B2B brands need some tough love. The market in 2025 is a tough place to operate: budgets are hard-won and our prospects’ behaviour has changed: so our marketing approaches need to change too. Now’s not the time to rest on our laurels; we need to face this truth with confidence and action – zigging where everyone else zags.
Based on a talk at RadCon 2025 from our Head of Strategy, Chris Willock, here are 4 tough love lessons B2B brands need to know right now.
What you’re selling isn’t that different (and it doesn’t really matter anyway)
TLDR: Differentiation is hard to come by in modern B2B, but distinctiveness is under your control and can make a bigger difference.
The first of our tough love lessons stems from ‘Marketing Management’ written by Phillip Kotler in the 1960s. It introduced the idea that differentiation and USPs are core pillars of a competitive marketing strategy; but times have changed.
Right now, only 5% of brands are considered unique by consumers. But why exactly?
With development cycles being shorter and industry breakthroughs lasting only a matter of months, what once separated you from the pack for years becomes a universal feature quicker than ever before.
So if you’re a digital bank, offering digital banking services in a similar vein to every other digital bank, how do you cut through the noise? Distinctiveness (the unique way you present yourself), rather than feature-led differentiation.
In a saturated market, it’s far more powerful to stand out in other ways that aren’t reliant on core product differences. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Coined in 1933, The Von Restorff Effect states ‘when multiple similar items are presented, the one that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered’. There’s several ways to achieve this:
In a sea of the same, B2B brands with clear, distinct identities are four times more likely to see customer engagement.
You need help from emerging technologies
TLDR: Use Agentic AI to automate drudgery and free up your experts to work on the most important, creative tasks.
The age of artificial intelligence (AI) is a daunting one, but there are two choices for brands – to flinch in the face of AI, or embrace it as a tool to enhance their teams’ work. Because the opportunities it creates are profound.
Moving past generic large language models such as Gemini and ChapGPT, brands must leverage Agentic AI tools if they’re to scale and speed up manual tasks.
Goal-oriented, autonomous and able to process multiple steps with external data sources, the most exciting possibilities of agentic AI are found in areas like:
- SDR prospecting
- Nurture flow automation
- Content personalisation
- Lead capturing and communications
- Customer persona assessments
To harness this technology effectively, you need to get the framing right. It’s not there to replace the efforts of your experts, but to automate time-intensive and repetitive tasks. That way, they’ve got time back to work on the truly transformational.
Cut the crap (or at least, trim it down and introduce some gold)
TLDR: Avoid bland, generic benefits, and make sure capabilities are in place for educated consumers to see.
Sell the sizzle, not the sausage. For years, marketers have heard variations on this advice (sell the hole, not the drill, anyone?), but it’s time we moved on.
With benefits foregrounded by B2B brands, the marketplace is awash with generic statements most people simply tune out.
Improve ROI! Drive efficiency! Streamline processes!
OK, but…what do you actually DO?! Tell us!
Additionally, modern buyers are more self-educated and skeptical than ever before, preferring a rep-free sales experience. The focus needs to move away from the ‘what’ towards the ‘how’.
A great way to approach this shift is using Anthony Pierri’s concept for messaging, specifically, the difference between features, capabilities and benefits. It’s the second part of this framework, capabilities, that B2B brands often overlook – and it’s here that modern buyers get the answers to the questions they are asking.
- Features: the technical aspects of the product
- Capabilities: What you do with the product
- Benefits: The outcome of using that product
As an example, here’s a strong message for a fictional sales platform, Salesly:
You can see what the feature is, what it enables you to do, and the outcome of using it.
People don’t trust your brand (as much as they trust you)
TLDR: Customers and prospects prefer to engage with personal, honest content, delivered by individuals, over brand-led posts.
What do Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Satya Nadella all have in common? They have vastly bigger social media followings than the multi-billion dollar companies that they lead.
Social Insider’s 2025 LinkedIn Benchmarks report indicated that posts from individuals receive 561% more interactions that company page posts. Across all B2B interactions, people – especially since the pandemic – trust content from other people more than that delivered by brands. The human element gives it authenticity.
Moving forward B2B leaders need to step out from behind the camera and put themselves into the spotlight. This isn’t just useful for a bump to social statistics either; there is a new wave of B2B leaders who are foregoing traditional marketing to commit completely to their personal brand to drive their businesses forward.
A starting point would be to simply take content destined for company pages, edit it and post it as an individual to test the theory. But for the biggest impact, honesty and direct communication should be at the forefront of personable posting, with ideas such as:
- Big opinions on industry topics that matter
- Warts-and-all chronicling of new product development
- Personal lessons gained from knockbacks
Fundamentally, its human-led topics, delivered by individuals that stick in the mind.
Want to build confident marketing that moves the needle?
If honest conversations, creative partnerships and work that sets you apart sounds good, feel free to get in touch with our team here.
Selbey Anderson Group of agencies