Settling The Brand vs. Demand Gen Debate

[00:00:00] Doz Anyaegbunam: Thank you for joining us again, everyone. I am Doze, I lead editorial for the CMO. Um, today we're talking brand versus demand. I mean, it's a debate that's gone on and on in B2B SaaS. And with me today, I have Liam. Please introduce yourself. I mean, I'm sure everyone knows you already, but yeah, just go ahead.

[00:00:22] Liam Moroney: Sure. My name is Liam Moroney. I am the, the CMO team. The founder and CEO of a company called Storybook Marketing, which is a brand and demand, uh, consultancy agency. I also have spent about 15 years of my career in house in the SAS industry as a marketing leader, a demand gen leader. So, uh, really being on the ground, seeing a lot of this debate happening, being part of this debate.

[00:00:43] Doz Anyaegbunam: Awesome. Awesome. Please let us know where you're joining from today. I mean, just put out in the chat, it would be good to kind of see where everyone is coming in from. Last time we had people from. different parts of the world, which is pretty cool to see. Um, Michael will be posting, my, my co moderator will be posting, um, [00:01:00] housekeeping notes in the chat.

And just to kind of call this out, we are, the, the, the BWC team is planning like a conference for executive teams in SAS, um, who are looking to scale up from millions to billions. I like how that sounds. Um, so it's like, it's very participatory. It's very, very, you know, kind of curated small events. Um, We're thinking of sometime in October next year.

Um, so please join the wait list. Um, Michael will post the link in there, in the, in the chats, please. Um, but yeah, so yeah, I'm going to get to this brand or demand or brand and demand, you know, I think I should just start with asking, would it be right if I assume that this Debate happens in the first place because we at SAS waste is super in love with precision attribution, you know, revenue efficiency, you know, and you, we can all go on and [00:02:00] on where that comes from, would it be right to assume that.

[00:02:06] Liam Moroney: I think that's a fair way of putting it. I think this is not necessarily just a B2B SaaS type problem. I think in all marketing performance, marketing, or whatever category you want to put it into, it, it beads the dopamine for the dashboard. You get the short term hits, you get the immediate response.

Everybody likes immediate results and it tends to get over indexed. I think in, in our industry, it definitely. Became the dominant share of the budget, which I think in the long term, and this is, I think what we'll talk about has actually ended up having the inverse effect. There's that logic of, well, if the short term stuff's working, put more into the short term, but to answer your bigger question, though, it is brand and demand.

It has to be brand and demand. All of the marketing research out there says that one feeds the other and one makes the other more efficient. This is what they do in harmony. It's that harmony that we got. [00:03:00] Totally out of whack.

[00:03:03] Doz Anyaegbunam: That's sad, you know, and now that we've got that out of the way, I think we'll just kick this off down with, I think the, I might, that's my hypothesis.

It's basically, I feel like the, the foundation for most of everything we say about demand gen is intent data, you know, and, and, you know, some people say, I mean, some people say it's over promise, like the promise, like it doesn't really do all it has to do. So let's talk about that. Like. What do you think about intent data?

What do we get wrong about intent signals? Because I mean, there are people who have built businesses of, I can tell you the amount of people who came to your website. I can tell you the amount of people who clicked through to your blog. And like, I saw something Dale Harrison put some days ago about, I forget it.

So forgive me. Well, he talks about how. We walk back from the answer in B2B literally, and then use that to [00:04:00] justify budget and it was like, that is just so right, but my brain didn't fully understand it, so I'm hoping that part of what you talk about today will also explore that, that piece.

[00:04:11] Liam Moroney: So it's funny you mentioned that topic.

I'm actually having a conversation with Dale later on today on exactly that topic. But I think the. So intent data has become this kind of nebulous category, and there's a lot of things that are probably worth breaking down because firstly, there are lots of different types of intent there is, and I say intent as the label, I think it's worth even before going into the weeds on it, saying that it's not intent data, it is activity data that we are inferring.

As intent, so it is not intent. It is our belief that it carries a correlation with intent, and I think that's a pretty important definition to put on us because there are lots of different ways you could infer intent. And the problem is. It's not a science. There is no science out [00:05:00] there that says this action is a guarantee that this person wants something beyond them explicitly saying, Hey, I want to talk to your sales team about buying this product, that is the only form of intent you can say with high degree of confidence is actual intent.

Everything else is a proxy. And there are first party types of intent where you're talking about people landing on your site, doing things with your content, being on high value pages, where you're saying that clearly is worth more than we'll say third party intent, where you're have a vendor saying, Hey, someone was on a page researching a topic that is related to you, or they were on a comparison page on G2.

