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23: The 95:5 Rule, Category Entry Points, & Brand Advertising w/ The B2B Institute
127 Plays7 months ago
We've invited Haley Pierce, the Sr. GTM Lead at the B2B Institute, to go into the nuances of how B2B buyers really buy, when they buy, and how to do our B2B advertising based on their research.
The CMO Scorecard: The CMO Scorecard
Haley's Linkedin: Haley Pierce | LinkedIn
Category Entry Points: Category Entry Points In A B2B World
SAS Viya Case Study: SAS’ Edge Case: SAS' Journey from Convention to Creativity | LinkedIn
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Transcript
Introduction to B2B Buying Behaviors
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, what's up, guys? Today, we're going to be talking to Haley Pierce, the senior go-to-market lead at the B2B Institute, where they've been doing research on how B2B buyers buy, when they buy, why they buy, and how we should be doing our marketing accordingly. You're likely most familiar with their 95-5 rule that they've been evangelizing. You've probably seen it all over LinkedIn, but you might be surprised how little you actually know about the research behind it and how your marketing strategy is going off course by not being aligned with it.
Origins and Mission of the B2B Institute
00:00:25
Speaker
So Haley, before we get into the 95, five rule, the category entry points and B2B brand marketing, I think our audience needs to understand a little bit where this research is coming from, who it's coming from, uh, in order to be able to trust it. So maybe if you could give us a little quick overview of what the B2B Institute is.
00:00:43
Speaker
Yes, of course, I'm happy to and thanks so much for having me. um So the B2B Institute is a LinkedIn think tank and it sits within LinkedIn's advertising business. The origins of the B2B Institute really started several years ago at this point with Peter Weinberg and John Lombardo. And essentially they were LinkedIn sellers. And what they did is they identified a huge gap in B2B, like generally their B2B marketing clients, their familiarity with marketing science principles. So specifically what I'm talking about is the laws of growth from our friends at their mass Institute. Most B2B marketers that they were working with didn't understand some of these like fundamentals
00:01:24
Speaker
um on marketing effectiveness. So I think they first kind of sought to explore was like, okay, the Amber Bass is doing extensive research in the B2C space. Does this apply to the B2B world?
Understanding the 95-5 Rule in B2B Marketing
00:01:35
Speaker
um Spoiler, it does. um And then if that is the reality, how could they help their B2B marketing clients get across this research um and really understand what the implications of it is on their advertising strategy?
00:01:50
Speaker
So I guess kind of like the summary which came out of the initial early stages of work that they did was that it illustrated this huge opportunity for B2B marketers to think differently about their strategy specifically around brand building um because what they saw is that brand building was so often overlooked in B2B and most B2B marketers were over indexed in Legion. So I feel like with that hypothesis, that's kind of what, or I guess that finding that insight that's really what the B2B Institute was formed off of. So since then, it's become our mission to help B2B marketers build famous B2B brands. And we do so by partnering with academic institutions like the Ember Bass Institute um and other industry leaders across the space to really research these marketing effectiveness principles in B2B. And then what we do is we help advertisers online to actually apply these principles to their strategy.
00:02:45
Speaker
You guys found a gap that needed filling, which is, you know, research rule number one, all the research that you find by organic creators on LinkedIn. Um, don't follow that. I think it's more, you know, find research to, uh, support everything they say. So they get more sales. B2B Institute is doing it right. So for those that aren't
Challenges and Strategies for Future Buyers
00:03:05
Speaker
super familiar, uh, with the 95 five rule, they're not thinking about it every day. Like you and I are, how would you explain that? Okay, so the 95 Avril is our most famous model at the B2B Institute. And I think it's because it's so incredibly simple, but it also has a profound implication on, you know, a B2B marketers advertising strategy. So most B2B marketers, as I kind of just mentioned, believe that advertising works right away. But this belief is a myth. And that's really because most buyers aren't ready to purchase today. So our research shows that on average, only 5%
00:03:40
Speaker
of buyers actually are ready to purchase today. That other 95% of your category buyers aren't going to purchase today, but will at some point in the future. So um quick example to illustrate this, and you could kind of apply this to various other B2B industries. But um if I were to ask you, you know think about an average CRM buyer, how often do we think that you know and someone is in market to purchase a new CRM system?
