In this final episode of 2024, I’m sharing my seven big predictions for 2025—from the power of authenticity and building a strong personal brand to why live experiences and consistency will still reign supreme in marketing. Let’s set the tone for an incredible 2025 together!

—————————

More ways Embodied Marketing can support you:

Tired of inconsistent revenue & marketing strategies that leave you overwhelmed? Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale to multiple 7-figures, book a call with the Embodied Team to see how we can help: http://helpmystrategy.com

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW THE PODCAST!

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the Embodied Podcast! If this podcast has added value and helped you in your business journey, please head over to Apple Podcast, subscribe to the show, and leave us an honest review.

Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver great, helpful content, but it will also help us reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you.

♥ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast, the last podcast of 2024. It has been a year. I shared in the last podcast that I released some of my reflections from this year. So if you haven’t tuned into that one, it was a more personal share of my own year and reflections as a CEO, but also just for me personally. And I got several messages from you guys who enjoyed that. I hope that if you celebrated a holiday last week, Christmas, Hanukkah, I think Hanukkah is still happening, um that you had a beautiful, relaxing holiday, present holiday with your family. ah We stayed home this year. We stay home most years. I like to stay home for Christmas. I just can’t. like with Maybe when my kids are older, um but with young kids and like all the gifts and um Santa and all the things, it’s just too much.

So we stayed home and my kids played and we did nothing. And it was amazing until like two or three days after Christmas. I was like, okay, I’m done now. I’m done with this. Now my kids were fighting every 15 minutes. Everybody’s overstimulated. We weren’t out of the house enough. And I was like, all right, I’m ready for my nanny to come back and help me. I’m ready to have a little bit of space. I’m ready to have some autonomy over my time, but it was beautiful. We really, really enjoyed it. It’s so fun with my kids. I think this might be the last year um with Santa with my oldest and he’s nine and he’s still so into it. Just like the video of them running out there Christmas morning and jumping up and down. It just brings me back to my own childhood with my brother and the excitement and the joy is so beautiful. 

So I am having so much fun chatting with so many of you who are considering joining the Elevate Mastermind, which opened up about a week ago for the next round that kicks off in February. So if you would like to work one-on-one with me and basically have me a part of your business, your life coaching and supporting you in the deepest and closest way, this is the opportunity to do that. And I only work with six women at a time in this container. It includes an in-person retreat all inclusive within the investment.

So, you can go to embodiedmarketing.com/elevate, read a little bit more about the experience. If you’re even just considering it, apply and let’s chat. um And, you know, if you’re feeling that pull of like, what would it be like if I had Emily by my side and there’s a texting group, there’s weekly calls, there’s private calls with me. If I had Emily by my side, For six months in 2025, what would that do for my business and my life? And if you’re feeling that pull of like, oh, I need this, I want this, then go fill out the application.

All right, you guys, in today’s episode, I have seven predictions for 2025. I feel like whenever people want predictions, they want a tactical, like, you should do webinars. And you know with marketing, it’s never direct and straightforward because it varies for each business. and I’ve seen some, I’ve actually seen some predictions that people have put in the industry. Um, I saw it on social media the other day that was like webinars and live launching are no longer going to work. And I’m like, come on, like that’s not true. You can’t make these blanket statements and say that for every single business owner, that’s not going to work anymore. And then of course it’s like, so get my model of how to do evergreen.

I just will never do that. Like i I can’t because it’s just not within integrity for me. Okay, here’s my first one. My first one is I feel that this year we will dive even deeper into the need for authenticity for a strong personal brand or a strong brand in general. But let me define this because two things. I feel like the word authenticity gets thrown around and becomes confusing what it actually means. And two, I think the context, the meaning behind personal brand also gets confusing for people. So when I say authenticity, I think that this word has gotten watered down and it’s like be authentic. Step into your authentic self. Like what does that actually mean?

To me, it means being you. But in order it to be you, you have to be clear on who you are, right? So what are your values? What do you stand for? How can you be more clear about those things when you speak, when you create content, when you go out to attract potential clients in any capacity, when you represent your business and your brand, who are you? And if you’re not clear on that, it’s going to be hard to be authentic. It doesn’t mean just saying whatever you want. Like that’s a version of being authentic, but I think it starts with understanding who you are. It starts with your values. It starts with what you stand for. It starts with what you believe. And if we bring it to your industry, let’s say you’re in health.

I’m sure there are people who believe and and think the opposite of you. And so what do you stand for? What makes you different in that way? And how can you pull that out more in your marketing unapologetically and not be afraid of trying to make everybody happy? And I think the more you can do that in a respectful and kind way, obviously, the more authentic you’ll be, the more you’ll stand out. And I think. Being able to do that is going to be very important in 2025 because the noise online has just continued to get louder and anybody who is successful has a very strong core foundation to their company. This is actually something I’ve got a workshop planned for my Embodied Marketing Live event happening in three weeks.

