Five manufacturing and engineering marketing trends for 2025

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Five manufacturing and engineering marketing trends for 2025

3rd February 2025

What marketing innovations are we likely to see this year? How are demographics influencing tactics for B2B marketers? Here are five manufacturing and engineering marketing trends to look out for in 2025…

Greener pastures

In a competitive market for talent, communicating your ESG commitments and activities will remain vital.

According to Deloitte, 75% of Gen Zs and millennials say that an organisation’s community engagement and societal impact is an important factor when considering a potential employer, so it’s vital that your business puts messages around environmental stewardship front and centre.

Invested in solar panels or ground source heating? Have policies in place to reduce waste or sustainably source raw materials? These should be key talking points for your business.

Environmental sustainability also extends to your own marketing materials. Could your event merchandise be greener? Do you measure your carbon footprint around expos and conferences? Check out our Going green with exhibitions and events blog for some tips on this.

Talking skills

The UK is still grappling with a skills shortage in engineering and manufacturing. Indeed, according to Barclays’ recent report, Now hiring: Understanding and tackling the skills shortage in UK Manufacturing, 75% of manufacturers surveyed described skills shortages as the ‘main barrier’ to growth.

If your business is doing something to address this, such as running an apprenticeship or graduate programme, or engaging with schools on STEM, that’s a story worth sharing – and it could inspire other companies to do the same. It will create a positive perception of your organisation, showing that you are taking positive steps to develop talent and provide opportunities in your community.

Accelerating AI

AI is evolving at a rapid pace, and this is generating an ever-expanding range of tools to help marketers with everything from content creation to data analysis, personalisation and automation.

Utilizing AI and data analytics, manufacturers can tailor content and interactions to individual customer preferences.

And AI can play its part in forecasting too: AI-driven analytics platforms can help businesses to predict demand and forecast consumer and sales trends, by analysing large sets of data and utilising machine learning. This can help you to optimise production planning and improve marketing efficiency. Examples of these tools include Blue Yonder, H2O.ai, RapidMiner and SAP Integrated Business Planning.

Check out our blog on How can AI reboot engineering and manufacturing marketing? for more info.

Keeping it snappy

Studies conducted by Microsoft found that the average human attention span has decreased by 4 seconds since 2000, and that Gen Z’s attention span is just eight seconds (one second less than that of a Goldfish!). Whether you feel that’s worrying or not, it points to the need for bite size content and short, punchy videos that capture attention very quickly: YouTube Shorts – a short-form video feature – has grown in popularity since its launch in 2020, and now has 1.5 billion active daily users! Instagram Reels, too, is an increasingly popular feature.

Manufacturing and engineering companies may have traditionally shunned the likes of Instagram and TikTok, but with these platforms in favour with Gen Z and young millennials, 2025 may see more content being tailored for them, especially in recruitment campaigns.

Analysis from QR Code Generator suggested that in the UK last year, Gen Z were spending 58 minutes a day on TikTok, 24 minutes a day on Instagram, and 58 minutes on YouTube, compared to 8 minutes, six minutes and 11 minutes respectively among older Gen X and young baby boomers. The figures speak for themselves.

The rise of self-service

Forrester’s 2025 B2B marketing and sales predictions report indicated that more than half of large B2B transactions will be processed through digital self-serve channels. Digital-savvy Millennial and Gen Z buyers becoming increasingly influential as decision makers, and they will expect the ability to ‘digitally self-serve’ via websites: marketers in manufacturing and engineering therefore need to adapt to this this, by enhancing and streamline online experiences, and creating intuitive self-serve platforms.

Need support in navigating B2B marketing in 2025? Contact our team and we’ll set up a meeting.