00:04:09
Speaker
I don't know if you have an answer. I actually don't have the specifics, but I'll tell you it's not often. ah Really what we find is that only 10% of organizations are in market for a CRM solution at any given time. So in that sense, you know the 95-5 rule, maybe it's a 90-10, but it generally the principle holds true that most of your buyers are future buyers.
00:04:32
Speaker
And I think really the implication of the 95-5 role is that your brand needs to remain top of mind amongst those 95% who, by the way, they represent a much, much larger percentage of future cash flows. um But you need to be top of mind amongst them because once they are ready to purchase, you want them to think of your brand first.
00:04:51
Speaker
And that's why brand advertising is so, so critical. And I was actually just the other day ah kind of brainstorming some reasons why people are in the 95%, why they're not ready, and why so many of them can't be just simply convinced to become in market. I think I came up with like nine or 10 different reasons. I don't know how much research you've done specifically on on that part, but I mean, if we just kind of informally come up with a few ideas is like one, you already have a CRM. So you're not searching for a new one. Two, maybe you just don't have the budget for whatever reason. Three, you don't have the decision making authority. You don't have the specific problem. There's so many different reasons.
00:05:33
Speaker
And once you kind of add them all up, it's kind of easy to realize why very high majority, even if it's not specifically 95%, but just the high majority, just our future buyers, but just not ready now and they simply can't be convinced. Yeah, no, I mean, i that's exactly right. I think you also have to think about like the infrastructure that it takes for someone to overhaul their CRM system.
00:05:57
Speaker
It's massive. like I'll give you a spoiler at LinkedIn. We've been trying to transition our CRM system. I've been at LinkedIn for seven years, and I'm pretty sure since day one
The Role of Brand Advertising in B2B
00:06:05
Speaker
of my career, we've been trying to transition. It still hasn't happened. so um but That's honestly the case in most B2B categories because it's such a major lift for all the reasons you described.
00:06:16
Speaker
um so you know So it's very rare for someone to switch their their technology. um And what we find that maybe we'll get to later is that even if they go down the path to to change the existing you know system or product or whatever whatever that they're using, the reality is that they have like two to three brands that they're already considering.
00:06:39
Speaker
you know, by the time you can start advertising then, like when they decide that they want to buy a new solution because they already have the brand's top of mind. um So again, that's kind of why advertising to these future buyers with the brand advertising um really matters.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah. I think you know there was an advertisement that I think seven seven or eight years ago that kept on showing up every time I opened google ah YouTube and it was by monday dot.com. and so That was actually the first CRM in my mind. and Interestingly, I was aware of Salesforce before that.
00:07:15
Speaker
I didn't really know what a CRM even was when I knew about Salesforce because my brother was working there. So I knew about, I was aware of the brand but didn't know how it actually related to my life. And so I ended up getting Monday dot.com is as the first CRM because of that brand campaign that they ran.
00:07:33
Speaker
um And I got it several years after they were first introduced to me. So I think that's a great. Yeah, I mean, that's such an interesting case because I also think in B2B people tend to only target decision makers where you're leaving out so many different type of buyers and future buyers, whether it's like the more junior marketers that are going to have a voice in the decision.
00:07:56
Speaker
We have this concept called hidden buyers by some members of our team. That's like if you think about the buying committee, you need to think about it much more broader than just like the few marketing decision makers need to think about the engineers and the implications on their world or, you know, their CRO. Like there's a lot of buyers in that pool. So.
