Marketing leaders entered 2025 with optimism and clear expectations to deliver measurable results. While budgets remained strong in digital marketing and thought leadership, AI, privacy laws, policy changes, and market disruptions introduced challenges for even the most experienced teams.
According to Gartner, digital now accounts for 61.1 percent of total marketing spend, while seven out of ten industry sectors allocate more than 60 percent of their budget to online channels. In addition, thought leadership and PR measurement continued to gain traction with many animal health, education, nonprofit, and healthcare organizations.
This year-in-review highlights what worked, what didn’t, and how PR and marketing professionals can refine strategies to achieve even stronger results in 2026. It also explores how organizations can strengthen programs by integrating PR, digital strategies, and thought leadership efforts that support long-term branding, fundraising, and sales outcomes.
5 Winning PR and Trends and Activities in 2025
1. AI-Driven Content, Marketing, and Admin Support with Human Oversight
Assistance from AI helped marketing and PR teams move faster in 2025. Organizations using AI to expedite research, outline development, and early drafting efforts achieved faster turnaround times and improved engagement across paid and organic channels. Human oversight remained essential, however. Teams that employed an expert review process ensured tone, empathy, and brand voice remained consistent and credible.
The strongest results came from combining automation with authentic, human-centered storytelling. Companies that treated AI as an operational support tool, rather than a replacement for strategic thinking, produced more relevant content and stronger SEO, email marketing, and communication outcomes. This approach also reinforced thought leadership, allowing experts to spend more time shaping insights while AI handled more repetitive tasks.
2. Short-Form Video Content and Creator Partnerships
Short-form video remained one of the most effective formats in 2025. Stakeholders engaged most with concise, platform-native content across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, especially when featuring employees, volunteers, or program recipients or participants. Authentic creator partnerships earned higher trust and stronger conversion rates, while community-focused storytelling continued to outperform scripted, purely promotional content.
A clear example came from The Salvation Army, whose short-form videos highlighting volunteer efforts and community programs saw meaningful engagement across Instagram and TikTok. These clips worked because they were real and mission-centered, illustrating why audiences respond to genuine, unscripted moments that elevate human storytelling.
3. Integrating Earned, Owned, and Paid Media
Organizations that aligned PR, SEO, and paid activation achieved stronger domain authority and clearer ROI in 2025. When earned media, thought leadership content, and paid digital ads worked in tandem, each channel reinforced the next and improved communication outcomes. Media relations also continued to generate high-quality backlinks, which supported organic search rankings and AI search results, strengthening expert positioning across owned platforms.
Public school districts that published thought leadership op-eds while running localized paid social promotions to manage perception online also saw great success. Districts that paired earned coverage with strategic, paid amplification saw higher engagement from families and community members and stronger search performance for topics tied to enrollment, curriculum, and student success.
4. Data and Personalized Email Marketing
Clean, permission-based data delivered high-performing digital marketing results in 2025. Organizations that maintained accurate lists and updated stakeholder frequency and content preferences saw stronger results across email, text, and retargeting programs. Personalized sequences increased retention, donor engagement, and repeat actions by delivering messages that reflected each stakeholder’s interests and timing needs.
Nonprofits and school districts also saw higher engagement when they segmented audiences and adjusted messaging in real time as conditions shifted. This responsiveness helped teams stay relevant and ensured their outreach supported measurable outcomes instead of one-size-fits-all communications.
5. Social Responsibility and Cause Marketing Shaped Stakeholder Perception
In 2025, cause marketing programs reached a tipping point, from a brand preference factor to a baseline expectation. Stakeholders paid close attention to how organizations treated employees, supported communities, and addressed issues tied to their mission. This impacted numerous sectors, including nonprofit, education, healthcare, food (retail), and animal health, where trust remains central to long-term success.
Companies that communicated clearly and frequently about their community involvement, sustainability efforts, and mission-driven initiatives saw stronger engagement and better program outcomes. Those that treated social responsibility as a “one-off” or opportunistic marketing initiative struggled to build credibility. The most effective teams connected their initiatives to thoughtful storytelling and expert commentary, reinforcing leadership’s role in advancing meaningful change.
Partnering with a positioning and messaging PR agency that helps organizations strategically and proactively communicate their cause marketing partnerships clearly built trust with stakeholders in 2025.
