How to leverage business growth in 2025

Many business owners trying to put together a business growth strategy for 2025 will be finding the metaphorical crystal ball rather murky. Even the most experienced forecasters are struggling to predict what will unfold in the near future with any level of certainty. Will the UK economy finally start to grow? What industries will be affected by new technological trends and shifts in spending habits?

An uncertain geopolitical climate, the rise of artificial intelligence, skill shortages, and new market disruptors are fundamentally changing the way companies achieve growth at scale. For business leaders, keeping on top of and adapting to these changes is not optional – it’s essential. To stay competitive, businesses must develop a robust business plan that focuses on market penetration, customer acquisition, and operational efficiency.

In this guide, we will look at the key trends shaping business growth in 2025 and provide actionable steps for putting together a business plan and marketing strategy that will help grow your business sustainably.

We also caught up with Fractional Marketing Director, Stephen Rumbelow, to get some expert pointers on the challenges and opportunities of 2025 and what businesses should be doing to navigate them – don’t miss his excellent insights below!

• Growth trends for 2025
• Analysing your business for growth gaps
• Planning for business growth
• Executing your growth strategy
• Measuring success and adapting
• Expert tips for business growth in 2025
• How a fractional CMO can help unlock growth 

Growth trends for 2025

Even in the wake of the disruptions businesses have faced over the past five years, there are still some significant storm clouds looming on the horizon that may be causing business leaders sleepless nights.

1. Global politics

The UK economy is feeling the pinch in 2025, and this is partly due to growing global geopolitical instability. Global trade tensions escalated by the implementation of US trade tariffs have intensified, leading to increased trade frictions and economic uncertainty. These challenges have contributed to the Office for Budget Responsibility halving the UK's projected growth  for 2025 from 2% to 1%.

2. The economy

Market volatility and the knock-on effects of inflation will continue to impact purchasing decisions, so businesses need resilient financial planning and diversified revenue streams to mitigate the impact of this. New entrants and disruptive business models are also shaking up traditional markets. A solid market research strategy with a well-defined value proposition will help businesses identify new opportunities and stay ahead.

3. The labour market

Attracting and retaining skilled talent is becoming more difficult. Companies must explore options such as fractional hiring, remote talent pools, and upskilling programs to bridge any gaps.

3. Society and culture

Whether it’s business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C), customers are increasingly demanding not only that the companies they deal with thoroughly understand their needs, but that they also share the same values and principles. Businesses will need to carefully tailor messaging around their products or services using market research and data insights to ensure they build brand loyalty and don’t alienate their target audiences.

4. Technology

AI-driven tools and automation are streamlining operations, enhancing customer experiences, and increasing efficiency. Businesses investing in AI-driven tools such as analytics, chatbots, and automation will ensure they retain a competitive advantage and enhance efficiency.

5. Legislation

Depending on what sector you work in and how large your business is, you may face varying amounts of regulation. For example, the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are tightly regulated, as is the financial services industry. However, even if you are a small to medium sized business in a less regulated industry, you will undoubtedly face the prospect of changing regulations and legislation, especially if you are targeting growth at scale. Some of the examples include employment, health and safety, taxation and import/export laws, which may have a significant impact if you don’t plan for how they might affect your business as it grows.

6. Sustainability

Many organisations now prefer to work with businesses that prioritise sustainability throughout their supply chain. Companies investing in green initiatives will not only meet regulatory requirements but also enhance their brand reputation and attract new customers. There are plenty of opportunities for businesses that take ESG seriously, but it is important to ensure the credibility of any initiatives and avoid the risks of “greenwashing” in name only, which could harm your reputation in the long run.

However, you’ll be glad to know that according to our expert it’s not all doom and gloom out there:

Wherever there’s a downside there’s usually an upside. Certain sectors actually thrive in uncertain times, such as the insurance industry. They are equipped to manage risk; it is a big part of their proposition. They are great believers in the adage that where there is risk there is also opportunity.

 

I think a lot of businesses would prefer to bury their heads in the sand or assume everything will carry on as normal, but it won't. This is why having a fractional CMO marketer in your executive team is important because we can help you navigate this kind of uncertainty more confidently.

Stephen Rumbelow - The Marketing Centre

Analysing your business for growth gaps

Before implementing any kind of growth strategy, businesses must conduct a thorough analysis of their current position to understand where there are as yet untapped opportunities for growth.

 Conduct market research

Thoroughly understanding industry trends, customer needs, and competitor positioning is of the utmost importance. Whether you are focusing on market penetration or diversification, data-driven decisions will ultimately lead to smarter strategies.

