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Many marketers ended 2023 with hopes that their budgets would recover. But as 2024 begins, she warns against being swayed by optimism, even though there is still little money being spent on brands.
Recent survey data from Deloitte reveals growing optimism among marketers as we approach the end of 2023. B2B marketers seemed to have good reason to be so optimistic. The budget was on the rise again, and the revenue from brand awareness activities was his 30%. 36% was spent on lead generation.
But digging into these numbers reveals a different picture. While 30% appears to be dedicated to increasing brand awareness, 20% is targeting demand generation, and a further 15% is spent on account-based marketing, which is more effective. We are generating many potential customers. Realistically, 70% is invested in lead generation, leaving only his 30% for branding efforts.
I’m not angry, I’m disappointed (well, maybe a little angry). In the field of lead generation, data eliminates waste and positions marketing as an exact science where every result can be tied to a dollar amount. But for B2B marketers, it can mean wasting a lot of money. His 70% targets only 5% of the total target market who are actively buying at any given time.
B2B brands would be wise to spend more on memorable brand awareness campaigns with emotional, risk-taking creative and allocate more marketing budget to customer success teams.
Be brave and make it more memorable than a Sarah McLachlan ad
If you live in the US, you know what I’m talking about. It’s about a sad dog who asks, “Do you remember me?”That ad was effective because It was depressing. Recent research has shown that memory for information is enhanced when it has emotional relevance.
And we already mentioned that 95% of buyers aren’t ready to buy right now.Clearly, B2B brands need An awareness campaign that works on an emotional level to promote long-term memory and recall. It takes courage to do this.
At Scona, when we tell clients we want to help them build brave brands, they assume we mean “politically incorrect” or “irreverent.” This is not the case. But if you want to get noticed, you have to take risks. If there’s no chance someone will dislike it, it’s probably too safe.
MailChimp recently ran a spectacularly brave campaign. The email platform, titled “Email is Dead,” had an immersive exhibition at the Design Museum in London. This was dangerous! Everyone hates email. MailChimp acknowledged that, leaning wholeheartedly into what they know to be true. Still, email is an effective way to make connections. Some people may have disliked it, but it was definitely a memorable piece.
lesson? B2B customers can wait years to make a purchase. If you want to be remembered, take risks.
Brand generation: 2 budgets, 1 campaign
The worst thing about lead generation lies is that they falsely pit brand awareness against lead generation activities. That’s like saying offense and defense aren’t the same team. Instead, I like to focus on hybrids that I call “branded generations.”
Brand gen acknowledges that although these marketing efforts have different roles, they support the same goal of getting products into the hands of more people. Brand awareness campaigns create lasting memories and remind future customers long after the ad has ended. Without this long-term strategy and foundation-building, you risk disappearing after early adopters join.
Meanwhile, new customers entering the market are triggered by memories of previous campaigns and are drawn further down the funnel by lead generation activities. In both cases, your brand remains consistent and memorable.
Think of it this way, brand building is a key driver of long-term growth and profits. It also reduces price sensitivity and increases profit margins. Once you’ve built a desirable brand, you can charge a premium and no longer compete on price alone.
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Collaborate with sales and success teams for life (cycle) marketing
Brand Generation is more than just a marketing journey philosophy. It should be applied throughout the organization, especially if the product is expensive. Marketing doesn’t end when a demo is scheduled. The journey should be seamless.
This requires your sales team to buy in on the messaging and creative, so be sure to get feedback and input early and often. Ensure a smooth handoff from marketing to sales through (over)communication and provide sales teams with a marketing-aligned talk track. If you’re misaligned here, you risk losing potential customers, but if onboarding is easy, you can generate leads through the resulting recommendations.
If you’re still not convinced that you should invest less in lead generation, consider the higher-than-usual churn rates that the economic downturn has brought to the B2B world. This problem can be potentially fixed by giving your customer success team a marketing budget that allows them to tackle customer churn and retention from multiple (and parallel) angles.
Regardless of what 2024 brings, one thing that should keep marketing teams optimistic is the power of brands to retain and acquire new and old customers.
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