What's the smartest way to use your budget in B2B marketing? What makes the most impact? Follow your heart, says The B2B Institute.
There is too little emotion in B2B marketing.
This is at least one of the conclusions in the report "The B2B Effectivenes Code" from the LinkedIn think tank The B2B Institute.
After looking at a large amount of data from B2B marketing internationally in the period 2010-2021, they believe they have simply found that B2B companies spend too much time and resources on short-term, rational and sales-triggering marketing and too little on what is long-term, brand-building and emotional.
It's not really that strange. B2B companies live by selling. Their day-to-day survival depends on it. But in the struggle for survival, most people de-prioritize, or forget, what provides the most growth for B2B brands in the long run: Long-term, broad, story-driven and emotional branding.
It's simply about becoming top of mind with all those who aren't potential buyers today, but who could be in the future.
The promise of B2B marketing
Don't worry, no one is telling you to drop the short-term activities and plow your entire marketing budget into big, pathos-filled campaigns. But you can't do that. You need good leads. You need to sell. You need to reach those who are actually willing to pay today.
What the report does say, however, is that there is a golden rule for how much you should spend short-term and targeted and how much you should spend long-term and broad: 55/45.
Slightly more than half of the marketing budget should be spent on short-term, sales-triggering activities and performance marketing. The other half should be spent on larger, brand-building campaigns and initiatives.
And in the last 45 percent, there needs to be more room for storytelling, emotion and humor. Big ideas and emotions are what make people care about brands. It's what makes you remembered. Rationality and facts are best suited to the 55% with today marketing.
Do as the B2C companies do: Let people feel!
The most important thing to remember
The report can be briefly summarized in these three main points:
- The 55/45 rule works.
- Budget, channel spread and duration = impact. The report calls it Creative Commitment. This means the size of the budget, the number of channels and the duration of the campaign. And the higher the Creative Commitment, the greater the impact of the campaign. If you can't increase the budget, you should increase the number of channels and the duration.
- The effectiveness ladder (they call it The B2B Effectiveness Ladder) is a good tool for prioritizing correctly. It's a ladder with six rungs, where each rung is a type of effect that B2B marketing creates. It goes from least (1) to most (6) commercially effective over time. On rungs 1-3 are short-term and sales-triggering marketing. Brand-building campaigns and initiatives are in stages 4-6.
B2B impact ladder:
6: Strategic resources: Creative platforms that create long-term growth. Examples: Shop Small by American Express and IBM's Smarter Planet.
5: Brand builders. Examples: This campaign from UPS and this one from the University of Melbourne.
4: Attention builders: Generates awareness and media coverage. Example: FearlessGirl on Wall Street.
3: Sales triggers: Converts demand into sales.
2: Lead generators: Creates more qualified leads.
1: Response triggers: Stimulates a response or action.
Think about it: Which step do you spend the most money on? Which step do you wish you spent more on? What will it take to get you there? By asking yourself these questions, the impact ladder helps you prioritize budgets and resources.
By the way, you can find more examples of what The B2B Institute considers to be best practice at the various stages inthe report.