And that means that they have intent. The problem with intent is that There are lots of reasons someone can do something that looks like they have intent, but they do not necessarily have to have it, especially when you consider how complex and long, a lot of B2B sales cycles are. So I might check out your pricing page today for no other reason than I [00:06:00] just kind of want to know what you cost because I've been seeing your ads.

I may be in absolutely no position to buy that product and all I might be doing is. Number one, answering a curiosity question. I might have absolutely no plans to buy a tool like this. And I just kind of want to know, cause I'm a tire kicker, or I might actually be logging away information for myself for future use and future use is the really key part, because just because someone is doing something that looks like active researching of a product, doesn't mean they're actively in market to buy that product.

Those two can be completely disconnected from each other. That's one part. So there's just the fact that there's, with what confidence can you say it is very accurate? There's another layer. And this is where I think I've gone through my own journey on a lot of this, where I've written articles for MarTech saying intent data is overpromised.

I've been blatant about my opinion on it, and I've gotten into conversations with people who are much smarter than I am. So one example is Kerry Cunningham, who [00:07:00] works at Sixth Sense. He comes from Serious Decisions. He sat down, had a conversation with me, and we've become friends since. About intent data.

He wanted to convince me that I was being too cynical about intent, but he also said something that was really interesting, which is that one intent data point is not necessarily accurate. You need many data points grouped together to say this cluster. Probably now represents intent. So it's not to say intent data cannot paint a picture of somebody being in market or exhibiting signals of what is consistent with people being in market.

The problem is that you need to make sure that you're balancing lots of different data points. And that's not how intent data is sold. In most cases in our industry, you have one vendor selling you one data point, another selling you a different one. And I think one of the best. Examples that someone gave me was when you think about something else that is very similar to this, which is climate change.

If you wanted to measure whether or not the climate is changing, you [00:08:00] couldn't rely on just one data point. Like if it's hot where I am today, but cold tomorrow, that does not mean the climate has changed. That means there are weather patterns. Now, if multiple cities. Are exhibiting a gradual increase and we might balance that with an increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, all of these different things.

Now you're starting to build a body of data that says there's a pattern that is consistent in all of these data points. That I think is where there is a potential use for intent, but that takes a lot of data and most people who are buying. A G2 signal to add into their database. It's not the same thing.

It's kind of like that whole idea of like when you buy beauty products and this is like contains this magical ingredient, but yeah, to a degree that is of absolutely no medicinal value to you whatsoever.

[00:08:45] Doz Anyaegbunam: Yeah, that's interesting. And it, it, it makes me think of something. I, I think I read it a couple of days ago and I'm just wondering if B2B intent data issues.

It's around, would it be right to assume that. [00:09:00] Intent data gets better when we start to consider it from a buying community point of view. So that way you are basically putting everyone into one bucket. Cause it feels like intent data tells us separate every single person, like, Oh, X did this, X was their blog 10 times.

But again, like the buying decision is made with a committee and then there's pain avoidance that happens in that committee and so if you put it together and make a call on that, does it still make sense? Or are we still just doing the same thing but just with more people?

[00:09:40] Liam Moroney: That's a really interesting point.

And that actually is a very good example of where it's probably more accurate than we give it credit for. If 10 people from one company are actively on your site over the last month and they weren't the month before, yeah, there's a good chance something's happening. Like maybe that, that's a pretty potentially real signal.

This is where it gets [00:10:00] problematic though. It's a signal of wash exactly, because this is where we get back to this whole buyer decision making process and how people buy. And let's say for a second that you had genuinely perfect intent data. Now, what do you do with that intent data? If someone's actively seeming like they are considering you as a viable candidate for this buying process.

Well, firstly. Everything we know about the buyer journey says that that means that they've pretty much picked their winners and those winners are likely to win So you're probably not Using the signal saying, well, this person is like potentially there and I need to go and capture them or whatever kind of aggressive prey based terminology we tend to use in our industry.

No, the reality is they're probably evaluating us and our job is to not lose that deal because there's a good chance they're coming our way anyway, because they don't have huge considerations. That's we're probably one of three or five. It's not to say there's nothing to [00:11:00] be done. But you're probably, and I say probably not incrementally adding anything new because you were in the consideration set.

The problem is the real marketing is how do you get into that consideration set in the first place? Because you're back to the same problem, which is if you spend all your time looking at intent data, you're at kind of a different version of spending all of your time bidding on branded keywords. You're spending a lot of your money on people who are already thinking about you and very little of it.

Talking to people who are not thinking of you.

