6 Fresh Marketing Ideas to Energize Your Small Business Growth in 2025

Marketing plays a crucial role in the success of small businesses eager to reach new audiences and expand their clientele. It’s important to create innovative marketing strategies and refresh them annually to keep your audience eager to engage.

However, a new year means shifting small business trends; 2025 brings unique challenges and opportunities that may require adapting your approaches more than usual to uncover new marketing ideas for small business growth.

For example, 85% of marketers say that generative artificial intelligence (AI) has changed how they create content. Meanwhile, ad spending on social media advertising is projected to grow by more than $30 billion in the next few years. Consumer behavior also demonstrates a growing demand for personalization, requiring more effort and intent behind engagements.

Here are six creative marketing ideas to raise brand awareness, reach more customers, and achieve your goals heading into the new year and beyond.

1. Integrate interactive content with FLIPpages

The demand for engaging multimedia content has never been higher. For example, research on the top 100 highest-traffic websites shows that people spend almost 50% longer on those featuring video than those without; moreover, nearly three of every five marketers reported in one survey that video content achieves the best performance compared to other mediums and strategies.

But you don’t need to manage a YouTube channel or a big production budget to take advantage of that.

To create interactive content that genuinely engages your audience, try experimenting with FLIPpages and discover why it’s one of the top marketing tools for small businesses. As a user-friendly digital publishing platform, FLIPpages allows you to create interactive PDFs for your business’s marketing strategy.

Interactive PDFs let you embed videos, multimedia, and other clickable elements. These elements engage viewers more dynamically and improve time-on-page metrics, which boost SEO performance.

Analyzing engagement metrics related to what audiences spend the most time viewing in the PDF or the links they click on most also provides deeper insights into how they interact with your business and its content. In turn, you can continually refine your strategy.

Interactive PDFs are perfect for showcasing your products or services, engaging and educating your audience, and providing customers with a dynamic multimedia experience. Just like a normal PDF file, your content will display precisely how you designed it, no matter the channel or medium through which people encounter it.

2. Expand digital marketing horizons

It is no secret that digital marketing is important for small businesses. However, relying on SEO, social media, and email marketing is no longer enough. One of the best marketing ideas for small business growth is to take advantage of emerging digital tools and trends.

For example, AI continues to alter how businesses understand and engage with their audiences. By analyzing customer data, AI tools can enable hyper-targeted marketing campaigns. For example, you might use them to segment audiences for email campaigns based on preferences, behaviors, and past purchases.

Meanwhile, AI-powered features in tools like Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager analyze user behavior to optimize ad campaigns for maximum ROI.

Another emerging trend to watch concerns short-form video content, such as Instagram Reels and TikTok. When comparing returns on investment (ROI) for different marketing content, 31% of marketers report that short-form video performs best.

These results now incentivize even more short-form video strategies and campaigns, with over half of marketers already using the format and looking to increase their investment.

However, when adopting new tools like these, start small. It’s more important that your efforts and engagements are high-quality than ‘spam-y.’

For instance, instead of launching many new tools simultaneously, begin by deploying one affordable AI tool. Fortunately, when it comes to publishing and reaching your audience, you can repurpose a short-form video across multiple platforms.

With a few posts, you’ve launched your own DIY omnichannel strategy to reach customers on multiple platforms—including by embedding the short-form videos in your interactive PDFs.

3. Leverage technology for customer retention

Retaining customers is just as important (if not more so) than acquiring new ones and requires effective marketing tactics. With the rise of technology, you can create stronger customer relationships and drive retention.

One way is using AI to support personalization, which we discussed above. But you can also tap into automated customer relationship management (CRM) tools to use customer data more effectively.

You might create targeted campaigns for customer segments based on purchase history, location, or behavior. You might also engage customers with personalized video messages (such as a quick “thank you” after new purchases) and share exclusive content via each customer’s preferred engagement channel to keep them feeling valued and connected to your brand.

When personalizing these marketing interactions and brand-building opportunities, remember to consider presentation, too. For example, you could use FLIPpages to create interactive PDFs tailored for specific customer segments (such as young female shoppers) or give customers exclusive access to deals with a “members-only” interactive catalog.

4. Combine offline and digital strategies for a holistic approach

While digital marketing ideas for small business growth can yield impressive results, it doesn’t mean you should forgo offline strategies altogether. One of our favorite small business growth tips is combining offline and digital strategies.

Consider this: If you send out direct mail, you can add QR codes to your postcards, flyers, or brochures that link to your interactive FLIPpages PDFs. There, you can give customers instant access to a much more dynamic presentation of exclusive offers, booking systems, and videos showcasing your products or services in greater detail.

Another idea is to host community events with interactive digital presentations. Organize workshops, pop-ups, or open houses, and enhance the experiences by incorporating interactive digital elements. For example, during an in-person workshop, you can display your interactive PDF or catalog on tablets or screens.

5. Optimize for mobile-first experiences

To the major benefit of FLIPpages users, PDFs always seamlessly adjust to whatever device viewers are on and scale to screens accordingly. Your marketing effort will always look precisely how it was intended—no distortions, unloaded assets, or other issues.

6. Stay ahead of the curve with emerging trends

Marketing campaigns for small businesses will continue evolving in 2025, and several notable trends are reshaping this space. Instead of getting caught off-guard by them, adapt early to stay ahead of the competition and position your brand as forward-thinking.

One trend to watch is voice search. With the continued rise of smart devices and voice assistants, voice search is becoming a dominant way consumers find information (per Vixen Labs, around half of Americans already report using it on their smartphones).

Accordingly, optimizing your marketing content for voice queries offers an increasingly reliable method for how to grow a small business. To do so, focus on using natural, conversational language. Also, use long-tail keywords and answer common questions in your niche.

Another factor affecting business branding decisions relates to sustainably managed operations and campaigns, as today’s consumers increasingly choose to purchase from companies that prioritize environmental and ethical responsibility.

More than half of consumers across three generational demographics consider sustainability when choosing between brands. As many as 22% of Gen Z say they only buy from sustainable brands—an increase over Millennials, whose increase compared to Gen X indicates this trend will grow over time. So, highlight any eco-friendly practices in your marketing materials and share stories about your commitment to them (such as local sourcing).

Buying directly through social media platforms (known as social commerce) is also on the rise, becoming more of a mainstream shopping avenue. Social commerce revenues are forecasted to balloon from more than $570 billion in 2023 to more than $1 trillion by 2028.

Take advantage of this growing sales method on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to create seamless purchasing experiences where your audience already engages with your content.

Small businesses need tools to adapt quickly and deliver compelling experiences across platforms as trends shift. For that, you can always turn to FLIPpages for your digital publications. Quickly create stunning and informative PDFs that align with 2025’s emerging trends—like voice-friendly digital guides and sustainability reports.

Boost your small business growth with innovative marketing ideas

Adopting fresh and innovative small business marketing strategies is not just a “nice to have.” Instead, it’s necessary for businesses looking to stand out as market leaders.
By staying ahead of trends, embracing technology, and creatively blending offline and digital strategies, you can build stronger connections with your audience and drive sustainable growth.

If you’re looking for a digital publishing platform to help you turn your PDFs into interactive publications you can utilize on any channel, then FLIPpages is here.

FLIPpages is the go-to tool for creating engaging and innovative marketing materials.

Start your free trial with FLIPpages today to create stunning PDFs that bring your marketing ideas for small business growth to life.