If it tells the right story, brand fuels demand

Branding isn’t a marketing tactic. It’s the strategy behind business success when shaped by a strong story infused with the voice of the customer.

Brand drives demand—not just by looking good or sounding right but by making your value unmistakable, your positioning credible, and your message emotionally relevant and resonant.

Your brand must anchor every conversation you have, internally and externally. It must guide how your company talks about what it does, who it helps and why it matters.

If your brand is muddled or filled with jargon, your story doesn’t break through—it just breaks. Content lacks cohesion, and campaigns lack conviction. But when the brand is clear and compelling, it elevates every customer experience.

In general, you have seven seconds to make an impression. Online, it’s closer to three. So, whether someone is skimming a homepage, scanning a LinkedIn post or checking out an ad, your message only has moments to land.

Let customers’ truths shape the brand

That’s why your tagline, elevator pitch, messaging pillars and boilerplate are essential tools for helping your audience understand who you are and fast. And when customer truths, not internal assumptions, shape those tools, they do more than inform—they resonate.

B2B buyers may be logical, but they’re still human. They want to feel understood. They want a clear path forward. And they want to believe your solution will make their jobs easier.

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That’s why B2B marketing should seek to empathize, educate and inspire.

To do these well, you have to listen to customers. Listen to how they describe their problems, how they make them feel and what they’re up against. When you mirror their language and reflect their mindset, your message resonates.

It’s not about what your product does—it’s about what your customer can do with it and how that makes them feel.

How to build a brand story that connects

Positioning and storytelling aren’t fluff. They make you focus. They’re how you bring clarity to complexity and encourage your audience to act, investing in your solution because they believe it will help them.

Two frameworks I rely on are SIR and StoryBrand:

• SIR (Situation Impact Resolution) helps you ground the story in your customer’s world.
• StoryBrand ensures the customer—not your product—is the hero, and your brand is the trusted guide.

These emphasize transformation, not just transaction. And that’s what people respond to. One of my favorite authors, John Eldredge, explains that we love fairy tales because they’re transformation stories: the frog becomes a prince, the servant becomes a queen.

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In marketing, whether B2C or B2B, transformation is key. X product will make us healthier, Y product will make us more productive, Z product will make us more efficient, saving time and money. These are the stories that stick.

Data backs it up. Research by Les Binet and Peter Field for the B2B Institute found that emotional B2B strategies are seven times more effective at driving long-term revenue than purely rational messaging. That’s because emotion influences memory, trust and action. Even in a work setting, people respond to marketing that makes them feel something.

Branding requires discipline, not just design

The biggest challenge in brand work isn’t creative—it’s commitment. Taking time to define the right story requires a deliberate pause, and not every executive team wants to make that investment. But that pause is powerful. If you don’t take the time to clarify your narrative, your market will write one for you—and it may not be the one you want.

Brands live in customers’ minds, but companies can influence those perceptions for better or worse. Branding is a business process that should include: 

• Discussions with your executive team to understand mission, vision, values and business objectives.
• Meetings with product to understand the roadmap.
• Calls with sales, customer success and support to learn what’s working and what isn’t.
• Interviews with employees across departments to assess internal clarity on mission, values and goals.
• Customer interviews to uncover practical and emotional truths, plus the language they use to describe their problems and desired solutions.
• Analyst insights to ground your narrative in industry dynamics.

You can’t build a credible, human and differentiated brand without research and analysis.

Storytelling makes you more visible in AI searches

Your brand story isn’t just read by people. Today, it’s interpreted, summarized and ranked by algorithms. Clear and consistent storytelling improves visibility and discoverability with AI-driven search and generative content tools. Brands that speak in human language, communicate value quickly, and have a straightforward narrative rise above the noise and appear in AI-powered recommendations and results.

AI is pushing marketers back to the basics of clear messaging, customer empathy and strong storytelling. These are how you shape perception, build trust, and stay visible in a world where your audience and their tools are moving faster than ever.

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Branding and rebranding aren’t about aesthetics. They’re about alignment and articulating your “why” clearly, consistently and compellingly. According to McKinsey and Company, companies that integrate creativity, analytics and purpose grow twice as fast as those that don’t.

When executed correctly, brand is the foundation of your:

• Demand-gen engine
• Sales narrative
• Product positioning
• Customer experience

Brand is where demand begins. And the stronger your foundation, the more potential your business has for growth.