Trend 1: The War On Brand
Over the past 10 years, the B2B marketing industry has become obsessed with the bottom-of-the-funnel. We invest the vast majority of our time and money in lead generation strategies, competing to capture short-term demand from in-market buyers. But over the next 10 years, there will be a correction, and the focus will shift to the top-of-the-funnel.
Lead generation is valuable, but research suggests that brand building is even more valuable. Famous B2B brands grow faster in the short-term and in the long-term. Famous B2B brands can raise their prices, expand into new categories, acquire and retain top talent, and deter would-be competitors. The benefits of lead generation are quite narrow. The benefits of brand are extremely broad.
Trend 2: Blockbuster Marketing
To build a famous B2B brand, you need extraordinary creative that cuts through and wins attention. But what are the principles of extraordinary creative? It’s useful to examine one of the greatest creative enterprises in business history: Disney. The report analyses the method behind Disney’s magic, and how B2B marketers can apply those methods to develop best-in-class creative year after year
Used as a case study, Salesforce bets big on recurring content franchises or brand campaigns and investing in distinctive brand assets, like logos and characters. Salesforce does this better than anyone else in B2B, with their splashy “Trailblazers” brand campaign and their weighty “State Of…” Reports.
Trend 3: The Death Of Hyper-Targeting
To build a famous B2B brand, your creative needs to reach every potential buyer in the category. And yet, over the past 10 years, B2B marketers have gone all-in on “hyper-targeting” tactics. There are limitations to hyper-targeting and so the report suggests a different model, called by the authors “reach maximalism.” It argues that broad targeting, not narrow targeting, is the formula for growth in B2B.
