2024 was a yr to recollect.
For one, there have been monumental strides in AI that resulted in large shifts throughout the advertising and marketing business. (Many entrepreneurs examine AI improvements to the commercial revolution. No massive deal or something.)
Apart from AI, Google’s EEAT search rating elements shook up content material methods, redefining on-line visibility.
Even shopper shopping for behaviors advanced considerably, with consumers changing into extra attentive to model values and more and more favoring campaigns that align with their private beliefs.
As we stand on the point of 2025, it‘s essential for entrepreneurs to pause and replicate on the yr’s greatest challenges and put together for the longer term.
Beneath, let’s assessment the present international advertising and marketing points impacting the business, in keeping with knowledge from HubSpot’s 2025 Advertising and marketing Report and insights from advertising and marketing consultants.
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Prime Challenges Entrepreneurs’ Confronted in 2024 — Plus, Skilled Insights on Easy methods to Navigate These Challenges in 2025
1. Buyer Concentrating on
Over the previous 12 months, advertising and marketing efforts in direction of Boomers and Era X have hit an all-time low. This decline signifies a much-needed strategic recalibration as corporations reassess the place to allocate their advertising and marketing assets for optimum impression.
The shift away from concentrating on older generations is clear even throughout industries. For business-to-consumer (B2C), Gen X concentrating on dropped from 67% in 2023 to 41% in 2024; as business-to-business (B2B) sectors had an identical fall in Gen X concentrating on from 68% to 43% over the identical interval.
Why It is a Problem
Shifting demographic focus can imply an virtually full overhaul of how groups market their services or products — and shifting techniques can include uncertainty.
Interesting to altering cultural or behavioral variations can problem companies reliant on their pre-existing model picture. For instance, older generations might have established model loyalties that may be troublesome to alter.
Youthful audiences could also be extra skeptical and selective, inserting a premium on authenticity — however there are some instances as latest as November 2024 with manufacturers like Jaguar, that took an enormous swing in rebranding and following an ethos that shocked many luxurious automotive customers nationwide.
Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s managing director, shared his ideas on the brand new model transformation behind its TYPE 00, stating, “We have now cast a fearlessly inventive new character for Jaguar that’s true to the DNA of the model however future-facing, related, and one that basically stands out.”
Whereas it is too quickly to name, this model is certainly one of numerous which might be taking over the problem of adapting to altering audiences and bravely concentrating on those that are newly launched to the model or are extra right into a recent (and even daring) future.
What You Can Do
Clean up your staff‘s market analysis and knowledge analytics to grasp an increasing viewers’s preferences, behaviors, and wishes.
Whereas there is not any one-size-fits-all answer for each persona chances are you’ll be making an attempt to succeed in, familiarize yourselves with the newest business developments and content material preferences that clients are gravitating in direction of in 2025.
2. Understanding the Social Points Your Viewers Cares About
Shoppers need manufacturers to be socially accountable — the truth is, 45% of individuals suppose that manufacturers must do extra to advocate for social justice points.
The manufacturers that take a stance on social points that matter to their viewers can have a neater time connecting with their prospects and clients. Individuals wish to purchase from manufacturers that care about issues that matter to them.
Take into account Warby Parker. I have been buying sun shades from Warby Parker for years. I gained’t go wherever else. Why? Due to their Purchase a Pair, Give a Pair program, which donates one pair of glasses per pair purchased and, so far, has distributed over 10 million glasses.
Why It is a Problem
Roughly one-third (28%) of entrepreneurs say their greatest problem is a lack of awareness on the social causes their audience cares about (e.g. environmentalism, racial justice).
Merely put, it may be troublesome to discern which social causes matter most to your audience. This data is a bit more nuanced than age, gender, or location.
Moreover, you need the trigger to align together with your model values. Your viewers would possibly care deeply about local weather change, however that trigger may not have a pure connection together with your model persona.
To authentically join together with your viewers round social points, it is vital that they make sense for your corporation, as nicely.
What You Can Do
Like most advertising and marketing actions, the important thing to success right here lies in market analysis.
You may wish to conduct thorough analysis to higher perceive your clients on a deeper degree – together with what they worth most.
Surveys may be robust alternatives to discover these extra nuanced conversations together with your purchaser persona and perceive what issues to them. Nevertheless, folks aren’t at all times going to really feel snug sharing the social points they care most about, since they’re typically very private.