00:08:16
Speaker
Again, just mark for their case, like your example is obviously the perfect example of that. um You have to be thinking broad and thinking about the people that aren't ready to buy today, but they will. so Now, how do we target those people? so I think you guys have summed it up really well. There's a graphic that I unfortunately can't show because it's a podcast.
00:08:40
Speaker
But you guys say, for in-market buyers, be rational. For out-of-market buyers, be emotional. How would you explain the reasoning for that? Yeah. so I think the 5%, most B2B marketers know how to create a really strong Legion campaign. You need to keep the messaging short and rational to get them to convert. um What I think most B2B marketers don't know is how to really build effective ads for out-market buyers.
00:09:05
Speaker
And this is where I think B2C marketers are exceptional at. So we draw a lot of inspiration from the B2C world. um And I think there's a handful of B2B marketers who are also doing an excellent job, but I think we're just behind the curve a little bit and thinking about, um you know, emotional attention, grabbing memorable ads. I think the reason why, and I can get into more specifics about what really works, and I can kind of rattle off a few things, but like being distinct and well branded,
00:09:33
Speaker
critical We just launched a new report actually that looked at ads on LinkedIn and what we found that unfortunately, 81% of them didn't capture attention or drive brand recall, which are kind of the two fundamental objectives of an ad. um And the implication was that the ads need to capture attention in the first three seconds. They need to be well branded and they need to be more distinct.
00:09:57
Speaker
um You can make the case that that's what lead gen ads should also include, but I think for brand ads, it's particularly important when someone doesn't actually know of your brand. um And you know I think the other thing to call out here is like,
00:10:13
Speaker
people at the end of the day, even in the B2B space, you are marketing to people and people respond to emotions. And so if you can make sure your brand and your ads are emotional um and really help people remember you, that's that's the most important thing. um you know We know that people buy based more on familiarity than product specs alone.
00:10:39
Speaker
We have this great concept
Exploring Category Entry Points (CEPs)
00:10:40
Speaker
called the product delusion. And I think they're how these people think that you, especially in B2B, we have like a very funny mock-up. If you were to think about if Coca-Cola marketed itself like a B2B brand, they might say, you know, our beverage ah quenches your thirst 93% of the time. Where of course Coca-Cola doesn't market that way. They use characters and distinct colors and you know, that polar bear that like they try to like draw on that emotional human connection of the brand. And I think that's what helps them be much more memorable. um So focus on building ads that are memorable. That's the most important thing. Yeah. And I think the reason why I like that quote um from you guys is just because I think it's so many, so many people in B2B basically say B2C is supposed to be emotional and B2B is more rational simply because
00:11:36
Speaker
longer decision making time, um sorry longer sales cycles, yeah a much bigger risk. And although that's true, I think what you guys have done is basically show it's actually both emotional and rational. It just depends on a little bit more when it matters for the 95% that are you know in the beginning of the buyer journey, you know way before they' they need your solution. It's a lot more emotional because they need to remember it. um And then for rational, it's little bit more when they start actually doing the decision making. No one's doing a cost benefit analysis of, am I going to consume this ad or not? Maybe they are for a service, but not for advertisements. And so that's why it needs to be more emotional. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you you know, if anyone's familiar with the B2B Institute, we tend to take a heart stance on things.
00:12:27
Speaker
But I think the reality is like, we are not dismissing lead gen as a practice. That's critically important. Like particularly as a marketer, you need to be able to prove your short, your impact on short term outcomes. However, your short term outcomes are going to get better with brand advertising and you need to be thinking about building your brand over the longterm. So yeah, that's, you know, I think messaging is what can create the link between the two, but you need to be thinking about the full funnel.
00:12:55
Speaker
So now, going a little bit more into the messaging, you guys have done a lot of research on category entry points. um So my initial thought when I first heard this concept was,
00:13:06
Speaker
you know This is about the problem that a category of solution solves. like For example, a CRM this is a category of solution that solves the problem of having too many contacts to manage. that's That was my first initial thought of what category entry points were. so um I talk about that all the time to my audience. That's why I'm talking about this.
