B2B Brand Management: Fueling Growth through Empathy, Storytelling, and Customer Relationships
In recent years, B2B marketers have faced numerous challenges, from budget cuts to the lack of alignment between sales and…
In recent years, B2B marketers have faced numerous challenges, from budget cuts to the lack of alignment between sales and marketing teams. It may seem logical to focus on conversion ads and performance marketing, but in B2B industries, the significance of brand management is paramount. A strong brand can deepen customer relationships, improve return on marketing investment, and augment customer lifetime value. We’re having this discussion precisely because we’ve moved budgets to secure short-term wins without considering their potential impact on future growth.
Brand marketing can be just as effective for B2B companies as it is for consumer companies, according to a recent survey by BCG and Google. In fact, 97% of respondents believe that brand marketing plays an important role in creating awareness and consideration, and 95% say that it can help a company differentiate itself from competitors. This is a stark contrast to the common perception that B2B branding is less important than consumer branding. In reality, B2B brands need to go far beyond demand generation, which might be excellent for short-term awareness but not for long-term growth.
You can rest easy; I’m not putting up Simon Sinek videos. The whole “Start with the Why” had its time in the sun, but I don’t personally see it as a “must have” for everyone. The concept of “leading with purpose” also lacks universal acceptance. Even Unilever’s backed off the idea, with its CEO, Hein Schumacher, clearly stating, “Purpose can be an ‘unwelcome distraction’ for some brands and ‘irrelevant’ for others.” Don’t get me wrong, it has its merits — but it’s not the magical brand growth on steroids people make it out to be.
If you’re late to the party, that’s okay. I got you. Sometimes the most difficult step is figuring out where to start. So, let’s start at the beginning. Take stock of where we are and where we need to be.
The past two years have been a time of immense change for B2B marketers. Since 2023, B2B brands have had to learn to do more with less — but many B2B companies are not sufficiently mature in their brand marketing capabilities, which presents an opportunity for aggressive companies to invest in brand building activities.
The trend heavily shifted in favor of performance marketing as B2B companies grew increasingly focused on metrics like click-through rates and conversion. Traffic, organic or otherwise, became an abused metric, which led to SEO/SEM being gamified. Long before AI became the convenient scapegoat, the quality of content had already declined significantly. The aspect of brand building—critical for sustainable growth and competitive differentiation — got sidelined.
Now we have B2B companies struggling with diminished brand awareness and equity, and relinquishing market share to new entrants in the space.
To pivot from this dependency and reboot its brand marketing strategies, B2B companies need to view brand as a pivotal growth engine. This shift allows for scalable growth and a deeper understanding of the buyer’s journey, offering a competitive edge through differentiated branding that leaves a lasting impression.
A strong brand presence reduces the need for customers to spend extra time and effort evaluating choices, simplifying the decision-making process. With established brand familiarity, potential buyers don’t need to search extensively, either internally (in terms of thought and consideration) or externally (through alternative sources). Their existing perception of the brand—its quality, reliability, and attributes—allows them to make informed assumptions, reducing the friction in moving forward with a purchase. In this way, B2B branding not only strengthens customer trust but also accelerates the buying journey, maximizing potential revenue. (Source: Keller, dentsu B2B)
Bet you didn’t think brand perception within the company could also affect the CAC (hiring) and LTV (retention) of talented employees.
Research has shown that brand familiarity and positive associations sourced from the buyer’s memory have a proportionately greater influence on the shortlist considered. This highlights the importance of building a strong brand identity and creating content that is relevant and memorable. While ABM may provide a starting point, brand building sets the stage for success.
Kevin Lane Keller has an entire set of report cards and models that brand managers can deploy to make sure that the brand-as-growth engine fires on all cylinders. His books are a great place to start if you want to learn about it in detail. The maturity and growth stage of your business and brand will ultimately determine how much of it is relevant right now, but it’s never too late to plan the future roadmap. While this isn’t a deep dive into any of the concepts, we can still cover a few that can help you get started.
Brand positioning is central to any marketing strategy. It involves crafting the company’s offerings and image to secure a unique and valued space in the minds of target customers. Positioning essentially means identifying a “location” in the audience’s perception where they think of a product or service in a way that maximizes its potential impact.
Effective brand positioning helps shape marketing strategy by clarifying what the brand represents, how it stands out, and why it’s worth choosing over competitors. Determining positioning involves identifying the target market, understanding the competition, and pinpointing key points-of-parity and points-of-difference.
