How Wynter Builds (and Measures) a Brand-First Marketing Strategy

With organic traffic still plummeting, many B2B brands are searching for new ways to make up the gap in leads. An oldie but goody that’s back in the spotlight? Brand marketing. 

Maybe not quite the Mad Men days of cigarette smoke-filled, high-pressure ad pitches… but just about.

But while the creatives might be excited to get their juices flowing again, there’s a bigger question at stake:

How do you measure the impact of brand marketing – and justify the spend?

In this episode of Move the Needle, Peep Laja, CEO of Wynter, lays out the playbook for brand marketing that actually moves the needle. He explains why 99% of Wynter’s marketing is brand, not performance – and how that long-game investment is paying off.

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Create Demand (Not Clicks) Through Memory Structures

Performance marketing only works if there’s already demand. For Wynter, a message testing and market research platform, that demand was small and immature, says CEO Peep Laja.

Rather than chase clicks, Wynter decided to invest in creating demand – educating the market, building awareness, and embedding memory structures that pay off when buyers finally enter the market.

“What we are creating is memory structures in the brain. Because the final goal is that when they’re now entering the market ready to buy, we come to mind. Mental availability is the goal.”

Understand How Brand Marketing Pays Off (Over Time)

As Peep shares, brand marketing isn’t about immediate conversions – it’s about future consideration. It builds mental availability, awareness, and trust over time. It’s the groundwork for why someone thinks of your brand first.

This is especially important in B2B categories where, according to TrustRadius’s 2024 B2B Buying Disconnect Report, buyers only look at 3–5 vendors. 

And 78% of buyers select products they’ve heard of before starting their research.

That means brand marketing is possibly the most important thing you could be doing – but it also takes time.

“What we know about the—what research says about brand marketing ROI is that it requires six plus months of continuous always-on campaigns—paid and unpaid, various things going on—before there is any change in the buyer.”

Focus on Distinctiveness, Not Uniqueness

Peep stresses that it’s almost impossible to be truly “unique” in any market category. Product “differentiators” are quickly copied, and the innovation gap is always closing in.

Instead, Peep emphasises the idea of distinctiveness: standing out from the category leaders visually and tonally. This can include distinct colors or voice and tone. It also includes how you approach your positioning. 

As Peep explains, “You don’t want to be just known. You want to be known for something specific.” 

We’re all painfully aware of how B2B companies sound pretty much the same. Peep says don’t need to reinvent the wheel – but you do need to avoid blending into the sea of sameness.

A Dentsu study showed that 68% of B2B buyers say “all vendors sound alike,” while meanwhile 71% of marketers think their messaging is unique! (That’s embarrassing)

The only way to close this perception gap (and speak with distinctiveness to your target buyers) is by actually talking to them. 

As Peep states: “The only way to know what’s in somebody’s head and brain is to ask them. There is no substitute.”

How to Prove the ROI of Brand Marketing (Even to Your CFO)

Wynter’s own study revealed that most CFOs aren’t opposed to brand marketing on principle. They are just opposed to wasting money.

Peep advocates for educating key stakeholders so they have a better understanding of how and when brand marketing works. 

In addition, Peep arms himself with data showing the impact of brand marketing, without relying on flawed attribution models. Here’s what he recommends:

1. Brand Tracking Studies

The only way to know what’s in your buyer’s head is to ask them. Peep recommends running survey-based brand tracking studies every 6–12 months.

These studies should be done with verified category buyers—people who can actually make or influence purchasing decisions.

A message testing and market research platform like Wynter makes this easy and affordable for most mid-sized or larger B2B companies. Here are the key metrics Peep recommends gathering on a regular basis:

• Unaided Awareness: “Which brands come to mind for [your category]?”
  
• Aided Awareness: “Which of these have you heard of?”
  
• Consideration Set Inclusion: “Would you consider this brand if in-market?”
  

2. Correlate Brand Marketing with Inbound Leads

Peep takes a straightforward view to correlating brand marketing and performance. Performance campaigns (e.g. paid ads) and outbound sales prospecting can be isolated. Everything that remains? Attributed to brand.

Compare trends in inbound traffic, demos, and signups over time, excluding periods of performance ad spend or outbound sales pushes. If inbound is rising while spend is flat, that’s brand marketing at work.

Important! The timelines of brand marketing efforts and inbound leads won’t line up exactly. They shouldn’t line up exactly, because brand marketing takes time. Instead, look at the correlation over a 60, 90, or even larger rolling basis.

Peep’s Dashboard: Visualizing Brand Impact in One Place

Based on the conversation with Peep, we built the type of dashboard you could use in Databox to monitor brand marketing performance over time. Track aided and unaided awareness metrics, survey data, and inbound traffic together to tell the full brand story.

Click through to see the full dashboard loop!