All right, welcome.Today we're talking about the counterintuitive way to build your B2B brand.Now there's a standard marketing playbook out there that seems very intuitive.
When most marketers think about driving growth, they believe they need to, one, narrowly target their prospects, two, Focus on promoting product features.Three, gate content to drive leads.Four, consistently refresh creative to grab attention.
And five, keep communicating with the prospect until they convert.Now we've all seen this playbook before.It's discussed all the time.But here's the problem.Even though that sounds intuitive, the research shows it's actually wrong.
So instead of doing that standard playbook, I'm gonna share five things we actually need to be doing to be building our brand. As I said, that standard marketing playbook, the one that we see discussed so often, sounds intuitive.
If we're just able to determine who's ready to buy our products, we're able to put a lead form in front of them and capture their information, talk about how great our product is and its features, and then if we just keep communicating with them until we convince them, that's how we're gonna drive growth.
But the research shows that's just the wrong approach to take.So today I'm going to talk about the five things we should be doing instead.Counterintuitive to that standard playbook.
And these are the things that we need to do to drive brand or to build our brand.One, don't target too narrowly.Despite the promises of intent data in MarTech, we often know little about a prospect's readiness.
We don't know whether they're in market, familiar with our brands, or past buyers.We also can't really target them through advertising and content.This makes it largely ineffective to try to target them based on readiness.
Also, the research shows that your best audience for outreach is anyone who buys the category.It's not limited to the narrow criteria we define. No matter what it says, this audience is likely to convert.
The best strategy is just to reach to anyone who's buying in your category.So instead of hyper-targeting, focus on broad outreach to build awareness.The second thing we need to do is build emotional connections.
Too many B2B brands start with boring ads and content about what their product does.Instead of doing that, we need to build emotional resonance through storytelling, visuals, and messaging that your audience can connect with.
Now, this is a struggle for many B2B brands.They just don't know how to do this.But building those emotional connections before talking about your product is very important to effectively build your brand.
The third thing we need to do is offer value upfront and for free.Give potential customers a chance to experience your value with a useful tool, resource, or insight at no cost, including gating.It has to be genuinely valuable.
It has to provide real value to your users, not just interesting, and it must demonstrate your expertise.Too many B2B brands just put out guys and how-to lists that aren't really valuable and they don't demonstrate their expertise.
If it's something that anyone could do, any of your competing brands could do, then that's not really valuable and it's not demonstrating your expertise.You really need to go above and beyond that.
You need to push your team to create actually valuable content for your process. When you provide value first, you're not just showing off your expertise, you'll be building trust.The fourth thing we need to do is make our brands distinct.
Now I've talked about this before, but whether through visuals, messaging, or positioning, your brand needs to stand out and be memorable.Find those distinctive elements and stick with them forever.Don't move away from it.
I know everyone gets bored with their branding, but we need to stick with it.I mean, Coca-Cola has been doing it for over 100 years.You see these brands just, I mean, they talk about Guinness, it's harp is basically the same forever.
So we need to make sure that we stick with our, be consistent with our distinctiveness.And then finally, the last thing, and this might be the hardest thing for people, is don't chase uninterested prospects.
If your message resonates, your value is clear and your brand is memorable, you've done all you can do.If a prospect doesn't engage, it's either the wrong time or they don't see you as the right fit.Don't waste time chasing them.
Focus on continuing to build your brand presence and let it do the work over time. If someone's not interested, just move on.You can't, you're not going to convince them to go with you.Okay, the five things we need to do to build our brand.
Don't target too narrowly.Do outreach to anyone who buys the category.Two, build those emotional connections to your content and advertising.Three, offer value upfront.And three, and make sure it's truly valuable and demonstrate your expertise.
Four, make your brand distinct so that all your efforts are being associated back with your brand and do that forever.And five, don't chase uninterested prospects.
I know this is gonna be the hardest thing for a lot of companies, but if they're not interested right now, you're not gonna convince them.It's better to use your time and resources to talk to someone new.
So if they're not interested, just move on and let your brand do your work for you.
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