A study shows brand awareness tops lead generation for B2B marketers, but many fall short in meeting buyer expectations for identity and customer experience.
According to a Dentsu study on B2B buying decisions, the brand has “never been more important” in B2B marketing. The report explains that this is because the value of lead generation has come under increasing fire. In 2021, B2B marketers ranked ‘demand generation/driving and converting leads’ as the third most important factor in future strategy. But this has now dropped to the seventh most important.
At the same time, ‘raising brand awareness/top of funnel performance’ has jumped from the sixth most important factor influencing future strategy in 2021 to the most crucial in 2024.
However, the report also identifies a large gulf between buyers’ and marketers’ perceptions of brand identity. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of B2B marketers rate their performance as strong for ‘communicating a distinct brand position or strong USP,’ but buyers do not agree. More than two-thirds (68%) of buyers believe ‘many of the brands I see at work have very similar marketing and communications messages—they all sound and act the same.’ This sentiment among buyers has increased by eight percentage points since 2021.
The research also suggests the need for brands to be seen as thought leaders is rapidly rising. Last year, it ranked as the 20th most important buyer decision driver, but it has rocketed to third this year.
However, only 26% of B2B brands are rated highly by buyers for their thought leadership, with the study suggesting this is a “big opportunity” for brands that get it right to set themselves apart. Despite its perceived importance, buyers’ impression of B2B brands’ thought leadership skills is not improving. The same number (26%) rated B2B brands highly in this area last year, down from 31% in 2022.
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The brand, known as a good employer and seen as a proxy for trustworthiness, has also risen quickly, moving from the 10th most important factor in 2023 to second.
Based on 14,000 interviews with B2B buyers over four years, the research again finds that feeling safe signing a contract is the top consideration when making buying decisions.
Digging into this further, participants, who were asked to measure recent buying experiences against 30 “decision drivers,” added they wanted it to be easy to convince colleagues about a brand’s credentials and “reassured” by the brand’s track record.
Brands have gradually become important in B2B marketing. Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo, formerly of LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and founders of Evidenza, have written for Marketing Week about “the Flippening,” which they describe as the “magical moment when B2B businesses realize that brand marketing creates much more financial value than so-called ‘performance marketing’, and B2B CMOs start allocating at least 51% of their budget to top-of-funnel activities”.
Research by LinkedIn’s B2B institute has also helped to change perceptions of marketing in B2B firms. Marketing Week will explore this in more detail as part of our State of B2B Marketing study.
Experience matters
The research also finds that experience can shorten the sales cycle, which it suggests is particularly important as buyer inertia is a growing problem. The study says the average decision time has increased by 54 days since 2021.
Once taking other factors like the size of the business and variable lead times for categories into consideration, it finds decisions are significantly quicker where “B2B brand experiences excel at hybrid experiences, blending strong digital and human interactions the initial interaction with the brand is strong, and where essential credentials of the brand are quickly established”. This is estimated to shave 16 weeks off the decision-making time.
Also Read: Why Customer Experience, Onboarding, and Design Aren’t the Keys to B2B Growth
Personal decision drivers also now outweigh professional drivers’ importance for the first time. “Experiences that are tailored to the buyers’ needs are more effective, and maturing technology allows brands to increasingly deliver this personalization at scale,” according to the study.
The percentage of buyers who agree that they would like business suppliers to spend more time trying to understand clients and how to solve day-to-day problems has risen from 67% in 2022 to 71% in 2024, while B2B brands have not been improving at tailoring their offerings to meet customers’ needs. Only 39% are highly satisfied with the brand they chose in terms of this measurement in 2024, a 4% decrease from 43% in 2022.
