Being a B2B marketer has never been more challenging. In this blog Becky Reardon, Managing Director, Embrace Marketing, discusses some of the main challenges that B2B marketers are facing. We’ll be sharing a series of Strategy Sorted helpful guides and content to support with these challenges for you to look out for. But to begin with, let’s dive in and see what’s currently happening for many B2B marketers.
It’s a tough position for many marketers in 2025 – marketing managers and heads of marketing are often placed under a lot of pressure to achieve very tall objectives and often up against it in terms of budget and timeframes.
You might have seen that Marketing Week released a report about marketeer burnout in February 2025. It stated that 80% of marketeers said that they’ve experienced imposter syndrome recently in their marketing roles and 60% said that they feel overwhelmed. A quote from a respondent sums this up, stating that:
“In the current economic situation it feels as if no result is quick enough, and unplanned fast income is valued more than developing strategies that are delivering and building for the business.”
So, what’s causing the pressure?
Short-term objectives: One of the biggest challenges is that everyone wants marketing qualified leads, (MQLs) fast. Alongside this, many companies have switched from a long-term strategic brand growth approach to focus on gaining leads and measuring short-term ROI.
Silo working: Often marketing operates in silos to sales and other departments. This can have a detrimental effect on both sides as sales has a lot of valuable hands-on customer experience and insight to share and marketing can help with joining up customer touchpoints and the sales conversion process.
Unrealistic goals: There are unachievable goals that are sometimes set by leadership. This can be without the foresight of how to achieve the objectives and whether they are realistic objectives to set based on expected performance.
Evolving tech: Marketeers have a need to rapidly keep expanding their knowledge. Martech stacks need continuous review with an increasing range of technology available. There’s also AI, changes to search and algorithm updates and the evolution of paid to keep on track with.
One of the biggest issues is that many businesses have a primary goal to make a profit. This pushes profit to become the main driver versus building customer relationships for long-term brand, revenue and profit growth.
Profit shouldn’t be the primary goal
The renowned management consultant and thought leader Peter Drucker famously argued that the purpose of a business is not profit but to create and keep a customer. He believed that profit is a result of a business doing its job well, not the primary goal.
Drucker offers an important reminder about focusing on long-term value creation instead of short-term financial gain. Here are some of the main topics that Drucker focused on:
Customer-centric approach
To succeed we need to deeply understand our customers, their desires, pain points and deliver value that meets those needs better than the competition. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are the true measures of success.
Sustainability and long-term strategy
Strategies should be sustainable – prioritising growth, ethical practices and long-term success over immediate profits. Focusing on customer needs and building strong relationships enables businesses to achieve long-term profitability and relevance.
Innovation and adaptation
Businesses should continuously innovate to stay ahead of changing customer expectations and market trends. The businesses that fail to innovate risk getting left behind, with innovation opening up new market opportunities which ultimately drives profitability.
Drucker’s career as a business thinker might have taken off in the 1940s, but his principles remain an important guide for brand and marketing today and for the future.
What’s the reality for B2B?
In reality for many businesses at the moment the focus is so strongly on lead generation that the bigger picture is being missed. The B2B sales cycle is complex and sometimes it can be very long. Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that works for every B2B business, so you can’t find quick answers. You have to do your homework; you’ve got to put the effort into the strategy, and you’ve got to be measuring your results. You can only set KPIs realistically based on evidence using previous insights, knowledge and experience or industry benchmarks.
You can’t always win straightaway as you’ve got to be prepared to invest and fail through A/B testing and pilots – which does take time. Ultimately short-term mindsets create short-term results.
We also need to bear in mind for B2B that it’s also commonly thought that only around 5% of your target audience is ready to buy now. The rest of your audience could be at any other stage of the B2B buying process.
We need to be thinking about long-term brand growth and marketing success and that involves focusing on 100% of your target audience, 100% of the time. Don’t just focus on the 5% who are ready to buy now, because ultimately those 5% are your future within that 100%. Therefore, brand awareness and brand building for long-term growth is essential.
Look out for my next blog which will share some helpful B2B Strategy Sorted advice to help tackle these challenges head on! Please feel free to get in touch to discuss your B2B marketing strategy!
It’d be great to see you at one of the events I’m attending this year. These events are a great way to keep track of current and upcoming marketing trends and tools to help you get ahead.
B2B Marketing Live, Voco, Manchester, 16th July 2025 – Embrace Marketing is a Gold Sponsor and come across and chat to us on our stand! Register here: https://www.b2bmarketingexpo.co.uk/b2b-marketing-live-manchester
B2B Marketing Live, Excel, London, 19-20 November 2025 – visit Embrace Marketing’s workshop and chat to us on stand B2B-G24. Find out more here: https://www.b2bmarketingexpo.co.uk/
This latest thinking article was written by:
Becky Reardon
Managing Director
