Managing Growth Through Uncertainty

Enjoyed listening to Sam Jacobs of Pavilion on the topic of "Managing Growth Through Uncertainty" at this week's Chargebee's Beelieve London Conference.

Here are my top takeaways for anyone trying to grow efficiently in 2025:

📉 Growth at any cost is dead. Marketers need to understand the cost of capital, not just how to spend a budget. It’s not about hitting your number; it’s about hitting it at the right cost.

🔁 Retention is your growth strategy. Still over-indexing on acquisition? Sam made it clear: retention beats new logos. Make sure your funnel extends after the sale and on renewals.

🎯 Revisit your ROI assumptions. LTV is fragile if your churn’s creeping up or cost to serve is ballooning. Efficient growth needs solid unit economics. Benchmark: LTV:CAC ratio of 5:1, payback under 18 months.

🎢 Test, learn, experiment (I've always been a fan!). Use data to drive learning an split your budgets to support this mantra: 60%: on proven channels ; 30% on confident experiments ; 10% on risky but worth-it ideas.

📊 Run marketing like finance. That means:

  • Monthly cash flow forecasts (yes, even for marketing!)

  • Gradual scaling (10k on LinkedIn this month? Cap next month at 15k)

  • Aligning incentives around moments that create value, not just clicks

Most importantly: Don’t freeze. So many practitioners are delaying right now. But delay = decline. If your competitors hit pause, it might be your best shot at market share.

Biggest takeaway? "Let’s not create a self-fulfilling slowdown by pulling back on smart growth. Use the data. Make the case. Keep moving."

Thanks Sam for the clarity 🙌

And great to see you, albeit briefly, Katherine Torrence, Jessica Michael, Dhevesh Mewawalla.

#B2BMarketing #EfficientGrowth #Pavilion #RetentionMarketing #CMO #MarketingStrategy #Beelieve2025

Let's talk about the B word.

🚨 I’m going to about the B word. Yes… BRAND.

It’s cropped up in three different conversations over the past week. Firstly with Chris Wilson of Transmission, we chatted about how marketers have done themselves a disservice by trying to categorise “demand” and “brand” spend. In fact, we’ve done a really bad job, confusing our leadership peers to such an extent that they now see them as distinctly separate & almost competitive buckets of spend. Chris has started to use the term “reputation” instead. “Brand” has almost become a dirty word. One Exec last week told me it was “the part of the budget that has no impact”.

We all know that brand and demand go hand in hand. Does brand need a, errmmm, re-brand?

Cut to Orlando Wood of System 1 talking about this very topic on Rooster Punk’s “The B2B Creative Revolution” Virtual Event. He proposes a different way of looking at things: two marketing/advertising modes: showmanship (story-led, emotionally engaging, right-brain, long-term brand growth) and salesmanship (product-centred, rational, left-brain, short-term activation). Modern campaigns have over-rotated toward salesmanship - quick cuts, on-screen claims, rhythmic edits - eroding effectiveness as emotion-rich work falls to only ~6 % of ads.

Emotion matters because it 1) grabs attention, 2) builds preference, and 3) protects price, all of which lift profit. System1’s data show that four- and five-star “fame” ads - those that spark strong emotions - deliver the highest ROI. History echoes this: the 1950s fact-based USP era (pioneered by Rosser Reeves) ceded to Bill Bernbach’s creative revolution (see the “Lemon” ad for the VW Beetle), proving that wit and charm outsell dry repetition.

Showmanship seems to resonate better with executives too, and to revive it, Orlando offers three principles:

  1. Find the magic: the attention-getting device must also tell the product story.

  2. Moto e azioni: pioneered by renaissance artists, “motion & action” is a way of depicting pivotal human moments - in faces, gestures, connections - to trigger feeling.

  3. Fluent device: use a recurring character or scenario (e.g., Specsavers, M&M’s) to build easy mental recall and justify premium pricing.

