B2B marketing isn’t just about selling a product or service; it’s about increasing brand awareness and cultivating strong relationships throughout the entire customer journey. What is brand building in marketing? It is the process of creating a unique and trusted identity for your company, ensuring that it resonates with your audience and stays relevant over time. Building your brand should be central to any strategy because it sets the foundation for long-term success.
Today’s B2B buying landscape is evolving. Sales cycles are longer, and buying decisions involve larger, more independent committees. About 70% of the buying journey is completed before a buyer contacts a provider. Additionally, peer reviews account for only 17% of the purchasing process, meaning your sales team may have only a brief window to engage with the buying group. Building a brand story is essential for differentiating your company and making a lasting impact.
With such limited direct interaction, the marketing team must step up. It’s crucial to tell your brand’s story and establish trust through content marketing for brand building and messaging well before buyers begin their research. You need to capture their attention and build your brand awareness early, employing a cohesive brand to demand strategy.
Too Much Focus on Demand Gen – A Risk
While many marketers understand the value of the brand building process, demand generation often takes priority in budgets and focus. Immediate growth is tempting, but brand building strategies are slower to show results and harder to measure. Here’s what can happen when you over-emphasize demand at the expense of building your brand:
Buyers might not consider you early on: Buyers usually have a list of potential vendors from the start. To be on that list, you need to build brand recognition and trust before they begin searching. A solid brand building strategy, coupled with effective demand capture, will ensure you make it onto their consideration list and turn potential leads into lifelong customers. Brand building services can help establish this early connection, ensuring that your brand resonates with potential buyers even before they are actively seeking solutions.
Less effective sales conversions: With limited time for sales interactions, your team should focus on in-depth discussions about your product during the final decision stages. If brand awareness is low, sales will have to work harder to establish familiarity. A strong brand presence allows your sales team to connect better with decision-makers and increases the chances of converting conversations into opportunities.
Inefficiencies in demand capture: By not investing in B2B brand building strategies, you risk exhausting your resources on a narrow pool of buyers who are ready for the market. You might miss out on potential customers who are unaware of their problems or are not actively seeking solutions. Many marketers prioritize demand generation, but budget holders often question the impact of the brand building process on growth, leading to underfunded brand building efforts.
Short-term focus over long-term partnerships: While closing deals is essential, neglecting sustainable, long-term growth is a mistake. Building strong relationships with customers helps with retention and guarantees long-term revenue. It also opens opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. Transitioning from merely acquiring customers to truly earning their trust emphasizes the importance of brand building, reputation, and reliability. Thus, a balanced approach that addresses both brand and demand ensures your marketing efforts create enough awareness to capture demand and set you up for long-term success.
Too Much Focus on Brand Building Process – The Pitfalls
Focusing solely on B2B brand building strategies can also lead to missed goals. It’s crucial to strike a balance between the brand building process and demand activities for building brand awareness, driving demand, and winning over the entire buying committee. Brand building strategies for B2B businesses are essential for differentiating your company and making a lasting impact. However, simply investing in brand building without connecting it to demand generation can leave gaps in your marketing efforts. Efferent brand building should not just create recognition but also influence the decision-making process of potential buyers at all stages of their journey.
Not every committee member will feel the same about your brand simultaneously. As they recognize their needs and seek solutions, their biases toward brands will evolve. If you concentrate too much on building your brand and neglect demand generation, buyers may appreciate your brand but struggle to see how your solution addresses their specific problems. Brand building must go hand in hand with clear messaging that speaks to buyer pain points, helping your audience connect the dots between your brand promise and the solutions you offer. Demand generation is necessary to create urgency and motivate buyers to choose your solution.
Striking the Right Balance Between Brand and Demand With an ABM Approach
Connecting with buyers through problem-awareness content for building your brand affinity and positioning you as a knowledgeable and trustworthy source. Demand creation is about getting buyers to consider a solution, while demand capture is about getting them to choose you. To boost sales power, invest in building your brand regularly. Recent data suggests allocating 60% of your marketing budget to the brand and 40% to demand for optimal results. A balanced brand to demand approach, coupled with a data-driven account-based strategy, helps you establish awareness and deliver a customer experience that converts.