In these instances, leveraging social listening instruments to glean insights into the social points your viewers discusses essentially the most on social media might be a powerful first step.
HubSpot’s Supervisor of Group Technique & Operations Jenny Sowyrda informed me, “My primary tip for understanding what your group values is to pay attention to your group. Your group is telling you what they care about by way of each interplay — from clicking hyperlinks in an e-mail to re-sharing a social put up.”
Sowyrda provides, “Moreover, you must actively pay attention by connecting together with your group members instantly. Begin a listing of members, each the loudest and the quietest people within the room, and construct belief with them by way of particular person conversations targeted on studying what they care about.
By combining your understanding of your group members together with your distinctive experience, you possibly can present worth and cater to their wants.”
When you‘ve decided what your group values, you’ll wish to determine which social points overlap together with your model. Authenticity right here is vital, and so is motion.
As an example, maybe you take into account partnering with a non-profit that additionally helps that social concern to indicate you are prepared to stroll the stroll. Once more, guaranteeing the social concern is smart to your model to assist is important, as nicely.
Patagonia is an efficient instance right here. Their model emphasizes the significance of environmental sustainability, and it really works as a result of a) the social concern is an efficient match for Patagonia‘s audience (energetic, outdoors-y folks), whereas additionally aligning nicely with their model values; and b) they’ve invested in environmental and social duty packages to reveal a real, real want to create change.
3. Facilitating Sturdy Gross sales and Advertising and marketing Alignment
Sturdy gross sales and advertising and marketing alignment is important for any profitable group. And but, it is undeniably difficult to facilitate robust communication to assist these two groups work higher collectively.
Which is why a whopping one-third (35%) of entrepreneurs say an absence of efficient communication between gross sales and advertising and marketing is their prime problem.
Why It is a Problem
Many gross sales and advertising and marketing groups work in silos at bigger organizations. Bridging the hole between the 2 groups — significantly when these groups have totally different priorities and are unclear of their shared objectives — may be troublesome, particularly when neither staff feels motivated to take action.
Moreover, the 2 groups would possibly implement separate knowledge and analytics processes, making it onerous to share knowledge persistently and retrieve insights that assist each gross sales and advertising and marketing decide what’s working and what isn’t.
However alignment is important to your corporation’ success in 2025. Organizations with tightly aligned gross sales and advertising and marketing groups see 27% sooner revenue progress, and 36% greater buyer retention.
What You Can Do
To discover how one can foster stronger gross sales and advertising and marketing alignment, I spoke with Monica Elgemark, Chief Advertising and marketing Officer at Oneflow.
She informed me, “To deal with this problem, it is crucial to outline clear objectives and goals that each gross sales and advertising and marketing groups can rally behind.
Clear objectives and goals that differentiate between consciousness and income needs to be thought of to ensure that each gross sales and advertising and marketing to grasp the values totally different campaigns carry. It’s a mutual dependency between these areas that wants respect.”
Past figuring out shared objectives, Elgemark emphasizes the significance of clear communication between groups. Common conferences and collaboration instruments are useful, however they’re simply that – instruments. To actually facilitate alignment, your staff must implement and constantly nourish a collaborative tradition.
Information performs a key position, as nicely. As Elgemark places it, “Sharing knowledge and analytics represents an important aspect of this alignment course of. Implementing a strong buyer relationship administration (CRM) system, accessible to each groups, permits for the change of invaluable buyer knowledge.
This knowledge not solely informs advertising and marketing methods but additionally empowers gross sales groups to higher comprehend and interact with leads.”
Lastly, Elgemark encourages entrepreneurs to hunt out suggestions from the gross sales staff. Ask your gross sales staff in regards to the high quality and readiness of your leads, which can finally assist you hone in on the advertising and marketing actions that drive essentially the most income for the enterprise.
4. Hiring Prime Expertise
The power of your advertising and marketing staff begins and ends with the expertise you utilize.
Whereas it is one of the crucial vital elements of a powerful advertising and marketing staff, it’s additionally one of the crucial difficult elements.
In actual fact, with regards to hiring, 35% of entrepreneurs report discovering candidates with the suitable skillset is their prime problem.
Why It is a Problem
2023 noticed some main challenges when it got here to hiring. For one, there was greater demand for expert staff, which led to greater wages and advantages for staff and elevated competitors amongst employers to draw prime expertise.
