Your end of year roundup from our B2B and HubSpot experts is here.
It’s been quite a year in B2B marketing. We’ve seen AI move from novelty to necessity, HubSpot roll out game-changing new features, sustainability messaging becoming commercially critical and award-winning creativity continuing to raise the bar.And throughout 2025, our team of B2B marketing and HubSpot specialists have been busy sharing their best advice in our monthly blogs, from how to build a winning campaign to getting ahead of a crisis with HubSpot. We even took an early stab at what AI might (or might not) be doing for us next year.
So as we wrap up another brilliant 12 months at Pod, here are five of our favourite tips from this year – and standout learnings you can take straight into 2026.
1. AI in 2025: Human-first marketing wins every time
You can’t talk about 2025 without talking about AI. Our January blog set the tone for the year, exploring what AI would mean for B2B marketers, and raising a few eyebrows with predictions that included ‘robotic agents’ and even a Ninja Air Fryer with feelings.
But the most important message was surprisingly simple: AI works best when it’s used to enhance human thinking, not replace it.
We think this turned out to be true in 2025. Do you?
Our favourite expert tips for using AI effectively in content creation:
Keep your content genuinely human. AI can speed up research and ideation, but your tone of voice, empathy and creativity still need a real person steering the ship.
Use AI as a training tool. Let it help refine messaging, simulate customer questions or stress-test campaign ideas.
Make space to experiment. Build AI time into your workflows so your teams stay curious, not overwhelmed.
With many teams using AI daily, this human-first approach is what keeps marketing distinctive, credible and emotionally intelligent. And it’s a mindset we expect to see grow even stronger next year.
2. Want an award-winning campaign? Start by getting the basics right.
If there was one blog that truly showed how B2B creativity can shine, it was our deep dive into ‘how to build an award-winning campaign’. Armed with more than a decade of collective judging experience, our team broke down what excellent campaigns have in common. And the advice was brilliantly clear.
Our favourite expert tips for creating an award-winning B2B campaign:
Know the problems you're solving. Great campaigns don’t start with creative concepts, they start with clear, measurable objectives.
Creativity isn’t just a ‘nice to have’. Even in B2B, it’s what cuts through. Bring flair, challenge conventions and make it memorable.
Execution matters. Brilliant ideas fall apart without brilliant delivery, so be meticulous, test thoroughly and build smooth workflows between marketing, sales and digital.
Measure what matters. Award judges love data, but so do clients. Show the impact and tell a clear story with your results.
This blog gave a fascinating behind-the-scenes insight into the thinking that turns strategy into standout work.
3. HubSpot for crisis comms: Your early-warning system
One of the most practical, tactical blogs we produced this year was our guide to using HubSpot for crisis and issue management. While no business wants to deal with a crisis, having the systems and processes ready means you can respond quickly, calmly and consistently - and that’s exactly where HubSpot shines.
Our favourite expert tips for using HubSpot as an early warning system in PR:
Spot issues before they escalate: Dashboards and social monitoring help you identify sentiment shifts and rising trends fast.
Control the narrative: Templates, workflows and shared content hubs keep messaging aligned across teams and channels.
Use automation wisely: Automate alerts, approvals and routing so no one is left guessing who should act next.
Track the impact: Measure engagement and response to refine your comms in real time.
Our HubSpot experts called this ‘the most underrated use-case for the HubSpot platform’, and we couldn’t agree more.
4. HubSpot’s 2025 innovation wave: Data-first and AI-powered
Live from INBOUND 2025, our HubSpot specialists brought back a wave of updates that got every marketer talking. From Breeze (HubSpot’s new generation of AI agents) to the revamped Data Studio and the upgraded CPQ tools, the pace of innovation this year has been huge.
Our favourite expert tips from Hubspot’s INBOUND 2025:
Implement Breeze AI Agents: Handling tasks, summarising interactions and supporting both sales and service teams just got easier.
Get to know Data Studio: Say hello to more flexible modelling and better governance, to make data consistency easier.
Set yourself up for success with Smart Insights: Surfacing the ‘so what’ behind your performance metrics.
Make light work of campaign planning with Marketing Studio: Unify campaign planning, execution and reporting in a single hub.
Make the most of CPQ upgrades: Complex quotes are now much easier for B2B teams.
The biggest takeaway? 2025 was the year HubSpot doubled down on creating a unified customer experience, powered by data and enhanced by AI. It’s a shift that will define how B2B teams use the platform in 2026 and beyond.
One of our most meaningful blogs of the year explored why B2B sustainability storytelling needs to expand beyond carbon and embrace nature. With $44 trillion of economic value dependent on nature, businesses are beginning to understand that a focus on nature isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s core to resilience and commercial success.
Our favourite expert tips for B2B sustainability messaging:
Don’t rely on carbon alone. Nature loss and biodiversity matter too, and the most forward-thinking brands now bring these themes together.
Be transparent, not tactical. Authenticity and clarity build trust. Greenwash won’t cut it.
Connect nature to business outcomes. When you demonstrate how nature protection drives stability, reduces risk and strengthens supply chains, your story becomes strategic – not just ethical.
This blog became a highlight of the year because it reframed sustainability with real clarity and commercial logic.
If there’s one thing this year’s blogs have shown, it’s that B2B marketing is moving fast, and the blend of creativity, data, technology and sustainability has never been more powerful.
From award-winning campaign thinking to nature-positive brand storytelling, these five blogs capture the mindset that will set marketers up for success in 2026. If you missed any of the originals, now’s the perfect time to revisit them. Your 2026 strategy will thank you.
An all-round wordsmith, Will knows what makes a great story. He’s passionate about the difference good copy can make to any campaign and cherishes the opportunity to raise awareness of important issues. If you've got something important to say, he’s got what it takes to get the word out there.
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