The Role of Creativity in B2B Marketing

Since B2B marketing focuses on facts more than emotional appeal, marketers tend to believe that it doesn’t need to be as creative as B2C. But the business-to-business environment is shifting toward consumer-driven, and as Millennials are getting into decision-maker positions, B2B businesses are investing more in creating creative brand stories.

Let’s take Semrush, Hubspot and Slack as examples. When you’re scrolling through your social feeds and one of these giants’ posts pops up, you wouldn’t think it’s classic B2B, right? It’s fresh, interesting, and entices you to explore more.

Whatever your industry is, if you want your B2B solution to stand out for customers today, your marketing should make your audience count down the days to see your brand again. At all times.

How do you achieve that?

By embracing creativity!

This is why creative B2B marketing is key for elevating your brand:

1. Performance branding

Performance branding is a multidisciplinary approach to quality-driven, sustainable profitability that tailors creative resources to your KPIs.

It’s all about creating a consistent brand by matching creative solutions with your specific business goals. So even if your branding is awesome at the moment, to see scalable results with a campaign, you need to make sure it’s adjusted according to your refined data. And this is where creativity comes in:

Exploring new territories of imagination will help you influence your future buyers, increase your upper sales funnel, and boost your business growth. 

Remember, in B2B, 95% of buyers are not yet ready to buy. So to generate tangible results, make sure you identify the creative idea that stands out and fits your brand goals best first, then measure progress, and repeat. 

2. Building memory and generating cash flow

Creativity is the foundation of building an unforgettable brand and generating revenue.

In order to drive engagement and grow a loyal follower base for your brand, you must think outside the box to personalize your brand experience and drive emotion throughout the Buyer’s Journey. 

If you constantly provide your audience with content that’s beyond compare, the feelings they feel when they interact with you will stick with them. That’s how you can stand out from the industry standard and monetize your brand image.

Think about the story you’d like to tell and the solution you offer from different perspectives. Challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone. When you have a bold idea but are not sure about how to bring that to life the right way, collaborate with new creatives who will look at your goals objectively and see what you’ve visualized through fresh eyes.

3. Showcasing your expertise

Whatever your goal is, creativity helps you present yourself as an expert your customers can trust 100%.

Today, everybody can start a brand and claim they are experts in their field, right? So people are suspicious, and earning customer trust has never been harder. For business success, it’s no longer enough to simply tell your prospects that your product drives spectacular results. You need to show that as well. As 90% of the information transferred to the brain is visual, you can prove that you’re legit faster using visual signs.

For instance, you can capture emotions in a powerful way and provide your prospects with a crystal clear understanding of how your solution works with an explainer video. Watching the video, your prospects will instantly visualize enjoying the benefits of your product so you can start building a bond with them right after they hit “Play”. And whether we’re talking storytelling, audio, colors, or dimension, the more creative you get when creating the concept of your video, the higher the ROI.

4. Keeping up with trends

Decision-makers, just like marketers — especially when they are also marketers — keep an eye on what’s trending right now in advertising and their own industries. It means that in order to meet and even overperfom decision-maker demand, you need to stay on top of trends. And creative thinking is essential for that:

How can you implement trends into your marketing strategy?

Should you always hop on a new trend?

‍How much extra efforts do you need to invest in getting on the trend train?‍

These are the main questions that occur when we talk about trends. And if you really think about it, each of them require a high level of invention to decide and execute.

But what requires the most creativity is keeping up with trends while staying true to your authentic brand personality. Make sure you always double check whether the content you’re planning to create for a trend is on brand. Here’s an example:

It’s great that everybody’s creating their own version on Linkedin of a happy vs exhausted meme using the two faces of actor Murray Bartlett — one from The White Lotus and one from The Last of Us, but hang on a minute. That guy is dying at the end of both HBO shows. If it’s something you think doesn’t hurt your brand message, let’s do it! But if you think it may be the opposite, just sit back and have a peace of mind knowing that you didn’t miss out on an opportunity by not publishing your version. Instead, you kept your image on track so you won’t regret a few months later presenting yourself in a way that actually wasn’t authentic.

5. Constantly renewing as a brand

Renewing as a brand entertains your audience and suggests you continue to improve your products as well.

By making small changes and improvements to your branded content, advertising, and overall brand communication, you show them that you are always looking for ways to make their experience better. A refreshed and modern look builds trust as customers can see that you are actively investing in your brand and staying up-to-date with the latest happenings in the world that can affect their businesses too. Therefore, you need creative initiatives to elevate your business.

‍

Need creative input for your brand? Book a free discovery call with us today and find out how our creative team can help you achieve your goals.

‍