[00:11:35] Doz Anyaegbunam: So I have, I have a headache right now. Why are you explaining that? I just, what just kept coming to my mind is, is the B2B marketing funnel really worth it? Like everything we've built or everything we know about the industry and how it's been structured, awareness, concentration, [00:12:00] conversion, and then loyalty.

Like we call it, some people call it, they make it four or five. Is it really, does it really work that way? Because. When you think about brand, you think about this, you talk about problem aware, solution aware, you bring all those things together. You see how the buyer behaves. You see all the data that's coming out now about how people purchase.

And I listened to what you're saying now about consideration and all that. Then is the funnel really right? I mean, or are we just approaching the wrong way? Cause we don't really know how it works. And we've just built a system that says a B C because it just feels like humans just did what we always do.

We try to find logic in something, we create a logical flow in our heads when we know we are not logical, and then we hold on to the logical thing because that helps us feel sane. That's how I feel right now, honestly. I mean, maybe I could be wrong, but because I have a headache just thinking about it.

[00:12:54] Liam Moroney: Uh, you, you are correct.

The funnel is wrong. The funnel is not how things work. It is [00:13:00] how we wish things worked And it is how we try and build things to make things work, but it is not how things work because progression based marketing is not how How people buy if if i'm not ready to buy like here's a very simple example If I bought marketo today and you work at hubspot Nothing you do tomorrow will make me buy HubSpot.

In fact, nothing you do will probably even get me to be interested in any of your ads talking about why HubSpot, beyond me wondering if I have some buyer's remorse and made a bad decision. I'm just not gonna buy, and there's a good chance that I'm, even if I realized Markella was a bad call, it's gonna take me a long time before I'm ready to go into a conversation to evaluate something.

Different and I've been in this situation where we've bought a bad tool and here's what happens. You live with it for a while While you're living with it and regretting your decision. You're evaluating. How do we get out of this? And all of this is on your timeline. Nothing a marketing team can do will change that timeline No matter how much you try and [00:14:00] poke on the pain No matter how much you try and nurture people people will buy According to how they are able to buy based on all of the things happening in an organization And so this idea that We'll get someone to be aware of us great.

We've done that box one checked now. We'll get them to consider us That's not really how it works We consider things all the time and then we go back to life because we forget about them and we move on And then something reminds us of it later and on the lightning like actually, you know what? I should go back and check that out.

Like how many times do you? As a just a general consumer of anything, have a moment where something you see as you're driving in your car, you go, God, that's right. I meant to do that thing. And then you go and you try and remember it later on. That is how most buying happens. Most buying is done inside in your brain, because something reminded you of something or something became painful enough that you went, I need to do something about this now.

And then you search through the register of your head going, who do I think is the best option to do that? And most of that is based on brand. It's based on familiarity. It's based on [00:15:00] how easily a brand comes to mind. Everything beyond that point. Great. Now we're into more of an evaluation process. And now there's like what content you have matters, but it's not logical.

It's not rational. It's not linear. And it's not, I stress this one controllable by marketers.

[00:15:18] Doz Anyaegbunam: I like that. I think that's important to, to, to remember, I think this is a good place to kind of switch to, and ask about, I mean, we're a technology buyer journey, you know, and so if you take what we just agreed on here, that is probably not controllable.

It's not logical, you know, the marketer can really do anything about it. Um, from that controlling point of view, so then can you create demand for a brand? And if not, like, how does your brand help you get into the consideration set? The set that allows them to, you know, think, Oh, okay. Oh, I don't want to do this.

Okay. Yeah. That's a good tool to help me solve that. Oh, this tool was bad. I should probably [00:16:00] think of Hotspot next time I'm buying this thing. Like how, like, how do you do all that?

[00:16:06] Liam Moroney: So I, I'm going to get up on a soapbox for this one. Cause I feel quite strongly about this. There's a, the term demand generation in and of itself is problematic.

And I say, this is someone who had that title for a long time in my career. We are not able to create demand. It's simply not a thing. Like when you first see, just think about what demand is. Demand is simply, is the market. Looking for something like this at a price point that they're willing to pay that the asking price, like the demand is there or it is not a problem is either real or it is not, we saw a very real example of this play out with apple where the vision pro has stopped production because it was too expensive for what the market wanted no amount of marketing they did could change the fact that people were not willing to buy it at that price point based on anything.

That was out there And so like you can you you can't create demand for something people don't need or [00:17:00] want they either have demand or they don't Now demand for the brand has become a popular term because I think it's the kind of like, okay So maybe we can't create demand Generally, but we can create demand for our brand and it sounds really nice But I think it falls into this category that we're very guilty of in the marketing world Which is to talk about these things like people buy because of affinity and they love brands and they have demand for brands The truth is people aren't really they don't really think about brands that much they think about their problems a whole lot And they think about who do they think is the best solution for that problem You And sometimes there are cases where a brand is the best solution by far, and that becomes like a clear proxy, but you don't create demand for your brand, you create the belief that you're the best solution for their problem, and that's what the consideration set ultimately is.

