‘Fighting on all fronts’: B2B marketers on the ‘multiplier’ effect of brand

With nearly two decades under his belt at software firm Rimini Street, executive vice-president and CMO David Rowe has had a frontline seat to witness the impact brand building has on scaling B2B organisations.

Launched in 2005, the software solutions provider has reached nearly $500m (£371m) in revenue, underpinned by an understanding that “every person in the company is a brand ambassador”.

“You either reinforce the brand with every interaction you have in the market with customers and prospects, or you detract from it,” says Rowe.

These efforts have included everything from staffing customer support teams with engineers to elevate service, to event sponsorships, industry awards and even the creation of the 2025 Street Series – a raft of online and offline events designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas between IT and tech leaders.

As a disruptive entrant in enterprise software support, Rowe explains it’s been important for Rimini to build a “very positive brand image” in order to be credible in the eyes of potential customers.

We’ve reframed brand building away from being a cost centre as a multiplier for the whole marketing system.

Stuart Penrose, Lowe Rental

Now, as the firm looks to grow even further, Rowe insists brand marketing will remain central.

“We’ve done it from the very beginning, but now I’m in the boardroom asking for more money to go do this, because we want to go from roughly half a billion dollars to a billion dollars and beyond,” he states.

While the bulk of fellow B2B marketers share Rowe’s appreciation for what brand building can achieve, fewer seem willing to put budgets on the line to prove it. According to Marketing Week’s 2025 State of B2B Marketing survey of 450 B2B marketers, half (50.7%) say brand building is not a budget priority for their business. When asked why, a perceived lack of ROI (58.3%) is the key sticking point.

Is a preoccupation with ROI stopping B2B marketers securing additional budget for brand and how can they get around it?

“Brand marketing allows us to be on more people’s ‘day one lists,’” says Simon McIntyre, marketing director at service management software firm Totalmobile. 

He explains if the business can increase recognition, awareness and make those day one lists, it becomes involved in more commercial conversations.

“[You] identify shadow opportunities that you might not have engaged with from your account-based marketing and open the doors to those types of opportunities,” McIntyre states.

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In that sense, the drivers of brand aren’t all that different to in B2C, says Rowe.

“A lot of the same things apply,” he explains. “Do I trust this organisation? Are they credible to deliver whatever service it may be? What can this company help me achieve or deliver?  What kind of image or feeling does it give me? Those are consistent.”

Trust and credibility are even more pertinent when, as Rowe found, marketers are selling a product or service buyers may be unfamiliar with, or yet to build up substantial market awareness.

At Lowe Rental, for example, which sells refrigeration-as-a-service (RaaS), marketing director Stuart Penrose explains the business is not just promoting an existing product, but creating a new category. 

“Entering new markets with an unfamiliar model means trust and credibility are critical. Customers, and the wider industry, need to understand not only what we do, but also why this way of accessing equipment is better for them in the long run,” he adds. “Brand activity gives us the platform to do that.”

At the UK arm of German equipment finance and leasing provider Grenke, building up engagement with trade associations and events over the last few years has already nudged the dial on market recognition, despite being up against powerhouse operators like BNP Paribas, explains marketing lead Hayley Lawrence.

“In order to be a major player, there needs to be an emphasis on trust on a brand and on a name. People need to recognise that name and know that name sits aside its competitors,” she explains.

“Four years ago, when people were surveyed on who Grenke were, they mainly knew it was just a German company. That’s a huge challenge and barrier for us.”

Behind the scenes work has already begun to “turn the tide”, with a recent survey of 500 SMEs demonstrating greater brand awareness. The team complemented this work with a new brand and logo unveiled in October last year.

“We didn’t do this two years ago,” adds Lawrence. “We weren’t at all of these events, because it does come as a cost and it does hit the budget hard, but the value that we’ve seen in terms of being referenced, being talked about and being invited to more events and to comment more…that for me is a sign that we are putting ourselves in the right places.”

A luxury?

The reality is, an understanding that brand building matters doesn’t always translate to greater investment, particularly in a challenging economic climate.

“In B2B, it’s so easy to fall back on the marketing and sales funnel,” says Rowe. “Am I filling the top of the funnel? What’s the lead source? And that lead source is fraught with issue. Is it last touch? Is there a multi-touch model? It’s so hard to draw a direct line to the exact cause.”

