Why B2B Brand Marketing Is Nonsense

The notion of brand strength as a competitive advantage in B2B is hot right now. This seems to have been spurred by two things. One is the 95-5 rule . The other is the “90% of B2B purchases go to a vendor on the day one list” chestnut . And the notion of "brand marketing" has emerged in its wake.

While it has a great name. Who wouldn’t want to do brand marketing? There's a serious problem. Few seem to know what exactly brand marketing means . And those who do claim to know offer definitions that are unconvincing.

How Is Brand Marketing Being Defined?

If you’re a brand nerd, the term “brand marketing” might make pull your hair out, because technically it’s an oxymoron. Brand is supposed to exist outside of marketing , with large companies often having brand as an entirely separate function from marketing.

After all, a brand cannot be bought or sold, so how can you market it?

Well, “marketing” is often used synonymously with “promotion,” without including the other 3 P’s, and brand promotion certainly exists.

You can advertise your brand. Do activations. Publish brand-level content (i.e., content focused on the brand and not about what you sell or issues your customers face).

But “brand marketing” as B2B often treats it doesn’t work like this. A lot of B2B marketers and authorities seem to think brand marketing builds your brand by being everything that isn’t lead-gen.

Which is funny because a lot of B2B marketers define demand generation as everything that lead-gen isn't.

This notion of demand-gen is wrong (check out my takedown here ).

And this notion of brand marketing is even more wrong.

Because while demand-gen exists (it’s often just labeled or defined incorrectly), brand marketing doesn’t exist at all.

Why Brand Marketing Doesn’t Exist

Don't get me wrong. Good quality advertising and content build your brand (by building your brand equity in geek speak).

While the process of lead generation costs brand equity (at least up front), because it asks for something.

Strong brands don’t ask for your business — they attract it.

When you have to ask, it makes your brand look weak (hence the lost equity).

What's more, the act of surrendering contact details is annoying (since it's something we generally don’t want to do for a stranger), which also costs some equity.

And when someone fills in their name as Seymour Butts at [email protected] and still manages to get your brand’s whitepaper, your brand looks stupid (which costs even more equity).

And if that whitepaper is a letdown? After your prospects agreed to expose themselves? So you could draw them like one of your French girls?

Oh boy. You may have just stuck your brand all the way in and broken it off.

But if that whitepaper they just downloaded is actually good, your brand wins any lost equity back. And you can even come out ahead if it's great.

Put another way, a great whitepaper builds your brand, even if it's gated .

And if the leads that whitepaper generates drive sales? That builds your brand even more.

So is brand marketing everything lead-gen isn’t? Definitely not.

And if you want to argue that "only the contact form fill-out and submission part is lead-gen," go ahead, because there’s another reason why the brand marketing concept doesn’t work.

In B2B, the top-of-the-funnel (TOFU ) content and advertising many consider integral to brand marketing only actually builds your brand when it's good.

A shitty piece of AI-generated SEO drivel does not build your brand, at least not directly (though some might argue the SERP positioning or other SEO benefits it gives are a form of indirect brand building).

And a bait-and-switch piece-of-shit blog article that promises legitimate advice on how to solve a problem, only to transform into a sales pitch halfway through, won't build it either.

Brand building is an effect, not a cause. Therefore, no particular tactic, content format, or stage of the funnel can be considered brand building or brand marketing or whatever you choose to call it. And it shouldn’t.

Because brand isn't part of the marketing funnel. In fact, as said back at the beginning, it isn't even marketing.

A strong brand fills your funnel and keeps prospects moving down, but it’s not part of the funnel (brand exerts the gravity by which the funnel works).

How do we know this brand isn't part of the funnel? The “90% of all B2B purchases” stat I mentioned earlier, which tells us that brand awareness is vitally important to an eventual B2B purchase.

If brand awareness were a distinct stage of the B2B funnel (let’s say the top one), its effects would be felt strongest near the top and be felt less on the way down.

We would see a B2B buyer’s journey where strong brands dominate early, with the also-rans making gains on the way down, and winning a fair amount in the end.

But that’s not what we’re seeing at all. The also-rans are getting trounced. ??

Which means the power of a strong brand is felt all across the funnel. Which makes brand marketing a meaningless term. A rebrand of TOFU tactics and advertising to make them seem more appealing.

Creating the false notion that consideration (the middle of the funnel) can't build your brand.

Talking about the product and its features has never hurt Porsche. And it can definitely build your brand if your product and its features are sexy (or at least presented in a sexy light).

Let's face it, if features didn't matter, porn stars would look more like the rest of us.

So,?feel free to ignore the brand marketing hype.

B2B marketers already know that we've been too lead-gen focused , and that we need to stop gating crap , and that we need to focus more on creating awareness and being memorable .

And our discipline already has sufficient modeling and vocabulary to describe what needs to be done.

We don’t need brand marketing.

It's a glitter gun brought to a gunfight.

My thanks to Haris Spahi? for helping inspire this blog.