Insight Categories: Marketing

Most defense companies are measuring marketing using a set of metrics designed for a different kind of business.

Defense procurement spans a wide spectrum — from rapid, transactional acquisition pathways to long-cycle program-of-record pursuits where a decision-maker has $50 million in procurement authority, deep incumbent relationships, and no patience for vague capability claims. Ten thousand LinkedIn impressions and an invitation to brief a program office are not the same thing. Most defense marketing dashboards can’t tell you why one happened and the other didn’t.

Here’s how I think about building the right dashboard. And if you don’t have time to read the full article, I’ve also summarized the key metrics in this handy worksheet.

Brand: the metric category nobody wants to defend until they need it

Say “brand awareness” in a capture/BD meeting, and someone will roll their eyes. But if a contracting officer or proposal evaluator encounters your company name for the first time on a proposal cover page, you’re starting that conversation in a hole — and no amount of BD effort digs you out quickly.

Brand mention volume and sentiment indicate whether the market is beginning to associate your name with the right domains. Share of voice (SOV) tells you how much of the conversation in your space you actually own. SOV is especially useful when a company is redefining itself. That shift has to show up in how the market talks about you before it shows up in your pipeline. Plan accordingly: SOV is a lagging indicator. It won’t jump in the first month. Give it a quarter, then another, and if it’s still flat, something in your content or channels isn’t working.

Branded search volume is one I push harder on than most people expect. When program managers, BD leads at prime contractors, or contracting officers start searching for your company name specifically—that’s a real signal. Pair that trend line with your campaign and conference calendar and you’ll start to see what’s actually landing versus what just felt good to publish.

Social and web: the metrics everyone tracks, the questions nobody asks

Impressions, engagement, page followers—yes, track them. But please contextualize them before you put them in a slide.

Five thousand impressions means very little if none came from the employers and functions you’re actually trying to reach. LinkedIn gives you audience composition data. Use it. If your followers skew toward vendors, job seekers, and fellow marketers rather than program managers and contracting officers, your content is reaching the wrong room. The channel may be fine; what you’re publishing—or who you’re paying to amplify it towards—needs a harder look.

Engagement rate matters more than follower count, particularly in sub-industries with niche players. A page with 2,000 followers that consistently generates reactions and comments from people at defense primes and government agencies is more valuable than one with 20,000 followers who treat LinkedIn like a trade magazine they never read.

On the website side, the numbers worth watching in GA4 are organic traffic, direct traffic, and engagement rate. Organic traffic reflects how well your content and SEO are working. Direct traffic (people typing your URL into a browser) reflects whether your offline activity—conferences, briefings, word of mouth—is generating curiosity. Engagement rate reflects whether the people who land on your site stick around long enough to actually absorb anything, or whether they hit the homepage and leave because the site hasn’t been updated in a few years.

Don’t dismiss time-on-site as a vanity metric. For companies with technically complex stories, dwell time is a rough proxy for comprehension. Pair it with scroll depth on your capabilities pages or video completion rate and you’ll know whether visitors are reading or just vetting that you exist.

Advertising: hold it to a higher standard than the media plan suggests

Ad reach and impressions are worth tracking, but they’re table stakes. The number that actually matters is CTR, filtered by audience quality. If you’re running IP-targeted campaigns against specific military installations and program offices, or geofencing the conferences where acquisition decisions get made, a 0.5% CTR from that audience is worth more than a 3% CTR from a generic defense media buy.

Here’s something that might not be popular: for most defense brands, programmatic display advertising can wait. You’re not selling subscriptions. Broad impressions in defense publications might feel like visibility, but the budget often does more work through conference presence, direct briefings, or executive thought leadership that reaches a specific decision-maker at the right moment.

Where I’d invest before scaling paid at this particular moment: earned media. A mention in C4ISRNET, a feature in Defense News, a quoted perspective in Breaking Defense—these carry a kind of authority that bought placements can’t replicate. If your PR and content strategy isn’t generating that kind of coverage, address it before you pour more money into ads. As my colleagues have written about in their guidance around GEO, AI systems often pull from earned media, so there’s never been a better time to boost your authority through guest features, PR outreach, and cross-domain partnerships.

The business metrics: how is your marketing program contributing to the bottom line?

Everything above tells you whether your marketing is healthy. This next set of metrics will tell you whether it’s actually working.

Program access is the most underrated category in defense marketing measurement. How many briefings did your team help secure with program executive offices this quarter? How many SBIR opportunities or OTA solicitations did your team identify and pursue because you already had visibility with that program office? These aren’t sales metrics—they’re marketing outcomes. They required positioning, content, relationships, and sustained visibility to make happen. If marketing isn’t claiming them, someone else will, or worse, no one will track them at all.

Pipeline development is where the connection between marketing activity and business outcomes gets most direct: look at qualified program opportunities identified, new prime contractor teaming conversations initiated, RFI and RFP invitations received. Marketing either feeds this pipeline or it doesn’t. I’ve worked with defense companies that had genuinely differentiated technology and almost no pipeline because the market simply didn’t know they existed. Marketing didn’t do its job.

Prime contractor relationships deserve their own scorecard — active teaming agreements in place, established relationships with prime BD and capture teams, joint proposals submitted. Marketing’s job isn’t to close the teaming agreement; that belongs to BD. But marketing creates the conditions that make that conversation shorter. If a prime’s BD lead hasn’t encountered your name in any publication, conference, or briefing, they’re starting from zero when your team calls. That’s an expensive place to start.

Contract awards won, year-over-year defense revenue growth, and average contract value trend are ultimately what everything points toward. I won’t claim marketing gets sole credit for a contract award—the capture team, the proposal, the relationships, the timing all matter. But a market that recognizes your name, understands your differentiation, and has already encountered evidence of your track record before your BD team walks in the door? That changes the odds. Not dramatically in any single meeting, but consistently over time, and that consistency shows up in win rates.

If your company is actively shifting its revenue mix—moving from commercial into defense, or expanding from one domain into several—track that ratio over time. It’s a useful gut check. If the mix isn’t moving in the direction leadership committed to, dig into whether marketing is actually aimed at the right programs, the right primes, the right decision-makers.

The simpler, the better

Not every metric on this list belongs in your monthly report. Which ones you prioritize depends entirely on where your company sits right now. If you’re building brand presence from scratch, the numbers that matter most are share of voice, branded search, and program access. If you’re scaling a known brand toward acquisition or major contract growth, weight your reporting toward pipeline, revenue influenced, and the health of your prime relationships.

One thing I see skipped constantly: baseline measurements. You can’t claim credit for a 40% increase in branded search if you didn’t capture the starting point. Establish your baselines before the campaign launches, not after it ends.

And the structural fix that matters more than any individual metric: connect your marketing dashboard to your BD/capture team’s CRM. The biggest measurement gap in defense marketing isn’t that companies lack data—it’s that marketing data and pipeline data live in separate systems and nobody builds the bridge. When those two talk to each other, you stop arguing about attribution and start having more useful conversations about what’s actually working and what to change.

It started with one RFP. The referral source field said “Microsoft Teams,” and we assumed it was a data entry error. Someone had typed the wrong thing, or the form had misfired. We cleaned it up and moved on.

