Given my obsession with pipeline growth, it may seem a little odd for me to be advocating that you spend more on something as old school as building brand awareness.
And especially as it’s hard to attribute spending on brand awareness campaigns to revenue.
Given the focus on ROI, how do you rationalize the investment?
Here’s the thing…
Buyers start their process with a shortlist, and if you are not on that shortlist from the start, your odds of getting selected are negligible.
- 85% of buyers have a set of vendors in mind before they do any research (HBS, Bain)
- 90% ultimately choose a vendor from their day-one list (HBS, Bain)
- Buyers say that they had heard of 86% of short-listed solutions before starting the research process (Trust Radius)
So, you have to invest in brand awareness.
The other challenge is that typically, only 5% of your target accounts are in the market in any given quarter.
There is little way to know when the other 95% will look for a new vendor.
You have to build brand awareness with the other 95% so you are on their list when they start their process.
How should you balance brand building vs demand capture/generation?
According to B2B Institute the optimum mix is 46% on brand vs 54% on demand.
One way of thinking of your marketing is in two stages:
- Early-stage focused on building brand and preference
- Later-stage focused on detection and activation
Early-stage programs should aim to influence accounts before they are willing to engage with anyone. For example:
- Sponsorship of interest groups, policy groups etc
- Doing surveys that help to create unique thought leadership content
- Schedule executive lunches and dinners with customers and prospects
- Build a community for people who are dealing with the same problem, whether customers or not
- Don’t underestimate the power of analysts like Gartner, and KLAS.
- Targeted advertising to the buying group contacts in your ICP
The trick is to very disciplined in determining WHO you are building this awareness with.
This is why selecting your Ideal Customer Profile is so important.
If you are only interested in gaining business from the top 200 healthcare systems, design your brand programs and narrow your advertising campaigns to reach these exclusively.
I have only scratched the surface in this post.
My partner, Mark Erwich, covers this in greater detail in a recent webinar, The New Healthtech Marketing Playbook.
