Cheers, Chickadee!
Let's jump right into it today (and cheers to a new year, by the way) and look at 2025 trends shaping marketing, writing, our lives.
This is my annual list of What's In, What's Out for a
new year. (The 2023 version; the 2024 version.)
There's a lot I left out for this year: More pages, fewer screens. More civil debate, less rage-baiting. Generative A.I. as a tool... not talisman or magic wand. Fewer "hook frameworks" which teach you how to hack your way to
attention when all we need to do is simply connect. (Revolutionary!)
But life is about choices. So here we go.
P.S. The In/Out 2025 Honorable Mentions are listed at the end.
2025 IN / OUT
✅ IN: Craft
❌ OUT: AI slop
Spam has morphed into slop: Garbage. Excreted waste. A generated image of a hand with 7 fingers. The cut/paste soulless text.
The only antidote to AI slop is more and more powerful language models that write for us so we don't have to... HAHA! No, no I'm kidding you! The antidote is craft.
Craft is from the Old English cræft, which meant physical power or might. The æ in the middle of the word was later ejected from the alphabet. Cræft became craft; the definition of the newly svelte word expanded to include the mental power of a special skill or dexterity or the thing itself: something built or made.
Slop is generated. Craft is built and made.
Craft has hand prints, footprints, bite marks. Use AI, if you want, to enhance your writing—I do. But do not use AI to generate it. Choose your player. Choose your cræft.
✅ IN: Lasting impact
❌ OUT: Fleeting attention
Earning the attention of specific people in your audience was zee name of zee game last year. This year is about what happens
after you've stopped their scroll; after you've earned a glance your way. We need to create a lasting impression on those who care whether we show up. (Or not.).
You wonder: Does that make our
content more niche and focused? Does that make our cræft more critical? Yes! What you said.
✅ IN: First-party data
❌
OUT: Third-party tracking
Email, physical addresses, or other info offered willingly is way more valuable than third-party tracking. Note the word willingly in that sentence—as in not coerced. No sleight-of-hand maneuvers like forced opt-ins. No trickery like relentless popovers.
Marketers like us love such tactics because... sure, they work. But they don't exactly start a relationship off in the best way, do they? They don't nurture trust long-term, do they?
✅ IN: Creative consistency
❌ OUT: Creative chaos
Nutter Butter is a cookie that makes (wait for it) nutty videos and social memes. Yeah, on social media.
Yet that first sentence is from the brand's website homepage—a masterclass in how consistency builds a recognizable brand. Chaos comes when we don't create recognition and affinity through voice, messaging, and visuals—across any channel you own or don't. Or said another way: When your TikTok looks gloriously relatable but the homepage
looks like Legal wrote it.
✅ IN: Emotional B2B
❌ OUT: Rational B2B
"I want both," my friend Carole said, when I
showed her this list. Fair enuf. To clarify: What's OUT is B2B marketing without any emotional resonance. Your buyers have brains AND they well up watching that final scene in Wicked. Remember that this year.
✅ IN: Content for brand building
❌ OUT: Content for MQLs or traffic
90% of B2B buyers buy the brand they already knew before they began searching for solution or tool or doohickey. In an age of AI, the brand that is remembered is the brand that is bought. P.S. to leaders in the room: Adjust your performance metrics accordingly.
✅ IN: Comments written by people
❌ OUT: AI-slop comments
"I completely agree that collaboration with Sales is key in Marketing!
What ways do you find most valuable in collaborating?"
We see you, AI commenters, but we will no longer acknowledge you. Try harder. Make cræft.
✅ IN:
Thoughtful beats
❌ OUT: Hot takes
When the news broke that President Joe Biden unexpectedly pardoned his son Hunter, political analyst Molly Jong-Fast was asked on live television for a "fast and furious" reaction. Jong-Fast paused for a moment. Then she said: "I just heard it. I have to process it. I don't
have a take. I'm sorry."
Some news outlets ran with that story—not about Hunter. But about how Molly was "speechless," and her hesitation to comment on the fly was a failing.
She failed
because she had to process? WTH. Maybe the pressure to spew out a hot take undermines us—not just in politics. But in social media, in business, in relationships, in life.
✅ IN: As Slow As Needed
❌ OUT: As Soon As Possible
Maybe we do ourselves dirty when we don't pause to consider: Which serves us better...? The reflexive hot-take delivered ASAP? Or the considered, thoughtful one? The one that takes time?