Then it happened again. Different company, different deal—same field, same answer. Then ClickUp showed up. Then Slack. Over a few quarters, we had a cluster of inbound leads who had found their way to us through internal collaboration tools. Not a landing page. Not a LinkedIn post. A chat thread they were already in, that we would never have access to.

We stopped cleaning the data and started asking questions. What we heard was something like: “Someone in our #agency-vetting channel mentioned you. I went back and found the thread.” Or: “One of our consultants had flagged you in a ClickUp comment months ago. When the budget opened up, I searched for it.”

These weren’t referrals our attribution model was built to handle. Nobody clicked a link. Nobody filled out a “referred by” form. Someone typed a few sentences in a private channel, and it was enough to start a six-figure conversation.

What we were bumping into has a name in marketing circles: dark social. It’s the vast category of online sharing that happens through private, untracked channels, where no referral data ever reaches your analytics tools. By most estimates, dark social accounts for roughly 84% of all online content sharing. And in B2B tech especially, where buying committees of six to twenty-plus people privately align before contacting any vendor, it’s where the actual decision gets made.

The research backs up what we were seeing in Grafik’s own CRM. According to Wynter’s 2024 survey of B2B marketing executives, 73% rank peer recommendations as the most influential factor in deciding which vendors to consider—above analyst reports, above content marketing, above paid. A separate study found that 84% of B2B decision-makers start the buying process with a referral. And 65% of CMOs say they start vendor searches in peer communities, not search engines.

Those peer communities increasingly live inside the tools your buyers use to do their actual work. When someone needs a vendor recommendation fast, they don’t Google it—they drop a message in the channel where they already have their colleagues’ attention.

As usual…B2C figured this out before most B2B brands did

A few weeks ago I was holding a can of Bobbie infant formula—the kind of purchase where parents are obsessive about peer recommendations, group chats are in constant use, and brand trust is everything. On the lid: a sticker that read “As featured in your group chat.”

It stopped me, because in addition to being clever copywriting, it showed a brand that understood exactly where its word-of-mouth was happening and decided to validate it rather than ignore it. Most B2B companies are still trying to build referral programs that route around this behavior. Bobbie just put it on the can.

The category is different, obviously. But the dynamic isn’t. Enterprise buyers recommending a vendor in a Teams channel are doing the same thing parents do in a group text: asking people they trust, in a space they feel safe, before making a high-stakes decision. The only difference is that B2B marketers have been slower to acknowledge it as a channel worth caring about.

Why your NPS doesn’t capture any of this

A glowing Net Promoter Score response sitting in your CRM is worth less than three sentences from a colleague in a chat thread. Same sentiment, different context. Within the group chat, the reader knows the person who typed it. They’ve seen them push back on bad vendors and software. They know they don’t throw endorsements around. And, the message is often arriving at exactly the moment they’re making a decision.

That’s referral marketing at its most potent: trusted source, perfect timing, zero friction. 

What actually gets a brand typed out, unprompted?

After digging into where these leads came from and what the referring conversations looked like, a few things became clear—none of them are marketing tactics, exactly. They’re upstream of that. 

Specificity. Vague satisfaction doesn’t travel. What gets typed out is the particular: the account manager who caught a problem before it became a crisis, the deliverable that landed better than expected, the process that made the client look good internally. If you’re not creating those moments on purpose, you’re waiting on luck.

Clarity. People share what they can explain quickly. If your value proposition takes a paragraph to convey, it won’t get conveyed in a chat thread. The way your clients describe what you do in private is usually simpler—and more convincing—than anything on your website.

Low social risk. Nobody recommends a vendor they’re not confident in, because it reflects back on them. There’s an old adage that, “nobody gets fired for hiring IBM.” IBM earned that default trust through decades of consistency. What are you doing to build the same kind of confidence? Your referral rate is, in many ways, a measure of how safe clients feel putting their name behind you.

What CMOs can actually do about it

While you can’t pay-to-play within a private Teams channel, you can do the work that makes your brand worth bringing up when someone asks.

1. Engineer the moments worth retelling: work with your CS and delivery teams to find the inflection points where clients feel genuine relief or pride—then make those moments more intentional and memorable. The support that came through fast, the deck that landed the internal buy-in: these are the things people type out when someone asks.
2. Give clients language they can actually use: positioning should arm your clients, not just persuade prospects. If someone can’t summarize what you do in two sentences, they won’t try in a thread. Simple, jargon-free articulations of value are the ones that travel through dark channels.
3. Build the communities where the conversations happen: Peer communities, client roundtables, invite-only dinners or networking events—these help create the relationships that eventually surface in group chat recommendations. If you follow Grafik, you know that me and our SVP of Growth co-chair a community of interest for marketing and revenue leaders through the Northern Virginia Tech Council. We do that not only to keep our finger on the pulse of what’s happening in our local industry, but to gain face-to-face time with prospective partners and clients.
4. Stop cleaning this type of data—and start reading it. If a collaboration tool shows up as a referral source, resist the urge to correct it. Call the prospect. Ask who mentioned you and what they said. That conversation will tell you more about your word-of-mouth health than any survey or NPS report.
5. Make it easy to stake a reputation on you. Consistent delivery, honest communication when things go sideways, quality that holds across the engagement—these lower the perceived risk of recommending you. Referral rate is a confidence metric as much as a satisfaction one. 

The part no one wants to hear

Group chat referrals aren’t a trend you can get ahead of with a campaign. They’re the natural result of a decade of buyers learning to trust peers over vendors, now running on faster and more searchable infrastructure. The research has been pointing here for years—it just took a few anomalies in our own CRM to make it personal for me.

Bobbie figured this out in a category where the stakes couldn’t feel higher—and their response, rather than a campaign, was simple acknowledgement. They named the behavior and validated it. That’s the posture worth borrowing.

Every time one of these dark social referrals lands, I treat it as a report card. Someone in a conversation we’ll never read decided we were worth mentioning. The best marketing our agency does happens in rooms we’re not in—and the only way to influence what gets said there is to earn it.

Takeaways from NVTC’s recent event on trust, tenure, and the relationship that makes or breaks your impact

If you’ve been in a CMO role for more than a year, you already know the statistic. Shortest tenure in the C-suite. You don’t need me to tell you why it stings—you live the pressure of it. What’s worth talking about is what actually moves the needle on that dynamic, and whether we’re being honest with ourselves about where it breaks down.

Last week, our NVTC Marketing & Growth Community hosted The CEO-CMO Compact: Earning Trust, Extending Tenure, Driving Growth—a conversation with three CEOs who were unusually candid about what they actually want from their marketing leaders. Janet Chihocky of Janson, Jennifer Felix of ASRC Federal, and Josh Resnik of FiscalNote said things out loud that most CEOs probably think but rarely articulate. If you work with a CEO, advise one, or are trying to figure out why a previous relationship went sideways, this conversation had some useful friction in it.

Here’s my read on what mattered.

They don’t want your answers. They want your instincts.

One of the most clarifying moments came from Josh: stop feeling like you need to have all the answers.