Use data to identify early-stage accounts: Data is essential for understanding which accounts are in the early stages of seeking a solution and identifying the key decision-makers within those accounts. By leveraging historical performance, technographic, and intent data, you can pinpoint accounts with the highest potential to purchase. This data-driven approach not only helps in lead generation but also plays a critical role in brand building. Use these insights to create detailed buyer personas and tailor your content strategy to address their specific pain points and needs, reinforcing your brand’s relevance and value in their decision-making process.
Implement a multi-channel strategy: An effective brand to demand strategy involves reaching buyers before they start their buying. process and maintaining trust throughout their journey. A multi-channel approach ensures consistent content and messaging that builds brand awareness and keeps you top-of-mind. Emerging marketing and advertising channels like Connected TV (CTV) can accelerate the buying journey by reaching buyers early and providing multiple touchpoints. Integrating CTV into your awareness campaign helps improve brand recall and move buyers closer to conversion.
Measure and optimize the campaign: Monitoring how early-stage accounts engage with your content is vital for optimizing your brand building efforts. Track metrics such as website visits, content downloads, and social media interactions specific to target accounts. Analyzing patterns and trends allows you to refine your approach and enhance ROI. Measure account progression through stages of the buyer’s journey and gather feedback to assess marketing effectiveness.
Accelerate Account Conversions With a Unified Brand to Demand Strategy
Marketers have long grappled with the challenge of balancing brand building and demand-generation efforts. Often, the pressure to meet immediate sales targets forces brand initiatives to take a backseat to short-term, demand-driven activities aimed at filling the sales pipeline. But what are the four essential components of building a successful brand? Consistency, differentiation, emotional connection, and value—when applied effectively, these elements will ensure your brand resonates at every touchpoint, enabling you to convert early-stage interest into long-term
The importance of brand building in B2B cannot be overstated. Building brand awareness early in the buyer’s journey is essential for capturing attention. A well-executed brand building campaigns ensures that your brand is consistently visible and memorable, helping you to stay top-of-mind as buyers’ progress through their journey. This is where Account-Based Marketing (ABM) comes into play. ABM is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between brand and demand by fostering meaningful, lasting connections with your target audience. It allows you to create a cohesive brand experience that not only attracts interest but also guides potential customers through every stage of the funnel with consistent, personalized interactions.
When discussing the key elements of brand building in marketing, it’s important to focus on creating a unified strategy that incorporates messaging, consistency, and value. These elements serve as the foundation for establishing a strong brand identity that resonates with prospects. Building a brand story is central to this process, helping to create an emotional connection with your audience. By implementing a unified brand to demand strategy, you can pre-emptively engage prospects through content personalization, ensuring your brand is top-of-mind when they’re ready to buy. This approach not only strengthens building brand awareness but also fuels sustained pipeline growth and revenue. It’s about more than just closing deals—it’s about cultivating long-term relationships that drive business success. A successful brand building campaigns integrates both brand awareness and demand generation, creating a seamless journey for your target audience. If you’re looking for brand building services to help elevate your presence and reputation in the B2B space, partnering with experts can ensure a well-rounded strategy that covers all aspects of brand awareness, engagement, and demand generation.
Conclusion
In today’s complex B2B landscape, the key to success lies in balancing brand building with demand generation. While demand activities may drive short-term results, a strong brand presence is crucial for long-term growth and establishing trust with potential buyers early in their journey. By integrating a unified brand to demand strategy, especially through an account-based marketing (ABM) approach, you can create a seamless customer experience that not only captures attention but also drives conversions. This strategy ensures that your brand remains relevant and top-of-mind, paving the way for sustained pipeline growth, stronger customer relationships, and lasting business success.
Interested in learning more? Connect with us to strengthen your B2B brand and demand strategy and reach your ideal leads.
