So what is brand to demand? So on the one hand, you've got brand building content. Um, this is really good for, um, building your brand over a long period of time, but it does take time. Um, now one of the good things about this is that it helps people to build affinity with your brand, which can help them to..It helps to reduce their price sensitivity, so it makes them more likely to choose you. It helps to differentiate you against your competitors. Then at the other end of the scale, you've got demand gen, which is far more immediate. It could also be a kind of direct response. So this could be things like offers. People are far more price sensitive at this end. You're far less differentiated. And so quite often, you know, you have to offer incredible value. Or frankly, just be, be a lot cheaper. Um, and so because these increased price sensitivity,

Having cash now is far more valuable than having cash in the future. That wasn't the case when interest rates were very, very low. And so consequently, people are far less willing to take really long term bets on building brands, even though, frankly. If you really want to build differentiation, if you really want to build, um, uh, pricing power, then, um, then, you know, it does take time to do it.

So people are trying to bring that in a lot closer now, um, partially because the people who hold the, uh, uh, the finance department and the people who hold the purse strings are saying that we need to see a response from the work that you're doing. And so we're trying to look at like, okay, how can we take all of this like great brand work that we've been doing kind of, that's maybe a bit more long term and like, how do we create a funnel that then brings that engagement and those audiences that we've been building and start to monetize them more immediately. And so that's what brand to demand is, is all about. And so the key thing to remember when you're trying to do this is to think about what are the stages that people have to go through to go from this sort of the top of the funnel, if you like, the more kind of like Brand, the more awareness end of, of, uh, the communications that you're doing. And then how do you start to move them down through the funnel? What are the different types of communication, um, and content that you can be sharing to help to drive people more towards the direct demand gen, um, and the point where they're actually going to make a sale.

 

Um, and so the key thing to remember is obviously just to think about like what, what stage of the customer journey or each of these is your audience at, and then how do we, how does the next piece of communication work to extend the narrative to sort of draw them into that may then making a purchase with your organization.

Ultimately, one of the best ways to add value to your business is to build a brand affinity or brand equity. So, in any, with any product, you have the, the value of the utility. So let's say, you know, got my water cup here. There's, there's a certain value in just having a receptacle which will hold my water. But then there's also, there's a sort of, there's a brand value that's added onto the top of that. Now, in a client, in the audience's mind, in the customer's mind, they can't split the, uh, the perceived value or the split in the perceived value between where the value of the utility ends and the value of the brand begins. So, my nice bottle, glass of water here, it's got this nice shiny silver rim, it's got these little kind of nice little cutouts on it. So, you know, I think it's a pretty good glass of water, but like, I can't, as a, as a consumer, I can't tell where my perception of value in this glass, where it ends because it's just a receptacle. You know, I could potentially be using this. I mean, it wouldn't be a very good thing to drink from, but I could be using that. Um, it, I can't necessarily understand like where the perceived value of just having a little scoop to drink some water ends and where the perceived value of having this cool, nice, shiny glass begins.

And so as a brand, what you're trying to do is continually increase this perceived value. So say for instance, you know, this glass, um, had been marketed to me or had been given to me by, I don't know, Tom Cruise, say. The perceived value of this, I don't know what I chose to put Tom Cruise, but I did the perceived value of this in my mind increases drastically, uh, and which means I'm going to be far more willing to spend money on it. So for me, from the glass manufacturer's standpoint. You know, they haven't had to do anything different to the makeup of it. But because Tom Cruise has been, was the person who promoted it, or because I like Tom Cruise or whatever, if I do like Tom Cruise, then that sort of adds a perceived value. Um, and that's, and that can be a really effective way of building, um, like brand value and frankly pricing power.

Because ultimately we're trying to establish pricing per, you know, the sort of the, uh, the 5, 000 pound gorilla, if you like, in this area is, is, is Apple in a way talking about Apple brand is kind of a bit sort of, um, a little hackneyed, but you know, in a way it's the sort of easiest way to think of it.

Let me think about like an Apple product, you know, these little AirPods. Um, you know, you can buy pretty good Bluetooth AirPods for a fraction of the price, you know, maybe twenty, twenty five, thirty dollars, I think, I don't know, but you know, I think these cost about two hundred dollars for an AirPod Pro, and it only costs Apple a fraction of that to make them, but they've been able to generate so much brand equity, so much brand value, that we'll happily pay multiple of what it costs them to produce it, um, and so that's what you're trying to go after, and like, that kind of brand value takes time to build.

You need to try and think about each of your customers in terms of a life cycle. So, they go from initial awareness, like when they've just maybe seen you, through to, uh, consideration and then through the sale and then, you know, they kind of cycle around maybe make further sales off you. Now, in order to really build that brand value, brand equity, you need to be thinking about like, well, how are we Producing pieces of content for every single element, every single stage of that process.

If you focus purely on demand generation, then you, uh, you don't have the same pricing power that you're able to establish with brand communications and therefore, um, you know, you're, you're, you have to compete far more on price. And I guess what really good marketing and really good branding can do is that it enables you to differentiate yourself. And so like, yes, you know, obviously the TV commercial industry, you know, wouldn't exist if it was not for brand generation and it's a massive multi billion dollar, um, global industry. Um, but if you want to build real long term brand equity in a way that, uh, the internet and YouTube and all your different social platforms give you the opportunity to do, Um, you need to take a longer time view on it. And then once you sort of built that brand equity and you've built that brand value, then you can start to look at like, okay, well, what, what are the next sort of breadcrumbs along the process that I need to, um, to drop in order to help people who've maybe engaged in my brand and my brand content with a view to turning them into a customer paying customer.