I know that’s not what most of us were trained to do. We show up prepared. We bring the deck, the data, the plan. We’ve been told—correctly, for a long time—that coming in unprepared is how you lose the room. But there’s a version of “prepared” that tips into performance, and CEOs can smell it.

Josh was blunt about this: presenting data as gospel (when you privately know the story is complicated) will erode trust faster than not having the data at all. The move isn’t to show up with less. It’s to show up with more honesty about what you know, what you’re testing, and what’s still uncertain.

Janet’s version of this was different, but rhymes: she wants to see that the CMO gets it—gets her, gets the brand, gets the client. That’s not a data problem. That’s a presence problem. And it’s the kind of thing that shows up in every room you walk into, whether you’re in front of her or representing the company without her.

Your job is translation—in both directions

Jennifer Felix offered the cleanest definition of the CMO role I’ve heard in a while: take the company’s strategy and translate it to the market, then take what the market is telling you and translate it back so the company can evolve.

That second direction is where most of us underinvest. We’re good at the outbound. We get the message right, the positioning sharp, the channels optimized. But how systematically are you actually feeding market intelligence back into the room where strategy gets made? Not survey data and win/loss reports—though those do matter—but the texture of what customers are hesitant about, what questions they keep asking before they sign, what they’re hearing from your competitors.

Janet framed it even more personally: build a relationship with customers, then come back and tell leadership what’s keeping the client up at night. That’s not a marketing deliverable, it’s a disposition. The CMOs who last tend to be the ones who see that as core to the job.

If you’re not in regular enough contact with customers to actually know what’s keeping them up, that’s the gap to close first—before the next campaign brief or board update.

Data removes opinions. Stories move people. You need both.

There was a productive tension in the room on this one, and I think it’s worth naming directly rather than smoothing over.

Janet made the case for story: data is an indicator, but story is the tip of the spear. Customers are looking for candor, not polish. Your job as a CMO is to know your brand’s story, believe that story, and make sure the whole organization believes it, too. Marketing isn’t a department—it’s a strategic function that runs through everything.

Josh made the case for data: being data-driven is the best thing you can do to remove ego from the room. Bring numbers, run tests, create objectivity. It’s harder for someone to override you with opinion when you’ve built an evidence base.

Both of these are right, and the mistake is treating them as competing philosophies. The story is what builds trust with customers and alignment internally. The data is what protects you when someone senior has a strong feeling that runs counter to what you know. You need both. If you’ve been leaning hard on one, it’s probably time to shore up the other.

Push back—but know when, and how

Every CEO on the panel said some version of: “I don’t want a yes-person.”

Josh was the most direct—he wants positive, respectful debate. He doesn’t want agreement that comes too easily. But once a decision is made, it’s made. No revisiting, no passive resistance. You debate hard, commit fully.

Jennifer added important texture here: the place for real pushback is 1:1, not in a public setting. That’s not about avoiding conflict—it’s about protecting the relationship so the conflict can actually be productive. If you’ve ever tried to push back on a CEO in a room full of their direct reports, you know how quickly it becomes about ego rather than substance.

Janet’s version was the most human: timing matters. Wait for the right moment. And when you bring the pushback, come with solutions, not just problems. “I feel your pain and here’s what I’d try” lands very differently than, “I don’t think that’s the right call.”

None of this is revolutionary, but it’s worth asking yourself: when did you last push back on something you disagreed with? If the answer is “I can’t remember,” that’s information.

What CEOs actually wish you’d do

A few concrete asks from the CEOs in the room that are worth taking seriously:

• Be proactive. Janet was emphatic—don’t wait for direction, and keep going until you’re told to stop. If you’ve been operating in a more reactive mode, especially with a new CEO or in a new environment, this is a signal worth heeding.
• Stay nimble. Josh wants to see teams testing something new every quarter, not relying on what worked last year. The environment is changing and your strategy should change with it. That also means thinking ahead about what skills you might need to bring in—not just what you have today.
• Listen to the business, not just the market. Jennifer’s ask was to deeply understand what drives growth for the company, and to keep asking that question. Not assume you know the answer from year one.
• Stop performing certainty. This one ran through the whole morning. The CMOs who build durable trust are the ones who tell the truth about what they know and what they’re still figuring out.

On AI: force multiplier or just distortion?

Because it’s 2026, the conversation of course closed on AI, and the framing was better than most I’ve heard. The question isn’t whether to use it—that ship has sailed. The question is whether you’re using it in a way that adds value or just adds volume.

Janet mentioned building AI tools with “relational codes”—essentially training outputs to stay true to the brand’s voice and texture. That’s the sophistication the moment calls for. Not AI that flattens everything into the same register, but AI that actually understands what the brand sounds like and why.

For those of us advising marketing teams, this is where I’d push: does your AI usage reflect your brand’s point of view, or does it just sand it down? The second one is a slow leak that’s easy to miss until the brand stops feeling like anything at all.

The through-line of the event, if I had to name it, was this: the CEOs who were most satisfied with their marketing leaders described people who acted like genuine partners—curious about the business, honest about uncertainty, proactive without being reckless, and deeply connected to customers.

None of that is particularly new. But there’s a gap between knowing it and actually doing it consistently, and that gap is where CMO tenure goes to die.

It’s a gap worth closing.

I recently attended the International Builders’ Show to stay close to where the real estate industry is headed, a space Grafik has supported for years with branding and digital work across both B2B and B2C audiences. As expected, AI came up in nearly every session. What I didn’t expect was how much it would reshape the way I think about the work we do in B2B tech.

The session that stuck with me was about something broader than homebuyers. It was about how all of us are searching now.

Once I started listening for it, I couldn’t stop hearing it. “I asked ChatGPT” is quickly becoming the new “I Googled it.” References to LLMs have slipped into everyday speech the same way “the internet” did twenty years ago. We don’t announce that we’re “going on the internet” anymore. Soon we won’t announce that we’re “asking AI” either.

But the bigger story isn’t that people are using AI more. It’s that AI is fundamentally changing how we think and act as buyers: how we search, how we vet, how we make decisions.

The query is becoming a conversation

For years, SEO has been built around one premise: a person types a question into a search engine, clicks through a list of links, and arrives on your site. That model is still intact, but it’s no longer where the work of discovery is getting done.

Instead, people are having extended research conversations with AI tools. The early-stage work used to happen across a sequence of search queries and site visits: figuring out what to consider, how options compare, which ones are worth a closer look. Now, much of it is happening inside the LLM, where buyers are asking questions they might not have thought to ask a search engine and getting the aperture widened for them as they go. Plus, buyers are even asking AI for its recommendations, not just information. By the time they open a browser, they’re often typing the name of a brand they’ve already decided to look at directly. The shortlist was built before a search engine ever entered the picture, in large part on whatever the AI chose to surface.

A “shortlist” is forming before you ever see it

Consideration used to happen on a brand’s website, on the product pages, the capabilities section, and the case studies. Now, much of that work is happening before a buyer ever lands there.

By the time a buyer visits your site, most of their initial exploration is already complete, and opinions and perceptions have already begun to form. Once they land and peruse your pages, they’re using it as a validation tool to confirm the research they’ve already conducted.

