In B2B, a new hot topic has emerged – how to connect brand and demand. Kelly Olson at The MX Group explains why this connection matters and how to ‘think’ about it.
When B2B marketers start by thinking about customer experience, a synergy can emerge, explains Olson
Over recent years, B2B marketers have awakened to the importance when attracting customers, talent, and investors to their businesses of brand distinction and awareness. We’ve seen the evidence of their successes in the meteoric rise of B2B brands in the FutureBrand Index, which has charted the growth in importance of brands in energy, infrastructure, technology, and more.
Now, a new hot topic has emerged – how to connect brand and demand. I hear it everywhere around me – in B2B forums, from speakers at conferences, as a core ask in RFPs. There’s a buzz in the air around it and justifiably so. Marketers want to ensure that brand marketing leads to revenue. That’s where demand has always come in – converting interested buyers into customers.
Creating this brand-to-demand connection doesn’t feel obvious to many marketers. It seems clear to me that fragmented thinking is what gets in the way. Too many marketers think of brand marketing as creating distinction and building trust, while they see demand marketing as sharing targeted content to lure in and capture a lead. This is separatist thinking, and it must be overcome – even if, or perhaps especially if, the team is structured according to tactical efforts, such as brand, demand, digital, content, or customer experience.
Because here’s the truth. All marketing efforts should spring from a singular source, and when that happens, the connection becomes clear – that source is brand.
Brand is not formed through awareness marketing alone. Brand is formed through every interaction the customer has with your company: from their experience online, to their conversation with sales, and the messages they see in the media. That means the experience you create across every team and every touchpoint, either intentionally or not, contributes to creating your brand. To create true market distinction, to have your audience not only hear you but trust you and be compelled to act, buy, and renew – for your business to grow – you should focus on experience.
This is what I call ‘experience thinking,’ and it can help marketers to rise above organizational silos and the complexity of B2B, which can inadvertently lead them to create market noise rather than a beacon of their brand.
Experience thinking requires a shift in perspective.
Experience thinking demands that marketers rise out of the tactical execution of the job and turn their brand’s promise into their company’s passion. It must be lived, breathed, and actioned. Think for a moment about the difference between a leader guided by their passion and one who is not. It shows up in their behavior and the quality of their work. The same goes for your brand. It’s time for marketers to define and rally their company around their unique promise. Because when that shared passion is at the root of every act in the experience, it will be felt by your audience and, like a center of gravity, pull them in and keep them close.
Experience thinking demands a pivot from wanting to deliver maximum value to recognizing that experiences are built in the interaction between a brand and an audience: they are two-sided and require dialogue, exchange of value, mutual support, and so on. There is no denying that the business agenda is important, but if it’s allowed to dominate decision-making, that one-sidedness will be felt by the audience. Instead, put all your marketing decisions through a shared-value lens and only act if it truly adds value to the relationship. I guarantee this will push your work in the direction of true value versus fluff, quality versus quantity, and long-term fixes versus short-term band aids. In other words, the stuff that makes powerful experiences.
Finally, experience thinking demands that marketers rise out of the silos in which they execute and start instead by thinking about the experience they want to create. It can’t be that the brand team is working on this, the demand team is working on that, and so on across the marketing org. Marketers must focus on what the lifecycle experience with their brand should fulfill, and then work across marketing categories or organizational silos to bring that holistic experience to life. Annual and quarterly planning must begin cross-functionally with a team aligned to a shared vision for the total experience. Teams must work against KPIs that ladder up to shared business goals. This will set a north star and help create connections across activities from their very foundation – which will then lead to a clear brand signal and a compelling audience experience.
The MX Group
The MX Group is the second-largest independent B2B marketing agency in the U.S. Our mission is to impact the marketplace for companies that impact the world. For...
