Google “digital marketing tactics for 2025” - are you inspired? Do you have a list of actionables, ready to get cracking?

Before you jump into coding tutorials so you can build your own artificial intelligence VR customer service rep, Peggy, who spends her downtime generating live Instagram stories themed according to Youtube trending videos because she is the queen that is behind every good content king…

Have a Kit Kat and a swig of my haterade.

Now I feel your pain. It's tricky business to figure out which tactics are most applicable and should be prioritised for you right here and now, following your own unique set of circumstances to be considered when mapping out your marketing strategy for the year.

Budget, time, know-how, availability of human assets, tools & resources etc. all play a part in laying out the most appropriate plan of attack.

Which is why I designed the cheat sheet matrix below.

Locate where you're at according to two finite resources: time and money. Then start experimenting and work your way upwards.

Disclaimer: this is not an exhaustive list but a decent starting point. And before I forget: this is for informational purposes only. You may want to consult a professional to determine what may be best for your individual needs.

Bear in mind that I have not listed the more fundamental pieces of the jigsaw which you should have in good shape before scaling sales and marketing efforts.

Things like:

A crystal clear value proposition / pain or problem you help alleviate
Ideal customer / target market
Functional website that doesn’t cause retina bleeding, with sufficient content for various audience intents (ideally not just solving for 'buy this right now pretty please')
Foundational SEO - technical and on-page
Some form of data capture / measurement plan
Retargeting
Email marketing funnels - AT LEAST abandoned cart if in ecommerce
Organic social media presence ONLY IF you're pretty savvy and know your purpose for existing on the gram or TikTok

The first 3 are essential (website debatable depending on your business/fulfilment capacity), and the latter will ensure better leverage of further efforts - think water reservoir instead of open palm grabs on a rainy day.

Now to briefly touch on each tactic:

Stop playing flappy bird

...or Candy Crush.

1:1 outreach

You’ve dropped dollars getting things started, now let’s make the cash flow. With limited time, you’ll want to go for the tactic with the highest cut-through and conversion, and quickest feedback loop. So whip out the Rolodex, identify who within your existing networks would actually find value in your product or service and reach out. It’s time for action and if you want to see this baby fly, get texting/emailing/ringing. You may be surprised how wide your networks really are - friends, family, neighbours, colleagues past or present, coffee groups, book clubs, gym goers, church folk. Once you’ve spoken to everyone you can think of, start to go broader - friends of friends, your suppliers, your plumber, the barista at your local, other parents at your child’s school or kindy, industry connections etc. Once you've gone two layers deep, start asking everyone who you’ve been in touch with if they have anyone in mind who would be interested. It’s amazing how many people you can reach with this one tactic.

Engage in existing groups or communities

Chances are clusters of people grouped around your product or service category already exist. Find them and get involved. But don’t make the mistake of going in guns blazing. It’s difficult to go for a handshake as well as someone’s wallet at the same time, so invest in building rapport and giving assistance before offering the shiny watches stashed in your trench coat. Facebook Groups are an easy target but tend to have moderators screening new members and aggressive self-promotion, so play nice. Other communities worth investigating include: Reddit, Quora, Forums, Linkedin Groups, Twitter trending conversations and Hello (emerging interest-based social network founded by an ex-Google engineer).

Start a community (on Facebook)

Off the back of engaging in existing communities, you will know they are super valuable. Now just imagine a group of people gathered to support and empower each other for the exact mission your business or brand is all about. This sense of belonging connects your customers, prospects and enthusiasts with deeper meaning and while it does require considerable effort to develop, grow and moderate, they tend to hit a tipping point of self-management. And with Facebook's recent changes further limiting the reach of business and brand pages, though nothing new (as is consistent with updates over the last few years) but bound to intensify, groups and communities will stand a better chance of reaching members in their Newsfeeds.