This has real implications for how all brands, including B2B marketers, should think about their visibility:

• You may be getting eliminated from consideration sets without any traffic signal telling you it happened
• Your overall site traffic may be declining, even as the traffic you do get becomes more qualified—fewer visitors, but arriving later in the funnel with stronger intent
• Direct navigation to your site is an increasingly lagging indicator, as the discovery work is happening further upstream
• Your category is being explained by AI, whether your brand is represented in that explanation or not

The data backs this up: Forrester’s State of Business Buying, 2026 report found that 94% of business buyers now use generative AI during the buying process. Gartner projects that by 2028, 90% of B2B buying will be AI-agent intermediated, routing an estimated $15 trillion in B2B spend through those exchanges. And the traffic picture is already shifting: publisher traffic from Google dropped roughly 33% in 2025 while AI search referrals surged more than 1,200%, and AI-referred visitors are converting at several multiples the rate of non-brand organic — because they arrive already informed, and often already pre-sold on the shortlist the AI gave them. The brands that show up in those answers become the shortlist.

SEO still matters but it’s no longer the whole picture

SEO isn’t going away. It’s still the mechanism that makes your content discoverable, and weak SEO will hurt you across the board. But ranking for a keyword no longer guarantees you’re the answer. The answer is being assembled by AI, synthesized across multiple sources spanning from your website, across media sources, and other third-party content.

Optimizing now means being explainable: structured, specific, and consistent enough that AI can accurately describe who you are, what you do, and why a buyer should care. That’s the discipline Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is built for, and it’s a different kind of content practice. It rewards precision over polish, prioritizes structure that machines can read, and demands a brand presence that extends beyond your own domain into the places AI sources its answers from: press coverage, industry analyst commentary, reviews, partner content, and the broader conversation around your category.

SEO makes you findable, GEO makes you part of the consideration set before a buyer ever turns to search.

What does this mean for B2B tech marketers?

While the SEO playbook still applies, it just has to stretch to meet a new mode of discovery. A few questions worth asking across your brand, your content, and your digital ecosystem:

• If a buyer asks AI about the category we compete in, are we a part of the answer?
• Is our content structured so AI can pull accurate excerpts from it, not just index it?
• Are we showing up in the third-party sources AI draws from?
• Can a prospective customer get a complete, accurate picture of our capabilities without ever talking to a human?

Answering these questions takes a strategic, well-positioned brand that shows up everywhere the buyer is looking, including the places you can’t directly control.

Being part of the answer is the new first impression

The buyer journey has simply started earlier, and it’s taking place within a conversation your brand may not be a part of. The companies that acknowledge this shift and adapt will be the ones showing up in the answers that shape buying decisions and perceptions, long before a prospect becomes a lead.

That’s what makes GEO central to a brand’s digital strategy. Layered with SEO that earns visibility in the first place, and the brand and content work that feeds AI an authentic, credible version of who you are, GEO is how B2B brands stay findable in a search experience that no longer looks like search.

At Grafik, we help B2B tech companies show up across all of it—brand, content, SEO, and GEO—so your brand is helping shape perceptions and evaluation criteria before a buyer ever reaches out. If that’s where your brand needs to be next, let’s talk.

In B2B tech, change is constant and speed is a competitive advantage. Markets shift. Categories consolidate. New entrants appear overnight. Buyers do more research independently and involve more stakeholders in their decision making. Funding cycles tighten. Product roadmaps evolve. And what worked last quarter suddenly feels outdated.

In this environment, marketing can’t afford to move slowly or operate in a vacuum because whether it’s said explicitly or not, marketing performance is not judged by clicks and conversions but by business performance. Revenue. Pipeline quality. Sales velocity. Retention. Growth confidence. 

As a strategic function of the business, CMOs are expected to drive this growth while proving ROI. The fastest way to do this is to stop reporting “marketing performance” and start proving “enterprise value.” In other words: Act like a CMO—but think like a CEO.

CEOs don’t view marketing as a list of deliverables. They view it as one of the business’s most powerful levers—when it’s aligned to the growth strategy and accountable to outcomes. This means positioning your marketing team as a growth engine and strategic function of the business.

Positioning as a “strategic function”

When marketing is seen as a strategic function it earns influence across the organization, it shapes direction—not just execution, and it gets funded because it’s tied to enterprise value. The goal isn’t to do “more marketing.” The goal is to make marketing indispensable to growth because CEOs don’t buy marketing activity, they buy confidence in what marketing will do for the business.

Building confidence with your CEO

CEOs don’t need more marketing updates. They need clarity. So when a CEO looks at marketing, they’re not asking, “Is marketing busy?” They’re asking “Is marketing helping us win—and can I trust it as a strategic lever?” That trust is earned through signals that ultimately build confidence in what marketing can do for the business. Below are common signals that earn trust with CEOs: 

• Marketing speaks business: A CEO trusts a CMO who understands how the company makes money, what drives margin, what slows deals down, and what accelerates growth. If marketing can’t connect to the business model, it will always be seen as support—not strategy.
• Marketing understands the full buying journey: In B2B tech, buyers are rarely individuals. They’re committees. And sales cycles aren’t linear—they’re complex and influenced by numerous stakeholders. CEOs trust marketing leaders who understand what happens after the lead is captured, where deals stall, what objections derail the sale, and what content or proof points accelerate confidence.
• Marketing can prioritize—and say “no”: Focus is a credibility cue. CEOs trust marketing leaders who can make tradeoffs: fewer initiatives, clearer bets, higher conviction, less noise.
• Marketing creates alignment across Sales and Product: When marketing, sales, and product aren’t aligned, growth becomes expensive. CEOs trust CMOs who reduce friction and create shared language around ICP, value proposition, differentiation, enablement, and product narrative.
• Marketing shows foresight: The most valuable CMOs don’t just report what happened. They explain what’s changing, what it means, and what to do next. In B2B tech, foresight isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a survival skill.
• Marketing brings tradeoffs—not just requests: A CEO doesn’t want a list of needs. They want a recommendation. The shift is subtle but powerful: “We need more budget” vs. “Here are three options. Here’s the risk. Here’s the expected impact. Here’s my recommendation.”

When trust and confidence are in play, marketing is in position to serve as a strategic function but in order to fully operate in that capacity, it has to understand and be able to communicate the value it brings to the enterprise. Enterprise value is demonstrated by connecting marketing activities (such as campaigns, content, events, paid media, brand work, and product launches) to business impact (such as pipeline quality, conversion rates by stage, win rate improvements, and sales cycle velocity). CMOs should translate how those efforts build long-term business advantages, such as revenue durability, category strength, pricing power, improved valuation narrative, and reduced GTM risk

This simple framework, “Marketing Activity → Business Impact → Enterprise Value” is the difference-maker in moving marketing from a service department to a strategic function.  

Effective CMOs don’t just drive marketing outcomes. They drive business confidence. They act like CMOs—but they think like CEOs. And that’s what earns trust, budget, and influence. 