I’m so excited. um That’s going to help with this because I want to help people really define and pull out their values and their beliefs and how that translates into their business and marketing. Second piece to this is personal brand. When I say personal brand, I don’t mean like your font and your colors and your branding. I mean, again, back to who are you? Who is your brand? What are those values? What does it stand for? when somebody hears your brand or knows you, it should be a very strong message. It should feel like, oh yeah, that’s a very on brand, right? People say that. You know, with me, it’s like that direct, tough love while also being transparent, while also being honest and vulnerable. Like that’s my brand because those are my values. Things like growth and honesty and transparency are my values. 

So it comes through, in my content. And so having that strong personal brand and being authentic is going to allow you to stand out and it’s going to allow you to connect with your potential customers and your audience better. So that’s my first prediction. My second prediction is that everything you do, every action you take, every resource you invest between time, energy, and money is going to be for the long game. I think the last few years, the last two to three years have weeded out all of the people who were in this game for the short term, who were not willing to have an unwavering commitment to success. Because it hasn’t been the easiest last two to three years because of the noise, because of the saturation online, you’ve had to really stand in determination a lot of times. And so I think everything you do in your marketing, while yes, you need to create profitability, and you need to have that initial success to be a healthy business, it’s about planting seeds.

It’s about building the ecosystem that is necessary for your success, meaning consistency when it comes to content, when it comes to nurturing your email list, when it comes to growing your email list, when it comes to talking about your offer. You will very, very frequently, if not absolutely guaranteed that almost everybody who buys from you will have been around for a little while because people are not seeing something and then going, I’m just going to buy it because there’s a lot of options and there’s a lot of distrust. Which doesn’t mean don’t you won’t be successful. It means you’ve got to play the long game. You’ve got to make the commitment to consistency be the goal for yourself. Meaning, consistently, grow your list, nurture that list, put out valuable content, have live launches,

Make sure you have enough traffic. Be consistent. Make that the goal. If you made that the goal for all of 2025, if you said, my only goal is to be consistent. Consistent in my growth, consistent in my nurturing and consistent in how I show up and talking about my offer. I guarantee you, you will create success next year. Guarantee it. Most people are not willing to be consistent because most people are so committed and attached to instant gratification, meaning if this doesn’t work this month or in two weeks, then I’m going to freak out that they can’t sustain it.

Everything will be for the long game. Everything has to play into the ecosystem you’re building. What you do now will literally pay off in a year. I’m not saying all of it, like that you won’t see any return for a year, but you’ve got to be committed to the long game to be in this game. And that’s just the truth of business. But I think online, we got away with that for a while that we didn’t have to do that. Number three, I think for some cases, having a downsell or a lower ticket option to create ideal customers for your bigger ticket offers will become a good strategy. So I have a couple of clients who for a long time sold a $2,000 to $3,000 offer.

And over time, their sales conversion went down. And so one of the things that we started implementing was creating a 497 offer that we sell on a webinar and primarily on the front end, and then upselling all of the people who come into that 497 offer into the higher level offers. This is definitely not a strategy for everybody, but I do think that having that commitment from someone where, you know, they pay you 497, you can get something profitable at a lower price. So you’re making some money, but you’re probably not going to make millions and millions of dollars off of a 497 offer. You can, don’t take that and be like, Oh my gosh, my offer is $300. You can, you’re going to make a lot more if you can have a two to $3,000 offer sales successfully, but you can leverage sometimes a smaller priced offer with the intention behind it to create ideal customers for the next offer. It’s a very strategic thing. So I’ve done this and it’s worked really really well. For example, we had our Black Friday sale where we um sold a $3.97 strategy call. Regular price was like $2,000 so great deal.

And the intention behind it is actually not for me to make a lot of money on those calls. Cause it costs me almost the same once I deliver it. Um, cause we’re creating like a super in-depth strategy. It takes our team five, six hours to create it. Um, once we do that, it’s to bring those people into my program. So there was a long game within that offer. It wasn’t about the first offer. My fourth prediction is that people are craving in-person connection and real connection. This could come in the form of maybe you host a live event next year. Maybe you host a meetup and you keep it casual. Maybe you start doing ah Zoom coffee chats or happy hours or something for your audience that allows you to just have that ah authentic, real connection.