00:13:28
Speaker
yeah But you guys have done a lot deeper research for buying situations and triggers and how to get your brand thought of when they become ready. So let's let's talk about what are category entry points. Yeah. I mean, I think what you're thinking about is correct in terms of customer needs. um Category entry points are a similar concept, um but um we call them CEPs. If I use that shorthand, you know what I'm talking about.
00:13:55
Speaker
um But it's a term coined by Professor jamini Jenny Romaniak at Edinburgh Bass Institute, so we're not taking credit for this um idea. It's really the work of that that team. We really just championed it in our approach. um But Jenny would define category entry points as cues that but category buyers use to access their memories when faced.
00:14:15
Speaker
with a buying situation. So you could say, I've heard people say buying triggers, you know customer needs, I think is another, like I said, a good way to just describe it. um Sometimes the term category entry points can feel daunting because it feels very academic. Um, so I think that's a ah ah good way to think about it, but I would say that the best way that I can articulate this idea, um, is maybe if you're up for a little game, we can kind of play out a scenario and kind of get at what this is. Cause I find particularly like in learning about the concept myself, this is the best way, um, to really digest it and understand the implication, which is what what we all care about.
00:14:56
Speaker
um Okay, so I was thinking because we're a day from Halloween, we could pick a category related to Halloween, which I was thinking of candy. um So if you're up for it, I'm just going to present you know calming but common buying situations where you might purchase candy and you can tell me what brand comes to mind first.
00:15:19
Speaker
Let's do it. I will do it as truthfully as possible when it comes to mind. caveat There's no correct answer here. Um, okay. So what candy brand comes to mind at a summer bonfire? ah Hershey's chocolate. Yeah. Okay. versus more Okay. Um, what candy brand comes to mind if you're going to the movies? Mike and Ike's.
00:15:43
Speaker
We're learning all about your candy preferences. Send me candy. um What candy brand comes to mind on Halloween? M&Ms and peanut M&Ms. What candy brand comes to mind when you're hungry but not hungry enough for a meal? Definitely Snickers. Definitely Snickers. The amount of times I have eaten Snickers bars pretending like it's, oh, yeah, it's not really candy. There's a little bit of protein in there. Exactly. OK, so with those are the few buying situations that I came up with. But the point of this exercise is to illustrate that like different brands come to mind depending on the scenario.
00:16:22
Speaker
And the reason for that is that memories are highly situational. So people remember things related to a specific so scenario rather than isolation. So if I were to just blanket say like name a candy brand, you most likely would pick the brand that's like the largest in the category um has the most you know unaided awareness. But the implication for brands is to be able to link your brand to you know your relevant buying situations. So Snickers, that came to mind really quickly for you. um They had that awesome campaign. like I think like you're not yourself when yeah when you're hungry or something. so like And they ran that time and time again. And i and that built that, exactly what you had, like even an emotional reaction to that being like, oh yeah, I always got first Snickers if I'm like,
00:17:11
Speaker
want candy, but I'm kind of hungry. And Snickers is obviously effectively messaged around that buying situation or customer need. You are more likely to recall it. So the other great examples that I always, always ask because I think people instantly get it like is, you know, from the alcohol category. So if I were to say like what alcohol brand comes to mind when you're at a pub,
00:17:37
Speaker
I would, yeah, I would say Guinness. Yeah. Guinness is like nine times out of 10. The answer might be thinking about it a little bit too much though. yeah I actually stepped in a pub. I might not go for a beer. So right. Right. But like on be yeah
Category Entry Points vs. Traditional Brand Positioning
00:17:53
Speaker
itself does such a good job about messaging and building their brand around that scenario. Um, similarly, if I were to ask what alcohol brand comes to mind when you're at the beach, Corona.