Are you positioning marketing as a strategic function in your organization? If you can answer “yes” to the following questions, then you’re likely already operating this way:

• Explain your growth strategy in 1–2 sentences?
• Connect marketing performance to enterprise value?
• Name the business’s biggest risk this quarter?
• Articulate what you’re not doing—and why?
• Present 3 metrics that build confidence at the executive level?
• Align Sales, Product, and Marketing around one narrative?
• Show how brand strengthens win rate, pricing power, and growth durability?

If the answer is “not yet,” this is a great opportunity to begin the transition. Need help getting there? Drop us a note and we’ll help get you on your way to positioning marketing as a strategic function and not a service department. 

The uncomfortable truth for B2B trade associations today is not that they aren’t producing enough content. It’s that they’re producing plenty and much of it is quietly disappearing.

Inbox fatigue is real. Feeds are flooded. Search results are increasingly crowded with AI-generated summaries that sound plausible but say very little. Against that backdrop, even thoughtful, well-researched association content struggles to earn attention. Not because it lacks value, but because it lacks clarity, differentiation, and narrative focus.

We see this pattern repeatedly across the trade and professional association landscape. Content saturation is not a distribution problem. It’s a brand clarity problem.

The new reality: content is doing more work than ever

Member behavior has shifted in ways that fundamentally change the role of content.
Today’s members and constituents expect self-service experiences. They research before they engage. They skim before they commit. Content now carries the weight of education, persuasion, and validation long before a human interaction ever occurs.

At the same time, associations face tightening budgets, lean teams, and rising expectations to “show value” through constant output. The result is understandable, but risky: more content, produced faster, spread thinner.

This is where many associations unintentionally lose ground.

Where associations go wrong

Most content strategies don’t fail because teams lack effort or expertise. They fail because they are built on flawed assumptions.

• Assumption 1: More content equals more value. Volume feels productive. But in a saturated environment, frequency without distinction accelerates invisibility.
  
• Assumption 2: Members follow a linear journey. They don’t. They enter at different points, bounce between channels, and engage selectively. Content designed as isolated, one-off pieces rarely supports this reality.
  
• Assumption 3: Channels matter more than narrative. Too often, strategy starts with where content will live—email, blog, social—rather than what story the organization is uniquely positioned to tell.

When you layer on familiar, well-worn language such as “we are the voice of the industry,” “best practices,” “aligning with industry standards”, the result is content that signals credibility but fails to generate engagement. These phrases create safety through sameness, not momentum through meaning.

Content saturation isn’t the enemy, sameness is

It’s tempting to blame AI-generated content for the noise. And while mediocre automation has certainly raised the floor on average content, it has also raised expectations.

Generic insight is easier than ever to produce, and easier than ever to ignore.

What cuts through is not louder messaging, but clearer positioning. Not more information, but more intentional storytelling.

Trade associations, in particular, have an underutilized advantage: access to real-world expertise, lived member experiences, and industry-specific insight that for-profit entities can’t easily replicate. The challenge is translating that advantage into content that feels human, specific, and purposeful.

A better path forward: precision, proof, and purpose

Standing out in a saturated environment requires discipline, not volume.

At Grafik, we encourage associations to rethink content strategy through three lenses:

• Precision: Stop trying to speak to everyone. Address specific pain points with clarity. The more narrowly defined the problem, the more valuable the content feels to the right audience.
  
• Proof: Replace abstract claims with evidence. Data, outcomes, real-world examples, and member perspectives outperform jargon every time. Credibility isn’t asserted, it’s demonstrated.
  
• Purpose: Content should not exist as isolated projects. A documented content strategy defines the role each piece plays within a larger narrative system. Create once, then intentionally modularize and distribute across channels without diluting the core message.

Brand clarity is the force multiplier

When content is grounded in a clear brand position—what you uniquely stand for, who you serve best, and why it matters—every piece works harder.

Messaging differentiation doesn’t require abandoning authority or trust. It requires reframing them through a human lens: individual member perspectives instead of monolithic industry claims, insight instead of instruction, relevance instead of reach.

In a saturated market, clarity becomes the competitive advantage.

The strategic question leaders should be asking

The question is no longer, “How do we produce more content?”

It’s “How do we ensure every piece reinforces a clear, differentiated narrative about who we are and why we matter?”

For many B2B trade associations, answering that question requires stepping back from calendars, channels, and production and investing in strategy first.

Because in a world full of content, the organizations that stand out aren’t the loudest. They’re the clearest.

Ah, the internet. Just when you think you’ve gotten a handle on how best to position your brand to attract users, convert leads, and make sales, things change.

And in the wild wild west that is search optimization, a new sheriff has come to town and kicked in the saloon doors: GEO and AI tools are upending how many people work, live, and now search. 

Wait, what is GEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization, a new approach that both competes with and complements SEO/Search Engine Optimization. Other terms include AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), and AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization). Some users tease out nuances between these acronyms, but they are essentially all referring to the same thing as GEO. 

Whereas traditional SEO delivers a list of ranked webpages based on the user’s query, GEO refers to the ever-growing sources of AI-generated answers, such as Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and ChatGPT. With these tools, users get direct responses without ever clicking a link, which is a significant shift from the way SEO delivers results that drive organic traffic.

Generative AI systems behave more like researchers than crawlers—they analyze content for clarity, credibility, and structure before including it in their responses. And they aren’t just looking at one website at a time—they synthesize information from across the web, so an AI tool might answer a question about your business with information from somewhere else. 

The challenge has changed: for GEO you want your content to be found and trusted so it will be cited. It’s not just about hacking your keywords, but building credibility.

What does that mean for my brand? Is SEO out?

If only it were that easy. Traditional search isn’t disappearing—it’s experiencing a paradigm shift. In short: SEO gets you seen while GEO gets you cited. But they work hand-in-hand, and sites with weak SEO are not likely to be referenced by AI tools. 

In addition, studies show that AI search engines prefer third-party and authoritative sources over brand-owned sites, so SEO often still offers the most direct route to your site.

GEO is building upon SEO, assessing many of the same factors and rewarding sites that have strong SEO. Anything you have done to improve your SEO will also benefit your GEO, but certain aspects will have a bigger impact. 

Okay… so what do I do?

To optimize for AI search requires adjusting how you structure content, exhibit credibility, and grow your web fingerprint beyond your own site. 

1. Structure content for machines as well as humans
AI models favor structured content. Use Q&A formats, subheadings, and lists to make your content easy to parse and quote. Write in short, direct sentences that clearly answer questions. You can also add schema markup, which is informational code added to your web pages that isn’t seen by users but can be crawled by both SEO and GEO tools. 

2. Strengthen your authority and credibility
AI engines value verifiable information. Add author bios, credentials, and last-updated dates to. If citing other sources, wherever possible link to official studies, government data, or recognized publications.

You also need to be aware of where your brand is being referenced or linked to, and work to build a presence beyond your own domain. AI systems often pull from earned media, so consider where your brand is mentioned in articles and press. You can boost your authority through guest features, PR outreach, and cross-domain partnerships and mentions.

3. Focus on clarity, consistency, and staying current
Help AI understand your brand. Use consistent terminology and contextual clues so AI can map you correctly to topics and industries. AI systems also reward current information. You should reevaluate your content regularly, and refresh evergreen pages or update popular posts. 

What else do I need to know?

