Is B2B advertising a vanity project

I don’t think it’s anything to do with AI. But everything to do with ambitious people wanting to leave their mark on an organisation.

Here’s what my ‘vanity project’ would be if I ran a B2B advertising team. Scrap most of the bland clickbait adverts that most B2B brands use – and focus on excellent creative and brand building.

Don’t track the clicks, the metrics which are more likely to be bots than humans. Use your deep instinct and experience to design eye catching advertising that talks to brand values, what consumers want or need to know and get rid of the rest. You probably won’t miss it. And you may lose your job.

But in 5 years time, I bet your advert will still be remembered by the key B2B decision makers….. because only 5% of your target audience are in buying mode at any one time. Use your advertising to build a strong brand; rely on SEO and website pages to backfill their research needs before the RFP.

 

Inspiration for this post from the Uncensored CMO interview with Tom Goodwin