Brand Building Is the Fuel That Powers Performance Marketing
In an iconic magazine ad for publisher McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., the reader is met with the striking image of a curmudgeonly prospect wearing glasses, a brown suit and a bow tie, seated in a classic wooden banker’s chair, staring straight from the page with an incredulous, steely-eyed glare, accompanied by the statements:
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your company. I don’t know your company’s products. I don’t know what your company stands for. I don’t know any of your company’s customers. I don’t know your company’s record. I don’t know your company’s reputation. Now, what was it you wanted to sell me?”
The moral is simple: Sales start before the salesperson calls. While this ad ran in 1958 — yes, you read that correctly — there has perhaps never been a better, simpler explanation of the importance of branding in the world of business-to-business marketing.
Building the Bridge Between Intention and Purchase
The basic tenets of this advertisement from more than 65 years ago remain true today. It’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to build a successful business without building a brand. All of marketing is about getting over hurdles — ensuring your brand earns a spot in the “zone of consideration” when prospects are evaluating a purchase. Branding builds the bridge between intention and purchase. Without it, there is no awareness, and without awareness, there is no consideration of your product or service.
It’s like trying desperately to get someone’s attention in the dark. You’re waving your hands frantically, but they can’t see you.
Unfortunately, many OEMs today have placed all their marketing eggs in the performance marketing basket, letting fundamental brand building gather dust in a closet somewhere. At Crafted, we understand the power and necessity of performance marketing, but we also understand the power and necessity of building a brand specifically designed to amplify and de-risk performance marketing efforts. We believe both are essential for real marketing success.
It goes back to the point of the surly man and the McGraw-Hill ad. While performance marketing campaigns offer measurability and the potential to build quick wins, without some baseline of brand awareness (and what comes with it when nurtured — trust, credibility, reputation and a positive inclination), performance marketing efforts can fall on deaf ears. If emails and digital ads don’t result in opens and clicks, we’re back to waving in the dark. Audiences need to be primed and predisposed to a positive awareness and perception of your brand for performance marketing to work at its highest level.
The Multiplier Effect of Branding on Performance Marketing
We see performance marketing and brand building as complementary disciplines, each helping the other when approached thoughtfully. When pitted against each other, the effectiveness of both is compromised. When aligned and working together, overall brand equity — and performance — can be significantly increased.
The Multiplier Effect, a study published by WARC, highlights that businesses relying heavily on performance advertising could see a 20% to 50% reduction in ROI. Conversely, integrating brand and performance marketing can boost ROI by 25% to 100%. The average increase is 90%. These findings reinforce the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, who identified that advertising becomes more effective as it moves further away from rational messaging and more toward pure emotion; their research suggests that the optimal advertising mix is 60% brand building and 40% activation.
Your brand is a multiplier for every marketing dollar, supporting better CTRs, higher engagement, more efficient media spend and stronger lead quality.
Striking the Balance Between Emotional and Rational Motivation
As we have emphasized, both brand building and performance play important roles in your efforts because each influences decision-making in different ways and to varying degrees. Buyer behavior has long been understood to include both emotional and rational components. While not mutually exclusive, traditional branding is more focused on emotional connections — purpose, values and personality — that resonate with a target audience. Performance marketing tends to lean toward the rational drivers, such as functional benefits, quality and value.
The key, like most things in life, is finding the right balance. By bringing these two disciplines together, you can create a brand strategy that delivers short-term impact while building long-term brand strength and customer loyalty. This, ultimately, answers the most important question your prospects are asking: “Why should I buy from you?”