For this reason, it’s easy to fall back on “tangible” metrics more likely delivered by shorter-term performance-based marketing tactics given “brand building is less tangible”, he notes.

Longer-term deliverables linked to brand building can even be at odds with the relatively short tenures of CMOs keen to deliver impact, Rowe points out.

[You] identify shadow opportunities that you might not have engaged with from your account-based marketing and open the doors to those types of opportunities.

Simon McIntyre, Totalmobile

“If you’ve got a couple of years to make a mark then you’re going to be very careful about how you spend the money. You’re going to want to have things that have a demonstrable ROI, that make a difference, that move the needle,” he suggests.

“Brand building can take a year or two or longer depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. So sometimes you just don’t get the runway to accomplish some of these things.”

Longer, more intensive buying cycles within many areas of B2B ramp up the importance placed on quantifiable ROI, adds McIntyre.

These cycles tend to directly target people already engaged with a brand, rather than educate or raise awareness among those who haven’t taken a first step. All which lends itself neatly to performance-based commercial marketing techniques that can evidence how marketing activity drives those leads.

This means companies need a certain amount of financial bandwidth to take the plunge and invest, says McIntyre.

“There is probably a time in the lifecycle of a company where you can afford yourself the luxury to do it. It just so happens that’s where we are in our journey at Totalmobile now. We’re at that scale and we’ve got a great demand generation engine in place from our marketing function, so we’re looking at what’s next?” he says.

“What other feathers do we have to enable us to continue this growth journey? And if we can combine more short-term focused demand generation activity with the medium and long-term elements from a brand perspective, then we’re fighting on all fronts.”

Marketing multiplier

For Rowe, its largely up to marketers to overcome the barriers to brand and make a compelling case to senior leadership.

“It’s up to me to make sure everybody understands why this helps us close deals more quickly, helps us keep things flowing or helps us win a higher percentage of deals because of how we’re viewed or perceived,” he says. “It’s not easy. The math doesn’t always tell the story.”

The length of his own tenure at the company helps.

“I hope they have some confidence in my ability to determine the right allocations and you earn that trust over time, just like you build a brand over time,” Rowe explains.

“If I’m not delivering some of the basics, then I don’t have a lot of credibility to say: ‘We need to go do this brand study and go do these investments, and build the brand in these ways.’ So, you have to have a balanced approach to it. It’s my job to make sure they understand the impact that a positive brand position can have on the results.”

Part of that pitch is pointing to the solid foundations you’ve build with performance-based marketing or shorter-term investments, says McIntyre. At Totalmobile, he’s recently been given the green light from the chief executive to “significantly increase” investment in brand marketing as part of his 2026 plan.

Brand building can take a year or two or longer depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. So sometimes you just don’t get the runway.

David Rowe, Rimini Street

“I will say the only reason why I think we’re getting that approval and buy-in from that C-suite level is because we are able to evidence the impact that we’ve had in the performance marketing side of things,” he states.

“I can say ‘Look, we’ve delivered a 10x on every single pound of marketing investment, so we’re giving a fantastic ROI and we’re going to maintain that. But what we also want to add into the mix now is greater focus on brand development, profile and recognition.’”

At Lowe Rental, Penrose has addressed any barriers in three ways. Firstly, by linking brand KPIs such as awareness, sentiment and share of voice directly to commercial outcomes, so his colleagues can see the connection between brand strength and growth.

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Secondly, by running pilots which demonstrate the uplift brand activity brings to areas like lead quality and conversion rates before scaling. And thirdly, by “consistently communicating” how brand investment shortens sales cycles and makes all performance marketing work harder.

“In a nutshell, we’ve reframed brand building away from being a cost centre as a multiplier for the whole marketing system. This has helped secure the backing we need,” he states.

Although it can feel like an uphill battle at times, B2B marketers shouldn’t give up on brand investment, says McIntyre, which he positions as a driver of growth, and source of creativity and excitement across the team.

“When you’re a young marketer and you’re learning your trade, this is the type of thing that really excites people. We should be conscious as marketers that we don’t give up on that,” he states.

“Even though it can be a difficult sell to the C-suite, we’ve got to find the avenues that allow us to invest in it, because we all understand there’s such value there.”

Marketing Week will be continuing its reporting of the 2025 State of B2B Marketing survey in the coming weeks.