New research from the LinkedIn B2B Institute and System1 reveals 75% of B2B brands are failing to produce advertising with the potential to drive long-term growth.
Research has demonstrated the value that branding can create for B2B marketers. Customers with strong connections to B2B brands have higher rates of consideration, purchase, and willingness to pay a premium.
Today, customers typically learn on their own through digital channels. Through a simple search, customers can easily identify the leading suppliers in a field and evaluate if any can meet the customer’s needs. Suppliers have responded by focusing their B2B brand messages on customers’ business outcomes. These messages aim to convey superior business value. Only after establishing the benefit to the customer are the features of the supplier presented.
But does the communication trigger decision making?
“Marketing in B2B in many cases already isn’t taken seriously by product, engineering or sales because it isn’t seen as the money end of the business. When you put out that sort of [one-star] creative it only weakens your case,” states global lead at the LinkedIn B2B Institute Jon Lombardo in an article published by MarketingWeek.
“In fact, an inability to see creativity as a major profit multiplier could mean B2B brands are sacrificing their chance at long-term, sustainable growth”, he continues.
Our attitude to modern business is fuelling the misconception that a B2B purchase is a far more rational process than it really is. B2B marketers may think their customers are obsessed with specifications, pricing and making objective decisions, when in fact there will be emotions at play. In many cases the stakes are very high, which only adds to the emotion.
“There’s a lot more on the line in a B2B decision. There’s a much greater cost to the buyer of making a mistake, which means these are more emotional decisions.”
Peter Weinberg, LinkedIn B2B Institute
To push through change and bring the wider business on board with the need for emotional storytelling and left-brained thinking, B2B marketers should ditch terminology like ‘brand purpose’ and ‘brand love’, and start speaking the language of money, says Peter Weinberg at LinkedIn B2B Institute.
“Creative is always going to be the most scrutinised thing a marketer invests in because it seems like ‘arts and crafts’, but what this research really shows is that creative is the biggest driver of financial performance and is a major multiplier on profits,” he adds.
The LinkedIn B2B Institute’s webinar presenting the full results of the research can be watched here.
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