Moreover, many staff have shifted their priorities and now search out corporations with robust work-life steadiness and firm tradition. Many additionally desire the choice for distant or hybrid work. In case your group would not provide these advantages, you’ll doubtless discover it tougher to draw prime expertise.
These challenges will proceed to infiltrate hiring and retention in 2025.
What You Can Do
HubSpot’s Senior Recruiter Kaleigh Hoffman informed me a powerful partnership between the hiring managers and expertise acquisition staff is important for attracting prime expertise iA 2024.
She says, “A recruiter’s finest e-mail or InMail message is rarely as flattering as direct outreach from a hiring supervisor, so in case you are prepared to write down a personalised be aware — it actually goes a good distance. Throughout a time when AI is making it simpler and sooner to write down something, personalised outreach could make the distinction in somebody responding or not.
In case you are writing to a ‘rockstar’ candidate, take into account that they wish to know why you might be reaching out to them, so you should definitely embrace why you have an interest of their profile, particularly.”
Hoffman provides that particular job profiles with clearly outlined attributes will assist set your job descriptions aside from others out there, which could skew extra common.
It is vital to do not forget that recruiting is just like promoting. So, as Hoffman places it, “In case you are talking with a powerful candidate, particularly asking them what they’re enthusiastic about or searching for of their subsequent position may also help you shut them in later conversations.
Reminding candidates of their motivators in ultimate conversations — whether or not it’s advantages, flexibility, or one thing else — can actually assist seal the deal.”
Hoffman provides that its vital to not get too discouraged if a candidate decides to not pursue a job. As an alternative, have a look at rejection as a chance to ask that candidate if they’ve anybody else of their community they suppose might be match for the position.
As Hoffman places it, “Recruiting is a long-term initiative. Nurturing the relationships you develop by checking in occasionally is a good way to construct a pipeline of super-talented candidates for 2024 and past.”
5. Creating Content material That Generates Leads
24% of entrepreneurs say their prime problem is creating content material that generates leads. And but, it is one of the crucial vital capabilities of promoting: To make sure the content material we create is high-quality, but additionally impacts the corporate’s backside line.
In 2025, we’ll see some main adjustments with regards to entrepreneurs’ content material creation methods.
Why It is a Problem
Creating lead-generating content material has at all times been a problem for entrepreneurs, however there are some explicit explanation why it is particularly troublesome now.
In 2023, Google launched its new EEAT search high quality evaluator pointers. Why is that this important? As a result of they added an “E” for expertise — which implies now, guaranteeing your content material is written by somebody with credible, first-hand expertise on the subject is important for growing your web site’s worth.
AI additionally drastically remodeled how folks devour content material. Now, folks do not should Google “How can I am going viral on TikTok?” — then can ask an AI chatbot. Which implies many entrepreneurs doubtless noticed main decreases in site visitors on a few of their extra generalized matters in 2023.
AI and EEAT have drastically shifted how we, at HubSpot, create lead-generating content material. We have been working to make sure the matters we cowl are written by authors with first-hand expertise.
We have leaned into personality-driven content material, since persona is one factor AI doesn’t have.
And we have begun re-focusing our overarching technique on extra area of interest matters that pertain on to our services, reasonably than protecting too many broad matters — since a model that’s an knowledgeable on “all the pieces” is probably going really an knowledgeable on, nicely … nothing.
What You Can Do
To be taught how one can create robust lead-generating content material in 2024, I spoke to Zack Khan, the Co-Founding father of Feathery and former advertising and marketing chief at Hightouch.
He informed me, “The problem and alternative in 2024 is writing high quality content material with insights from material consultants. There may be a lot low high quality content material on the market, elevated by AI writing instruments. The novel concepts and voice (‘sizzling takes’) that generate leads require a deep connection to the reader’s downside that the content material is hoping to resolve.”
Throughout Khan’s eary days at Hightouch, he solved for this problem by hiring “knowledge evangelists”. These had been folks in Slack communities who had been already sharing their opinions on the newest knowledge developments. Khan acknowledged the significance in arming himself with writers’ who might share private insights, reasonably than merely summarizing the info.
He says, “The toughest half was hiring the suitable staff of material consultants, and getting them excited to write down content material full-time. I count on this to be simply as onerous to search out later. However audiences are ravenous for distinctive, opinionated content material sooner or later and the work to recruit a staff of material consultants does repay”.
