Your 6 Marketing To-Dos For 2025

"We've tried everything," a CEO recently told me. "Content marketing, paid ads, social media... we're spending more than ever, but growth is actually slowing down."

I hear this same story almost every week. Another B2B company trapped in the modern marketing maze — drowning in tactics but starving for results.

Here's what most agencies won't tell you: The B2B growth playbook is dead. At least, the one most companies have been using the past few years. The strategies that worked a few years ago are failing today. Because in today's world, your competitors are using the same tactics, targeting the same keywords, running the same ads, and creating the same content — making it impossible to stand out.

But there's good news: I've made a to-do list to help you get on the right track so you can feel confident about your 2025 marketing strategy.

The traditional agency model is broken

Most agencies rush into tactics without understanding the full picture. They'll push what they're good at – whether that's SEO, paid ads, or content marketing – regardless of whether it's actually what your business needs right now.

Take the medical device manufacturer we spoke with who had three different marketing agencies in two years. The first agency built them an expensive website that wasn't optimized for their complex B2B sales cycle. The second focused solely on LinkedIn ads without considering the regulatory compliance requirements. The third created beautiful content that never addressed the technical specifications their buyers needed.

Or consider the multi-location healthcare practice whose previous agency treated them like any other local business. They wasted months on generic social media posts when what they really needed was a HIPAA-compliant patient acquisition strategy and location-specific campaigns that understood the nuances of different insurance markets.

Tactics can't be universally executed if you expect results

Every company faces a unique challenge — long sales cycles, multiple decision makers, strict regulatory requirements, or complex technical specifications. Instead of starting with a set of tactics that is recommended for every new client, we begin every client relationship with deep research into their specific industry vertical, compliance requirements, and buyer journey.

Sometimes this means focusing on the unsexy but critical elements — like building a content strategy that speaks directly to procurement teams in manufacturing, or developing landing pages that address specific medical procedures while maintaining HIPAA compliance. Other times, it means creating sophisticated multi-touch campaigns that nurture relationships with both technical buyers and C-suite decision makers over 12-18 month sales cycles.

The most notable changes impacting 2025 marketing

After two decades of scaling enterprise companies, I'm seeing a fundamental shift in how B2B buying happens. The traditional enterprise growth model — built on industry trade shows, top-down sales processes, and heavy relationship marketing — is breaking down. Here's why:

• Enterprise buyers now expect consumer-grade purchasing experiences
• Budget authority has fragmented across departments and stakeholders
• Digital-first competitors are disrupting traditional sales cycles
• AI and automation are commoditizing traditional competitive advantages
• The line between enterprise and mid-market solutions is blurring

Most concerning? The typical enterprise response — throwing more resources at demand gen, expanding the sales team, or launching endless "digital transformation" initiatives – often makes these problems worse.

But through our work with market leaders across enterprise software, manufacturing, and professional services, we've identified a new enterprise growth framework that's working exceptionally well in this environment. One that combines the scale advantages of large organizations with the speed and adaptability of modern go-to-market motions.

 Your 6 marketing to-dos for 2025

Okay, so...things are changing. The old "ways" of marketing aren't exactly working anymore. Now, where do you go from here?

1. Fix any foundational cracks

Before launching anything new, it's likely you'll need to spend the first 30 days understanding what opportunities exist (and fixing what's already in place).

That might include:

• Updating your website to actually answer buyer questions instead of just talking about features
• Creating sales materials that address real objections instead of glossy brochures
• Setting up proper tracking so you know exactly where leads come from and how they convert
• Multi-touch attribution to understand which marketing channels drive the highest quality leads
• Integration between your CRM, marketing automation, and website analytics
• Conversion tracking across your entire buyer journey, from first touch to closed deal
• Pipeline tracking to identify where deals get stuck and why

2. Get a handle on revenue mapping

Before touching any marketing tactics, it's worth the time to map out your entire revenue engine. This isn't just another strategy exercise — it's about following the money.

Look at where revenue is actually coming from today and where you're losing potential deals. For example, in a recent client engagement with a SaaS company, this process revealed that their biggest growth bottleneck wasn't marketing at all — it was a significant drop-off during product onboarding. By fixing this first, they dramatically improved their customer activation rate before scaling up acquisition.

