On 08 October, I attended the 2025 CIM Annual Marketing Conference at Henley Business School. I always really enjoy these sessions as they are a chance to reflect and review what is changing in the marketing world. It is really good to step away from the desk and hear from industry sector leaders on what is changing in the world of marketing. More on 2026 trends next month, but I wanted to share some of the key points from one of the workshops, led by Becky Simms, the CEO from Reflect Digital. She explored in depth changing consumer habits.
In her presentation Becky talked about how as consumers we are changing, with a particular focus on search. We are seeing that online activity is at an all-time high, for years we have been obsessed with what people search for but now the question is more about where people search. Now people use different platforms to search, not just using Google but ChatGPT, YouTube and some social media platforms.
Google is still king and even becoming part of our vocabulary “Let me Google that” for example, is part of our everyday conversation. Social media is quickly becoming the second platform for search; YouTube is now also second only to the BBC as a media destination (Ofcom). With the explosion of AI, as you would expect, this is also influencing how we search, with two key factors influencing that.
The first factor is age. People are looking at multiple sources, we see the under 44yrs olds are on average turning to five different platforms to search and the over 65yrs are using two. What this means for businesses is that you now need to be in many different places to be seen, build recognition and then ultimately for people to like you enough to buy your product or service.
The Second factor is occupation. It is not surprising that desk based roles are using AI and adopting tech more readily, especially those in IT, research and marketing. Those who are not desk based, such as those in performing arts, law and enforcement, publishing and journalism are using AI less. This is going to change over time as it will become more widely adopted.
Insights
We know times are changing and as small business owners we need to think about what content we need to get out into the world to help customers make the right decisions. If your customer is looking at Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Chat GPT then Google, but you are only in Google at the end, then you are going to miss out on building relationships. Some key things to consider:
- To get this right we need to understand our audience! (a key marketing principle).
- Users have more platform choice than ever before and sometimes it can be hard to make a choice, so we default back to what we know.
- Humans are complicated, we make decisions based on emotion and logic.
- We have lots of different influences that help us to make decision eg: historical behaviours, fact finding, what others are saying, our beliefs, habit driven – just doing what I have always done, etc.
- Different channels are supporting different types of search eg: you might use Instagram for inspiration.
So how do we move forward?
To be able to respond to such fast paced changing industry we need to create agile marketing solutions, to enable us to respond and react.
Understand our audience
History shows us that everything starts with understanding our audience. Map out your audience’s customer journey and understand why they search not just what they search for. We need to get a mix of qualitative and quantative data to help shape this view eg: survey, social listening, data analytics and focus groups. It is likely that we will need to create different marketing solutions for different groups or audiences. Think about their motivations behind the decision to purchase your product or service and go on a fact finding mission to find out more.
Map their customer journey
Once we understand our audience, we then need to map out their journey. Look at the emotional and awareness driving channels eg: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. Prioritise key channels and platforms, do one or two channels well rather than multiple channels badly.
Plan your content and messaging
There are several things we wish to achieve with the content we create that include:
- Shaping perspective: understand what your audience are talking about and create rich long form thought leadership content to respond to their challenges.
- Inspiring and engaging: to gain cut through, create emotional connections through short videos and content that resonate with your audience.
- Inform and reassure: share information, facts and details that help your audience to overcome the challenges they face, to help build trust and authority. Show that you are an expert, safe and a credible place to buy from.
- Simplify and empower. Create step by step easy to understand information.
Test and learn: do more of what works and less of what does not.
What media to use to tell your story?
It becomes easier to decide which media to use to tell your brand story with a solid understanding of your target audience. We need to create processes and use media that enables us to create agile marketing solutions, quickly being able to respond to changing environments or consumers. Influencers and word of mouth recommendations continue to create the social proof we need from others to buy into particular brands.
Everything today needs to be run through the lens of our audience. Whist tech continues to grow; it has got to be human led first, putting your customer at the heart of everything you do has never been more relevant. An example of how different media might come together to help you choose your next holiday.
- Inspiration. Let’s face it you probably start planning your next trip on the plane on the way home from your last holiday. So, your Instagram account is going to be key to providing lots of lovely holiday pictures and ongoing inspiration.
- Getting ready to buy. Then you get to a point where you want to book and you move to crowd sourcing. You start to look for that social proof. Where is everyone else going? You might check out Trip adviser, TikTok and check out your friend’s profiles to gather more solid information.
- Fact finding. OK so now you know where you want to go, but you want the details – how much is it to hire a car, buy the flights or hotel? What is the food like? And what is there to do in the resort you are considering.
- Then ready to book! It is at this point you want an offer or to hear from the right travel company.
Consumer buying behaviour continues to change and search has evolved in the way that it supports this process. There are so many options out there but the marketing framework that underpins all of this is still the same! Whilst the huge advances and changes in tech require significant investment, as small business owners we can still look to implement a number of these principles in a lighter way. If you would like some help in organising your next agile marketing campaign, please get in touch to see how we can help.
