Is your B2B digital marketing strategy ready for 2025: The takeaways

With digital marketing getting more competitive, and attention spans getting shorter, keeping your B2B marketing strategies sharp and effective is more crucial than ever. 

Brew Digital hosted a panel discussion about the key components of a successful marketing strategy. If you want to enjoy an hour of excellent conversation between four marketing experts, the VOD is available here. 

But for those with less time, or who joined and want a summary of the ‘best bits’, we have you covered too. This article distils the sage insights of our guests, and will help you focus on brand building alongside performance marketing, ensuring your business stays ahead of the curve.

TLDR: What are the key takeaways? 

• Know your audience, inside and out: Go beyond basic demographics. Deeply understand their needs, behaviours, and where they spend their time. Maintain an authentic brand presence, even when they’re not actively considering a purchase.

• Align marketing with business goals: Market your efforts internally and externally, focusing on results that matter to management, not just vanity metrics. Ensure your marketing objectives directly support the overall business strategy.

•  Don’t be afraid of brand: You need to go beyond the typical ROI focus and think about the importance of awareness. In B2B, you have to have a significant presence in the minds of buying committees, so make sure you’re in front of the right people.

Key components of a successful B2B strategy

• Retrospective analysis: Learn from the past by reviewing your successes, failures, traffic sources, funnel health, and conversion rates.

• Goal setting and reverse engineering: Define clear, measurable goals and work backward to plan the necessary steps at each stage of the funnel.

• Big bets and prioritisation: Establish key initiatives to focus your efforts and ensure team alignment, avoiding distractions from new trends.

• Cross-functional alignment: Align your marketing initiatives with your sales and customer success teams to maximise impact.

• Customer-centric approach: Understand your customer's pain points and desired outcomes to create effective solutions.

• Brand building: Generate long-term value and contribute to short-term wins through consistent brand building.

Brand building in the digital age: Striking the balance

For too long, B2B marketing has neglected brand building. At best, marketers have focused on what problems the product can solve for the client (a vital aspect of marketing); at worst, just talking about the product features generally.

But nowadays, balancing brand building and performance marketing is a must. Brand building establishes long-term value and helps you cut through the digital noise, while performance marketing drives immediate results. Research by Inbox Insight  found that 85% of decision makers will shortlist vendors they've already heard of.

But how do you stand out in a crowded digital space? The key is authenticity. Understanding your brand DNA and ensuring consistent messaging across all touchpoints, from initial brand interactions to sales conversations, can set you apart from the competition.

Your brand identity should embrace contradictions and find the common thread that unites your brand's various aspects. This creates a strong and relatable identity that resonates with your audience. It is ok to be playful, experiment, and to sometimes get things wrong—relatability and a human-like authenticity is key to a successful brand.

Remember, maintaining a consistent presence where your target audience spends their time is crucial. Whether it's online communities, industry events, or other relevant platforms, staying top-of-mind is key to long-term brand success.

Identifying and reaching your target businesses

Are you speaking to the right people, in the right way? In B2B, it's not just about one decision-maker. How well do you understand the entire sphere of influence? And are you talking to them with a message that resonates, or just a generic sales pitch? Think about where they are in their journey – are they new to your brand, or ready to buy? Are you meeting them where they are online, or just shouting into the void? And are you just trying to close a deal, or building genuine demand by educating and empowering them? The answers to these questions are your key to unlocking B2B success.

What should you do now?

• Conduct a retrospective analysis of past marketing performance.

• Set clear, measurable marketing goals and reverse engineer the steps needed to achieve them.

• Define your brand DNA and ensure consistent messaging across all touchpoints.

• Identify and segment your target audience, tailoring your messaging to their specific needs and level of awareness.

• Prioritise demand generation activities to educate your audience and build long-term value.

• Download our free digital marketing strategy template.

• Check out other articles, templates and podcasts in the Brew Digital Resource Hub.

• If in doubt, book in for a free discovery session.