And I think this has increased. I think people, you know, kind of after COVID and especially now are like really craving that, really craving the in-person depth. I think depth is ah is a good way to put a lot of these predictions is We are in an era of depth where the surface level try to do everything but not really anything is not going to work. People want depth when it comes to the connection, when it comes to the experience you create, the emotions you bring out in them, they want that depth. So I don’t know how that looks for your business, but it’s something to think about. And I know for my business, I’ve really brought this in a lot this last year.

And it has been so amazing both for me and my audience because the connections that you can have in person, even if it was just a zoom call, like I started doing monthly workshops just for my clients because I just want that connection. I want to foster that connection and have a space for that for people in my world. Number five is digital products and courses without live support and over $300 will struggle. So if you’re charging more than $300 and you have zero live support or live coaching like group calls or audits or maybe it’s a one-on-one call, I think it’s going to be challenging to sell it because I think over that amount of $300 people will question things like, I’m already busy. I don’t have time to go through this all by myself. I’ve bought a lot of courses. What if I don’t go through it? That’s something I hear all the time for people that are considering.

Signing up for our expand program is I’ve already bought programs. I’ve already bought courses. I didn’t use them. And so I’m afraid to spend this money. Like I don’t believe in myself. I’m afraid to spend this money and not use it. People are busy. People are overstimulated and anything that feels like hours and hours of work is going to be an objection. Now, I think if you have something that’s like $100, you can’t offer live support, but that’s easier to get someone to say, yeah, I’ll buy that. And it’s just some videos, some quick videos that I go through. But if you’re trying to sell.

Let’s think about the transformation you’re trying to sell within your program. Most people are going to know that they need more support. They need more guidance for them to accomplish that transformation. Unless they are really just buying information like a very how-to. How to do this XYZ steps one through three, whatever. Then I could watch videos. But if I’m trying to have a transformation, if I’m trying to get an outcome that I know I’m going to need support to be successful and you don’t have it in your digital product, that’s going to be a big objection that I think will be hard to sell. My sixth prediction is that ad costs are going to go down. I do think um ad costs are going to go down. I’ve actually seen them come down this last year.

I think we are headed into a really good time in our economy and I’m very hopeful and excited for that. I think people ah overall in terms of the economy because of the election results, regardless of what you think, I think almost everybody could agree with the last administration, most people didn’t feel very confident in spending money and what was going to happen and how the economy was. And I think now people are going to feel more comfortable spending money. I think overall, the economy is going to massively improve the next one to two years.

I think it’ll take some time to undo the mess that was created, but I think that it’s going to be a great time for entrepreneurs. And that’s really exciting. And I think with that, ad costs are going to go down and it’s going to be a great time to make sure that you are running ads. And then my seventh prediction is I think that, number one, live experiences, things like webinars, challenges, three part series, anything live, I know is still gonna work. So anybody who says like webinars are dead or, You can’t live launch anymore and these things don’t work. It’s not true. They’re going to work forever. You’re gonna have to innovate how you do them. But they are going to work because getting someone in a live experience where they get to interact with you like that, connect with you like that, and you get to teach with that level of energy is always going to work. It has always worked and it will always work. Before webinars, people did this in person. They did in-person presentations.

I do think it’s going to require creativity to get people to engage to show up live to actually. give their time to these experiences because the reality is everybody in this world almost is overwhelmed and overstimulated and lacking time. That is the world we live in. And so I think it will require, and there’s some things I want to test on this front that I’ll share once I test them in just creatively getting people to actually show up to the webinar, participate in the challenge and engage. I think that’s going to be the struggle. Once you get them there, they absolutely still work. I have seen a decline on things like live webinars show up rate and we have been doing some things to try to offset that because I think again, people are busy. People are tired. People are overwhelmed. People commit to too much and then can’t do it. And I think that’s where your strategy has to come in. Creativity to get people to engage, but live experiences next year are going to still work. You just have to evolve them so that they are still relevant and exciting and valuable to your leads and to your audience. So those are my seven 2025 predictions. I am seriously so excited for this year.

We’ve got an in-person podcast studio coming. There’s going to be a little break on this podcast while we prep to relaunch with the studio and video. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. And just lots of amazing things. I have a retreat I’ll be hosting in Costa Rica that I don’t even have a sales page and I haven’t announced it to anyone, but I’ve already sold almost half the spots, which is my dream to be able to have retreats and then a wait list and they just sell. So I’m hosting a retreat in Costa Rica in April. If you want the insider info on that, you can totally send me a DM. It’s just going to be a great year. I really feel it and I hope you do too. And I hope you guys have a beautiful, beautiful New Year. Thank you for being here. If you’ve been here with me all year, I just love that so much and I’m so grateful for you. And if you are new here, let’s do 2025 together. Happy New Year, you guys.