Yorkshire Tea’s long-running “where everything’s done proper” campaign illustrates all three, doubling market share since 2017. And in B2B, Workday has done a great job with their Rockstar Campaign (featuring a host of real rockstars from Ozzy Osbourne to Gene Simmons to Gwen Stefani).

Orlando calls for a new creative revolution, and I like it! Check out his “Advertising Principles Explained (APE)” course with Sir John Hegarty.

Ultimately we need to work our way back to spending our hard-won budget in the right way for our businesses. Growth will not come without investment in both showmanship and salesmanship. Whatever we decide to call it.

SEO+GEO=FTW

Ever sat in a business review and have your CEO Google your brand/product/category and ask why results come up blank? Speaking to peers, it seems to be a familiar story…often embarrassing but always a wake-up call on living the real customer journey, and not one that starts with that awe-inspiring whitepaper download or wonderfully-catered breakfast briefing.

Now AI-driven search - from ChatGPT to Google's AI Overviews - is reshaping the path to purchase. I thought TrustRadius' 2025 report, "Bridging the Trust Gap: B2B Tech Buying in the Age of AI” made interesting reading. Four things struck me:

1. AI is the new search front door. 72% of B2B buyers now encounter Google’s AI Overviews during research, with 90% clicking through to at least one cited source. >> Your content needs to be in the AI spotlight.

2. Buyers decide earlier, and with AI help. 60–70% of B2B decisions are made before vendor contact and 7% of buyers are now using tools like ChatGPT directly. >> Your first impression may come via an AI summary.

3. Trust in AI content is growing. 80% of buyers now trust AI-generated content at least some of the time. A 19% jump year-on-year. >> Quality content matters more than ever.

4. AI usage is rising fast. Occasional use of AI in B2B buying rose from 17% in 2024 to 30% in 2025. >> The laggards are shrinking.

I had the pleasure of catching up with AI expert Christopher Kelly PhD, whose work in natural language processing and decision science is helping shape the future of web content. What I took away from our conversation is that Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) actually builds on SEO. In fact AI often uses search engine results as its source (who knew?). Additionally, AI favours authoritative, well-structured, conversational and frequently updated content. But more importantly (and somewhat ironically) it also hates vanilla content (and bullet points!), so maintaining a strong, unique brand voice is equally essential. Christopher is pioneering some fascinating work, identifying 150+ features that help your content surface in AI-generated responses - without hurting traditional SEO performance.

💡 The takeaway? Optimising for AI isn’t optional - it’s foundational. Content must be AI-friendly. You need to think GEO and get ahead of the game. Make sure next time it’s not SEO, Uh-oh, but SEO, GEO, FTW!

Who Remembers Tumblr? Lessons in Tech, Empathy & Daily Music Blogging

Lessons in Tech, Empathy & Daily Music Blogging 🎧💡

Remember Tumblr? That place where gifs went to live forever, fandoms flourished, and your experimental poetry probably still lingers in the digital ether?

Well, back in 2014, I decided to embark on a rather eccentric side project: write a daily music blog/Tumblr for an entire year. Yes, daily. Every. Single. Day. 😅

The blog (Morning Music Shuffle) was my attempt to combine a love of music, a need to better understand content marketing, and possibly some masochistic tendencies 🥴.

What started as a quirky experiment quickly became a crash course in content creation, consistency, and most importantly - customer perspective 🧠.

Looking back, this wasn’t just about music. It was about walking the walk 👣.

Why Marketers Need to Get Their Hands Dirty 🛠️

Too often, we sit in meetings debating campaign frameworks, buyer journeys, and martech stacks. But here’s the truth: you can’t understand what it means to engage an audience if you’re not doing it yourself. You need to live the customer experience 🙌.

That little Tumblr blog taught me more about SEO, tagging, audience behaviour, and CX than any whiteboard ever could. Not because it was complex but because I used the platform, felt the friction, and had to earn every reader 🧩.

It was content marketing in its rawest form: no paid media, no automation, no fancy analytics dashboard. Just a post, a track, and the hope someone out there enjoyed it 🎵❤️.