Share thought pieces

aka content marketing. Flexing your expertise and establishing authority are among the benefits of sharing informative and helpful content. But be clear about your goals and who you’re appealing to. The promised land is located where no one has a better claim on expertise than you do. Tread boldly, pick a burning question that’s being asked in your industry, make it worth discovering, but don’t be surprised - this will either be time-consuming or costly. As the old adage goes; time is moola. When you do come out the other side triumphant, milk it for all it’s worth. Publish it on your website or external outlets with the right eyeballs, share it in the groups and communities you’re engaging in, use it as a value-driven resource for getting that first sales meeting or guest speaker slot at an industry event or meet up. Then bank all the glory, you’ve earned it.

Paid advertising on untapped channels

You’ve got a bit of dosh to spend but no time to manage it. And just because you’re an amazing human with great products/services, website and/or thought leadership content, it doesn’t translate to hordes of people finding out straight away. Paid advertising is needed to amplify your awesomeness but everyone knows about Google, Facebook and Instagram. This is where untapped channels in your industry or in other verticals that have captured the attention of an audience similar to yours can be very effective. Pinterest is still a relatively untapped paid channel, with promoted pins recently launched in 2017, in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. You could also find small websites, publications, brands or Youtube channels that fit the bill and offer to pay for a mention in their next email newsletter or video, placement of a banner or article on their website, or a sponsored post on their Facebook page promoting your business. These untapped channels have likely never done a deal like this before and may just jump at the opportunity, along with doing most of the heavy lifting. Make sure you measure performance though, so you know which deals to repeat down the track.

Set up a referral program

If you have an existing customer base, your best advocates are likely already telling friends and family about how great you are. Set fuel to the fire by offering an incentive for referrals that make it across the line. Inspired by PayPal’s refer-a-friend program, Dropbox notoriously used this method to hack their growth to 4 million users in 15 months by offering 500mb of free storage space to both the referrer and referral.

Engage micro influencers / affiliate partners

We’ve all heard the term ‘influencer’ 179 times too many and there is a reason for that - influencer marketing works and can be very affordable. However, it’s not a new concept born of the technology age. Rooted in the basic premise of celebrity endorsements which started in the late 19th century alongside the rising popularity of movies, modern technology has simply democratised the eco-system. Nowadays, anyone with a decent smartphone has the ability to become internet famous and influence behaviour through their online personas. The real distinction then, is around content creation. The best influencer campaigns involve personalities with the ability to create their own unique content in support of your brand’s goals. Exhibit A (who would've thought drinking water from a box could be so appealing?):

Self-serve paid search advertising

As long as your business does not operate in a brand new market or is too innovative a product or service with zero existing demand, paid search could well be worth your time. Getting in front of prospective customers actively looking for the solution you provide would make alot of sense. Granted your competitive landscape lends well to cost-effective traffic and leads, you’ll get the added bonus of additional market research and better understanding of your audience and the terms they use to find you over time. Beware the steep learning curve of self-serving search advertising though. It takes roughly 20-40 hours to cover Google’s Adwords Search learning materials in their Academy of Ads, as well as sitting the exam, plus an additional 20-40 hours of actually using the platform and getting familiar with the ins and outs of the ever-changing user interface. The alternative is diving straight in and risk pushing a wrong button which causes your campaign to overspend by one too many appended zero digits.

Although if your monthly marketing budget is over 1k, you could get a Search Specialist to manage this for you, while you focus on email marketing and doubling down on frank discussions with your customers to gauge what you’re doing well, what can be improved and other opportunities to blow their socks off.

Outsource digital marketing

Your time is scarce. Get experts to drive traffic, leads and sales so you can focus on business strategy, hiring and 'focus groups' down at that new cafe or bar in town. With a marketing budget of 5 - 25k per month, there’s a wide range of activities your digital marketing pro or agency could deploy to deliver substantial results and ROI. Website optimisation for better user experience and conversion rates, brand campaigns to exude James Brown coolness or sponsorship drives to show how much you care about <insert worthy cause here>. A good digital marketing expert is worth their weight in gold, but finding them without a Cerebro requires due diligence and testing their mettle to ensure they know their stuff and are commercially switched on. Because you definitely cannot pay bills with 'likes' and 'comments'.

