Grab your sequinned jacket and picture yourself on a game of Family Fortunes. If your category came up, would your brand be the reflex answer? Some brands certainly would - name a fast-food restaurant: McDonald’s, a cleaning product: Cif. Now let’s try B2B; name an integrated solutions provider. Don’t all buzz at once. 

Has B2B’s convention of chasing short-term click-through rates come at the expense of building enduring mental availability that guarantees a spot in Family Fortunes’ top 5? 

Of course the role of short-term marketing has its place, identifying prospects and capturing their information. But in a world where 95% of the prospects you reach are out-of-market and won’t buy for months or even years long-lasting brand recall is crucial. Creative and distinctive marketing is the stuff that embeds in the neocortex, bringing the brand rushing to the fore when someone comes anywhere close to a buying mindset. Research from Bain & Company shows that 80-90% of buyers have a list of vendors in mind before doing any research, and 90% choose a vendor from that Day 1 list (ii) so you literally need to be in it to win it.

Yet despite this, lead generation – with its eyes squarely fixed on speedy metrics and short-term outcomes – get upwards of 80% of B2B advertising budgets (iii). A recent LinkedIn survey of 4,000 global marketers unveiled another startling stat: a mere 4% extend their campaign measurement efforts beyond the six-month mark (iv). 

All of which suggests many B2B brands have either lost sight of, or not spotted, the importance of connecting with customers in the long-term. There’s not enough focus on fostering loyalty, solidifying authority and building an indelible presence.

It pays to remember you can’t ‘force’ prospective buyers down a rigid sales funnel when they’re not primed to buy. But, as brand expert Professor Jenni Romaniuk puts it, you can ‘capture buyers as they naturally progress’. For that to work, you need to create a lasting imprint; you need to be the first brand that comes to mind at that critical inflection point.

Creativity serves as a catalyst for memory. Our job is to ensure that branded comms break through people’s attention filters, allowing a brand and its assets to be not only noticed but also firmly imprinted in memory. The goal isn’t to create clickable brands but to make a lasting impression on your future customers so your business is the ‘reflex go-to’ that springs to mind when they’re ready to buy. An easy way to remember this principle is that new leads come from old follows. Be active, be patient, be interesting - no ‘uh-uh’ buzzers on our watch

References

https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/b2b-institute/b2b-research/trends/95-5-rule

ii What B2Bs Need to Know About Their Buyers by Saber Sherrard, Rishi Dave and Mollie Parker MacGregor in The Harvard Business Review

iii Nigel Hollis, Jon Lombardo and Rachel Abbe B2B institute: the CMO scorecard

iv LinkedIn survey of 4,000+ global marketers The Case for Creativity