At the start of 2024, we identified 12 key challenges and opportunities facing B2B marketers, from martech consolidation to increased personalisation. Over the past year, we’ve seen many of these themes gain momentum, recurring in industry discussions and dominating client conversations.
Now, we’re looking at what’s topping the agenda as we move into 2025. Which topics are driving growth, and what do marketers need to be putting in place to get the best results?
Without a doubt, Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to be a driving force; a constant presence shaping the way businesses approach their strategies, connect with prospects and achieve results. Its thread runs through most of the past and future trends we’ve identified: trigger-based marketing, increasingly personalised campaigns and the emergence of buyer group marketing all harness the power of AI to analyse data and identify patterns.
The transformative force of AI
As we’ve already touched on, AI, or more specifically generative AI, has been a consistent presence throughout 2024 – a consequence of its rapid adoption, range of capabilities and significant impact on results. A transformative force – PwC estimates AI will contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030 – it’s no longer simply a buzzword but a fundamental tool for many B2B marketers.
Over the past 12 months, the world has gained an even greater understanding of AI’s potential and seen more tools enter the mainstream. Rather than ‘what can AI do’, marketers are now asking, ‘how can we use it most effectively,’ and the answer is becoming ever clearer.
AI excels at optimising processes and automating routine tasks; therefore, its most effective use is in freeing up teams to focus on strategy, creativity and relationship building. But the crucial phrase here is ‘freeing up.’ To deliver most successfully, AI needs humans at the helm; humans that are trained in AI, can provide good prompts and, crucially, quality data. AI doesn’t – it can’t – replace humans, instead, it acts as a valued co-worker, undertaking the dull, routine tasks without complaint and improving efficiency so marketers can achieve more. More innovation and better results, in less time.
As understanding of AI continues to grow, so too will its scope and how we use it. At Interlink, we’ve already seen firsthand how AI can drive efficiency and innovation and looking further ahead, we see even more opportunities, especially when it comes to analysing data, refining campaigns and delivering a personalised experience (more on that later).
Getting ahead with trigger-based predictive marketing
Traditionally, lead generation has depended heavily on intent data, gathered when prospects undertake actions such as downloading articles or engaging with digital content. However, this only captures interest once decision-makers are already researching solutions and by then, it’s often too late for businesses to convert the sale.
As a result, our focus is now on trigger-based predictive marketing, which proactively identifies those businesses likely to have a buying need before the explicit intent is shown. Instead of waiting for signals from individual users and targeting leads who have already shown an interest, our AI-powered tool, DISCOVER, detects triggers such as mergers, product launches, recruitment drives or funding rounds, that indicate a business is likely to require solutions in the near future, often within three to six months.
This has revolutionised how and when companies are able to engage with prospects, and the advantages are obvious. By catching businesses early in the decision-making process, marketers can approach prospects with tailored messaging that acknowledges their specific challenges at that point in time. This reduces the amount of intrusive, high-volume email campaigns (and the likelihood of being marked as spam as a result), allowing instead for each one to be personalised and more impactful.
The importance of personalisation
Personalisation is fast becoming one of the most pivotal ways for businesses to connect with their customers and targets. Audiences have come to expect better, more relevant experiences (66% of B2B customers expect the same or better personalisation in their professional lives compared to their personal lives), and B2B marketers need to step up to the challenge.
Blanket HTML emails, with their salesy, promotional content and impersonal and pushy messaging are they more likely to end up in a spam folder, but, also, they do nothing to address the needs of the audience or the challenges and opportunities they face.
Instead, businesses need to look at how they can up their personalisation game, whether that’s providing tailored information and answers, personalised product recommendations or customised promotional offers.
Taking things a step further is predictive personalisation, which we introduced in late 2023. This uses advanced data analytics and AI to anticipate customer needs, priorities and behaviours, putting even more of a focus on sending the right emails at the right time and allowing businesses to tailor their communications to the preferences of each customer.
Over the past year, we’ve seen this approach transform our work, going beyond improving open rates or click-throughs but also equipping sales teams with knowledge about their prospects so they can tailor their conversations and increase their chances of conversion.
Taking a buyer group approach
Targeted communications are key, but today, who is being targeted is just as important as what’s being said. It’s no longer enough to focus on individual leads in isolation; for B2B marketers, success now lies in convincing an entire buyer group to purchase.
Buyer groups are made up of multiple stakeholders from throughout the business, who each influence and contribute to the final purchasing decision, and Buyer Group Marketing (BGM) ensures that every single one is engaged and nurtured with messaging tailored to their specific role.
As each member of the buying group will have different needs and priorities to address, and be at different points in their buying or research journey, resonating with them all is not an easy task. Three-quarters of the customers surveyed by Gartner described their purchase as very complex or difficult and sales cycles have become longer as a result.
However, this approach is here to stay, making it vital that B2B marketers embrace it and learn how to work with it going forward. Several of the other themes we’ve identified play a part here: stakeholder mapping involves analysing previous sales data and client interactions to understand which roles are most involved in the buying process while identifying trigger events allows for the creation of highly personalised, relevant content.
To find out more about how we see B2B marketing in 2025 and our commitment to continuous improvement, get in touch.
