What We Learned in Q1, and What Lies Ahead
Many brands faced a Q1 filled with uncertainty, trend-chasing, and lack of clarity about what the next nine months might hold for their businesses. If this describes your past three months, you’re certainly not alone. However, let’s focus on the positives and the potential we all have in front of us to make the most of 2025!
AI: Working at the Pace of Change
Q1 Insight: The exponential scale of AI-based solutions continued, making them more challenging to assess and leverage. We face a dizzying array of options and platforms, solutions and offerings, making true implementation difficult. Before you know it, the next iterations and updates are launched. AI has moved quickly from theory to integration, helping deliver greater efficiency, content and messaging solutions, and enhanced insights. However, leadership is still coming to grips with core AI concerns.
According to a December 2024 Statista report on top AI considerations for marketing leadership:
- Data privacy or ethics (49.5%)
- Inaccuracies or biases in AI content (43%)
- Cost of using AI tools (35%)
2025 Considerations: AI should be viewed as a force multiplier and superpower booster for your team and your go-to-market (GTM) activities. The “test and learn” approach will always be in style and should remain a top priority when exploring “what’s new” in the AI offerings. This is truly a time of change, and AI can have a positive impact on your efforts if properly assessed and tested—based on your needs.
Account Based Imperatives
Q1 Insight: According to the 2025 DemandBase State of B2B Advertising report, 46% of B2B CMOs cite finding new customers as their top concern in 2025 along with working to balance Account Based Marketing (ABM) with broader demand-gen tactics to support their growth goals. While there is no shortage of experts advising on what to do, the challenge often lies in understanding your starting point—a critical yet frequently overlooked aspect.
2025 Considerations: There is a “crawl, walk, run” approach here, and most brands want to run before they are ready. Strategies need to focus on establishing Account Based Targeting and expanding key account coverage, building out a functional database with robust data, and then gradually establishing ABM activities over time. This is more about operating effectiveness, not campaign activation. We can help with playbook development and ABM audits. Let’s chat: cjohnson@medialogic.com
Brand and Demand? Brand to Demand? Branded Demand?
Q1 Insight: As the pressure on marketing to show its impact on revenue intensifies, demand generation and brand building continue to be key priorities in go-to-market strategies. If buyers don’t know you, they aren’t buying from you.
2025 Considerations: This dual focus on lead generation and brand awareness is key to success, helping to drive sales pipeline growth and differentiate brands in competitive markets. The mandate for CMOs to prove bottom-line impact and directly contribute to growth will likely intensify as we head into the second half of 2025. You need a partner that can set an overarching strategy to deliver on both fronts and demonstrate a contribution to your sales engine.
The More You Know: Trends to Think About
- Buyers Look Younger: Millennials and Gen Z now comprise the majority of B2B purchasing decision-makers—71%, according to a Forrester blog (Younger Generations Are Shaking up B2B Buying—Are you Prepared?). How are you planning to address their mindset and comfort with online activity in their approach to buying?
- Human-Based, Personalized Content B2B brands are shifting from data-based marketing to a human-based, personalized content—speaking to people, not companies.
- Seamless UX and CX Buyers do not have patience for disjointed brand experiences today.
Get in Touch with Media Logic B2B (cjohnson@medialogic.com) for the latest in marketing, technology, and trends!
