In 2025, the most sustainable growth will come from being the brand people think of first, not the one they found in a sidebar ad. Buyers are craving trust and authenticity. Channels are crowded. Attribution is foggy. And the most underrated growth lever in B2B right now? Brand. Build it. Invest in it. Defend it. Because if people don’t believe in your brand your performance ads are just noise.
The dark funnel isn’t new—it’s just finally being named. It’s where trust is formed, where awareness grows, and where decisions begin. The brands that win in 2025 will stop obsessing over what they can’t track—and start investing in being present, consistent, and influential where their buyers are making up their minds. Even if it’s in a group chat you’ll never see.
Welcome to the B2B Creator Era where your customers don’t just want content, they want character. They don’t care how many awards your homepage has. They care whether your RevOps lead can break down pipeline acceleration in plain English without sounding like a robot trained on buzzwords and messy script.
B2B Marketing doesn’t have to be boring. It shouldn’t be. If your brand doesn’t feel like something your buyer would follow on social media, it’s time for a glow-up. B2B buyers are craving the same level of engagement and delight as their B2C counterparts.
Every week brings a new “game-changer,” “disruptor,” or some other buzzword we all secretly hate. And now, with AI flexing its digital muscles, companies are starting to wonder: Did we just blow a fortune on software that’s about to become the tech equivalent of a paperweight?
Every time I scroll through LinkedIn, there’s another thought leader ranting about how sales teams are stuck dealing with “junk leads” and how marketing is just obsessed with hitting MQL goals. Why is this still an issue? Why are we still running in circles? Let’s unpack this, because clearly, someone needs to.
Acquiring a new customer costs 5x more than keeping an old one. And yet, most early-stage brands are so blinded by the dopamine rush of new customer notifications that they miss the real goldmine: retention. Let’s be real. Most early-stage brands aren’t ignoring retention because they don’t care. They’re ignoring it because they don’t know where to start.