Now, the thing that people will always argue, and it's a very common one, is, [00:18:00] well, what about the iPhone? The iPhone is an example of created demand for this thing that hadn't existed before, but that's not true because the Blackberry owned the market for a very long time. Someone else owned it before that.

In fact, the iPod was, they saw their market share go down because it was being transferred over to what the iPhone was now doing. It's all demand in the market. It's about better is, is there a problem that you solve better than other people? And can you own more of a share of voice about that problem?

That's what puts you in consideration sets more often than our consideration set in reality is when I think about a specific problem, who comes to mind quickest in association with that problem? That's what makes up a consideration set.

[00:18:49] Doz Anyaegbunam: We do

[00:18:50] Liam Moroney: have a lot of work to do. And I think it's, it's an important mindset to kind of switch into because it, once you realize you're not in [00:19:00] control that you can't sort of put people on a journey where if I keep hitting you with ads, eventually you'll, you'll love me and I'll put all this great content.

We should still do that. We should still put great content in front of people, but it is in pursuit of, I want your attention. And I want, you know, To try and lodge a memory in your brain so that you think of me. That's a very hard thing to accomplish.

[00:19:22] Doz Anyaegbunam: Yeah. You know, and I think you saying this, this way, it kind of helps me understand something.

I'd saw people larger of winter share. Um, I didn't fully agree with it when I saw him share that, but he made quite some sense. He talked about how, um, some like in B2B assessment, like when you're building a product, you need to build a product that has a, that has demand demand for it. And the market is large enough or else you never really grow.

Like, cause you literally tap out at some point, but as long as there's, there's a market and the market [00:20:00] knows, they want that. Maybe they know, maybe they don't because they're using something else at that point in time. And you don't want to say to them, you could do it better. That's when you make money.

But as long as you're just saying, you know what pie in the sky, I can create demand for a brand because, you know, because it feels like Steve jobs has always been seen as someone who created. demand for a brand. Like, that's how, that's the myth. Like, oh, he created the iPhone out of nothing. He built, he looked into our minds and created something, you know.

Um, but you're just saying this and I'm like, yeah, Peeps Twitter post makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense for me right now. And now I'm building on that. It just feels like, I think, or maybe I should ask this question because I'm not as plugged into the industry as you are. Do you get the sense that people feel that demand gen as we know it isn't exactly working anymore?

Or [00:21:00] do you think, or do you think that is a factor of, we have less money to spend now and we can't throw money? At the wall, as we used to, you know, I wonder if it's a, it's just a thought.

[00:21:17] Liam Moroney: So, Ooh, it's a complex one to try and unpack. I think going back to your original question at the start about brand or demand or brand and demand, it's kind of important to recognize that demand generation itself is, you know, It's a term that's become less and less clear what it actually means When I started doing it a decade or more ago, it meant lead gen it meant lead gen and nurturing and mqls and conversion That was what dimension was.

It was the bottom of the funnel backing out from lead gen Nowadays, it it kind of means something to everyone else like I I've gotten into frequent disagreements on LinkedIn, where I've heard it described as well. Marketing demand is actually the long term strategy and legion is the short term. I've heard it [00:22:00] described as the long and the short term.

I've heard it described as not a function at all, but a mindset. I've heard it described as something that is not marketing, but involves the CRO and the CEO. And I'm like, it can't be all of these things. I've heard it described as a go to market motion. So it's become this very nebulous term. And I think.

I think of it still in terms of bottom of funnel because it's measured in bottom of funnel metrics. It's either lead generation, MQL generation, or pipeline generation, or meeting generation. Those are generally what it anchors itself around. It's what it's held accountable to. Now, what it has tried to do over the last few years, which I think with great intent was to try and, uh, Make up for the lack of brand investment.

We've been in over indexed on short term performance marketing for a very long time. And there were a lot of people who've come out in the last few years saying we need to think longer term. We need to be getting people aware. So in a lot of ways, it was kind of trying to make up for this deficit of brand marketing.

But the problem is it doesn't because it doesn't get measured in a way that you [00:23:00] have to measure brand differently to the way you measure short term marketing. So I think it's, it kind of needs a bit more constraints because now it's become. Sort of too nebulous to be helpful because it kind of tries to be everything and you can't really be everything in marketing It's a dangerous thing to try and do and so I think it's if I think about it in the short term I think that's a more helpful way at least for me, but to your question about like, you know, is this a budget thing?

