The Business Case for Building Brand in B2B

Marketing, like any discipline, evolves with the times. From data-led decision-making to targeted practices and emerging technologies, the 9-to-5 of a marketer today would be scarcely recognizable to someone working in the 1950s or ‘60s.

Many methodologies established in marketing’s early professional era are still followed today, yet one concept that has taken a hit in our age of performance marketing is brand.

Once a bedrock of B2B strategy, brand is often regarded as a “nice-to-have,” sidelined in favor of lead generation, personalization, and other short-term, data-heavy marketing practices. Today, 58% of B2B marketers dedicate half of their budgets to lead generation activities – with 46% claiming they’d like to invest more in brand, but feel unable to due to financial constraints.

So how did brand become so neglected in B2B?

How perceptions of B2B buying and effectiveness sidelined brand

Two prevailing assumptions in modern B2B marketing have contributed to this decline.

The era of the “rational” buyer

Brand is often seen as being at odds with how contemporary B2B buying works. Decision-making groups have grown significantly – 6-12 stakeholders according to 6sense – spanning roles such as finance, IT, operations, and end users, creating an added layer of scrutiny and perceived risk to the process.

Combined with the assumption that B2B buyers make decisions based on reason and evidence – not emotion – the idea of brand can appear to lose its weight. The gravity of these decisions, and the number of stakeholders involved, has led marketers to prioritize facts and statistics in their messaging, rather than “creative” concepts that feel harder to measure. However, this approach presents several issues.

Firstly, research suggests that emotion plays a significant role in decision-making, and B2B buying groups are no exception. Throughout the process, stakeholders can experience fear, insecurity, ambition, and the desire to impress their colleagues. These emotions often influence initial perceptions before a formal decision is made.

Secondly, the features and specifications B2B companies rely on are no longer effective differentiators.

The buying process, then, is not devoid of emotion – nor is it a battlefield where features alone can secure victory. The most effective way for marketers to position their brand is by building associations, signaling credibility, and acknowledging the emotional weight of B2B decisions.

A brand that’s perceived as trustworthy and reliable – through messaging that recognizes the emotions of B2B buyers – will be more compelling than an unfamiliar alternative that carries greater perceived risk. As Amanda Hill, founder of BBC Earth and former CMO of Harrods, notes:

‍“A CIO choosing a cloud vendor isn’t just spending company money; they’re potentially betting their reputation and career on that choice. This tends to make buyers more conservative, taking refuge in known, trusted brands.”

Short-term metrics > long-term commitment

Brand budgets were once treated like infrastructure investments in the 1960s and 1970s, with the understanding that they would build equity over time. As Jamie Hendrie, CEO of The Insight Collective, notes, the focus has since shifted toward measurement and tactical attribution. The result is a growing preference for short-term tactics over sustained brand investment. According to a Marketing Week survey, 52% of marketers are now working to goals with timelines of just six months or less.

Short-term metrics can deliver quick wins – demonstrating progress, reassuring the board, and even supporting career advancement. But their long-term impact is limited. With the majority of buyers out of market at any one time, building mental availability – the likelihood of your brand being recalled during shortlisting or decision-making – is what drives future demand.

This is where brand becomes decisive. Your brand is your shopfront - the shorthand by which you are remembered. Distinctive assets such as logos, colors, and visual systems increase mental availability by making your brand easier to notice and recall.

B2B buying processes take 10.1 months on average, and the brand that’s ultimately selected is often being named on the shortlist in the earliest stages of the journey – before anyone has spoken to a sales representative. Understanding intent and reacting to stakeholder behavior in the moment is important, but shaping long-term perception before the journey even begins is what ensures your brand is considered at all.

How to give brand the attention it deserves

Making a success of branding demands patience, advocacy throughout the organization, and continuous measurement.

Ensure consistency in how the brand is portrayed and distributed

It may sound monotonous, but consistency is fundamental to effective branding.

The more consistently an organization applies its branding across different channels and touchpoints, the easier it is for them to be recognized – and the easier it becomes for potential buyers to trust.

While it may be tempting to “refresh” branding regularly, unnecessary change risks undoing the mental availability your brand has already built. A rebrand often requires rebuilding memory structures from scratch, whereas consistent, long-term application strengthens and compounds recognition over time.

Align your organization around brand and its values

Brand may sit within marketing, but it cannot live there alone.

Consistency extends beyond visual identity into how the brand is experienced across departments, touchpoints, and customer interactions. Championing brand requires advocates at every level – across functions and at board level – not just within marketing.

An organization with clearly defined values, consistently embodied across services and communications, creates a coherent customer experience. In B2B, where buying groups encounter multiple touchpoints before making a decision, that consistency is critical.

Consider brand equity in strategic decisions

Factoring brand equity into strategic decisions helps organizations balance short-term priorities with long-term impact. As Amanda Hill observes:

“In my advisory roles, whenever a strategic question arises – be it expansion, pricing, or M&A – I find myself asking: ‘how will this affect our brand equity?’ Because in the long run, the strength of the brand determines the resilience and trajectory of the business.”

When change occurs within an organization, its impact on brand perception – including market sentiment and existing associations – should be considered and represented at board level.

Measure your brand and benchmark against competitors

One of the most common objections to brand investment is the perceived difficulty of measurement. While it is easier to report on short-term metrics like click-through rates (CTR) and marketing qualified leads (MQLs), brand performance can also be measured.

The following approaches can inform brand strategy:

• Competitive brand benchmarking: Comparing your brand’s mental availability and distinctiveness against key competitors to understand relative strength and ownership of category entry points.
• Share of voice tracking: Monitoring your brand’s presence across owned, earned, and paid channels to assess reach and visibility.
• Sentiment analysis: Evaluating how buyers speak about your brand and competitors, providing insight into perception and potential reputational risks.

Brand isn’t just a value-add – it’s a priority

Far from being an outdated concept, brand remains a vital component of any organization’s marketing strategy –  one that must be maintained, developed, and evolved over time.

Short-term performance marketing can deliver quick wins and valuable optimization gains. But without the reputation and recognition built through long-term brand investment, those gains are unlikely to translate into sustained pipeline growth.

Brand takes time to bear fruit, but its influence on customer perception, pricing power, market share, and long-term resilience cannot be ignored. As Amanda notes:

‍“Brand is a company’s most precious asset – the ultimate driver of pricing power, customer loyalty, and market longevity.”

Her guide, Six Things B2B Gets Wrong About Marketing, draws on her experience advising B2B brands and challenges some of the industry’s most persistent assumptions – including the notion that brand is “nice-to-have” and not essential to marketing effectiveness. 

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