That kind of empathy, really thinking about what someone else would want to read or listen to, is exactly what today’s marketing often forgets. We forget that at the end of every campaign is a person, probably scrolling on their phone while drinking lukewarm coffee ☕📱.

So, What Did I Learn From a Year on Tumblr?

💡 Empathy beats assumptions. Real marketing starts with understanding the human on the other side of the screen.
💡 Consistency is hard, but it builds trust (and a backlog of great content).
💡 Tools don’t just support marketing, they shape it. Learn them, use them, respect them .
💡 Oh, and never underestimate the power of a great playlist!

So, if you're a marketer wondering whether you really need to get hands-on with your tech stack or spend more time seeing the world through your customer’s eyes… the answer is yes! Preferably, with headphones on 🎧😉.

📸 : Author's own! Kraftwerk @ Tate Modern, 2013.

Curiosity. Experimentation. Acceleration. The Future of Marketing with AI.

Twelve months ago, most marketing teams I spoke with were cautiously circling the edges of AI - curious, but conservative. But in just a year, we’ve gone from guarded experimentation to full-on integration. AI isn’t a side project anymore. It’s woven into how we can work, plan, create, and grow.

Speaking with agency heads and peers over the past few weeks alone, its clear AI is not just a strategic play niw - it’s a cultural one. Innovative leaders doesn’t just push for AI adoption, they’re now rallying employees to think differently, experiment relentlessly, and see AI as an amplifier of human potential, not a replacement.

As a Computer Science graduate, I’ve always been curious about innovation and quick to adopt emerging tech in marketing. My own AI journey started back in 2017, launching Adobe’s AI offering at the time, Adobe Sensei. Since then I launched AI Search at Yext in 2020, lead AI adoption within VMware marketing in 2022 and more recently work within LettsGroup, pioneers of an AI-powered VentureFactory that helps startup ventures get from idea to exit.

In tech you’ve always needed a learn-it-all mentality but Kieran Flanagan’s recent LinkedIN post highlighted two emerging trends that are particular to AI:

  1. Employees need to take ownership of their AI knowledge. You can't rely on others to teach you. You have to do the work.

  2. Before asking for more headcount and resources, leaders should ask if AI can do this.

I’m taking ownership by using tools like MyTelescope, ChatGPT, Deep Research, Claude, and agent.ai daily to streamline and supercharge my personal work. Plus I keep up with the daily innovations by participating in industry forums hosted by the likes of B2B Marketing, Pavilion, CMO Circle, Propolis, IQPC and more.

But a word of caution. It’s tempting to fall in love with the efficiency gains AI brings - faster content, streamlined workflows, endless outputs. But more content doesn’t always mean better content.

At the same time, we need to engage more deeply with the ethical questions AI raises. These tools are powerful - but what exactly are they trained on? And can we confidently say they’re safe for commercial use? These are critical conversations we must have as we embed AI into our day-to-day work.

So, let’s nurture curiosity. Create space for innovation. Encourage teams to explore, experiment, and embrace what’s next. But let’s keep intentional too.

Because the future of marketing isn’t just AI-enabled - it’s AI-accelerated. And we get to lead the way.

#AI #MarketingLeadership #Innovation #FutureOfWork #CMO #AIinMarketing #B2BMarketing

Are you a Marketing Guru or a Marketing Gnu? 🧞‍♂️🫎

Back in my Oracle days, I ran a campaign targeting marketing directors with this very question - challenging their willingness to embrace analytics and tech to raise their game.

Fast forward a few decades, and it’s still the same question. But today, it’s less about dashboards and more about your personal relationship with technology and, more importantly, your mindset.

📈 Growth happens when you stay curious and open to change. Don’t chase every shiny new thing, but do embrace innovation when it adds real value.