00:18:04
Speaker
Corona. Yeah. So I don't know if I've ever gotten actually one time, funny story. Someone on our team asked this question and got a different brand and they didn't know what to do because Corona has unanimously been the answer. Um, but they really, really effectively linked their brand to that buying situation. Um, so I think all in all funny game, but the point is that you can really own the, you know, the right buying situation for your brand.
00:18:32
Speaker
And when you think about like the vast amount of brands that you're competing with to be memorable on top of mind, particularly for the out-market but um audience, that's why category entry points can be such an effective strategy for you to be more memorable. Or mental availability is really the overarching objective here, but I usually just describe it in terms of being memorable.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for simple purposes. When I think of these examples of of beer and candy, it to me, it screams like the most original concept of positioning where to own a position in someone's mind, you know, the way the godfathers of positioning called it, they said, you know, owning a specific word in the mind of buyers. And so, you know, Corona owns the word beach.
00:19:22
Speaker
Snickers owns the word hunger in terms of that category. When you think can candy, but for, if you're hungry or if you think of a beer, but for the beach or for the pub. And so I'm really seeing some, some connection here between category entry points and the position that these brands own. Yeah, absolutely. And we have like a whole methodology on how you could go about choosing what buying situations you'd want to own, but it's a combination of like, what is the category or like the category entry point that your brand can uniquely own, but what's common enough that most people in the category experience, um, because you don't want to like, you know, the whole point, and I know we're going to talk about a little bit more about broad reach, but I've sort of alluded to it and in terms of the 95 five rule, but like you don't want to isolate your brand to one specific buying situation that's fairly
00:20:19
Speaker
in common, like you want to get at like what is the unique experiences that category buyers face. and link your brand effectively to those categories. Right. You don't want to ah link a beer to some place you don't ever drink beer. that would be Exactly. Exactly.
SAS's Reach Maximalist Approach
00:20:37
Speaker
It's like common sense, but sometimes it's, you know, it's not <unk> tend to be like, Oh, what do we as a brand want to stand for versus looking at the customer and saying, okay, like what are there? It's it's so common. Like it's so,
00:20:54
Speaker
intuitive but we just tend to think because we're like creatives and messaging groups gurus that we feel like we own that but the reality is like starting with the customer is actually guys word like the contrarian thing to do but like you have to start with the customer else you know your marketing is just not going to resonate Right. So I've read through the case study of your work ah with SAS Viya. I had a couple of questions from that. um First, for anyone that's listening should definitely check that out. i I look at it about once a week. Now that's coming from me where I'd work in B2B brand marketing, but
00:21:35
Speaker
um Still a great case study. so You guys implemented what you called a reach maximalist approach, prioritizing reach over frequency and expanding their audience to include both current and future buyers. so why Why is that? does it Does it not require repeated frequency? Is that a myth?
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll break this down. But first of all, shout out to our partners at SAS. um They're incredible. I've had the privilege to work with them for the past year plus. um And they're just amazing, really brilliant marketers, really thoughtful, um really interested in hearing what we have to share. And then also, we as their partner have made suggestions. And they've really taken it and run with it. and and kind of evolved their approach to marketing. So incredible marketers at SAS. But maybe it'll help um to give people a little bit of a preview of the case study. um They have some context on SAS's former approach to marketing.
00:22:37
Speaker
But for those who may be not as familiar with the brand, SaaS's was an early category entrant into the business intelligence and data analytics segment. And you know they had an incredibly strong and efficient lead, Jen. And Jen, who's the CMO there, and her team really focused for years on honing that engine and getting like maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.
00:23:03
Speaker
um However, as more and more people entered the category, they started realizing that they weren't necessarily able to you know maintain that approach um to keep that their same market share. So um we kind of started working with them right around that time when they were looking for solutions on how we need to be thinking about our evolving our brand to protect the future revenue. And ultimately, um they made a large investment in brand. So for SaaS, I think it's like a 60 plus year old company, they hadn't invested in brand.
