Conversion mania backlash – why long-term marketing efforts are more significant than immediately measurable results

Given the enormous arsenal of digital tools available, tracking your every marketing activity in real time, it is very easy to lose track of the overarching goals, which are by definition much harder to measure. By now, many organizations have started realizing that this is detrimental, and as a result, the focus will gradually shift back from this “conversion mania” toward strategic, long-term, brand-building communication during the coming decade.

Among the marketing department of today’s B2B companies, the focus is generally on assisting the sales department by generating leads. But according to the experts surveyed by Kairos Future on behalf of Dun & Bradstreet, brand building will replace sales as the top priority by 2030.

Brand Building

“Future marketers will understand that even in an automated, digital and smarter world they need to work with their brand building. This is something that has gotten worse in recent years. The reason is that search has become so effective that they have moved more and more money to it and the money has many times been taken from their brand building and it is not a really long-term strategy. It must be evaluated according to how much growth it generates,” Carl Wåreus, Google’s Head of domestic Clients, Agencies & Partners, says.

Indeed, the advent of digital automation means that marketing is becoming increasingly streamlined and less differentiated. (It can also be argued that it is actually lowering the quality of the output, as well as causing content bloat.) Those who wish to stand out instead need to take a step back and focus on innovative, high-level branding concepts.

Differentiation

According to nearly 60% of the experts participating in our poll, actual human creativity will become the most important resource for those trying to avoid drowning in a sea of automated marketing.

“Branding is becoming increasingly important. Most companies will work in markets where it is very difficult to find a differentiation at product or service level. The differentiation will instead lie in how you interact with your end customer,” Hans Althin, Vice President Innovation at Alektum, concludes.