Yeah, of course we do spend we're limited on funds. Not everyone has money to be throwing Into what are big brand activation type campaigns, but we're also wasting a ton of money on things that don't work at all. Lead gen is not an effective way of growing a business. We over index too heavily on it.

We've spent far more money on it than we should. A lot of it could be repurposed to be far more effective. It's not about like, is there a budget there? It's are we using budget correctly? And not everything about brand has to be expensive.

[00:23:56] Doz Anyaegbunam: I have this interesting question in the chat from Kami, [00:24:00] which says, um, yeah, it's a big problem.

Most, most B2B marketing is tied to pipeline, MQL. And I've seen people make snacky comments like, oh, you talk about brand all you want. The marketing team needs to, you know, supply pipeline. And I get that, you know, you need supply revenue. Um, so how are others measuring the impact of brand marketing when it can be difficult to quantify the results?

Like, how do you see, you know, how I got. 200 people to 10 percent Tuma out of, you know, that sort of thing. Um, you know, and it's much easier to, when you compare that to demand gen metrics, demand gen metrics are pretty clear. Oh, 10 MQLs came in from this content piece. We shared 10 people downloaded that.

I mean, I have thoughts about that easy metric, but yeah, just. Like, how do you measure brand marketing and use that to win this brand versus demand gen debate [00:25:00] that always comes on every single time?

[00:25:02] Liam Moroney: So I think the, there's a couple of really important things that I've learned definitely over the last couple of years as trying to sell a lot of this in is that.

It's not actually necessarily how do you measure brand because there are lots of ways to measure brand and some of them are a century old. Some of them are six months old. There's now the difference is that it doesn't look as clean and as perfect as what we see in the dashboards. So some of it is a mindset thing.

You have to believe that brand is clean. Is important. You have to understand that having a more awareness in the market is a good thing. Knowing that more of your market is aware of you and thinking of you is a good thing. And then you can back into lots of different ways to measure it. And there are some really effective ones.

Like obviously in a perfect world, you would think that to do brand measurement, you do panel studies and large surveys and you're quarterly, you know, reaching out to everybody or a sample size of your [00:26:00] market and you're tracking these metrics. Yeah. For a lot of people that's out of reach truthfully It doesn't really cost that much to start a year by saying let's let's do a survey for 10 grand What we probably would have spent on a decent ebook and get a baseline for where the market is and at least then it gives Us somewhere to move from there's also things like Share of search, which is becoming a very good proxy because if people are brand aware and they're searching for your name Then that's people who are thinking of you if that's increasing Especially if it's increasing as a percentage of all of the other competitors that you deal with That's a good proxy that something's happening.

The problem is that it doesn't happen in line with A lot of the the demand gen metrics. So like if I put out a brand campaign today and I increase Awareness by let's arbitrarily say 20 percent of the market When will I see the impact of that? That's that's the problem It doesn't neatly fit into a demand gen bucket and [00:27:00] that's why it is a separate thing Objective, it has to have a separate strategy.

It has to be a strategy in and of itself, where you're saying our goal is to try and increase awareness. Let's do that and try and measure that as an outcome to the best of our ability, because we believe that it's going to have a downstream effect. You have to segment them to a certain degree.

[00:27:20] Doz Anyaegbunam: I think I think the biggest ticket for me here is.

I mean, besides all the metrics and everything, it's a mentality thing. It's a mentality shift. It's almost like we need to kind of relearn how we see marketing. We need to kind of say to ourselves. Like this is equally important as the short term thing. Um, the longer short works. I almost feel like we all should really longer short in B2B over and over again or something.

Um, um, there's another question here, um, still about the metrics basically, which is, it says, um, from Jason, uh, demand gen strategies relies. Um, but the results are declining. Like, is there like any low hanging fruits for brand marketing initiatives we could [00:28:00] use to quickly see success and gain traction as we adopt a heavier brand strategy, um, short term, low hanging fruits.

[00:28:09] Liam Moroney: I wish I could say the answer is a really comfortable yes, but it probably isn't. I think there is evidence to be clear that, When you do brand marketing alongside short term marketing, you often do see an immediate improvement. Admittedly, that's usually in the B2C world where the sales cycles and buying cycles can be quite short.

So, you know, if you do the math, the math becomes a little bit. Sometimes depressing, but like, and this came from Dale when I talked to him last week about this, where have you said, Hey, I'm going to launch a brand campaign today. And let's assume it goes immeasurably well, everything about it was perfect.