5 PR and Marketing Practices That Didn’t Produce Results in 2025
1. Clinging to What Worked in the Past
Many organizations struggled in 2025 because they relied too heavily on traditional Google organic and paid search. As AI-driven search changed how users discover information, teams without diversified content strategies saw weaker results. Those that invested in thought leadership, media relations (with authentic link building from highly credible news websites), and advanced SEO practices maintained steady results because their content carried greater authority across multiple channels.
Two AI-SEO practices proved especially helpful: structuring content to answer clear, conversational queries improved performance in AI search results; and, including credible sources and expert insights strengthened credibility, which AI systems prioritize.
2. Cookie-Dependent Measurement and Targeting
Many marketers continued to rely on third-party cookies in 2025, even as browser policies and privacy rules made these signals inconsistent and unreliable. This created attribution gaps and reporting inaccuracies that complicated budgeting and campaign planning. Again, this was relying on past best practices and not evolving into the current digital marketing in PR landscape.
Organizations that prioritized first-party data collection, permission-based tracking, and modeled insights adapted far more effectively. They maintained stronger audience understanding, achieved clearer results, and built programs that were less vulnerable to ongoing privacy and platform penalties.
3. Single-Platform Influencer Strategies
Creator efforts limited to one platform underperformed in 2025 as algorithms and audience preferences shifted throughout the year. Organizations that diversified across YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn Video, and Instagram Reels achieved stronger ROI and more stable engagement. Multi-platform participation became essential for sustaining reach and supporting consistent results across campaigns and programs.
4. High-Volume, Low-Value Content
High-volume, automated content continued to underperform in the past 12 months. Mass-produced posts diluted credibility, felt generic, and failed to engage readers and viewers. Consumers and B2B customers gravitated toward research-based insights, authentic storytelling, and expert commentary that demonstrated real experience. Quality-driven content replaced volume-driven output as the measure of effectiveness.
The difference between high and low-quality content became clearer this year. High-quality content is specific, evidence-based, and written for a defined stakeholder group. Low-quality content lacks specificity, repeats broad statements, offers no data or examples, and reads as interchangeable with content from any other organization.
Teams that prioritized accuracy, thoughtful positioning, and strategic, fresh messaging saw stronger engagement and more reliable outcomes across digital and traditional channels.
5. Lack of Crisis Communications Planning and Preparedness
Fast news cycles and inaccurate information spread quickly across websites, email lists, and social media in 2025, placing organizations at significant (reputational) risk. When marketing and crisis communications teams operated in silos, messages became inconsistent and response times slowed, which made issues harder to control. According to research done by HubSpot, 23.0% of organizations reported zero crisis-team activations, while 17.3% said they activated their crisis-management teams more than five times.
Organizations that partnered with an experienced crisis communications agency mitigated fallout during issues and crises. These teams managed updates across channels in real time, corrected misinformation, and ensured that stakeholders received accurate, timely information and guidance. This alignment protected trust and reduced long-term business disruptions.
Marketing and PR Learnings to Inform 2026
The most resilient marketing experts will enter 2026 with PR, SEO, and digital programs that work in unison, in an integrated fashion, rather than operating as separate, disconnected efforts. Thought leadership and credible media relations remain essential for building authority, strengthening stakeholder trust, and supporting long-term AI search/SEO outcomes. Measurement will also evolve. Instead of relying on surface-level metrics, teams will prioritize measures that show real progress, including earned backlinks, expert citations, and meaningful engagement across various platforms/channels.
Organizations that prioritize quality, expert-driven content and maintain a clear, data-informed approach will be better positioned to adapt as AI, search, and social media algorithms continue to change. These efforts will set the foundation for stronger performance across marketing, PR, and communications programs in the year ahead.
National PR Agency Credentials
Rosica Communications is an award-winning PR agency specializing in media training, thought leadership, crisis communications, cause marketing, SEO, content strategy, and digital PR. With deep expertise in nonprofit, education, healthcare, food retail, and animal health sectors, Rosica helps organizations amplify visibility, protect reputations, and drive meaningful impact.
To measure the success of our client’s PR and thought leadership programs, Rosica invented the Thought Leadership Measurement Matrix™—a tool that analyzes over 20 performance indicators, helping institutions benchmark visibility, assess impact, and optimize ongoing initiatives.
Learn more by scheduling a call with Chris Rosica: https://calendly.com/rosica/30min.