The Skills B2B Marketers Need to Go From Good to Great in 2025

As we emerge from the peak of inflated expectations into the trough of disillusionment with AI, the shifting tides of skills for B2B marketers continues to be a moving target.

On the one hand, there is greater demand for AI-savvy leaders who can help navigate adoption in the spirit of efficiency and productivity. On the other hand, there is a growing hunger for humanity, storytelling and trust. Where these interests intersect is much of what B2B brands are in need of when it comes to marketing that will succeed in 2025 and beyond.

To drill down into the specifics of the most important skills in B2B marketing, I reached out to some of the smartest B2B marketing leaders I know including several of the B2B Marketers on the Move, Spring/Summer Edition honorees that includes B2B marketing executives from Verizon Business, ServiceNow, Docebo, BMC Helix and more.

The question I asked was…

What is the most important skill that will separate good from great B2B marketers in 2025?

I’ll start. Given the B2B marketing industry deep dive into AI and the growing trend of marketers feeling overwhelmed this year, I’d suggest one of the most important skills for B2B marketing leaders in 2025 will be the ability to craft context. Whether developing marketing prompts for a GenAI platform or providing direction to teams for a go-to-market strategy, the ability to pull together timely, accurate and compelling current situation information, pain points and objectives is essential for creating the kinds of best answer storytelling and marketing experiences that can deliver on brand, demand and revenue outcomes. TLDR: Context is still King!

Now let’s hear from the true B2B marketing experts on what skills B2B marketers will need to succeed in 2025 and beyond:

“What will separate good from great B2B content marketers in 2025 is the ability to earn trust through influence. Good marketers will keep creating content to inform and convert. Great marketers will amplify credible voices, use high-impact formats like video, and tell stories that resonate with real people across complex buying groups. The latest installment of our 2025 B2B Marketing Benchmark, Trust Is the New KPI, drops in mid-July — and early findings show that marketers who lead with trust are seeing stronger performance across the entire funnel.”
Tequia Burt
Editor in Chief, LinkedIn Collective & LinkedIn Ads Blog
Senior Content Marketing Manager
LinkedIn

“You need a solid grasp of relevance engineering based on deep buyer understanding and attunement. Set aside algorithms, automation, and prompting your LLM of choice. Engineering relevance is about buyer proximity. Marketers attuned to buyers’ needs, situational and emotional context, risk perceptions, and desired outcomes will help them architect possibilities by expanding their situational view. The result? The depth of critical thinking necessary to build trusted relationships with meat on the bones. That’s what will drive revenue and growth in a world overwhelming B2B buyers with mediocre content.”
Ardath Albee<br …read more