And we really resonated with everybody. Well, now you run into the reality of the 95, five rule where only about 5 percent of the market is in quarter in any given quarter, which means that if you launch a campaign today to new audiences that you've never spoken to [00:29:00] before next quarter, About 5 percent of those will have started to come in market next quarter, another 5%.

So by the time you're through a year, you're, you're like 20 percent of that audience has exhibited enough intent signals that you start to see them coming in market. So it takes a while, especially if you're talking to new customers. Having said that. Brand marketing can make short term marketing feel a bit better because it's just a bit more interesting It's not purely trying to just grab leads and conversions, but it's something a bit more Visually memorable so like you can see a bump.

I would say the truth is it's not a fix for failing Or declining demand generation performance I would argue that declining demand gen performance Is an imperative that the sooner we start fixing this the sooner we start seeing that change It's more of a like when's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago

[00:29:59] Doz Anyaegbunam: Now, [00:30:00] um, building on that question a bit, like, are there like signs, like, so just imagine I run a demand gen shop. Like what are like the signs that tell you, okay, this isn't exactly working anymore. You need to change strategy there? Like any signs that tell you that?

[00:30:17] Liam Moroney: Uh, I think probably one of the biggest ones is.

Pipeline that is closing at a poor or declining rate, because it's a good sign that just because you've got someone to talk to the sales team, you were not really in the running, you were either an outside bet that they went. Sure. I'll entertain you. Or you were lower on the list of that consideration set.

The higher you are on that set, the better you are. And brand is the most effective way to get higher on that consideration set. I think that is a pretty good signal. So if let's say sales outbound or general mark pipeline performances, 20 percent close rate, 15 percent close rate, and you're delivering ones that are 5 percent close rate, it means that they're coming in with.

Either no real [00:31:00] strong perception of you or a kind of a long shot perspective So you're not really in the running. You never really were that's a pretty good indicator that you're you're doing a great job Converting people and at least getting them willing to talk to you, but honestly you're coming in on the back foot That I think is a pretty decent Pretty painful and damning one, unfortunately.

And it's usually where you see it feel the most common and sales is pretty good at giving you that answer. Cause they'll be the one who feel it on the call where they come off and they go, Oh, they thought we did something totally different. Or when I told him the price, they not a chance out of the running immediately.

Those are good signals.

[00:31:38] Doz Anyaegbunam: That is a, I want to say that is sad, but there's also just the point about how it feels like in B2B SaaS. Um, we are very sales led organizations. And everyone forgive me if you, if you ever feel attacked about this, but it just feels like you're very sales led. And so then that, [00:32:00] that, that thinking or that attitude flows into how you think about marketing.

And if you think about how we've approached demand and brand, it feels like that is the reason why demand is a big thing. And so maybe the question to ask, um, as someone who tries to sell, who's constantly trying to sell brand initiatives into organizations, like are there like any steps you've seen that work in helping, just helping move the teams across and also help get the sales team aligned to like, yo, this actually works if we do it together.

[00:32:36] Liam Moroney: I think it's, You know, it is important to say, I said it a little bit, but sales is a very good diagnosis of a brand problem because they feel it. If no one's answering their emails, if people are coming in and they don't know what you do, don't really think of you. You're kind of like, Oh yeah, I said, I'd take the call.

Like they feel all that. So sales are extremely good when you ask them. And I think most demand gen leaders, [00:33:00] I did this a lot in my career. You start a new job, you meet with the sales team and you go. Tell me where it's going wrong. Tell me what's hard. Tell me where you think that marketing is not great.

And they'll tell you like, Oh, no one's heard of us. No one knows what we do. Every time I go there, I'm three months late. When I get into a conversation, this competitor keeps taking all of the deals. The problem is they're great at diagnosing and they're very bad at prescribing the answer. And we often let them prescribe the answer because you say, great, what would you like me to do about that?

And they'll say, I need more leads. I need better leads. I need you to send me more events. I need you to give me more. Studies. And I think if we stop at the, let's all agree that there is a problem. Can we all acknowledge there is a marketing awareness problem? Very often there is, that's where I think there's an opportunity to say, let me tell you what a lot of the most current theory on how to solve this problem is.

It is our job to be educators. It's not easy. There are a lot of organizations where you may not win that battle. I have been in companies where that battle is not winnable, where they just like leads our leads. That's it. Mercatus more leads. [00:34:00] Sometimes you can't win it, but. The best chance you can is to try and say, let me just explain to you how the latest research is explaining this.

And I often reference the Sixth Sense Buyer Experience Report, mainly because it's very B2B specific. It's very recent, but it's consistent with all of the other data out there. It's helpful to bring it in and go, Hey, look at this. Did you know that 81 percent of the time. Buyers have a brand in mind before they ever come into the sales process and they go with that brand in the end.