Take AI. It’s enabling marketers to do more — from prompts to assistants to autonomous agents. But there are still two common fears I hear all the time:

🎨 "AI will kill creativity". Not true. Some creators are brilliant. Many are average. AI will outperform plenty of what we currently accept as "good enough." But great designers, photographers, writers, and editors? They’ll evolve, just like they did with Canva, Lightroom, and Photoshop. Let's not dismiss AI out of fear. We don’t shame people for using spellcheckers, do we? 😉

✍️ "AI will kill writing". Writing isn’t just about words. It’s about craft. I've worked with the best writers and editors in the business, and they are essential. In an AI-driven world, their skill in guiding, refining, and elevating content becomes even more important. Good writing stands out more than ever.

So, don’t be a Gnu.

Be curious. Be adaptable. Be a Guru. 🌱✨

#Marketing #AI #Creativity #Mindset #Innovation #GrowthMindset #Curiosity

AI, Vibes and Jessie J

Flying visit to Advertising Week Europe. One of those grassroots-feeling events where every session is packed and, just like Disneyland, you spend a lot of time queueing. 😡

Sessions were thankfully tariff-free 😀 and covered (of course) AI in marketing, search evolution, artist partnerships and collaborative marketing strategies.

Three Key Takeaways:

💎 AI as your creative partner
Lots of talk about AI empowering not replacing creativity (yep!). But nice to see some pragmatism (and tool tips) in Adobe's 3 step "AI-enabled creativity framework": deep audience research, creative exploration and AI-enabled human creativity.

💎 Authentic partnerships beat transactional relationships
Loads of speakers on the topic of trust (even musician Jessie J!) in the digital world, but partnerships seem even more critical than ever. Speakers emphasised the need for shared values and alignment (dare I say its all about the "vibe"?!) as the foundation for successful collaborations.

💎 B2B marketing in crisis
The "off stage" chat was all about the identity crisis of B2B marketing - where does it sit? All under a CRO? Or should we split growth & corporate marketing? Measurement? Do we need all these people? AI can do it all, right? Is brand really a thing? Lots of churn going on!

As always it was to a chance re-connect with friends and colleagues. Great to see you Claire Darley Helen Gillbe Hung Le Alastair Hussain Michael Bayler Linus Gregoriadis Justin Cooke John Horsley Simon Johnson Lindsay O'Gorman Simon Morris.

Finally, congrats in particular to John Horsley and team in a first outing for Path7. Great panel discussion that dove into partner marketing as purposeful collaboration requiring matched values. Speakers discussed how partnerships differ from paid media by being more authentic and trust-based, especially valuable in the post-GDPR landscape where we now have "richer data but less of it."

Right, I'm off to queue for a coffee in my kitchen 🚶🚶🚶🚶

#AdvertisingWeek #AIMarketing #PartnerMarketing #MarketingStrategy #DigitalMarketing

Marketing B2B Technology: 6 Tips For Overcoming Common Challenges

Thank you B2B Marketing for interviewing me for their latest report "Marketing B2B Technology: 6 Tips For Overcoming Common Challenges", discussing the unique challenges tech marketers face in 2025.

After reflecting on the wider report, here are my four key takeaways (no spoilers 😉):

⚖️ Flexibility meets long-term vision.
Today's tech marketing requires a delicate balance: maintaining strategic direction while adapting quickly to market shifts.

🛡️ Data privacy isn't just compliance - it's competitive advantage.
Beyond regulatory requirements, a privacy-first approach builds customer trust. We need to ensure we're not just following rules but creating meaningful, trust-based interactions that prioritize first-party data acquisition.

❤️ Differentiation requires emotion, not just features.
In a crowded marketplace, product features alone won't set you apart. The most successful tech companies create emotional connections through their brand storytelling (not a term I love, but you get the point).

👥 Decision-making happens in tribes.
Purchase decisions have always involved multiple stakeholders across departments, creating a collective decision process that extends sales cycles. But more than ever, in the current digital noise distraction, it demands tailored content for each persona at every stage of the buyer's journey.

Anyway, you can read more here: https://lnkd.in/eDnfgKE8

Thanks Lina Vaz for inviting me in!

#B2BMarketing #TechMarketing #MarketingStrategy #DigitalMarketing