Many B2B tech companies have historically been very sales led, and the sales team usually has huge clout as the revenue drivers for the business. This has often led to sales being a little sceptical (understatement!) about the role of comms and marketing.
But the irony is – when the sales team complain about not getting leads, it tends to come down to a *brand or reputation* issue. They’re either “not well-known enough”… “not viewed favourably”… or “not known for the right things.”
One of our goals when we set up Delphi was to help B2B tech businesses rebalance their growth efforts from relying on sales to building brand.
That was based on what we’ve learnt as an industry over the past few years about how important brand is in B2B:
- From the LinkedIn B2B Institute, we now understand the “95-5 rule” means that 95% of your future customers are not in the market for your product or service right now. Building brand among that audience is what creates future demand for your pipeline.
- As Mark Ritson puts it, we’ve learnt that *all of the B2C marketing concepts apply to B2B* too – salience, distinctive assets, emotion, attention, creativity, etc etc. We know what makes a successful brand and we can do it in a B2B context!
- And we’ve watched examples of great B2B work, like Salesforce and ServiceNow, create distinctive assets, brand worlds, and memorable campaigns. We’ve done it ourselves for the likes of Meta, Square and Netskope.
Building awareness and consideration that ultimately drives commercial success is what only comms and marketing can do. If you’re a B2B tech business looking to build your brand, come chat to us at Delphi.
