When I started my B2B marketing career, it was before the digital era. Before social media platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram, before eMarketing, and before smart phones. It was a world where building a website was a big IT project difficult to maintain and update. It was before content marketing was even a thing.
While I might be showing my age, what I have found interesting in my observations of B2B marketing over the last 25 years of my career is that B2B brands today face the same challenges that B2B brands faced all those years ago. The world may have shifted dramatically, yet the same fundamental principles apply in B2B marketing and selling. And somehow, we have lost our way amidst so much digital hype over the years.
Don’t get me wrong. Digital and AI-driven marketing are certainly important, and without question, these developments have changed the game for marketers and brands in general. And yes, you need to have a well-oiled ‘always on’ marketing machine working for your business. You need martech, you need integrated apps, and you need good data analytics and visibility.
However, when you peel it all back, B2B brands rely on the same core principles They are often defined by large complex sales cycles, and a multitude of stakeholders to convince. B2B marketing and selling is still essentially about trust at the end of the day, with trust being even more important in many ways when there is so much misinformation and fakeness circulating online. People don’t want to buy from ingenuine brands, or companies that might be putting a strong impression out there yet are unable to live up to it and meet buyer expectations.
The other thing that is important to note is that while brands need to be digitally active and digitally competent in their marketing, being discoverable across all search platforms and being in front of key customers at the right time in the buyer journey remains tricky. Essentially a lot of B2B selling still comes down to relationships and buying from people and brands you like and trust. Decisions aren’t always based on the brand itself but on the people behind the brand, or on the people that companies are partnering with.
So, why am I writing about this complex interplay between trust and marketing success? At Manning & Co., we frequently see brands obsessed with the wrong metrics; brands looking for short cuts and wanting to leverage AI to solve all of their marketing problems. It isn’t as simple as that. While AI and technology have enabled marketing automation in amazing ways, if the basics aren’t addressed in a marketing strategy, you won’t be able to extract true value from your marketing tech and AI investments.
With all of this in mind, here are 5 things you can do to build more trust in your marketing:
Position your brand and yourself as a thought leader
I can’t emphasis enough just how important it is to position your brand and yourself as a thought leader. Also, I can’t begin to tell you how many companies and leaders get this wrong. Let me be very clear: thought leadership isn’t about selling your product or service. It is about creating trusted insights backed by evidence, experience, and research. These insights will ideally focus upon important areas that are useful to your audience and the bigger ecosystem that you are operating within.
Thought leadership is often about original thinking and trusted insights, especially in B2B and digital marketing contexts. It’s about being brave enough to propel new ideas out into the world based on your expertise and experience. For example, as a strategic marketer by trade, I am not only a thought leader in marketing, but also a leader in doing business in Asia, with a focus on entrepreneurship. So, these are areas I often write about in my thought leadership content.
Too often I see companies – especially in the IT and tech sectors – get scared by the idea of being a thought leader. There is an assumption that you need to be talking specifically about your product or service so that you can link it back to sales. This is missing the point of thought leadership. Thought leadership is about leading the market, which often involves educating people and sharing new ideas relevant to your audiences. The more you can separate thought leadership from your direct products and services, the better and more in-depth your content is likely to be.
Deliver on what you promise
You can have the most amazing marketing campaigns running;, however, if you can’t deliver on your brand promise, then what is the point? To build trust in today’s AI-driven world, you need to be able to deliver what you say you’re going to do. Deliver on promises and create a strong customer experience, because trust breaks when campaigns overpromise and underperform.
When you are good at what you do, you can make sure that your clients have an amazing customer experience along the way. I don’t see as much focus on this as part of marketing currently, and I worry that the customer experience is being overlooked at times. Review your service delivery and don’t forget to put energy into ensuring that it is the best it can be.
At Manning & Co., we have always operated as a trusted partner to our clients. I view us as a more partnership-orientated consultancy than others, as we strive to go ‘above and beyond’ rather than providing transactional agency services only. We even have a reporting mechanism to capture our ‘above and beyond’ deliverables to ensure our clients have full visibility of services and the value we provide.
Understand your customers
Your clients and prospects are not algorithms, they are people – don’t forget that. Even if you are the greatest AI enthusiast, don’t make the mistake that your current and future customers can be treated or spoken to as if they too are robots. Don’t communicate to customers in a way that shows you haven’t taken the time to think about them or understand them, as you will start to lose their trust and engagement.
Make sure you connect with your market and customer base in a deeply considered way. When was the last time you asked your customers how they are doing? What is keeping them up at night? Where do they need support or help? In such a volatile and digitally disrupted world, being a standout trusted partner is about being human. Show that you are there to help, to enable, and to take the worry away or at least ease the pain for people.
The same thing can be said for prospects. In a world that is so fast-moving, what people needed last year is different from what they need today. At M&C, where our clients needed help 2–3 years ago, is vastly different to what they need now, so it’s important to be proactive and take the time to understand people’s needs through human connection. This strategy will feed back into your business model and go-to-market approach. So, when was the last time you asked these important questions? Start today.
Review your branding and business model
Marketing can go wrong if you don’t have the right business model to begin with and if your offering is without an addressable market. In fact, these are key reasons why most businesses fail – when there is no addressable market to begin with or that the value proposition and messaging to market is off and not resonating with people, making conversion near impossible.
In a world with so much competition, it’s crucial to consistently review your service offering, your brand and business, and your pricing model. Brand messaging is essential and needs to align with your business vision and goals. If you haven’t done a review for a while, I recommend that you take the time to do this as you might unearth some opportunities for improving what you are taking to market. As a result, you might get more cut through and build trust on a more solid foundation.
Everyone is responsible for building trust
Building trust is a team effort and not just the responsibility of the marketing department. It should be everyone’s responsibility, with every customer-facing touchpoint reinforcing the same trust and promise. Every touchpoint with your customers matters, not only for delivering a standout customer experience but also for reinforcing your brand’s trusted position in the market.
Knowing that people buy from people they like and trust, make sure you invest in your customer-facing teams, so that they understand your brand, your points of difference, and your latest thought leadership approach. Take your people on the journey with you.
At Manning & Co., we believe that while technology and AI will continue to reshape the marketing landscape, trust will remain at the centre of every successful B2B brand. The businesses that will stand out in an AI-driven world are not necessarily the loudest or the most automated, but the ones that consistently deliver value, communicate with authenticity, and build genuine relationships with their audiences.
Marketing technology can enhance efficiency and visibility, but trust is earned through people, experience, and action over time. As the market continues to evolve, brands that stay focused on these fundamentals will be far better positioned to create meaningful connections with customers and deliver long-term business growth.