00:23:42
Speaker
for 20 years, so they were doing out of home. But when the digital space, they they hadn't invested in brand. They'd really focused on their Legion engine. So what they did was they launched their first brand campaign in 20 years. And I think what came from that was rethinking their targeting strategy, like you just mentioned. So the 95-5 rule certainly influenced their thinking on how to expand their audience to really reach these future outmarket buyers.
00:24:08
Speaker
um so I'd say generally speaking, we call this kind of a reach maximalist approach, which essentially just means prioritizing reach as your primary metric. Um, but what you alluded to is I think people tend to get really stuck up or stuck up. Uh, they really get really held up and being like, Oh my God, like frequency doesn't matter. You're saying frequency doesn't matter. We're definitely not saying that. I think.
00:24:33
Speaker
Frequency does matter, but what we're saying is that if you have a limited budget and you have to choose between reach or frequency, we're suggesting that you choose reach every time because essentially you're going to get a much higher sales lift for each new person that you reach versus it kind of flattens after you reach the person for the second or third or fourth time.
00:24:56
Speaker
if If budget is not a concern or even if it is a concern, like you should still consider frequency. However, like reach is really what you want to be thinking about when you're building your brand. For SaaS, they prioritized reach um and they saw a massive increase in awareness and film familiarity. and They also saw you know a huge positive effect on their bottom-up funnel objectives as well as like other objectives across their business. so Their sales leaders and sales reps had much easier time getting in touch with people or their response to their in-mails was much better, which makes sense warm lead versus cold lead by just it broadening their audience beyond that like kind of smaller 5% segment. Their talent outcomes were actually much stronger. They had more confirmed
Spaced Repetition in Brand Memory
00:25:45
Speaker
hires because of their efforts on the top of the funnel. So I think when you think about brand and like
00:25:51
Speaker
B2B marketers making that shift in your strategy, you need to think about increasing your audience along with it. i There's one quote from a a brand marketer. I don't know if you've seen him on LinkedIn. His name is Dale Harrison, Dale W Harrison. No. if to say she He said something that stuck out to me and it's kind of sounding what you're what you're saying. Once is enough until they forget it because that first time, that first ad exposure takes them from being not aware of your brand to being aware. And then after that diminishing returns, like you said, yeah but that is of course until they forget that you exist. And then in that case, you're you're no longer aware in their mind.
00:26:37
Speaker
But if we're thinking about the outcome that we want for the 95%, it is to be remembered as that go-to solution when they're ready to buy. And so that's memory. And so it doesn't need to be every every single day.
00:26:53
Speaker
And I think another thing that he has said, and I imagine you would agree at least somewhat with it, um top of mind isn't simply that you're thinking that they're thinking about your brand all the time. it's that It's top of mind when they're faced with that buying situation or the problem that they're facing. Because yeah, I'm not going to be thinking about monday dot.com every second of my life, but then I thought about them when was when I was in that buying situation.
00:27:21
Speaker
and Exactly. No, that's exactly right. People have probably heard of the concept of like a forgetting curve, but like the, yeah, you're exactly right. We have this idea, maybe I'll include it in, in if you conclude in the show notes show notes, I can include a bunch of links to some of our research, but um it's called the memory corrosion. And essentially this is exactly what you're describing. Like if you, that's why frequency does matter because you need to be reminding um your future customers of your brand on a regular basis. But really what we kind of say from like a practical, tactical advertising approach is just to spread out your
00:28:02
Speaker
your spend because you don't want to be bombarding a subgroup of people over a set amount of time and then not hit them again in a year. like You really want to spread it out so they're seeing regular touch points with your brand because it's exactly what you described. You don't actually know when someone's going to enter the market, but you just got to keep building those memory structures so that they're like,
00:28:24
Speaker
a year from now, be like, oh yeah, I want to buy a new CRM. Oh, I saw that ad. like I've been thinking about that. So you just want to keep keep your brand top of mind exactly what you said. And I think there's another concept that I haven't seen any B2B marketer talk about in this specific topic is spaced repetition. It's something that one uses a lot with language learning, for example, or just learning anything.
