The 25% Problem: Why Most Marketers Don't Understand Their Audience
I've just been given behind-the-scenes access to HubSpot's 2025 'State of Marketing' report, and this single stat shocked me the most:
Only 25% of 400 respondents feel they have a clear understanding of who they are targeting.
Source: Hubspot State of Marketing & Trends Report
To make matters worse, the data suggests that marketers are not interested in closing the gap. Only 17.5% of marketers ranked "Understanding customer pain points/challenges" as the most important information that helps guide their marketing efforts.
Sorry, what?
What ranked top, with 36% of the vote, was "Basic demographic information."
Come on, really?
Marketers, we need to do better.
Perhaps many marketers are stuck in tactical promotion mode, as opposed to thinking about the broader impact they can make. Perhaps it's the result of many marketers working with a CEO who "just needs more leads".
To many, the act of marketing seems simple: Create a product or service, then tell as many people as possible about it.
The reality, as many marketers know, is much more nuanced and deeply rooted in human psychology. And the key to all of this is in our deep understanding of who we seek to serve.
If we want to have a seat at the top table and do the work that we got into marketing for, we need to remember our priorities. Everything starts and ends with a deep understanding of our customers. In my view, no one should understand who the business is building for better than the marketing team. Deep empathy is our stock in trade.
That means we need to think Diagnosis, Strategy, then Tactics. In that order.
This graphic is my absolute favourite visual that both depicts how marketing should be done and where many businesses get it wrong.
There were two other data points that also stood out in HubSpot's State of Marketing and Trends Report.
Only 20% of marketers ranked "The online communities they are part of" as important information to have when targeting customers.
I'm less shocked by this, as unfortunately, I kind of expected it.
Honestly, I think this data point is one of the keys that unlocks a business's growth.
I covered this in-depth in my (recently updated) book, but the most important question a business needs to ask, in every conversation they have with a customer is: "How do you stay up to date with your industry? Are there specific people you follow or groups you are part of?"
Ask this in every customer interaction and you build an incredibly detailed picture of the "spheres of influence" that exist in your market. These are the hidden forces that drive product preference. When you understand this and begin collaborating with those people and communities that are trusted in your space, it creates a gravitational pull around your business.
However, there are some encouraging stats in the data. Most specifically, we are seeing more marketers lean into influencer marketing and seeing encouraging ROI from it, especially for B2Bs working with Micro-Influencers. This data makes me very happy.
You can download the full report here.
This report was shared as part of a paid partnership with HubSpot; however, this data is absolute gold, and I know you'll get a ton of value from it. Enjoy!
The Social Media News You Need to Know
Here's the slide deck and the recording of our LinkedIn Live giving you a network-by-network run-through of all the most important updates you need to know from last month.
TL;DR These are the themes that are dominating:
Short-form video (and LinkedIn) are winning for reach
Engagement continues to shift to smaller, niche spaces
Video, newsletters, and comments will be the primary growth drivers for LinkedIn
YouTube Shorts continues to represent a significant opportunity for brands
As always, success will be gained by those that "think beyond their feed" and find ways to get in front of their target audience
📊 Data of the Month
We often talk about how we need to think about how we should use both different platforms (LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) and different formats (Short-form video, carousels, stories, etc.) to drive different results, and this data from Metricool does a great job highlighting this.
The top-of-funnel platforms are those that allow you to increase your reach beyond your follower base. The platforms in the middle are there to help drive deeper conversation and engagement with your audience. The conversation-orientated platforms are the ones where we’re seeing most clicks.
Thinking of how we use different platforms and formats in grow reach and engagement will be an important point to consider as part of our social strategy.
👀 Feature Update of the Month
LinkedIn is now displaying impression counts on your comments. This is only visible to you but highlights the impact that comments can have on how you grow discovery and awareness of your brand. Like I mentioned at the beginning, "thinking beyond our feed" means putting just as much emphasis into thoughtful comments and relevant collaborations as we do for our posts. Getting into our target audience's feeds like this is one of the most effective ways to grow our impact on social media.
👉 Tip of the Month
YouTube Shorts appears to be having a moment right now. Not only is data suggesting incredible reach rates (as YouTube continues to push the format), they've also launched a new "boosting" option to help you increase views.
This "quick promote" option is very similar to how post boosting works on other social media platforms. I also found this approach to be very beneficial for how I grew my TikTok following in the early days, so this might be an interesting avenue for you to explore.
👋 Join me on LinkedIn Live next week
Influencers & Creators in B2B. I think this is one of the most important areas a modern B2B need to nail to unlock growth.
75% of B2B marketers are now actively employing influencer marketing, with 93% planning to increase their spend - amidst this explosive growth, how can B2B's create an operating model that drives success?
I've brought together two wonderful experts in the space to discuss this topic with me.
If you don't yet follow Sarah Adam, please do. Sarah's content is refreshingly transparent and is incredibly helpful for brands looking to scale influencers.
Kristen Sesto, runs Custom Influence and knows what it takes to create successful influencer campaigns in B2B.
Expect an honest, open and fun conversation!
Hopefully see you on LinkedIn 2pm (GMT) on Tuesday 11th March.
📬 That's it! See you next time!
I hope you found this useful! If you have any questions at all, I'm always happy to help!
Made with ❤️ by Andy