A successful positioning balances present realities with future aspirations, giving the brand space to evolve while staying connected to current market conditions. Good positioning appeals both to rational and emotional factors, striking a harmony that resonates with both “head” and “heart.”
In practice, brand positioning isn’t static; it must evolve to keep up with unforeseen opportunities or challenges. A planned position might require adjustment, or even significant revision, as unexpected shifts arise. Cultural dynamics, user innovations, and trends, as seen with LEGO’s brand reinvention, can shape and renew a brand’s identity.
A “realized brand position”—a blend of strategic intent and organic brand evolution—is the result of balancing a top-down brand vision with bottom-up influences, from cultural shifts to everyday interpretations by customers.
Note: This section on brand positioning is a blend of ideologies from Kevin Lane Keller and Michael Beverland. See citations at the end of the post.
Between fragmented media, consumer attention, and the increased complexity in marketing, teams both large and small have their hands full. A holistic marketing framework that prioritizes accountability is one of the most effective methods for constructing, implementing, and monitoring all the moving parts.
Technology, brand, and globalization are considered the top drivers for integrated marketing communications (IMC). The framework reinforces the need for brands and branding, pushes for customer-centricity, a global approach, and my second favorite aspect of IMC — measurement and accountability. The first is brand, in case it hasn’t been abundantly clear.
IMC imperatives that overlap with Keller’s framework to measure equity:
* Not an exhaustive list
IMC principles mirror Keller’s call for strategy that has one step in the present, and one in the future — especially when looking at an organization’s cash flow. With business intelligence and prescience being key to long-term success, adopting a framework that integrates forward-thinking from the get-go is a smart move.
Companies need to create narratives that genuinely resonate, fostering stronger customer relationships and loyalty. Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, both giants in the field, have long held the belief that the marketing mix must serve brands. A “how-to” for brand storytelling isn’t the focus of this article so let’s look at a few quick examples.
Involving digital content creators like Karen X Cheng helps brands like McDonald’s create marketing campaigns that are authentic and culturally resonant by leveraging the creator’s deep understanding and connection with the targeted audience. Such creators have a pulse on cultural nuances and can provide creative input that reflects the values and traditions of significant events like the Lunar New Year.
Collaborating with respected digital creators in their communities enhances the brand’s cultural credibility and enables genuine engagement with its audience. This partnership approach allows McDonald’s to tailor its messaging and visuals to resonate more deeply with the cultural significance of the event and foster a stronger emotional connection with its audience
See Also: McDonald’s Lunar New Year Experience | Spatial
VR and metaverse technologies elevate traditional storytelling by transforming static narratives into dynamic, interactive experiences that fully immerse the audience. These technologies utilize cutting-edge 3D graphics and photorealistic imagery to create hyper-realistic environments that captivate players and enhance their engagement with the story.
By enabling seamless control and interaction with game characters through physical actions, VR draws users deeper into the narrative, effectively bridging the gap between the physical and digital experiences. This immersive form of storytelling, exemplified by narrative-focused games like Lone Echo and Horizon Call of the Mountain allows brands to craft stories that engage audiences on intellectual and emotional levels, making them feel personally invested in the brand experience.
By integrating choice-driven, interactive dialogue options, these technologies create personalized narratives that resonate more deeply with users, ultimately leading to a new era of brand realism, transmedia storytelling, and audience connection.
Measuring the impact of brand marketing for B2B companies requires a comprehensive approach that doesn’t prioritize traditional metrics. Effective brand marketing in a B2B context establishes meaningful relationships and fosters deep customer engagement. This involves a shift to a more nuanced understanding of how brand initiatives align with customer sentiments and deliver on shared values.
To achieve this, brand and business leadership must establish a holistic brand equity measurement framework that includes metrics such as customer sentiment, brand recall, and customer lifetime value, among others. Each company will have elements that either form its competitive advantage or won’t fit traditional templates. Define success and the metrics you need to achieve it. If that means creating compound metrics or a time-series analysis to bring context to the measurement, have at it.
When blended with creativity, analytics empower marketers to not only discern patterns in customer behavior but also innovate to address unmet needs. All marketing functions should integrate data-driven strategies to guarantee a smooth and uniform customer journey.
Most importantly, remember that it’s an iterative process. Measurement in marketing should always be treated as an ongoing process for continuous refinement and repositioning, not as a final assessment.
Brand vs. performance is not an ‘either-or’ situation. Performance marketers must work in tandem with brand marketers to ensure they are pursuing the same growth priorities for the same target audiences. By re-framing performance marketing and brand building as complementary forces rather than oppositional, B2B companies can achieve a holistic understanding of their market impact and leverage this insight to drive enduring value.
