10 B2B Expert Insights: Why Brand-Building Trumps Demand Generation

Happy Tuesday! Hope you’re having a fantastic week. Razor #28 is a bit different—a roundup that pulls together insights from industry leaders on why brand is essential for long-term growth. B2B tech companies looking to grow in 2025 and beyond need to shift focus from demand generation to brand-building. Brand provides the air cover you need to build awareness, confidence, and trust. You need all three to reduce buyer risk.

Key Takeaways

• Brand reputation is what builds lasting growth. Demand generation alone doesn’t get you there.
• Sales-led tactics can’t create trust or recognition the way a strong brand can.
• Brand effects stick around and compound over time, unlike quick-fix tactics.
• Awareness, Confidence, and Trust reduce perceived risk, which is the real barrier to B2B sales.
• A strong brand means future buyers see you as a safe choice—reliable and trusted—not risky.

And Now For Something Completely Different (sorta)

Instead of delivering my usual POV, I’m trying something new for this week’s article.

There’s been a surge of talk on LinkedIn lately around brand building—a brand marketing renaissance, you might say. The industry is waking up to the need for long-term brand reputation over immediate sales-led or product-led tactics.

And for good reason: the lead generation and demand generation tactics B2B has clung to for years just haven’t worked. We’ve been guessing and drowning in metrics that prove nothing.

Once dismissed as fluff, brand reputation in B2B is finally getting its due. It’s a long-term growth driver that provides air cover for your business today and tomorrow.

So, I’ve pulled together a roundup of 10 recent LinkedIn posts from industry voices who see beyond the quick fix. If you’re after real growth in 2025 and beyond, it’s time to think about brand-building as a long-term investment, not just a line item.

1. Jelena Veselinovic: Brand Is Not A Silo

Jelena Veselinovic is a fractional CMO & Brand Advisor and former Coca-Cola and Miro marketing exec. In this post, she nails why brand building is so important in B2B tech. It isn’t just a marketing function—it’s the outcome of everything we do, from product to customer experience. Branding can’t be separated into one vertical; it’s an aggregate of every customer interaction. Focusing solely on brand awareness or aesthetics in isolation creates fragmented experiences, limiting the ability to build authentic brand equity. Ultimately, brand and product are inseparable.

“Brand is the outcome of everything you do, not a brand marketing function output! Furthermore, how can brand awareness be built in isolation from the product? Brand communication divorced from product is mere vanity—empty and ineffective. Brand and product are inseparable, intrinsically intertwined. The product is the reason to believe; without it, you don’t have a brand.”

2. Jelena Veselinovic: Don’t Make Lead Generation the Primary Focus

Another nugget from Jelena. B2B tech often treats brand marketing as a sales-led or product-led lead generation function, focusing on keywords and competitive mimicry rather than unique strategy. True growth in B2B requires breaking out of this cycle, as the common approach leads to “baseline” growth that’s not sustainable. The solution lies in unlearning and challenging default growth narratives, seeing brand as a long-term foundation rather than a fleeting tactic.

“The industry is too nascent. Ironically, the best way to evolve is to unlearn everything you thought you knew and challenge false growth narratives.”

3. Liam Moroney: The Ineffectiveness of Demand Generation 

Liam Moroney is the CEO of Storybook Marketing. This post is a wake-up call. And for some of us who have been beating the brand marketing drum for the past two decades, it’s kinda like “I told you so.” Traditional demand generation isn’t sustainable; it often results in aggressive tactics that don’t necessarily create demand but rather capture existing interest. The real issue lies in brand awareness and consideration set inclusion—without Brand, demand generation tactics struggle to connect. Effective brand marketing builds buyer awareness of problems and positions the company as a relevant solution, which strengthens demand generation efforts in a meaningful way.

“The data is all speaking loudly that the main pipeline problem is occurring at the day one consideration set level, which means most demand gen tactics don’t even get a chance to come into play. The new wave of CMO winners will be those who know how to run a truly integrated brand and demand strategy.”

4. Liam Moroney: The Challenges of Brand Measurement

In this post, Liam explains how brand marketing, unlike lead generation, works over the long term and doesn’t fit neatly into short-term KPIs. Short-term metrics can’t capture brand impact, as brand efforts compound over time, creating lasting influence that enhances other marketing efforts. Trying to measure brand using short-term metrics is like evaluating fitness gains from one workout—it misses the broader, enduring effects that brand creates, particularly for sales outcomes.

“Long-term marketing measured with short-term metrics and KPIs becomes incredibly hard to defend and continue. Brand effects take time to show up, and they don’t decay quickly like performance marketing efforts. Judging it by an ROI metric becomes an arbitrary exercise. Brand through short-term metrics is a moving target.”

5. Liam Moroney: How to Gain Budget for Brand Marketing

This is good advice: When pitching brand marketing to leadership, avoid positioning it as an “extra”—frame it as a solution to existing problems, like pipeline quality and lead generation fatigue. Brand marketing should directly address challenges, such as reliance on outbound leads and poor conversion rates, rather than presenting it as an aspirational effort. Supporting data from sources like the 6sense Buyer Experience Report can further validate your brand’s impact on revenue and pipeline.

