Are B2B Marketers Approaching Brand Awareness Wrong?

A dangerous myth has taken hold in the offices of B2B tech companies: that brand is a luxury, not a core business function.

It’s often treated as unmeasurable, "fluffy" work done only after the job of generating leads is complete. Think the expensive event or the clever ad campaign that's hard to justify to the finance department.

But what if this approach is completely backward?

According to B2B brand strategist Liam Moroney, it is. 

In a recent discussion on the Attributed Podcast, the founder of Storybook Marketing explained that successful brand building isn't an add-on; it's the essential foundation that makes all other marketing more effective.

TL;DR: Building a brand isn't about short-term leads; it's a long-term strategy to ensure customers remember you when they're actually ready to buy.

Keep reading for four things B2B marketers are getting wrong about brand awareness, or listen to the entire conversation here. 

1. You’re Thinking About Brand as an Action, Not a Condition

It is no secret that the common B2B playbook treats brand awareness as the first, trivial step in a linear funnel. 

We use terms like 'first touch, and it makes it seem like it's just a thing. Put an ad in front of them... brand awareness has been completed.

This is a profound misunderstanding. 

The goal isn’t to simply make someone aware of your logo and then shove them toward a demo. The actual objective is to build mental availability, to become so deeply embedded in a potential customer's mind that you are recalled effortlessly when a problem arises.

So, how do you define brand?

Liam illustrates this perfectly with the ‘Supermarket Test.’ Think of navigating a supermarket: with tens of thousands of items, shoppers don't analyze every option. They make decisions in seconds by grabbing what’s familiar.

Your brand isn't a single touchpoint; it's the cumulative effect of creating a familiar, safe, and easily accessible memory in a chaotic market. It’s the essential condition that makes every other marketing activity more effective.

2. You Can’t Control the Buyer, You Can Only Influence the Odds

A common goal in marketing is to create predictable outcomes. The thinking is that with enough lead scoring, intent data, and targeted ads, we can control the buyer's journey and deterministically create a sale.

Liam offers a different perspective. In his view, the belief that we can truly control a buyer is a misunderstanding of how marketing works. This shift from control to influence is perhaps one of the most critical takeaways for modern marketers.

It means we're just bettering the odds of it happening. I cannot make you think of my brand when you have a problem, but I can make it easier and more likely that you will.

This shift from a deterministic to a probabilistic mindset changes everything. It means the job isn't about forcing a journey but about stacking the deck in your favor. 

Every ad, every piece of content, and every event isn't a direct line to revenue but an investment in increasing the probability of being remembered at the crucial moment of consideration. 

This is particularly true in B2B, where research shows up to 80% of buyers already know who they're going to choose before they even start their formal search. If you haven't been playing the long game of probability, you're not even in the running.

3. Your Fear of "Wasted" Spend is Your Biggest Limiting Factor

If the goal is to build broad mental availability, then the hyper-targeting that defines modern demand generation becomes a liability. 

The obsession with only reaching in-market buyers with high-intent signals means you're ignoring the 95% of your potential market that isn't ready to buy right now.

So if narrow targeting isn't the answer, what is? 

To truly build a brand, Liam suggests you must embrace channels that feel inefficient to a performance marketer. He argues for expanding the marketing toolkit to include tactics focused on broad reach, such as billboards, out-of-home advertising, CTV, and even direct mail.

This requires a difficult conversation with leadership when it comes to arguing brand as a lever for demand. 

Liam frames it as a strategic choice: 

If we only invest in performance marketing, there is a hard upper limit on how much we can grow with it. We will plateau because we have reached the maximum amount of people who possibly know us.

4. You're Measuring Your Brand With the Wrong Tools

"How do we measure brand?” is the question that haunts every marketer. 

Many marketers avoid measuring brand, fearing the results are just vanity metrics, however, this is a dangerous perspective.

With a typical B2B customer journey taking 211 days from first engagement to a closed won, waiting for lagging indicators like revenue isn't a viable strategy. You have to measure the leading indicators of success along the way.

According to Liam, one of the most powerful and accessible leading indicators is branded search volume, most often measured using data from Google. He insists that marketers have to put a number on brand strength.

How many people are actually making an effort to seek out your brand? You would be surprised how effective it is when you show a chart to leadership saying, 'Look at our competitors up here and look at us down here. Does that feel acceptable to you?’

While surveys have their place, branded search is the real-time pulse of your brand's salience in the market. It’s a direct indicator of whether your efforts to build mental availability are translating into active curiosity. 

Conclusion

While surveys and mind-share studies have their place for deeper analysis, branded search is the real-time pulse of your brand's salience in the market. 

It’s a direct indicator of whether your efforts to build mental availability are translating into active curiosity. It’s not a vanity metric; it's a measure of whether you exist in your customer's world. 

About the Speaker

Liam Moroney is the founder of Storybook Marketing, a B2B brand marketing consultancy. With over 15 years of experience, Liam has led marketing and demand generation teams at high-growth SaaS companies across adtech, martech, and fintech. He is a passionate advocate for bringing classic, effective marketing fundamentals to the B2B tech world, helping companies build brands that drive sustainable growth.