Creativity and connectivity: Why your brand strategy is crucial to your marketing goals

Alex Norbury, Group Managing Director, shares his thoughts about the importance of a strong brand strategy, challenges with audience conversion, and prioritising creativity to maximise engagement.

The link between brand strategy and market share.

We’re seeing brand and brand strategy attract a lot of attention among B2B marketers. But what’s driving this focus? Alex explains the correlation between brand strategy and market share:

“Brands are built in people’s minds. They exist as a complex and interconnected set of perceptions, feelings, and associations. To grow a brand in people’s minds, marketers need to consider how they want to make connections with customers and, over time, build the perceived value of the brand.

And the research makes it clear: the more deeply connected customers are to a brand, the larger the brand’s profitability and share of the market.

Unfortunately, short-termism has caused a huge expectation gap in our industry. Marketers want a quick return on their investment in demand generation and lead generation, especially. They expect a pipeline in quick time. But they’re not seeing conversions. There are several reasons why not.

For one, the market is filling up with players, and it’s more competitive than ever. More competition requires more spend. However, many brands are choosing to scale back their investments. Yet, still, marketers expect full pipelines. In fact, what they’re failing to realise is that the current conditions present them with a real opportunity. The brands that invest consistently; in other words, not in three short-term bursts; and the brands that increase and spread their investment, are the ones that stand to gain the most.

The takeout is clear: marketers need to step back from short-term tactics and unrealistic expectations.

The short-term pipeline is a pipe dream. Instead, marketers should adopt a longer-term approach, characterised by consistent investment and broader brand marketing. With a more expansive and holistic brand strategy, marketers stand a better chance of delivering long-term, sustainable growth.

B2B marketers need to look at their brands with new strategic intent and reimagine their brand strategies towards forging deeper, more meaningful connections with their customers over time. Why? Because come the day their customers are ready to buy, their brand will already be top of mind, and top of their Day One list.

Decision-makers are not what they used to be

If creativity looks set to play a greater role in marketing and brand strategy, how will it impact decision-makers?

Given the widespread changes that have reshaped the workplace in recent years, it’s hardly surprising that B2B decision-makers have changed too. Decision-making is drawing in more data, more consultation, and more consensus than ever before.

There’s a lot to be said for the democratisation of decision-making. However, it’s also true that it’s becoming more complex, not less. What’s interesting is that the complexity is starting to bring out character. Remember, the decision-making unit is not just a unit. It’s a multi-layered and characterful collection of individuals – all with their own traits and tendencies, egos and insecurities. In other words, it’s wonderfully human.

So, it follows that a strong brand strategy is humancentric. And by that, I mean it provides the people tasked with strategy implementation, with deep and fresh insight into the mentalities and personalities of the brand’s buyers.

Marketers need to move beyond personas and demographics, and realise that they can tailor their messaging, not only for individuals within the decision-making unit, but also align it with personality traits and personal motivations.” Alex also circles back to the importance of making meaningful connections with customers. But what does he think about making emotional connections with customers? 

Alex says: “When a brand creates an emotional connection with a customer, it can make all the difference at the moment of purchase. There’s compelling research that shows that B2B customers are significantly more emotionally connected with their B2B service providers than consumers. The reason is simple: B2B purchases are expensive. Making the wrong decision could cost a company millions. And for the decision makers, it could cost them their jobs. Simply put, B2B decisions are career-defining. What this shows is that B2B decision-making is driven, as much by emotional motivators, as rational ones. So then, you’d expect B2B brands to pursue emotional connections as part of their brand strategy, right? Yet, few do.

Know your audience

At Twogether, we wanted to investigate this in more depth. To show that decision-makers are human and motivated, emotionally. In partnership with the Financial Times, Twogether has published an insight report, to bring today’s B2B decision-makers to life. It provides a useful study of the personalities of the modern B2B decision-maker.

Creativity to the fore

A common objective across B2B marketing is to build brand engagement. But can creativity really deliver this end-goal? 

Creativity is the game-changer. It’s how you connect with customers, improve brand health and ultimately, drive growth. But creativity is not one thing. It’s multi-dimensional. You have to figure out which dimensions of creativity will help deliver higher-value content and have the most influence on your customers’ purchase behaviour.

As I said before, this means looking at brand strategy more holistically and moving away from short-term, tactical approaches that fail to deliver results.

At Twogether, we approach creativity as a science and an art. As pioneers in data-driven performance marketing; data, and data analysis, are in our DNA. We are focusing on helping our clients embrace the value of creative ideas. 

Because good ideas have longevity. And what marketer doesn’t want to build a brand that lasts forever?

Get in touch now to find out how you can take your brand strategy to the next level.