Unleashing B2B Growth: The Power of Emotional Connections for Brands

Written By
Lateef Mauricio Abro, VP, Connections Strategy
Published July 24, 2023

In my work with B2B clients, one universal truth continues to prevail: by focusing on untapped opportunities in the awareness and consideration stages of the buyer's journey, brands can achieve significantly higher impact than those who do not invest in awareness. Many companies that do the research and build out a detailed buyer journey will see this plain as day—but it’s ‘the long game,’ which requires a long-term perspective and investment while posing challenges for revenue attribution. In the face of these challenges, many marketers over-index on investments that drive near-term leads, resulting in B2B marketers and competitors all fighting for scraps at the bottom of the funnel.

But where we see challenges, there are always opportunities. It is this very dynamic that favors bold marketers who double down on brand investments—working at the top of the funnel where it’s less crowded. With 67% of marketing leaders intending on maintaining or increasing investments in brand building, I’d particularly like to see more brands showing up in meaningful, creative ways—building emotional connections.

How does a brand build emotional connections?

  • It brings the company’s vision to life. For the company’s vision and purpose to be espoused throughout the organization, the message has to start from the top. It must start at the highest rungs of the organization because the CEO needs to be the person that asks their teams to play an active role in making that vision come to life in the marketplace. The vision is an aspirational state that establishes the company’s raison d’être and gives employees, united as a team, a unified sense of purpose. This is where the employee experience begins, and the benefits flow down to customer audiences.
  • It creates separation from the pack. The unique ways a brand communicates with the market create a sense of personality that adds a perceptional layer to the brand promise beyond functional benefits. It sends a message to the market that while the company can deliver competitive products and drive valuable outcomes, it’s also an organization that can be trusted.
  • It compels sentiments and adjectives. Do we feel good about a specific company? Do we feel like a company is intelligent, slow, fast, or the best-in-breed in a particular area of expertise? Those are descriptive factors that are mostly emotional in nature, but we mustn’t forget that a company’s primary responsibility is to deliver actual realizable value—not just perceptions. So, if you have a product that's performing really well, you're likely to be perceived as a brand that can be relied on. Because market sentiment counts on delivering on your promises, the brand relies on high quality product.

 

ServiceNow

Whether addressing the company’s more than 20,000 employees or speaking with the investor community, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott makes the effort to articulate the company’s vision and purpose in a manner that adds context and meaning to the marketing tagline “the world works with ServiceNow.” This top-down framing is vital to maximize adoption of the brand promise, making it much more likely to show up in meaningful ways across interactions within the company, with customers, and with external stakeholders.

FIS

Up against significant pandemic-prompted shifts in the way people engage in commerce, our client FIS needed to reposition to stay ahead of rapidly changing market dynamics. We worked with the company’s marketing leadership team on a brand campaign that didn’t just need to communicate the company’s market value, but also leave an emotional imprint on our buying audiences. Driven and inspired by audience research, we knew we had to improve perception as a trusted partner that makes visionary ideas a reality.

The brand campaign’s “it’s not crazy, it’s bold” video spot shows how a brand can build emotional connections by centering communications not around the company but around the target buyer—a person who contends with a very human, high stakes, highly emotional set of challenges at work. We know that business people rely on logical and emotional factors when making purchase decisions, so emotive messaging and creative isn’t just about generating good feelings—it’s good business.

Logging significant shifts in perception and “intent-to-buy” sentiment, this campaign was able to show a direct contribution to business growth.

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I’ve written before about how everything a company does impact’s brand perception, from sales and service delivery to sponsorships and analyst briefings. Brand health is a result of all the interactions people have with the company, so we need to build out networked experiences that align internal stakeholders across business functions—not just within marketing—around a shared view of our customers and their end-to-end buying journey. This integrated approach also improves the reach of marketing influence, creating more opportunities for brand initiatives that build meaningful emotional connections.