That's a pretty damning statistic. It means that where you won or lost before you ever found out that they were in market before those intense signals even showed up. The decision was largely made. That's a kind of an existential thing to tell people and I think What you may and hopefully get out of presenting that well is for them to say, maybe we'll allocate a certain amount of the budget to that problem, but we'll still keep our lead generation intact for the most part.

And that's where at least you get the door open to say, let me find efficiencies. Let me find [00:35:00] places where the lead gen is clearly not working and I'll reallocate budget towards that. That to me has been how that battle is often won. Not dramatic. It's often incremental. That's how it happens. This is, uh, I've been, I've been banging this drum for a while and the change is still happening very slowly.

[00:35:16] Doz Anyaegbunam: You know, but you, you, you is a really good point about just stopping the conversation at what's the problem. What's the answer to the problem? Because I mean, if you ask the carpenter how to fix something, they will give you a hammer, right? Like that's just what they'll do. It's still solve it the way they know how to solve it.

And it's not anybody's fault. Yeah. Can't fault him for that at all. Yeah. So the thing about B2B SaaS is that we're always in a hurry, like just quarterly targets to meet, the goals to meet and all that stuff, there's V, if you're funded VCE. I mean, you have to hit 5x or 6x or PE, you have to hit a certain amount of valuation in a couple of months or years, and so you're in a [00:36:00] hurry.

Um, so how do you, how do you, while you're trying to get buy in, how do you kind of make sure that you're helping the team hit their targets? While building brand marketing, like what have you seen work, you know,

[00:36:13] Liam Moroney: I mean, I think you, you have to still keep doing a lot of what you're doing because the reality is that's what you're expected to do.

Sometimes like those MQL targets, they're not going away. And I think that you can't be the marketer to say, Hey, let's not measure anything and we'll measure something that happens in six months. Like don't take bets. Don't take giant bets on anything like that. I think that. There are other metrics to introduce alongside that, that can say, Hey, the short term stuff, we're doing our best.

Like there's only so much we can do. Like it is what it is. We will do our best job to try and hit those targets, but let's track something else alongside that, which is like, are we doing other things that are showing that our brand marketing efforts are actually working? And it's, I don't want to say it's a wait and see, but it's like, there's hope on the horizon type thing.

Like, Hey, did you know that we've got more. Branded search queries [00:37:00] coming in for our brand this month than any of the months prior something different is happening Now we may not see the impact of that in our pipeline for two quarters But it means we're doing things now that will impact future quarters And I think especially as you're going into 2025 Where you're talking about what are we going to do next year?

Well, one of those things is let's repair the systemic problems where our awareness is declining. Our intent signals are dropping. Like that comment said, our inbound volume is going down. We, the only way we solve those problems is by planting long term seeds. So let's make sure we're doing that while we're focusing on hitting as many of those short term ways in the most creative ways possible.

That's why it's brand and demand. Admittedly, a lot of that short term stuff is, I don't want to say futile. But limited in its ability to really work, like we all know the truth. It, you know, a lot of people are getting the Q4 scramble right now, where it's like, Hey, we need to like, get, we need to hit those targets.

What can [00:38:00] marketing do? Honestly, not a whole lot. A lot of that's a lot of that case is happening, whether you like it or not. But I think we can, we can do two things alongside each other. That I think is what's important.

[00:38:12] Doz Anyaegbunam: Just being the devil advocate here, but what have been cases where the demand gen tactics just only help to kind of mess up what you're doing with brand because they can be so, so, um, sometimes they can be so predatory and stuff like that.

Like, so how do you balance that?

[00:38:35] Liam Moroney: I mean, I think there you have to speak from a brand management position as a marketing leader, and you have to vocalize that this might hit your short term goals, but imagine the damage it's potentially doing, we may get three people who fill out this form, because we blasted them with all of these messages.

How many people did we turn off ever talking to us again? Was it more than that three? Because that's the balance that we have to weigh how desperate are we for immediate pipeline? And are we willing to [00:39:00] sacrifice reputation and future pipeline in that effort? Okay. You know, you have to put that on them sometimes, because I think we can too easily go along with it going, I'll do it.

Sure. Yeah. I'll, I'll hit the database another two more times, try and squeeze a bit more out of it. But ultimately we are the protectors of that. We are the ones who have to advocate for that audience. And you have to explain to them what the cost benefit of that decision is.

[00:39:23] Doz Anyaegbunam: We're almost out of time. So I just, I think the last question I have for you is, cause I think you're talking about that a bit already is like, how do you.