Like SEO algorithms, AI models are murky and constantly changing, and we don’t (and likely won’t) know exactly how they choose their sources. Each AI model also differs slightly. And it is harder to derive analytics about GEO, although many SEO tools are racing to adapt. 

Because these tools are still learning, you can run sample queries to see if and how your brand appears in AI platforms and whether your content is being cited or used. And misinformation can still be an issue—even if you are cited, your content might be paraphrased, misinterpreted, or attributed ambiguously. It will be important to trace and address any factual inaccuracies.

As we ride the wave—or, to return to my earlier metaphor, wrangle the cattle?—of AI and GEO, there are still a lot of unknowns. But one thing is certain: GEO’s impact cannot be ignored. And with a clear content plan that grows your credibility, authority, and external presence, GEO can be friend, not foe. 

If you run a trade association, you already know the challenge: budgets are never unlimited, teams are lean, and expectations from members keep growing. The question is not how much you spend, but how you spend it. For many associations, this moment often comes during annual or mid-year budget planning, when leaders must weigh priorities like member retention, engagement, and growth against limited resources. Thinking strategically about where marketing dollars go ensures that every investment is planted in fertile soil to support both short-term needs and long-term goals. By putting your marketing dollars in the right places, you can nurture retention, deepen engagement, and show real value. And when it comes to making those choices, having the right marketing partner in your corner can help your efforts truly take root.

Smart investments that drive retention and growth

For associations, marketing budgets need to work on two levels: fueling big initiatives that set the stage for long-term growth and supporting everyday efforts that keep members engaged. Some years may call for a rebrand, a new website, or a major campaign to re-energize members. In those moments, it’s critical to distinguish between foundational investments, the deep roots of brand identity or digital infrastructure, and ongoing engagement activities that provide seasonal bursts of growth. Balancing both ensures resources are allocated wisely between one-time projects and the recurring touchpoints that sustain loyalty.

Best practices for budget planning include setting aside dedicated funds for “capital” marketing projects, such as a rebrand or website redesign, while also protecting a consistent budget line for ongoing engagement. Associations should also factor in hidden costs like change management, staff training, and content creation, the fertilizer and water that allow major initiatives to thrive. When considering a major initiative, ask three key questions:

1. Will this investment strengthen our ability to attract and retain members?
2. How long will the value of this investment last before another update is needed?
3. How can we align this initiative with smaller, recurring campaigns to ensure momentum continues beyond launch?

At the same time, not every investment requires a large spend. Often, the most effective retention strategies come from creative, low-cost ways to strengthen a sense of belonging. Associations that spotlight members as people, not just professionals, create deeper emotional connections. Campaigns that highlight members’ identities, celebrate their achievements, and encourage peer-to-peer reminders can make renewals feel less transactional and more like tending to a thriving community garden. Even small touches, like playful renewal prompts paired with modest incentives, can generate meaningful results.

Associations can also amplify their impact by mobilizing members in moments that matter. Grassroots advocacy, powered by consistent messaging and volunteer participation, shows that even small organizations can grow into trusted leaders. The key is creating opportunities for members to take part in the story, whether that means encouraging a colleague to renew or lending their voice to a cause. When members feel ownership in the community, engagement becomes organic and retention follows.

Maximize existing marketing tools 

Marketing impact does not require doubling staff or budgets. Small adjustments to existing tools can go a long way. Just as a gardener learns to prune, repot, and rotate crops for better results, associations can refresh what they already have. Weekend email sends, for example, are underutilized in B2B even though many professionals check email on Saturdays and Sundays. Subject line changes such as shorter copy, capitalized first words, numbers, and job function specific calls to action can boost open rates by as much as twenty two percent. Landing page improvements can also make a significant difference. Adding quantifiable and specific social proof has been shown to increase event registrations by fifteen percent. Associations do not need more emails or campaigns. They need smarter and more intentional ones.

A strong example comes from the American College of Radiology (ACR), a quality improvement organization that sets the gold standard for diagnostic imaging accreditation. With new competitors entering the accreditation space touting faster and cheaper certifications, ACR needed to reinforce its reputation without sacrificing rigor. Grafik supported ACR with refreshed positioning, messaging, and web design that simplified the accreditation process, while still highlighting the unmatched quality and trust their program provides. Campaign development across digital ads, paid social, and email outreach led to a nearly 50 percent improvement in open rates and more than 50 form completions in a single month. By focusing on clarity of message, targeted campaigns, and a better user experience, ACR was able to retain market share and reaffirm its role as the trusted leader in the field, all without relying on massive budgets.

Storytelling is another powerful way to maximize existing marketing efforts. By positioning members as the hero, the association as the guide, and benefits as the plan that leads to success, associations can cultivate deeper resonance with their audiences. This narrative approach works at every stage of the member journey from awareness to renewal and creates emotional connections that go beyond features and benefits. Stories require creativity, not cash, and they make existing tools like email, social media, and events far more compelling.

Final thoughts

For trade associations, limited resources are the norm. But they do not have to be a barrier. But planning your marketing budget with intention ensures that those resources deliver the greatest possible impact. By focusing on member driven engagement and making the most of the tools you already have, you can grow a healthier and more resilient community without overspending.

And while you are planning for the year ahead, it is worth considering how an agency partner can help. Much like a master gardener who understands when to plant, when to nurture, and when to harvest, a marketing partner can help your association make sure your budget works harder and goes further.

Explore our B2B marketing solutions to see how we can help your association make the most of limited resources and cultivate the future of your field.

A recent panel hosted by the Marketing and Growth Community at the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), moderated by Grafik’s SVP of Growth, Tanya Nazarian, spotlighted a pressing challenge: misalignment between CMOs and their C-suite peers is limiting marketing’s impact and creating roadblocks to long-term growth. 

In leading this dynamic discussion, we explored the growing complexity of organizational growth itself: it increasingly depends on cross-functional alignment, and yet marketing remains too often on the sidelines of strategic decision-making. Our panel unpacked why that gap exists and what CMOs can do to close it. The insights shared offer a clear path to stronger alignment and greater impact.

For many CMOs, The challenge isn’t capability—it’s perception. Only 51% of CEOs say their CMO plays a central role in shaping growth strategy, and 80% admit they don’t fully trust or are unimpressed with their marketing leader. These perceptions matter. They lead to misaligned goals, unclear expectations, and KPIs that fail to reflect real business value. 

However, when organizations place marketing at the center of their strategy, not as a function, but as a force for growth, they’re twice as likely to achieve measurable growth. But for marketing to operate at that level, organizations must start with something deceptively simple: a shared understanding of marketing’s role.

Marketing’s influence has expanded, and so has its complexity.

Today’s CMOs are expected to lead across brand, demand generation, digital experience, and customer insight. Often, they’re also tasked with areas like product marketing, sales enablement, pricing, or even digital transformation. The rise of roles like Chief Growth Officer and Chief Digital Officer reflects this shift, but it has also introduced blurred lines, role ambiguity, and fragmented accountability.