“Brand shouldn’t be treated as an aspirational activity to try, but rather a defensible solution to a clear problem the business is facing that has revenue impact. The data keeps pointing to brand as one of the most powerful levers in hitting those targets.”

6. Dale W. Harrison: Understanding Time Lag 

Dale W. Harrison is a Consultant at Inforda Life Science Services. In this insightful post, he shows how marketing efforts in B2B rarely produce immediate revenue. That’s because only a small percentage of the market is “in-market” at any time. Dale’s “toy model” demonstrates that brand efforts from one quarter influence revenue quarters down the line. This time lag is essential to understand; expecting immediate returns ignores the long-lasting nature of brand impact and the way memory decay affects potential buyers’ recall of messaging over time.

“Most current-period B2B marketing efforts will take several Quarters before full revenue recognition! 90% of the revenue influenced by THIS Quarter’s marketing won’t be recognized until 8-9 months later. Only less than 10% of the people your marketing will reach this Quarter will be influenced to buy after a FULL year!”

7. Dale W. Harrison: The ROI of Brand Marketing Isn’t Linear

In this post, Dale argues that ROI doesn’t always capture the value of brand marketing, much like the upfront costs of a factory don’t directly contribute to immediate revenue but are essential for the productivity, efficiency, and growth of what’s inside the factory. Similarly, brand marketing provides a foundation that allows other marketing functions to work effectively. In conversations with executives, it’s important to emphasize the strategic nature of brand investment—the factory—rather than focusing on ROI—performance metrics of what’s inside the factory.

“ROI is a poor metric to use anywhere within marketing, but especially for brand marketing. What’s the ROI of the building that houses the factory? LESS THAN ZERO!... Brand marketing works the same way.”

8. Mark Stouse: Awareness, Confidence, and Trust Reduce Risk

Mark Stouse is the CEO of Proof Analytics and he knows the impact of brand building because his software can measure it. In this post, Mark shares why brand building in B2B centers on cultivating Awareness, Confidence, and Trust (ACT), which ultimately reduces the perceived risk for buyers. A decision-maker typically starts unaware and cautious, so brand marketing must establish ACT to drive action. In short, buyers make risk-adjusted decisions, and brand is key to lowering that risk. If customers don’t feel confident in or trust our brand, they won’t engage.

“Particularly today, all the evidence points to the fact that we begin our search for the right decision as Unaware, Not Confident, and Distrustful. Outside of catastrophic failures, we don’t lose these qualities as much as we fail to build Awareness, Confidence, and Trust in others.”

9. Mark Stouse: Risk as a Consideration in Brand Investment

It’s common for leadership teams to view brand marketing as a risk due to its lack of immediate, measurable ROI. In this post, Mark explains how the risk tied to brand marketing can be reframed to highlight its role in building long-term stability and reducing future costs. Rather than viewing brand investment as an add-on, executives should see it as critical for reputation and resilience in uncertain times, leading to sustainable growth.

“Politics, wars, rumors of wars, AI, social division, employees, OpEx, legal expenses, challenging investor sentiment, debt, debt, and more debt… you name it, they have more and more reasons to not assume anything anymore. Dealing effectively with Risk will be pivotal to your success in 2025.”

10. Mark Stouse: Brand as a Driver of Sustainable Growth in B2B

In this post, Mark explains why interest in brand marketing has resurged due to the inefficiency of traditional demand generation. Demand marketing failed because it didn’t adapt to feedback loops; instead, it relied on assumptions about buyer interest. With brand, however, companies can build a sustainable growth engine by focusing on reputation, trust, and long-term customer confidence. Proving your brand’s value over time is essential to avoid the same pitfalls that led to the decline in demand generation.

“The 90%+ failure rate of B2B startups is irrefutable evidence that B2B GTM is not a linear, deterministic machine where we can pester people into buying a product they don’t perceive that they want or need. The renaissance in B2B brand is a reaction to the collapse of demand marketing as we’ve seen it for 15-16 years. If demand generation hadn’t failed, few would care about brand.”

Final Thoughts

If B2B tech companies want real growth in 2025 and beyond, they need to get serious about investing in their brand. The days of relying on demand generation to do all the heavy lifting are all but over.

Brand-building provides the air cover to win future buyers, helping them recognize, trust, and choose you over time. Imagine people saying, “No one ever got fired for buying [insert your brand].”

The industry experts in this roundup are pushing the conversation forward, showing why brand reputation is the foundation for lasting growth. Their insights make one thing clear: if you want to grow beyond quick fixes, it’s time to start thinking brand-first.

If you like this content, here are some more ways I can help:

• Follow me for bite-sized tips and freebies throughout the week.
• Work with me. Schedule a call to see if we’re a fit. No obligation. No pressure.
• Subscribe to my blog for ongoing insights and strategies. You can also subscribe here on LinkedIn if you prefer that format instead.

As always, jump in with any feedback.

Thanks again for subscribing. I appreciate you.

Cheers!

This article is AC-A and originally appeared on Klor Consulting’s blog. If you’d like to share it or refer to it, consider using the original.