00:28:50
Speaker
but basically you want to spread out the intervals as you go on and that actually strengthens the memory. So it's better to go first exposure and then three days be exposed it again and then stretch it out to seven days the next interval rather than three times in one day.
00:29:08
Speaker
yeah Then that's because each time it requires a little bit more memory recall for each exposure and
Measuring Brand Marketing Impact: CMO Scorecard
00:29:15
Speaker
actually builds a stronger memory. So I think it just kind of goes on top of that. So not only do you want to space it space it out, but each time you space it out, it actually gets stronger, the memory gets stronger.
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know that specifically, but I think it makes sense. and I think the only other thing I would add is when you think about your approach to creative, having a level of consistency across these ads as well as like what we talk about in terms of distinctness, like you want to make your ad impossible so to forget.
00:29:46
Speaker
and you know You can do that in a lot of different ways, but having some type of distinct brand elements, so the association, because even if someone sees an ad like you're describing, like you need them to be able to, one, remember it and to be able to link it to your brand or else, essentially, you're not getting the benefit. so That's what you can really think about in terms of your creative strategy is making your ads much more distinct, leveraging your brand's distinct brand assets. That's really going to help increase that attribution.
00:30:15
Speaker
So I think the the reason that most B2B companies um don't do any of this kind of long term marketing plan is because they can't easily track it. So they can track it in the short term. um You guys in that case study showed some pretty great short term results. So I'll name them off here. A three times increase to lead gen form completion rates. 31% increase in engagement rates.
00:30:43
Speaker
and a 28% decrease in cost per lead. I thought that was awesome because it kind of shows how brand has an effect in the short run. um Now I know this is a tricky one, but how does a B2B company track these short-term wins when they run their campaign?
00:31:00
Speaker
How can they help prove that their brand marketing helps them in the short run? How did you guys get those stats? So you are right. Marketing measurement, particularly brand measurement is our number one question because it's where people get tripped up the most.
00:31:15
Speaker
And I don't think that we've cracked the code in full transparency. I think that multi-touch attribution is a really complicated thing. I think even if a company has multi-attribution set up perfectly, like it doesn't tell the for like the full picture. So I mean, I think if I were to think of like, if I'm a B2B marketer who was trying to take this approach and shift my strategy to experiment with brand and and how can I improve the effect of brand. I would say there's some short-term outcomes like you just illustrated that SaaS is able to able to achieve. Again, kudos to the incredible team at SaaS. but And you can certainly point to those as without brand, without these like
00:32:00
Speaker
a broader audience, warmer leads, our lead gen outcomes aren't as strong. And those are tangible things that you can certainly talk to. um But I'll also just walk you through kind of a framework that we've come up with at the B2B Institute to help codify brand advertising's impact on business outcomes. So we call it the CMOS scorecard. I don't know, Dylan, how familiar are with with that? But we have a narrative. Okay. Amazing. And we also actually work with customers to build their personal scorecard. So it's not only just like a framework that is.
00:32:37
Speaker
Illustrative, it's actually like stuff that we work with clients on on a quarterly basis. So I'll kind of walk you through each each component. So CMO stands for creative media and outcomes. So neatly forms this acronym that we call the CMO scorecard.
00:32:54
Speaker
Um, people actually get tripped up because they're like, wait, is it only a scorecard? for So I have to caveat that. Um, but so we took kind of the two components of marketing, which is creative and media. Um, and how, how do these two drivers about effectiveness impact business outcomes? And there's key metrics that we use under each of these categories. So.
