Ty Heath, director of market engagement at The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, presented a session on creativity in B2B marketing at Metadata 2022 last week. I don't think anyone would argue that marketing needs to be creative, but lately marketers are being told too often that they need to be data-driven first. Neither is bad, but there's something to be said for creativity because you're doing things other brands aren't doing (at least that's the idea). So I was curious about Heath's idea of creativity.
Heath said marketers always ask, "What are other people doing?" It is true that marketers pay attention to what is happening in their industry and how the competition is marketing. Then they go outside and do the same thing. Maybe it's a little different, but if it works for one brand, it will definitely work for yours, right? Why are you trying to reinvent your marketing campaign?
But marketers are asking the wrong question, Heath said. What they should be asking is, "What would anyone do?" He said that the most valuable ideas are the opposite ideas. The key is that the opposite view must be correct. If it's wrong, you're in trouble.
How do you know if a conflicting approach is the right approach for your marketing? The B2B Institute examines business-to-business marketing trends, and of the 30 identified, Heath shares five opposing trends you should consider.
Direction 1: Base 95-5
Heath said consumers are either in the market (actively looking to buy) or out of the market (not looking to buy). In any case, 95 percent of buyers in the category are out of business. They are not thinking about your brand or your product.
Most retailers put their energy into the 5% that drives cash flow. But what they need to do is focus their time and energy on their prospective buyers. As Heath explains, it's about investing in long-term demand rather than short-term demand. Of course you have to do both, but most of the time in the market today is spent with such a small number of consumers that, Heath said, it limits what the brand can do.
Trend 2: Circumstantial awareness
Heath talked about the key conversion funnel that all marketers refer to when developing campaigns. The top of the conversion funnel is about awareness, and marketing is the activities that drive awareness and move people down the funnel to where they become customers. But it doesn't work that way when most of their ICPs aren't in the market, so their efforts to push them down the funnel are futile (they don't want to buy).
Heath introduced a new way of looking at the funnel as three stages of consciousness, starting at the bottom. At the bottom of the funnel is brand awareness as part of a category, in the middle is awareness, where a person names the brand when first assigning a category, at the top of the funnel is situational awareness, where the person recognizes the brand mention. the case is presented.
Our memories are situational, so marketers need to identify the triggers that make people think of your brand when they enter the market. To find the right situations, you can follow the 5W approach (shown below). Once identified, you connect your brand messages to these buying situations.
Trend #3: Product Fraud
Each brand believes that its product is the best and markets it based on the product's features and capabilities. But if you organize most of the products into one category, you'll find that they all work the same way; They have the same features, add-ons, etc.
I work with a CMO who says this about the products on the market: they are all essentially the same in that they must provide a specific set of features and capabilities to meet customer needs. As a result, you work hard to find ways to market that are not product-based.
In reality, Heath said, the best product for a customer is the one they know (which they describe as satisfying). No one has time to do extensive research on all the options, and most people understand that there is no such thing as a perfect product. A reasonably good product is somewhere between value and compromise; This is where most consumers land. So how do you make your product the only thing customers think of when they need it?
What is more important, interval or frequency? Heath has been involved in research that shows that it is better to reach more people than to reach fewer people more often. He said uncertainty reduces marginal returns.
Coverage is the smallest obstacle you need to increase your sales. Of course, Heath said, he's not the only one. There's also interest, memory and shopping, but you don't have much of a chance without hitting the ladder. This is also the first hurdle, he said.
Trend 5: High Performance Brands
The latest trend is getting a brand awareness budget. Measuring brand awareness isn't as easy as lead generation, but it's just as important. The way to get help with brand awareness is to do something called "performance branding."
Heath explained that the purpose of the performance brand is to create memory, not drive. It's about targeting mass and building memory, which is a long-term strategy. This makes the dimensions different (see examples below).
My opinion
Heath came up with some interesting ideas worth discussing with the marketing team. Many brands underestimate the value of brand awareness because it is difficult to measure. But we forget that many of the people we want to reach are not ready to buy, so we need to develop marketing strategies that keep the brand top.
When we think about it this way, lead generation and demand generation strategies can work better because we realize that we are not trying to generate revenue from consumers who are ready to buy.
The main purpose of content marketing is to share valuable content, make people think and evoke feelings (enough to create a memory). We can also do this through our advertising; It takes a bit more effort than ads to download ebooks or order product demos.
It is not enough to hide behind measurable strategies. We also have to work hard to create a memorable brand. It will be worth it in the long run.