And that all just takes time. And so I guess, you know, if someone was to say to you. You know, look, we don't want to make an investment in, in this brand end of the scale. I'd say, you know, that makes complete sense, but ultimately what we're trying to do is differentiate our businesses or our organizations because we're trying to establish pricing power and you can't do that with demand generation or it's very, very hard to do.

So while back now, Google, uh, analyze all the different content that was on their side. And they wanted to come up with like, what was their ideal model for people who are looking to build out a channel on YouTube? Um, and what they came up with was, uh, three different types of content. You've got your hero, which is the sort of the big marquee eye catching stuff., which people are going to see, you know, when they're just, they might be browsing, they might be on social media and they'll just sort of see this kind of big, exciting, you know, that could be like Felix Baumgartner jumping from the edge of space for, for, for Red Bull. You see it, it's like, Oh, wow, that's really cool. And then you sort of click through. Then you've got your hub, which is more like magazine content is more temporarily specific. So it's, it's time based, you know, it might be weekly or monthly or daily. Um, but the idea with that is that because it changes on a day to day basis, it gives people something to come back to. So, you know, they might've engaged with your hero content, seen it, and then they get sucked into your channel and then they get to engage with more of the hub content. And then the other end of the scale, you've got what they called, um, hygiene initially or help, um, and this is the kind of thing that people might search for.

What's the best way to fix a squeaking brake on my bike? And then you can, people might search that and then they'll like through doing that search, then they can kind of get sucked into the, the, the hub. And so in a way you almost have the hero and the hygiene or help content as they're almost kind of like lead capture or kind of audience capture devices that then feed people into your central magazine content. Um, which is, which is the hub. Um, and you know, as a, as a process, as a way of structuring a channel, it's actually a really effective, um, way. Um, and, and so it continues to be used to this day.

You know, when we look at kind of B2B versus B2C, um, B2C tends to have it a bit easier just because the sale is so much simpler if you tend to just be reaching out to an individual and they maybe have to kind of square any purchase with themselves or maybe with a partner, uh, or maybe with a parent. Whereas in a B2B. Um, in a B2B context, there's more people who have to be engaged. That said, the process is still very similar. You're still engaging with people. Um, they say that people, uh, will buy emotionally or make, make, make purchasing decisions on an emotional standpoint, but then justify it logically. Um, and so, you know, you might fall in love with a car or something. Um, and say, oh, you know, I have to have this. Because I just kind of love it, but then you justify by being like, Oh, well, you know, I really need a car because I need to do this and I need to be able to drive to this place and do that. Um, and so I guess from a kind of B2B standpoint, there's just more people who have to be persuaded logically. And there's more like, there's just a bit more complexity. You have what we would refer to as a, as a decision making unit. Within the organization. And that generally will be made up of an initiator or which is quite often the user, um, and then going through influencers. They can be internal or external, a gatekeeper who maybe, uh, it's, they, they work there to try to save the time, um, and the focus of senior staff and then a decision maker, and they're generally like the most senior person in the process.

Um, the different people in those different roles need slightly different communications. And, and, but generally what we're trying to do is make sure that we make the features and the benefits of any potential sale as clear as possible so that they can be communicated through the organization from a, from a branding standpoint. Obviously the, uh, the initiators, the users, they can respond very well to, um, to the more helpful end of the scale. They want to, uh, you want to try to build brand affinity and trust with them by sharing content that helps them to do their job. So for instance, when we were looking for a marketing supplier. Um, did a lot of searches online, um, to ask all sorts of different questions. And HubSpot were really good in that the content that they shared just kept coming up. So, you know, you ask a question about something marketing related and like HubSpot, it always floats up to the top. And so over time that then builds affinity. It builds trust to the point where, when we then had to. Um, or we decided that we were going to bring on a, a marketing, uh, supplier, um, for our sort of that tech side of, of our marketing, they seemed like the logical one because they'd built that trust over time.

Um, and then we were able to, um, go in and, and take the more feature and benefit that, uh, um, end of the content that they'd been sharing and share that with our senior team, who were then able to make a decision on, uh, on whether or not we were going to go with it. And so, you know, there is, there's huge value in this, um, the brand building end of, of the spectrum, even if that is just help rather than sort of big marquee, um, uh, hero content. But then, then through to just content that makes it really simple, um, for them to make that sale internally. There are similar types of levers that you have to pull in order to make an effective B2B sale. Um, it's just a little bit more complicated, um, and you just need to be a little bit more buttoned up in the way that you make that communication.

Obviously at the minute, like, there's a lot of pressure on, uh, internal departments, uh, around how you spend your money, making sure you get the very best bang for your buck. Um, and when you look at video, it can be quite a large line item potentially on your budget. Um, but given the effectiveness of, uh, video led projects, um, it is the best way to communicate and to drive people through that funnel. Obviously you may look to support the content that you produce, um, with either written content or microsite or other pieces of, of material, but just to sort of, to keep people moving through that funnel, video really is the most effective way to do it.