Monica Elgemark believes one other key technique to producing leads in 2025 includes leveraging AI. As she places it, “A inventive and holistic method is important for producing site visitors and leads.
AI-powered personalization delves deeper than surface-level advertising and marketing. Utilizing AI algorithms, entrepreneurs can predict and cater to particular person prospect pursuits, and create personalised content material that resonates profoundly with the audience.”
Elgemark additionally encourages entrepreneurs to contemplate how they may incorporate extra interactive content material — like quizzes, assessments, or webinars — into their current methods to retain site visitors and supply extra worth.
Elgemark guarantees: “By delving into these methods, entrepreneurs can confidently navigate the dynamic panorama, stay on the forefront of developments, interact successfully, and finally thrive within the ever-evolving realm of B2B advertising and marketing.”
6. Gaining and Protecting Followers on Social Media
These days, your viewers spends a big portion of their time on social media. And but, social media can be extra oversaturated than ever earlier than.
Which leads us to our fifth problem: Gaining – and holding – followers on social media.
Why It is a Problem
18% of entrepreneurs report it is a main problem for them to achieve and preserve followers on social media.
This is smart: Time is treasured. Every social media person goes to be selective with regards to which manufacturers they comply with. In the event that they don‘t really feel they’re getting constant worth out of your social media content material, they’ll rapidly unfollow to liberate their feed for different customers’ content material.
What You Can Do
Amrita Mathur, VP of Advertising and marketing at ClickUp, symphasizes with this problem and acknowledges the significance of audience-building in 2025 and past.
Her answer to social media is straightforward, and but oftentimes underutilized: Leverage the facility of your staff as influencers.
She informed me, “Whereas to this point, I’ve largely seen manufacturers working with influencers and creators to additional their message and trigger, I can see firm staff turning into these influencers.”
She continues, “Manufacturers want to acknowledge that there is no such thing as a tried-and-tested playbook that works each single time. For my part there’s one single fact: the reply lies in having a perspective, and figuring out find out how to illustrate that POV in a placing and memorable approach.
While you mix this and couple it with techniques for each first time and repeat engagement, you get magic. That repeat engagement is what is going to flip into shopping for conduct down the highway (assuming product-market match).”
As she factors out, the phrase ‘influencer’ could make some entrepreneurs imagine their inner staff don’t make the minimize. However influencers may be massive or small, area of interest or broad, they usually may also be channel-specific (like Instagram alone) or not.
Mathur provides, “If you have not already, begin serious about which staff to leverage, curate their distinctive voice, and get on with the constructing of your modern-day media technique.”
Logan Lyles, Evangelism & Content material Advertising and marketing Supervisor at Teamwork.com, agrees with Mathur that incorporating ‘evangelists’ — together with executives, staff, clients, influencers, and companions — into your advertising and marketing actions means that you can encompass current audiences with content material from folks they already belief.
He informed me, “Our technique has concerned co-creating content material with influential names locally of our ICP (companies & skilled service corporations), as we faucet them to visitor on our podcast and communicate on our Company Life webinar sequence.
We have even partnered with totally different evangelists to each create and distribute our pillar content material items through social media.”
This is a fast instance of that technique in motion on LinkedIn, the place Pete Caputa offered a response to knowledge factors from Teamwork.com’s State of Company Operations Report after which posted the video Teamwork.com and Pete created collectively on his private LinkedIn profile.
Lyles informed me Pete’s private put up generated almost 200 mixed engagements & feedback — nicely past the engagement metrics Teamwork.com usually sees on a median Firm Web page put up.
After exploring all these challenges, I do not need you to get discouraged as we enter the brand new yr.
Is advertising and marketing onerous?
Advertising and marketing is usually a problem, but it surely may end up in alternatives for higher visibility, progress, and success for you or your corporation.
Finally, there is no such thing as a straightforward answer to those complicated, nuanced challenges, however making ready for change is one of the best ways to set your self up for the yr.
Navigating Challenges in 2025 and Past
Hopefully, these knowledgeable insights can get your staff impressed and motivated to check out new methods in 2025, iterate on current methods, and discover the perfect alternatives to your distinctive model to fight these challenges.
Keep in mind — you are not on this alone!
Editor’s Be aware: This put up was initially printed in November 2012 and has been up to date yearly to incorporate new, unique HubSpot knowledge and knowledgeable insights.