Caroline Aspinall, commercial director and head of B2B at Smoking Gun PR, says B2B marketing has a bit of a bravery problem.
“While consumer brands are out there turning heads with bold, creative campaigns, B2B marketing tends to play it safe. It sticks to the familiar. The tried-and-tested. The beige.
But here’s the thing: B2B buyers are people too. Yes! Real humans.
And just like the rest of us, they respond to stories that spark curiosity, ideas that challenge the norm and brands that aren’t afraid to show a bit of personality.
The numbers back this up. The 2024 LinkedIn-Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that a whopping 75% of B2B decision-makers have been inspired to dig deeper into a product after reading thought leadership content.
But here’s the kicker – only 15% of that content is rated as “good” or “excellent.” That’s a pretty big gap between what works and what we’re actually doing.
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It gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). The same report shows that 73% of C-suite execs believe thought leadership does a better job of showing value than traditional marketing. And 60% say they’d pay more to work with a company that’s got a clear, compelling vision.
So what’s holding B2B marketers back?
B2B buying decisions are rarely made on a whim. There are usually six to ten people involved in the decision-making process (Gartner), and the stakes are higher with longer sales cycles, bigger price tags and more scrutiny.
But here’s a little truth bomb: those decision-makers? Still human.
Forrester found that emotion actually plays a bigger role in B2B customer loyalty than in B2C. In fact, it’s 1.5 times more influential. And the Financial Times reports that 70% of executives consider an emotional connection key when choosing a business service provider.
With buyers only spending around 17% of their journey engaging with potential suppliers (Gartner again), most of their decision-making time is spent doing their own research and talking things over internally. That means your content, your voice and your brand need to do the heavy lifting. You have to stand out before you even get in the room.
Of course, no one’s suggesting you throw professionalism out the window. What we are saying is that there’s a massive opportunity in being memorable.
According to the B2B Institute’s ‘The Five Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing’, the most effective campaigns strike a balance between being distinctive, relevant and consistent. That doesn’t mean loud for the sake of it, but it does mean being brave enough to do things differently.
Perhaps surprisingly, the safest thing you can do in B2B marketing today is to stop blending in. The biggest risk is playing it too safe, being forgotten or even never being noticed in the first place.”
