22nd of June 2022

Published by Marketing Week See original article

Ehrenberg-Bass: Linking brand messages to buying situations wins ‘the mind and the market’

Based on the premise that “memories generate sales”, new research from Ehrenberg-Bass urges B2B marketers to build “wider, fresher networks” by tapping into the power of category entry points.

Linking brand messages to key buying situations can increase customer acquisition and retention, proving the “accountability” of B2B brand marketing, according to new research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute

Collaborating with LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, the research suggests brand messaging can become fully customer-centric by focusing on category entry points, the cues customers use to access memories when faced with a buying situation. These cues are both internal, such as motives and emotions, and external, including location and time of day.

“Category entry points are not about the brand, they’re about the buyer,” the report’s author Professor Jenni Romaniuk, associate director (international) at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, tells Marketing Week.

 

“That’s what makes them important to understand separately from your brand. You can’t look at your brand and see category entry points, you have to go outside of it.”

The research urges marketers to identify and prioritise the category entry points that matter in their sector, and which their product can serve, linking their brand to category entry points through clear messaging.

“We are aiming for wider, fresher networks and I can’t say that enough. It is contrary to how we’re brought up to believe branding works. It’s contrary to this idea of positioning, finding that one thing you can own to be different from everybody,” Romaniuk explains.

“It’s about saying: ‘There’s lots of different ways people come into a category, we want to be behind as many of those doors as possible.’ That’s the probability game that comes in with this that’s different from everything.”

 

“What’s really important in marketing is not bottom of funnel, lead generation clicks. It’s top of funnel, brand building memory.”

Jon Lombardo, LinkedIn B2B Institute

The research reveals the pay-off for B2B marketers adopting this approach could be considerable. Analysis of the US insurance sector found the fewer category entry points a customer links to a brand or company, the greater their likelihood of switching to another brand.

 

Read full article on Marketing Week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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