Reflective consideration is sacrificed when we are reflexively rushed to a decision. But often that rush is artificial. We aren't on live TV. We just feel like we are.
✅ IN: Morning journal
❌ OUT: Morning doomscroll
Four or five years ago I shifted my morning routine to include 15 minutes of writing down things in a notebook: Things that delighted or dismayed me from the previous day. Stories, interactions, conversations.
My daily writing habit tunes me into my life differently. It's made me more creatively productive than I have been in my entire life.
It's a bold claim. But will you try it for 90 days? See what I mean. If you need a template, here's a simple and fun one.
✅ IN: Handwritten notes
❌ OUT: Templated messages
"Why do you get so many handwritten cards and notes?" my son asked me the other day. He was looking at a few of them on the kitchen windowsill, propped up like flowers in a vase.
I thought about it for a minute. Because they're rare? Because reading someone's handwriting feels personal? Because it's less immediate than a text... yet more lasting?
"Maybe because I send them, too?" I finally said.
I've never kept any email that someone sent me.
✅ IN: AI that folds laundry
❌ OUT: AI that
composes symphonies
Why can't AI be actually useful?
✅ IN: Actual thought leadership
❌ OUT: Barfed-up
copycat content
Actual thought leadership has a clear voice and perspective that could come only from you. Barfed-up copycat content is what we've seen elsewhere. It's what the cat already ate, regurgitated on the carpet.
✅ IN: Data storytelling
❌ OUT: Vibes & hunches
Should the "In" here be storytelling alone, without the "data" qualifier? No. Because storytelling in a business shows up in all its real-world, data-driven glory.
Stories make your products and services come alive. They put them in the context of people's lives. Data gives you credibility and proof. It intrinsically answers the question: Why should I care?
✅ IN: Building relationships
❌ OUT: Building audiences
For years I talked about building audiences. But the world has evolved. I have, too.
List size? Follower count? Who cares? Not us. It's more important to speak to someone you can visualize in your head.
A simple shift... But it changes the way you unfurl your fingers on the keyboard. It means someone opens your email, because your From Line matters more than your Subject Line. (Who is your Doris?)
✅ IN: Newsletters
❌ OUT: Social algorithm
This was on my previous In/Out lists. Repeating it here... because newsletters have not peaked. Not by a long shot. New ways of
growing and monetizing audiences have emerged.
You can fight for attention with a social media algorithm that is not your friend. Or you can use social platforms to grow your own list of people who will
read the emails you alone cræft.
✅ IN: Personal agency
❌ OUT: Dark patterns
A year-end is a good time to
go on an unsubscribe spree. (It's especially diabolical when a brand sends me a holiday greeting in email, thereby reminding me I'm on their list and I promptly unsubscribe.) (Just me?)
Anyway—it's
astounding how many Unsubscribe buttons are hidden. Also crazy: Hidden cancellation buttons. Difficult navigation. Confusing pricing structures. Customer service loops when all you want to do is exchange a sweater. Dark patterns and tricks that intentionally confuse customers. Infuriating.
If your goal is to build trust (spoiler: It is), then this year is about give your customers personal agency: Give them control, transparency, autonomy.
✅ IN: Boundaries
❌ OUT: Always-on
You don't need a paragraph explaining this. Just set them.
✅ IN: Touch grass
❌ OUT: Extremely online
Touch grass. Get outside. Disconnect from the digital world. Be surprised when a herd of deer crosses your path 20 yards ahead of you and your dog goes nuts.
It's so easy to absorb the whiplash of the constant pings and claims on our attention. But the deer were huge and gentle, like big dogs with long legs. I think Augie smelled them before he saw them.
✅ IN: Oxford comma
❌ OUT: No Oxford
The most controversial thing on this list. Nothing ignites fire in the gut of the righteous more than the use/no use of serial—AKA Oxford—commas. Nothing invites more hot takes. But I said what I said.
IN/OUT HONORABLE MENTIONS
IN / OUT
Civil debate / Rage-baiting
Skills-based hiring / Degree requirements
Sustainable growth / Growth hacking
Meaningful resonance / Hook frameworks
Community-led / Influencer-led
Metrics that matter /
Vanity metrics
Actual people / Buyer personas
AI literacy / AI hype
AI tools / AI magic wand
AI SEO / Trad SEO
Use / "Utilize"
and finally...
Do the thing / Delaying the thing
You've got this.