 Assess your business processes

Identify any bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your business operations. Streamlining your processes will improve productivity and prepare your business for scaling.

 Leverage existing successes

Review past performance to figure out what worked best previously. This will help you to focus your efforts on the most successful marketing channels, sales tactics, and high-performing products.

 Address skill gaps

Growth requires the right talent. Assess internal skill shortages and explore all the options available to resolve the gaps, such as training, fractional hires, or strategic recruitment to fill gaps.

To carry out a comprehensive analysis, it’s helpful to use a framework to guide you through the process. The Marketing Centre’s free Adapt and Accelerate Framework is a step-by-step workbook that you can download and fill in to help you understand your current position, set new goals and plan for growth.

Download the Adapt and Accelerate Guide here.

Planning for business growth

A well-defined business growth strategy provides a roadmap for sustainable expansion. Here’s how to create one:

Develop a growth mindset

A growth mindset is essential for business success. It ensures no stone is left unturned when it comes to creating new revenue streams and maximising existing revenue streams. Entrepreneurs with a growth mindset encourage a culture of innovation that helps drive new ideas and improvements.

You can develop a growth mindset by paying attention to these five areas of improvement:

Improve customer acquisition

Customer acquisition is the cornerstone of business growth. Businesses must understand their target audience and refine their value proposition to attract and convert customers effectively. Optimising the sales funnel, improving customer experience, and leveraging data analytics are all tactics that can help refine acquisition strategies. Retaining acquired customers through exceptional service and engagement is also just as important for long-term profitability.

Build a multi-channel marketing plan

A well-planned multi-channel approach will help you with brand visibility, engagement, and consistent customer acquisition. This approach integrates online and offline channels such as social media, email marketing, SEO, PPC advertising, events, and traditional media. Instead of carrying out random acts of marketing that don’t get the best results, you’ll need to map out your audience personas and pain points and then identify the most relevant channels for the target audience. By doing this, you’ll know where and when to reach them, and how you can ensure they engage with your messaging.

The most vital element of a good multi-channel marketing plan? Each channel should complement the others to create a seamless customer experience at every touchpoint. Tracking the performance you have achieved through analytics tools will then help fix issues during campaigns, refine your strategies for future campaigns and allocate your budgets more effectively.

Build a roadmap with clear goals

A strategic roadmap provides you with a clear direction for business growth. It outlines specific short-term and long-term goals, breaking them into actionable steps. Businesses should set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives to track progress effectively. A clear roadmap also helps align teams, allocate resources, and anticipate challenges. You should then regularly review and adjust your goals based on market conditions to ensure continued growth.

Ensure scalability

Without scalability, you won’t be able to achieve smooth, sustainable growth. Businesses should design systems, processes, and infrastructure that can handle expansion without sacrificing efficiency. This includes investing in technology, automating repetitive tasks, and optimising supply chains.

Scalability also involves refining your workflows to accommodate increased demand while maintaining quality. You should regularly assess your operational capacity and adapt accordingly to prevent bottlenecks.

Plan your finances

Financial planning is essential for sustainable growth. If you manage your cash flow effectively, forecast future expenses, and secure the right funding, you will be able to expand when the time is right and maintain the financial health of your business. Explore funding options such as loans, venture capital, or reinvested profits, and monitor your financial performance with regular audits for informed decision-making.

Set out a talent and hiring strategy

Hiring the right talent is vital for business growth. A strategic hiring plan ensures businesses attract, retain, and develop skilled employees.

Consider addressing the following points in your hiring strategy:

• Defining what the key roles and responsibilities will be to support your growth plan
• Building a strong company culture with the right values
• Offering competitive benefits to attract top talent
• Investing in employee training and development to optimise productivity
• Don’t ignore issues of diversity, belonging and inclusion within your organisation
• Hire fractional executives when needed (e.g., a fractional CMO) to drive strategic growth at critical points

Executing your growth strategy

Executing your growth strategy requires focused action, continuous monitoring, and flexibility. Here are some things you can do to ensure you start off strong and remain on track to achieve your goals:

• Begin by implementing your roadmap step by step, ensuring your teams understand their roles and responsibilities and have everything they need to work well together.
• Build a sales funnel that covers the awareness, consideration and decision stages to make lead conversion more effective.
• Leverage data analytics to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and adjust your strategies as needed.
• Maintain financial discipline by managing cash flow and investments wisely.
• Stay agile by anticipating market shifts and customer demands.
• Regularly review progress, gather feedback, and optimise processes to improve efficiency.
• Watch out for signs of stagnation, operational bottlenecks, or declining customer satisfaction, and address any issues without delay.
  