The peril of viewing brand marketing and performance marketing as a zero-sum game—or a dilemma of either-or—undermines the potential of both. Mark Ritson believes this shortsightedness stemmed from innovations by digital suppliers that emphasized immediate ROI and pushed marketers toward short-term gains (such as quick sales spikes), overshadowing long-term brand-building initiatives, which are harder to measure but potentially more impactful over time.
“By going short, most marketers did make more money in the upcoming year, but most also started to lose potential profit in year two and onwards. But their effectiveness myopia obscured them from seeing this tragic state of affairs and wedded them to making the same mistake every year that followed.” Mark Ritson — Marketing Week
As long as they are “holding” and not being “held.”
Executives at major companies have expressed concerns about this imbalance, noting the loss of “brand narrative” due to the dominance of performance marketing.
Aligning performance marketing with brand-growth strategies ensures accountability for both approaches. This means testing performance-marketing campaigns for its impact on brand metrics both before and after execution. One approach is structural equation modeling — which is great for identifying key drivers of desired outcomes, and form brand equity scores. It can enable businesses to quantify both the direct and indirect effects of brand positioning and activation on brand equity’s four key elements: familiarity, regard, meaning, and uniqueness.
But like most things, measurement strategies aren’t one-size-fits-all either.
Another crucial aspect is the measurement of total ROI, which traditionally only accounts for short-term metrics like sales and leads, neglecting the impact on brand equity and long-term value growth. By upgrading brand metrics to include positioning, emotional attributes, functional benefits, and experiential qualities, companies can bridge the gap between brand building and performance marketing, thus making them work together rather than competing as short-term versus long-term objectives.
“You have to produce results in the short term. But you have to produce results in the long term too. And the long-term is not simply the adding up of short-terms” — Peter Drucker
B2B companies must navigate the transition from performance-centric strategies to balanced marketing approaches that prioritize brand integrity and customer loyalty. By investing in brand as a growth engine and embedding data-driven insights across marketing functions, companies can rejuvenate their brand efforts. This strategic transition promises not only immediate performance gains but also enduring growth—a blueprint for distinction and sustainability in a competitive marketplace.
In summary, the core task at hand is not just selling a product or service but crafting an enduring narrative and connection with customers, ensuring the brand remains vivid and valued long after the transaction is complete. This strategic pivot holds the key to overcoming reliance on performance metrics and ultimately fostering a brand that customers remember, trust, and turn to time and again.
The key to creating messaging tailored to your audience’s needs is understanding their specific problems and desires. By mapping the customer profile and identifying their pains, gains, and jobs to be done, businesses can develop messaging that speaks directly to their needs and preferences. Frameworks like Jobs-to-Be-Done, Value Proposition Canvas, and AIDA Model are particularly helpful in this regard.
Consolidating data allows marketers to better understand their target audience, enabling them to create more granular targeting and personalized messaging strategies. This leads to better engagement and higher conversion rates. By understanding and segmenting their audiences, B2B companies can tailor their marketing efforts, content, and communication to address the specific needs and preferences of their clients, helping them stay competitive in the market.
To implement a B2B marketing strategy that improves brand authority, it is crucial to showcase industry expertise, thought leadership, and trustworthiness. Content marketing, relationship building, and strong customer support are essential components in achieving this. By providing valuable information to clients, engaging with industry peers and influencers, and consistently delivering on promises, B2B companies can establish themselves as authorities in their fields.
Beverland, M. (2018). Brand Management: Co-creating Meaningful Brands. SAGE.
Keller, K. L. (2015). Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity.
Keller, K. L., & Swaminathan, V. (2020). Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity.
Mandel, J. (2023). Brand Strategy in Three Steps: A Purpose-Driven Approach to Branding. Kogan Page.
Ritson, M. (2023, February 6). Brand-building ads boost short-term sales, and now you can prove it. Marketing Week. https://www.marketingweek.com/ritson-brand-building-boost-short-term-sales/
Schultz, D., & Schultz, H. (2004). IMC, The Next Generation: Five Steps for Delivering Value and Measuring Returns Using Marketing Communication. McGraw-Hill.
The greatest trick the ad industry pulled was to convince challenger brands that performance marketing was the only path to success. I write about how to build brands that stand the test of time, recession, and every shiny new thing. I'm building something amazing over at LOTH.AL and at flybyXR. Follow me on LinkedIn or sign up for the newsletter.