The result? A fundamental disconnect in the C-suite. While 90% of CEOs say the role of marketing is well-defined in their organization, only half of CEOs and CMOs within the same companies agree on what marketing’s primary purpose is. Without a shared understanding at the top, marketing ends up trying to prove its value against invisible expectations. Marketing brings strategic value, but without clarity around its mandate, that value often goes unrealized. This kind of alignment doesn’t happen organically; it must be deliberately built.

Clarity is the starting point of successful marketing leadership.

For CMOs, this means initiating the conversation, setting expectations, and aligning the scope with business priorities. But even with clarity around scope, many CMOs find themselves on the outside of strategic decision-making. Why?

Too often, strategic planning happens without marketing in the room. CEOs may rely on COOs or CFOs for go-forward plans that are analytically sound but lack a consumer-first lens. This absence often stems from a misalignment, specifically in how success is defined and measured. When marketing KPIs aren’t framed in terms of business outcomes, their contributions are overlooked.

The fix? Translate marketing performance into business language. CMOs must demonstrate how brand efforts, digital strategies, and consumer insights tie directly to revenue growth, customer acquisition, or retention, while collaborating with finance and operations leaders to define shared success metrics.

The CMOs who break through are the ones who connect the dots, demonstrating how their strategies drive pipeline, profitable growth, and market momentum. As Kelly Schlageter, Chief People Officer at Acentra Health, puts it: “If you show value, you’ll get invited to the table.”

When the whole C-suite is aligned on which metrics matter, everyone runs toward the same finish line.

Final Thoughts:

For marketers, the path to greater influence begins with clarity on their role, metrics, and how success is defined across the business. When those pieces come together, marketing becomes an indispensable driver of business strategy.

Here’s a recap from our last event: Marketing for growth: how to thrive in 2025. Stay tuned for the next one coming this September.

Have a B2B marketing and branding questions? We’re here to help. Don’t hesitate to reach out.

Attending ASAE’s 2025 Membership, Marketing, Communications + Tech Conference (MMC+Tech) was an energizing and insightful experience—especially for those of us helping associations navigate the evolving landscape of branding, marketing, and member engagement. As a Client Coordinator at Grafik, I’m always looking for innovative ways to support our association clients in achieving their strategic goals. This year’s conference delivered just that: a wealth of fresh perspectives, data-driven strategies, and practical takeaways that can directly enhance how associations communicate their value, build loyalty, and grow their impact. In this blog, I’m excited to share the key insights that stood out most and how they can translate into actionable strategies for your organization.

Top strategies and lessons from 2025 Gold Circle winners

The International Interior Design Association’s “I Am IIDA” campaign—2025 Gold Circle Award winner for Member Retention—took a personal approach by celebrating members as individuals beyond their professional roles. Launched during IIDA’s 30th anniversary, the campaign featured posters, wellness guides, social media content, and a member-driven “I Am IIDA” week that encouraged peer-to-peer renewal outreach. With goals to boost retention across individual, corporate, and student members, increase chapter engagement, and launch a firm invoicing program, the campaign proved that humanizing the member experience and elevating community voices can powerfully drive loyalty and connection.

RESOLVE’s Crisis Advocacy Campaign—winner of the 2025 Gold Circle Award for Advocacy and the Overall Excellence Award—mobilized swiftly in response to an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that paused IVF services. With a mission to restore access through legislative action, RESOLVE elevated patient voices via earned and social media while reinforcing its position as a national thought leader in access to care. Partnering with a PR agency for broad media outreach and executing daily communication plans for constituents and volunteers, the campaign demonstrated that even small associations can lead effectively in moments of crisis. The keys to their success: clear KPIs, consistent messaging, and proactive stakeholder engagement.

The American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology’s member-driven recruitment initiative—winner of the 2025 Gold Circle Award for Membership Recruitment—marked a historic shift as members led the charge to expand the community to include RNs and APRNs. In response, AANA updated its bylaws for the first time in 40 years, reflecting a bold commitment to inclusivity and growth. Their success was grounded in clear goal-setting, frequent collaboration, and a deep understanding of member needs. The campaign emphasized innovation, consistent tracking, and storytelling rooted in data. AANA’s key lesson: the most impactful recruitment efforts are those that solve real problems and deliver lasting value for members and the profession alike.

Reimagining member value for the digital era

Today’s members expect more than just events and networking—they seek career growth, trusted insights, and flexible learning opportunities delivered on their terms. While associations continue to offer valuable content, the key challenge lies in how it’s delivered. With Google offering instant information, LinkedIn providing global connections, and online learning platforms blending flexibility with education, members have plenty of alternatives if their needs aren’t met. Personalization, digital access, and on-demand formats are no longer nice-to-haves—they’re essential. Associations must adapt by identifying existing value, asking members what they want, and launching scalable, recurring digital experiences. Value propositions haven’t changed, but member expectations have—and meeting them starts with modernizing your delivery.

As one session highlighted, email marketing remains one of the most powerful tools for associations and event marketers—when used strategically. To boost engagement, focus on subject lines that speak directly to what your audience wants to know, using current events, capitalized key words, or numbers to grab attention. Contrary to common practice, weekends offer a major opportunity: with 88% less B2B email competition, your message is more likely to be seen. Think visually—shorter subject lines and bold first words stand out. Skip tired intros like “Register” or “Reminder” and personalize with audience-specific details like job title or location. And don’t overlook the power of first-person CTAs (“Save my spot”) to drive clicks. Above all, your first email matters most—ditch the dry confirmations and deliver something exciting that makes members feel seen and valued from the start.

Rebranding to elevate and recharge your organization

An association rebrand can serve as a powerful catalyst for change within an organization, offering the opportunity to communicate a new direction, reinforce the mission, and align the brand identity with future goals. It signals growth and evolution to members, business partners, and external stakeholders while creating a unified message that strengthens internal and external relationships. A successful rebrand starts with a clear strategy—defining objectives, identifying key stakeholders, establishing vendor selection criteria, and setting expectations for proposals. During implementation, the focus should shift from simply showcasing offerings to emphasizing the deeper “why” behind them. The impact of a thoughtful rebrand is significant: it can drive stronger engagement from diverse audiences, boost visibility across media and digital platforms, improve internal morale, and deliver a clearer, more compelling message about the organization’s mission today.

An example of a successful rebrand shown at MMC+T was the Association for Healthcare Foodservice (AHF), which undertook a brand elevation to address a long-standing identity challenge. As an organization focused on foodservice professionals in healthcare and senior care, AHF operated within a highly niche industry segment. Over time, the brand had come to feel “dull” and no longer reflected the energy or scope of its evolving membership. A multiyear discussion around how to best incorporate a growing senior care audience into the brand identity culminated in the decision to rebrand. This effort helped resolve identity concerns and reposition the organization to better reflect its current and future membership.

Value propositions: define and deliver with clarity

Positioning your organization with a strong value proposition is the foundation of every successful association—it’s not about your passion for the mission, but about the tangible benefits you offer. It explains why someone should join and stay, articulating the unique, compelling advantages your organization provides. Unlike your mission, which defines purpose, a value proposition drives action by addressing member needs and showcasing how you solve their problems. In a competitive landscape, a clear and concise value proposition helps differentiate your association, attract and retain members, and guide strategic decisions. To define it, assess your audience, analyze competitors, identify key benefits, and craft a statement that resonates. Ultimately, it’s not just about what you offer, but how members experience and value that offering over time. Associations must evolve from transactional relationships to experiential ones to ensure lasting engagement and loyalty.

