Specialist construction marketers BCM Agency have long championed the relationship between brand strength and lead gen conversion, and why this correlation is decisive in a business-to-business (B2B) environment like construction, with its complex decision-making units, slow buying timelines, and high financial stakes.

In this Q&A, CEO Miriam Drahmane digs a little deeper into the notion of buyers’ risk, and how brand strength helps to mitigate it, and, in so doing, moves conversion up a gear. 

She also explores the reputational risks to sellers of a lead gen-led approach that has no brand trust to call on.
 
Q. Miriam, what are the risks of lead gen with no strong brand behind it?
A. Investment icon Warren Buffett said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

It’s a hugely insightful point, because if you apply it to B2B marketing it underscores the fact that creating a strong brand takes time. But time, in our world of on-demand delivery and instant gratification, is often what results-hungry organisations have little patience for.

This, ultimately, is what’s behind many B2B marketers’ disproportionate emphasis on lead gen activities, rather than branding. Lead gen is quick to organise, quick to execute, quick to complete, and quick to report back to the Board. But often, it’s also quick to fail.
 
Q. Why is that?
A. Figures from Salesforce suggest that 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. With no foundations in a strong brand that prospects recognise and trust, lead gen campaigns are essentially asking buyers to bet on an unknown.

That’s a huge risk for them, and, if you keep plugging your offering in the same way, a real risk for your credibility and reputation.
 
Q. But what does ‘brand strength’ even mean?
A. Let’s use an example here. 
Imagine you, in your professional capacity, receive a marketing email from a company selling a B2B-focused product or service. You’re not familiar with the brand, and so you go online to check out its credentials and gain some reassurance that it’s a trustworthy player.

But you find nothing to convince you. No authoritative and helpful content. No informative and compelling social media presence. No case studies or other third-party endorsement. No clear positioning demonstrating why you should choose this brand in preference to any other. No influencer relationships, no recent positive news, no glowing media coverage.

So, (no surprises), conversion simply won’t work here. Brand strength is the sum total of the attributes, qualities, and benefits that make the brand unique, desirable, and competitive - but you’ve seen none of this evidenced anywhere.

And it’s precisely these elements that ease the buyer’s sensitivity to risk, lower the barriers to making a decision, and, ultimately, shorten the buying timeline.
It’s human nature to jump on lead gen activities, but even the most creative, eye-catching, beautifully executed lead gen campaign will crash and burn every time if it can’t point back to solid reasons for the buyer to trust the brand. 
 
Q.  But ‘brand awareness’ can sound like a lot of spend – how do you measure its true value?
A. This is a really key point, because it’s vital to adopt a balanced, integrated marketing approach, and understand how each element is performing in the mix. No one marketing activity is going to land you that big-ticket sale.

This why research, understanding, and evaluation must become before execution, with measurement a recurrent theme throughout.

To measure brand strength, we at BCM Agency, for example, call clients’ existing, lapsed, and prospective customers to capture their perceptions of the brand, then combine this with research into the company, the market, and the competition.

This reveals where and how the brand needs to be strengthened, and enables us to segment and target audiences to deliver those brand-strengthening messages in a more timely and relevant fashion than our clients’ competitors can.

Brand strength is notoriously difficult to put a hard figure on, but by measuring brand perception over time, we can demonstrate net improvement, but also – critically - the related uplift in lead gen conversion that inevitably follows.
 
Q. Is this an approach that’s unique to BCM?
A. We call it ‘productive marketing’. It’s not about our clients spending as much as they possibly can on brand - it’s about working smart to balance brand and lead gen and so deliver positive commercial, as well as reputational, outcomes.
 
Q. Surely repeated lead gen also builds brand, though?
A. This is something we hear quite a lot. And let’s be clear: for large, established brands that are well known and maintain their profile and competitive position through advertising and brand-strengthening marketing activities, a branded lead gen campaign is certainly a reaffirmation of their continuing presence in the market.

But for smaller businesses, this is wishful thinking. Lead gen is not effective for customer loyalty or long-term brand affinity. You build your brand by cementing your position in the industry through thought leadership content, advertising, social media, and the activities I’ve spoken about, not by relentless email campaigns to cold databases. 

In fact, as I mentioned earlier, these can have a negative effect, repeatedly reinforcing the fact that your business doesn’t have a strong, trustworthy brand presence to back up its claims.
 
Q, Should we abandon lead gen and focus only on brand?
A. No. The point here is that lead gen without supporting brand strength is a significant risk to your conversion and your credibility, but lead gen done properly is still an essential tool in the marketing armoury.

You should run brand-building and lead gen in parallel, and carry out before and after conversion metrics to establish effectiveness over time.
Measurement is everything in marketing these days, but sometimes the Board needs to understand that measuring lead gen alone is a little like measuring a car’s performance when it’s coasting, not accelerating.

And brand strength is your lead gen’s accelerator.

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