Make videos (be your brand’s media personality)

It’s been tooted that companies all need to shift to become media channels and publishers themselves or risk imminent death. While I agree to some degree with this well-intended recommendation, the truth is, there’s never a blanket rule. There are countless businesses still running well without a website (or maybe a painfully bad one), drone footage or chatbots. Just think about your local bakery, dental clinic and so on… That being said, it all comes back to your goals. If you have a decent sized total addressable market to reach and you or your company’s founder/director/CEO is charismatic and entertaining enough, you may just fair well pointing the camera and letting the spine-tingling passion for your mission take center stage. After all, we humans are more likely to give our dollars to people and organisations we like and feel more connected with.

Run an epic giveaway / cross-promotion

And I do mean epic, because how many people get excited about the chance to win 2 movie tickets? Versus how many would froth over the possibility of visiting the film set to see ol’ mate Taika go off the cuff with Chewbacca? Your success in acquiring leads here is directly proportional to the epic-ness grading of the carrot you’ll be dangling. Will it be organically grown by well-paid farmers wearing at least 16 oz. denim? Or the other stuff you can get from that place you go, for the shopping trolleys. Oh and relevance is key here. It helps to give away something only your audience would be excited about, instead of say, a circus monkey which everyone and their zookeeper would enter to win, thus affecting your quality of leads. If you’re at the higher end of this budget range, consider building a microsite or exciting landing page for better insights and retargeting, otherwise Gleam, King Sumo, or simply boosting on your social media channels would do the job.

Self-serve paid social advertising

As with ‘self-serve paid search advertising’ a la steep learning curve. Even finding where things are hidden on ad management platforms can often cause a sedated primary school teacher to flip tables. BUT if you do have the spare time and a burning desire for split-testing, copywriting, CRM and customer data wrangling, graphic design, statistical analysis and data mining, there are plenty of resources such as Facebook Blueprint available to guide you on your path to social media advertising enlightenment.

Hire 3 agencies to do cool things

Good agencies will look after you. Great agencies will challenge and inspire you, for the benefit of your brand and your customers. Plus, triple martini lunches can be fun if you’re into that sort of thing.

Acquire a sleeping giant

Is there an emerging competitor that hasn’t fully taken off or another company that’s bleeding cash who’s founder is open to exiting? As long as it’s well aligned with your brand, acquiring them could be the perfect move. Have a peep at ‘businesses for sale’ directories, talk to people who know people, or make an outright offer. You just might strike gold.

Provide utilities or software that complement your core offering

Ikea and Target have done this well with augmented reality furniture shopping, enabling prospective buyers to preview how their furniture would look in situ. But perhaps AR would be overkill for you. A quiz that audits customer needs to find product matches might fit the bill, like Warby Parker or Sodashi Skincare. Or any of the many tools Shopify offers to make running an E-commerce business easy. Focus on your customer needs, any challenges that may exist or complexities in the buying process and take them by the hand to frolic through the different consideration daisy-hoops they’ll need to jump through before getting to a yes (or no if it’s not the right fit, but at least it’ll be a fun time).

Do everything including your own stunts

Yep.

Digital marketing is fast-evolving and while certain techniques are quickly made redundant, there are still plenty of tried and true methods.

The sweet spot is found in your strategic mix of tactics, channels, creative, distribution and amplification, which all ties back to your over-arching goals, objectives and audience.

My hope is that after reading this, you'll have a couple of immediate moves to experiment with, or a few fundamentals to set in motion. However, you should always do your research and weigh up the important factors which will impact on your success, to identify the best tactics for you today and the foreseeable future.

Don’t fall behind the pack. Move fast, be brave, go well.

Digital Marketing Tactics Cheat Sheet for 2025