Grafik helps associations achieve this through strategic branding work that uncovers and articulates the essence of their value. By aligning audience insights, stakeholder goals, and organizational strengths, Grafik crafts brand platforms that clearly communicate purpose, differentiate from competitors, and foster authentic, long-term member relationships. Explore Grafik’s association branding and marketing work to see how we’ve partnered with organizations like NAIS, NPPC, and NGA to define compelling value propositions and build enduring, standout brands.

From the powerful examples set by Gold Circle Award winners to fresh takes on member engagement and rebranding, the common thread is clear: associations that embrace innovation and lead with clarity and purpose are the ones best positioned to thrive. Whether it’s crafting a sharper value proposition or simply sending smarter emails, each takeaway from this year’s conference offers a tangible opportunity to better connect with your audience and advance your mission. At Grafik, we’re excited to help our clients put these lessons into action—transforming strategy into meaningful, measurable results.

Last month, my colleague Tanya Nazarian and I had the opportunity to join the Northern Virginia Tech Council’s Marketing & Growth panel for a lively discussion on how marketers can adapt, grow, and thrive in 2025. The energy in the room was electric, with a fantastic audience of marketing leaders sharing insights, asking tough questions, and challenging the status quo.

One of the most thought-provoking segments was our “Start. Stop. Continue.” conversation, where we explored what marketers need to prioritize, eliminate, and refine for the year ahead. Here were a few ideas we advocated for:

STOP: Overcomplicating marketing

A big theme that emerged was the need to simplify and clarify marketing efforts.

🚫 Eliminate buzzwords and jargon
I’ve written about the need for a “lingua franca” before, but even now, marketing may be the most buzzword-heavy industry out there. Can you imagine if doctors had entirely different vocabularies for the same medical procedures? It would create total chaos in an operating room. Yet in marketing, we often have wildly different interpretations of terms like “tentpole event,” “tagline,” or “ad lob.” This ambiguity creates confusion, wastes time, and makes it harder to collaborate—both internally and with agencies.

So, let’s create a “buzzword swear jar” and be more intentional about using clear, precise language. The faster we align on what things actually mean, the faster we can get to solving real business problems.

🚫 Jumping on every trend without a strategy
The internet moves fast—so fast that unless you’re a B2C brand like Wendy’s or Oreo, trying to capitalize on an already trending meme can feel forced, inauthentic, or just plain awkward. (Did corporate brands really need to jump on “Brat Summer”?)
Instead of chasing every viral moment, brands should prioritize trends that are truly relevant to their audiences and fit within a long-term strategy. Social listening and cultural awareness are critical—but execution should be purposeful, not reactionary.

🚫 Spreading too thin across channels
With ongoing uncertainty around TikTok, Meta, and X, we’ll likely see a rise in new platforms tempting marketers to experiment. But history tells us that not all shiny new channels stick around (RIP, Clubhouse).
Most brands don’t have the time, budget, or resources to be everywhere, so consistency is better than chaos. Instead of chasing every new app, double down on making a few core channels really work.
That said, experimentation is still vital—just be strategic about where and how you test.

CONTINUE: People-first marketing

✅ Investing in more human storytelling
One of the most impactful marketing shifts in 2025 is the move away from product-first marketing to a people-first approach.
In B2B tech, we often talk about “users”—but why not just call them people? Buyers are humans first, decision-makers second. With 95% of potential customers not in-market at any given time, brands need to build memorable, emotional connections long before a purchase decision happens.

One of the best ways to do this? More storytelling through video. Whether it’s short-form social clips or long-form brand narratives, video has the power to connect in ways static content simply can’t.

✅ Aligning marketing and sales through ABM
ABM is no longer just a demand gen tactic—it’s a holistic strategy that integrates brand, PR, thought leadership, and even recruitment marketing.
By ensuring marketing and sales are working from the same playbook—aligned on ICPs, KPIs, and measurement frameworks—we create stronger, more effective go-to-market motions.

✅ Testing and experimenting (but with purpose)
“Set it and forget it” doesn’t work anymore. The best marketing strategies are fluid, data-driven, and adaptable.
Continuing to test new content formats, explore AI-driven optimizations, and refine brand messaging will be critical in 2025. But the key is measuring success holistically—not in isolation (no more vanity MQLs).

START: Rethinking how we work

🚀 Reframing collaboration with creatives
One of the biggest mindset shifts I’m embracing this year is rethinking how our marketing strategists work with creative teams. I recently heard another agency executive describe our most inefficient processes as a “relay race, when it really should feel more like a group run”—a collaborative process where ideas evolve together.

A few ways we can make this shift:
• Acknowledge the elephants in the room: Get the tough conversations out of the way early to avoid misalignment later.
• Define a common language: (Again, kill the buzzwords!)
• Create space for a “Hunch Dump”—daily, informal brainstorming sessions where the team can share raw, early-stage ideas before they fully form.
• Encourage constructive disagreement: A meeting where everyone just nods isn’t a productive meeting. Challenging ideas sharpens them.
• Show early ideas in “wet paint” form: Don’t wait until a concept is fully baked to share—invite collaboration earlier in the process.

🚀 Factoring AI not just into our workflows, but into our strategies
AI isn’t just changing how we generate content—it’s reshaping how our content gets found.
Search algorithms are shifting towards AI-driven query results, which means traditional SEO tactics may need an overhaul. Marketers need to optimize their content not just for Google, but for AI-powered search engines that prioritize intent and context.

🚀 Focusing on internal communications and alignment
One of the biggest challenges marketers face isn’t just reaching external audiences—it’s internal alignment.

CMOs often struggle to clearly articulate marketing’s value to the broader organization. Many CEOs, CFOs, and other execs still see marketing as an expense, rather than an investment. A great example of this is PNC’s brand refresh, where the marketing team didn’t just roll out a new look and feel—they “enrolled the entire organization” into the process through:
• Walk the Wall Sessions – interactive brand workshops
• A Brand Book – positioning their identity as a “love letter to boring” (embracing their differentiation)
• Internal Launches – securing buy-in across leadership
• Tying Brand Directly to Business Goals

The key takeaway? Marketing leaders need to proactively engage with the entire C-suite—not just the CEO, but the CIO (tech alignment), CFO (budget justification), and CHRO (talent attraction). The CMOs who thrive in 2025 will be the ones who bring the rest of the org along for the journey.

The path forward for marketing in 2025
The NVTC panel made one thing clear: 2025 will be a defining year for marketing.
• Brands that focus on clarity, authenticity, and consistency will outperform those chasing trends.
• AI will enhance human creativity, not replace it—but marketers need to get ahead of how AI-driven search and personalization will impact strategy.
• CMOs who position marketing as a growth engine (not an expense) and drive organizational alignment will have the biggest impact.

What do you think?
What’s your biggest marketing priority for 2025? Let’s keep the conversation going—feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or join the NVTC Marketing & Growth Community of Interest to continue the discussion and stay in the loop on more events!