Share article:
Digital trend-spotting for 2025
What do global communications trends mean for your Australian business?
Digital marketing is a fast-moving space, with technology and customer expectations changing all the time. The minute you think you’ve got your head around a marketing approach or piece of tech, it changes and you start the process all over again. Of course, that’s also what makes digital communications so exciting – you need to be adaptable and agile to keep up.
While Australia can feel a bit removed from the wider world of digital communications, it’s still important to keep up with global trends. And that’s where Sinch comes in. As a global organisation that powers an insane 800 billion customer interactions every year, we get a bird’s eye view of worldwide trends and changing customer preferences.
We turn all this insider info into a trend report every year – and the 2025 version is out. We looked for patterns in all that customer data, talked to our in-house experts, got advice from industry leaders, and identified seven key trends that will impact digital marketing this year.
We know that Australian businesses are particularly concerned with trust and positive customer experiences – and it turns out the rest of the world agrees.
Here’s what you need to know:
Trust matters more than ever
Building trust with your customers has always been important. Now, with scams and cybercrime rising sharply, it’s a top priority. One report found that 47% of Australians reported receiving fake or deceptive texts messages in 2023, and the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) found that Australians lost $2.7 billion to scams and cybercrime in 2024. No wonder consumers are wary.
What can your business do to reassure your customers? Right now, you can use a dedicated number for SMS or choose an alphanumeric sender ID to let customers know who’s messaging. You can also educate your customers about the signs of a scam so they know you’re taking security seriously.
Down the line, RCS (Rich Communication Services) for Business will offer even more trust-building features. These upgraded message formats include verified sender information, in-message logos and branding, and enhanced security for safer information sharing. With RCS coming to Australia in 2025 you’ll have more options for trust-building comms in the medium term.
Experience is everything
In a world where consumers are slammed with constant messages and deal with multiple businesses every day, brands that can create positive, cohesive experiences stand out from the crowd. As our report shows, connected experiences are key – customers don’t want to go back and forth between your customer service team and website or get conflicting messages at different touchpoints. A frustrating or slow-moving experience can turn customers off and push them to another brand. Brands are more and more aware of this, which is why 70% of Fortune 500 companies are looking into integrated Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to manage communications.
In Australia, which has high digital adoption and increasing mobile dominance, experience can be even more important. Can’t invest in new tech right now? It’s still worth taking a good look at your overall customer experience and finding the weak points.
Consider the channel
In the past, choosing a communications channel was about cost as well as effectiveness. Now, as our report shows, brands are taking a nuanced approach to channel selection. Instead of using SMS or email because it’s cheap and relatively effective, businesses are using sophisticated tech to assess urgency, customer preference, time, previous interactions and cost to find the best channel for each message.
In Australia, which has high digital adoption but a relatively high number of older people who struggle with messaging and online communication, this approach may be particularly impactful.
