According to many we’re seeing a time where B2B marketing is broken and needs to evolve.

The traditional buyer journey is broken, marketing ROI is hard to show and Lead Gen and Demand Gen that many have built their approach around is costly, complex and the returns aren’t cutting it.

Marketing industry reports and leaders all point to brand awareness as the answer. But once upon-a-time ABM was the big answer, then it was Lead Generation and then it was Demand Generation. And customer-centric marketing has been somewhere in there too!

So, we’ve been here before. As marketers there’s a realisation that the thing we chased, the thing we sold, the thing we built isn’t working. We seem to jump to the next shiny thing and the cycle repeats. And the value of marketing at board level diminishes.

The most concerning thing is that ‘brand’ is a very broad church to jump on as the next shiny thing. And many of the views, reports and comments currently don’t offer any real depth or substance. In fact, many quickly follow up with a guidance note that measurement is pretty much impossible. Or worse they are selling what they always did yet again under another new banner.

At The Craft, our stand on this is that marketers and agencies alike should take responsibility and not simply use the banner of brand and brand awareness to hide behind but truly drive a step-change in B2B marketing that is very much needed.

At The Craft, our position is loud and clear. We see that buyers are self-selecting and researching far more, rather than embarking on pre-determined, linear buyer journeys.

And for that reason, your brand awareness is a useful tool in your armoury, if within those initial brand engagements – you can pin-point what you do, what you offer, what you enable your buyers to do and why you’re better than your competitors.

If you can do that better than others you will have better brand awareness, prospects will self-select you ahead of others, you will be in their minds on your terms – you will beat your competition.

We call it competitive positioning – make your brand speak with clarity and be memorable from the customer perspective – from the very first moment – as it might be the only chance to you get.