What this means for you: Take a hard look at your last 10 deals. Map out exactly how they found you, what convinced them to buy, and where others dropped off along the way. You'll likely find that 80% of your revenue comes from just one or two channels – focus there first.

3. Focus on one (and only one) growth lever at a time

As much as you want to hit two birds with one stone, it's nearly impossible to do well. For example, we identified multiple promising growth opportunities for a recent client. But instead of trying everything at once, we zeroed in on their most promising channel: nurturing existing clients who had purchased a specific product in the past six months. This laser focus led to a steady stream of new enterprise deals within months.

Here's the reality: Your team can't execute five different growth strategies well simultaneously. Pick the one that's already showing signs of working and double down. We typically recommend spending at least 90 days on a single channel before adding another.

4. Build systems, not one-off campaigns

A tactic is just work until it's connected to a holistic strategy.

Let's take paid ads, for example. While many companies focus solely on paid advertising for lead generation, we know that sustainable growth requires a more comprehensive approach. Paid ads can be effective, but they're just one piece of the puzzle.

Before touching any marketing tactics, it's worth the time to map out your entire revenue engine. This isn't just another strategy exercise — it's about following the money.

Instead, you should build complete lead generation systems that create predictable revenue. These systems combine multiple channels and touchpoints, all working together to attract, nurture, and convert your ideal customers.

Here's what this looks like in practice:

• Marketing automation: We create automated webinar funnels that consistently convert attendees into qualified sales opportunities. Once set up, these systems run like clockwork, delivering leads while your team focuses on higher-value activities.
• Sustainable content engines: Our content strategies go beyond basic blogs and social posts. We develop industry-specific content that addresses your buyers' real challenges, creating a steady stream of inbound leads month after month.
• Sales enablement integration: We bridge the gap between marketing and sales by building processes that help your sales team close more effectively. This includes creating targeted sales collateral, implementing lead scoring, and developing nurture campaigns that keep prospects engaged throughout long sales cycles.

5. Make it easy to buy

We've found that most B2B companies make it unnecessarily difficult to become a customer. Simple changes like adding clear pricing information, streamlining your sales process, and providing self-service options can dramatically impact growth.

In fact, a recent client saw a nearly 40% increase in qualified leads simply by adding a "Request Pricing" button to their website and responding within 1 hour instead of their previous 24-hour window.

6. Only measure what matters

If you've been on LinkedIn lately, you're probably overwhelmed with the amount of posts talking about data. I'd argue that many companies have become so focused on data that they're starting to lose track of why the data exists in the first place. And as more systems create new data to review, it's easy to get lost in a sea of numbers — meaning taking action on data gets tossed to the wayside.

A recent client saw a nearly 40% increase in qualified leads simply by adding a "Request Pricing" button to their website and responding within 1 hour instead of their previous 24-hour window.

I recommend that you stop tracking vanity metrics like website traffic or social media followers. Instead, focus on:

• Revenue per channel
• Customer acquisition cost
• Sales cycle length
• Conversion rates at each stage
• Customer lifetime value

The common thread? Everything ties back to revenue. We've seen companies waste millions on marketing that looks good on paper but doesn't actually drive sales.

Marketing will look different for every company

For certain clients, we may craft end-to-end brand overhauls and acquisition engine buildouts. For others, the focus could be promotion campaigns or deploying robust customer retention tactics. Every engagement is based on what will genuinely move the needle.

The unifying thread across our engagements is our commitment to thorough strategy work before execution ever begins. We don't simply apply random tactics and hope for the best. We immerse ourselves in our clients' unique challenges and opportunities to develop laser-focused, high-impact strategies purpose-built for accelerating growth.

No matter which specific plays from our expansive playbook we ultimately leverage, you can rest assured our strategic expertise, cross-industry experience, and performance-minded rigor will be brought to bear. That's how we continue driving measurable value and tangible business results for clients across all sectors year after year.

Not sure where to start?

Sometimes, talking it out is one of the most helpful steps.