Any advice on getting buy in? Cause, um, it does feel like it, when you listen to people talk, it feels like it can be really tough to just kind of get buy in into, let's do brand, you know, so any advice on that?

[00:39:44] Liam Moroney: I think it could be. There's a visceral response, unfortunately, in a lot of cases where you mention things like brand, it feels wasteful.

It feels fluffy. I hate that. That's true. I'm hopeful that changes, but in a lot of organizations, it is true. I think that a lot of what you have to do is [00:40:00] like we talked about. Acknowledge the problems and speak from a position of let's just leave a space to talk about what, what are we trying to solve?

Let's put the metrics aside for a second. We have targets to hit, but let's talk about what problems we're trying to solve And whether or not those targets hit solve those problems because a lot of time they don't more leads doesn't get you more awareness It just capitalizes on whatever awareness you have So it's about Leaving space for a strategic conversation to just talk about, let's acknowledge what we want marketing to do, not produce, do, what are we trying to solve?

What are we trying to change? What perceptions are we trying to solve for? And then I think it at least opens the door to saying, great, now that we've all acknowledged and agree that these problems are very real systemic issues that we have in the market. Let's talk about some ways that we could change those.

And then once the metrics come back in, you compromise and you do your horse trading and the usual stuff. But at least you have a space that you got to talk about. Let me tell you what does work. Let me tell you [00:41:00] what research works. And then it's up to them to say yes or no. And that I think is ultimately what That's about as much as you can often do, but you'd be surprised how willing they often are.

When you put the research in front of them, I think we have a very cynical view of leadership and sales. And we often talk about like, Oh, they only want the leads. No, they want the problem solved. Sales loves it. When people have heard of you, sales loves it. When people go, yeah, I know exactly what you do.

Their job is much easier. I think it's just about, can you show them that you are capable of solving that problem in a timeline where they'll feel it.

[00:41:32] Doz Anyaegbunam: I have a question here from Kami. Um, she says, um, so we totally understand brands and long term effort, but like, is there anything you can do from a brand lens to help short term brand gen?

So like, you know. Close the gap from a brand perspective.

[00:41:51] Liam Moroney: Again, it depends on your industry, but it's always going to be better to do marketing that is visually interesting. That is emotional. That is easy to [00:42:00] remember. It's going to help short term stuff. Anyway, anything you do that makes you easier to think about and be easier to remember and easier to separate from the pack, it's going to have an effect on short term stuff anyway.

Now, how much depends. But if you put out campaigns that make you look and feel very different and more memorable in your competition, and they were already starting to come in Marcus, yeah, you can absolutely bump up your chances. You may see it in your short term conversion rates. You may see it in your onsite conversion rates.

Like it's going to help. The demand gen, it's just don't bet that all of that benefit will happen very quickly. You might see a 5 percent bump, but you may see a lot of it down the line. Like a lot of what the stats out there show is that when you run very successful brand campaigns, usually about 60 percent of the value of that brand campaign occurs beyond the first two quarters.

So those first two quarters, it's not saying nothing happens, but some of the benefit happens. It just depends on your industry and your sales cycles and things like that. Yeah.

[00:42:57] Doz Anyaegbunam: Yeah, I remember my time at Diageo, we would do certain [00:43:00] things and you, they would always say, oh yeah, you do this now ahead of the end of year rush, because then, then that's when you reap the benefits of all the work you did.

But then again, that's alcohol, probably totally different industry. Um, so we are, we're almost up here. Um, Q& A is up next. Any other questions coming in? In the meantime, again, thank you We'll be hosting part three in January. Um, it's called building the brand marketing strategy. Um, but we also have the option of doing a part two of these where Liam can kind of share practical how tos to mix brand and demand, you know.

And so if you're interested, please let us know in the chat. Um, for whichever one we decide to go with, um, will the link will be live soon to register. Um, yeah.

While we wait for questions and if there's none. [00:44:00] It doesn't look like we have, we think we've answered most of the questions that came in. Um, so I'll just probably rounded this up because I think out of time.

Okay. So, um, no questions coming in now, but again, thanks everyone for coming. I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much, Liam. Um, like, thank you. Always really good talking to you about this.

[00:44:23] Liam Moroney: It's always a fun conversation. Thank you. I

[00:44:25] Doz Anyaegbunam: learned so much. Um, please let us know what you thought about the event.

Michael will share the type form in the in the chat, you know, and then again, also just another reminder, again, we'll have a conference coming up October next year, curated for senior executives in SAS. You know, we'll join the wait list. The link is in there. Thank you everyone for joining. Thank you, Suzmark.

Thank you. We appreciate that.