00:33:17
Speaker
Creative is a core driver of ad effectiveness. We have years of research to show that creative must get attention, like we've talked about, have distinct branding and linked to these buying situations, all of which we talked about today. um But we suggest you measuring three different metrics to make sure that your creative is working. So the first one is attention. So, you know, the question is like, do your buyers actually notice your ads?
00:33:41
Speaker
It's like the first barrier to driving any type of outcome is making sure that your buyers notice your ads. We usually measure this through dwell time. um And then branding is the second one. um So the question is like, are your our ads attributed to us? So talking about that attribution amen I just mentioned, and we measure that through brand asset attribution. So again, it goes back to everything we've talked about around distinct brand assets.
00:34:06
Speaker
Um, and then linkage is the third, which you actually alluded to before I even got there around, um, you know, do our ads link us to the key buying situations and you, we measure it through keyword density. So you've kind of mentioned it like, does Corona own the word beach? That's a perfect example of linkage. And again, I have you out again, this is not a perfect science, but this is the best way that we've, we've created to really measure, um, the effects of, of your creative. Okay. So that's the C creative.
00:34:36
Speaker
Attention branding linkage. We have another a acronym called ABLE. I feel like I'm like taking SATs trying to remember. Sometimes it's helpful for people to remember in that context. And then media is the second, the other core advertising input. um You know, I think it goes without saying, but we need to make sure that the dollars that you're allocating to your ads are actually driving the right effects. So the way we measure the effectiveness of your media,
00:35:05
Speaker
is in terms of these three reach metrics. So number one is effectiveness. So how many category buyers do your ads reach relative to your competitors? so we we And this is really like alludes to the importance of share of voice and making sure that your brand um outperforms your competitors in share of voice. So we measure that through cumulative category reach and competitive reach.
00:35:30
Speaker
um Evenness is the second metric within media. so We already talked about this as well. like How evenly do we spread out our spend throughout the year? We find, again, like we talked about like so many people decide to bucket all of their spend around a specific moment. but Sure, you might want to increase your spend slightly around that moment, but it's really important for those consistent exposures over time. That's how you stay remembered.
00:35:56
Speaker
so A broad way to think about that is through weekly spend. like Are you generally allocating your budget evenly throughout the year? We find that people like stop their spend around holidays, but like at the end of the day, like the more evenly you can allocate it, the stronger we we see um your ads.
00:36:16
Speaker
So, and then the third one is efficiency. So this is, you know, how do we balance spend across objectives to optimize cost for reach? um We measure this through cost to reach, and then we also then measure it through balance of spend between lead, gens, and brand dot outcomes. Okay, third one, we're almost there. um O stands for outcomes. So this is kind of what I alluded to in terms of how SaaS was able to see effects, brand effects on other parts of their business by investing in brand. So we kind of categorize key business outcomes under three different categories, market, sell and hire. So marketing is what we described in terms of like the lead gen effects.
00:36:57
Speaker
So are we helping marketers get more more recall and more leads that idea of like a cold versus warm audience? um Sell is sellers outcome. So are we helping sellers get more responses and more meetings? This can be measured through, you know, and this all again might vary per company and what these, what these actually metrics might might work best for your kind of for your um company. So these are generally speaking what we see our clients using to to measure these business outcomes. um But in the sell category, it's around seller responses. And then the last one is hire. Again, I alluded to this, but are we helping our recruiters hire better and um faster or better talent faster, I should say. um And we can measure this through influenced hires. So I hope that like, again,
00:37:46
Speaker
we We could talk about marketing and brand measurement all day. like It's just not an easy topic to tackle. But i think I think having some key results to put against it is really important.
Conclusion and Further Resources
00:37:59
Speaker
And even if you don't take all of these, some of these early indicators of success could be hopefully beneficial.
00:38:07
Speaker
As I promised, I'm going to leave all the links to all the resources that we talked about, all the people that we talked about in the description below. I hope you enjoyed the episode and hope to see you next time.