How do you measure success?

Does a business always need to grow to be successful? Perhaps not, but it is important to define what success looks like to you, and the risks involved when you don’t achieve growth. Huge levels of growth may not always be what SMEs want, but they equally would not want to face closure or bankruptcy. That is why it is important to target sustainable levels of growth and build financial resilience to make sure you can weather any external or internal shocks that may arise unexpectedly.

To measure how you are performing against your growth goals, you should determine what your key performance indicators (KPIs) will be most helpful. Some common metrics to keep track of are:

•  Revenue growth: is your net profit increasing or decreasing?
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): are you acquiring customers efficiently or are you spending too much per lead?
• Customer retention rate: are your existing customers staying loyal or leaving?
• Market share: how does your business compare to competitors?
• Operational efficiency: are your processes improving as you scale or do you have bottlenecks?

Expert tips for business growth in 2025

Fractional Marketing Director Stephen Rumbelow believes that now more than ever, it’s important to build strong foundations and embrace the most advanced tools in the marketing arsenal to ensure business growth in 2025.

Don’t dabble - outline a proper strategy

‘Many B2B business leaders that we work with have previously only dabbled in marketing; it’s not their area of expertise and as such they often rush into it by doing what we like to call “random acts of marketing” – these often don’t deliver the expected results, and so we hear a lot of the time that CEOs don’t believe marketing delivers a good return on investment,’ he explains. ‘There’s also an explosion of generic AI-driven content being used that is not delivering the results that tailored messaging would.”

Stephen believes that the best way to counteract this disbelief is to create a proper marketing plan that drives measurable business growth.

Start with ‘why’

‘It’s important to start with the “why?” – why are you in this business, who are you, what is your unique value proposition and what makes you different from your competitors?’ he says. ‘Once we have built a solid customer value proposition and defined who your ideal customer is, we can find out how to get to the right people at the right time, and deliver targeted messaging around “watering holes”, that is, the places where your prospective customers spend time, either digitally or physically.’

Quick wins vs. long-term goals

According to Stephen, business leaders often make the mistake of expecting to see quick return on investment when it comes to marketing spend. However, he says that leaders that are serious about taking their business to the next level of growth must accept that building brand awareness takes time.

 ‘Smart business leaders do get it,’ he says. ‘It’s all about changing your mindset and understanding it takes time to build sustainable growth. We still identify the areas where we can accomplish quick wins, but we also need to plan for the next 12-24 months to realise those big goals around growth.’

‘When we show the actual data to clients of what the long-term strategy is starting to achieve, it clicks.’

Embrace digital transformation

Stephen also believes that embracing digital transformation has never meant as much as it does now, and businesses that want to achieve growth have to tap into every area where they might reach prospective customers, and this includes the creation of multimedia content such as video.

‘Video is a powerful tool that delivers really strong results. The brain is wired to react to motion, and in 2025 we are competing for attention as never before,’ he says.

A video content strategy can be used with different formats to tap into the customer journey – impactful and attention-grabbing short-form videos on LinkedIn, which do really well to build awareness, and longer-form videos for your website and YouTube that are excellent for the consideration and conversion stages.

‘Video is an area where the B2B business sector lags a little behind their B2C counterparts, but new apps and AI means that it’s never been easier to create videos for your digital channels,’ he explains. ‘You should not be afraid to use AI, but use it in the right way and understand what your audience wants and expects to see.’

How a fractional CMO can help unlock growth

According to Stephen, businesses wanting to be successful with their growth strategy in 2025 and beyond will need to lean into the uncertainty surrounding the economy and become increasingly agile to respond to risks and pivot accordingly.

‘The value of the fractional CMO is that they have that breadth and depth of experience to identify the danger signs, where the potential pitfalls are, and how to balance the risk in order to successfully navigate through the uncertainty,’ he explains.

For businesses at a critical growth stage, a fractional CMO provides strategic leadership and aligns marketing with business goals. They are ideal for businesses needing high-level strategy and leadership, without paying the salary of a full-time in-house CMO.

When you choose The Marketing Centre, you gain access not just to one expert, but an entire network of over 100 proven fractional CMOs that have collectively helped over 1400 small and mid-market UK businesses to grow.

Our results speak for themselves – get in touch today to see how we can help your business plan for growth in 2025.

Source - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0lzj3g77gpo