Tree Creative today, and let’s turn your video ideas into your most powerful marketing tool.
To view more of Cork Tree Creative's videography work, check out our full video showcase.
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