20.7
7.5
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34.1
M
1
$
Brand building is a budget priority for my organisation
%
44.7
Head of enterprise solutions
LinkedIn
Tunji Akintokun
While there’s a growing recognition of the importance of long-term branding and customer relationships, the immediate pressure to deliver results in the short term often drives marketers to make those more performance-driven decisions.
Marketing director
Hiscox
Fiona Mayo
It’s not that short-term tactics equals bad. It’s just that short-term tactics are more effective when they are primed with brand activity.
Head of marketing
Addleshaw Goddard
Brian Macreadie
A lot of marketers have had 10 years of being sold a content marketing and performance marketing dream – and have had 10 years of not being educated on brand.
5. Making the case for brand
While much is made of B2B businesses becoming more brand marketing savvy, the analysis shows the pressure to deliver short-term wins remains as fierce as ever.
Much is said about B2B brands becoming more creative and investing in brand, but in reality marketers are split as to whether this is playing out in their business.
While more than two-fifths of respondents report brand building is a budget priority for their organisation, half (50.2%) say it isn’t – a figure which is consistent regardless of the size of business.
Some 52.4% of the sample claim short-term marketing – defined as delivering within a six-month timeline – is the main or partial focus for their business. By comparison, less than a fifth (16.1%) say the same about long-term campaigns.
It is perhaps telling that more than a third (36.4%) of marketers within SMEs (250 employees and under) and 44.8% of their peers in large organisations say their business doesn’t understand brand building.
The length and complexity of B2B sales cycles could be in part to blame. It can take, for example, six years to supplant an incumbent brand – maybe even longer in some sectors – but marketers are being measured on what they deliver within a given year. The timeframes don’t match, making ROI harder to prove.
• Brand marketing is without doubt getting more attention within the B2B community and while some firms are keen to embrace it, economic pressures are making this harder.
55.6
%
34.4
%
My business understands the value of brand building
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If the CEO and CFO had a better understanding of marketing it would be easier to gain investment
Lessons
%
My company’s focus is on short-term marketing goals (less than six months)
%
My company’s focus is on long-term marketing goals (more than six months)
%
If the CEO and CFO understood marketing metrics it would be easier to gain investment
• In a business environment which prizes immediate results, there isn’t always patience within companies to see how long-term campaigns will play out. It is therefore important to use data to make a strong case for brand marketing, demonstrating the long-term benefits can be really powerful. As ever, embracing commercial language is essential and using robust measurement tools will help.
• An overreliance on performance marketing in some businesses has contributed to a lack of knowledge about how to get the best out of brand. However, the solution is not about either/or. Marketers are encouraged to strike a balance between short-term sales driving activity and long-term brand building. If Binet and Field’s 60/40 rule (60% brand building to 40% short-term activity) doesn’t work for your business, find the balance that does.
• Ultimately, B2B customers are thinking ever more like B2C consumers, making brand an essential part of the marketing arsenal.
Marketers on getting the balance right