More competition demands brandformance 

To kick off, Christian spoke about why brand building, or more specifically brandformance, is so crucial in the B2B world. “There used to be 80 brands fighting for users in any one vertical, and now there are 8000,” he says. “Each vertical is very fragmented, and brands are fighting for users’ attention in each of these segments. With so much competition, it’s not enough to have a good product at a good price point. Your brand also needs to be sexy. And I mean, really sexy.” He makes it clear that at some point performance marketing doesn’t work anymore, and it’s time to get into brand.

Just as in the B2C world, Christian isn’t saying ‘do brand and forget performance’. Instead he advocates for closer collaboration between branding and performance: “We often see branding and performance being treated as separate categories, but branding and performance both belong in one team“, he adds. This is something we call brandformance here at DCMN. The age of siloing your marketing objectives is long gone — and brands like Wooga have taken note.

Brand is queen

We aren’t discounting the importance of product, far from it. In fact, Christian goes on to say that even though the product is still king, your brand is queen. He also shares concrete tips on the KPI’s you should look into as milestones for your business, both in terms of performance and brand – learn more about these at 6.07 min. 

Sometimes you have to look out of your sector for inspiration. Using the example of the digital B2C brand HeyCar, Christian shows how companies can build their brand without breaking the bank. He says that for founders of B2B companies who are weary of digitalisation, they should work to bring back the revolutionary mindset from the time they started their business. 

If you’re not sure where to start, maybe the right place is the beginning. “You don’t need to reinvent your brand, because every company has their origin story,” says Christian. “Now you just need to put it out there and take full advantage of the fact that you can measure the exact impact of everything you publish online.”

He advises older brands to go digital. ”Every startup began with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and was created to solve a specific problem. This is the perfect basis for a brand. Especially for slightly older companies who have skin in the game, Christian has some sound advice too. “Bring back the spirit you had 40-50 years ago when you were starting your company,” he urges them. “And remember that you achieved your success by trial and error!”. If you could start a company back then, you can definitely conquer digital today. Why not take what worked for you in the past and digitise it? This could be as easy as transitioning a CEO’s letter into a digital format, or having webinars over in-person meetups. The world is your oyster!