Have You Got A Great B2B Strategy?

The word “strategy” is one of the most overused in business. Too often it becomes a catch-all for ambition, targets, or a list of disconnected tactics. In reality, a great strategy is none of these things.

It's about clarity, evidence, and bravery. It is a set of deliberate choices about where you will compete, how you will win, and what you will stop doing. It's about the rigour of thinking and the discipline to follow through.

Here are 5 instant wins on getting it right.

1. Start With Clarity

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has shown repeatedly that businesses which outperform their peers are those that define their target market and competitive advantage with precision.

Growth targets are not strategies. “We want to grow 20% this year” is an ambition, not a plan. Strategy is about focus:

• Which markets will you prioritise?

• Which customers will you deliberately walk away from?

• Which levers will you use to create an advantage?

Without clarity, B2B companies fall into scattergun activity — spending across too many markets, chasing too many audiences, and failing to create mental availability in any.

2. Balance Brand and Performance

Les Binet and Peter Field, published through the IPA, demonstrate the importance of balancing long-term brand building with short-term sales activation. In B2B, this principle holds as firmly as in B2C.

The LinkedIn B2B Institute has reinforced this with its analysis of the 95:5 rule: at any one time, 95% of potential buyers are out-of-market, while only 5% are ready to buy. A strategy focused exclusively on the 5% in-market today is unsustainable.

Effective B2B strategies invest in brand to prime future buyers, while using performance marketing to harvest demand when it emerges.

3. Anchor in Buyer Behaviour

System1 and Ehrenberg-Bass research remind us that brands grow by building mental availability — being remembered at the right moment of choice.

Yet many B2B strategies are written to satisfy boards, not buyers. They become overly rational, laden with corporate jargon, and designed to look good in a PowerPoint pack.

Real strategy must reflect how buyers actually feel, behave, and decide. That means being distinctive, creating emotional impact, and showing up consistently across touchpoints.

4. Measure the Right Outcomes

Marketing Week has consistently highlighted the problem of over-indexing on short-term metrics. Clicks and MQLs may be easy to measure, but they rarely correlate with commercial outcomes.

Strong B2B strategies define meaningful measures such as:

• Mental availability (are we remembered in buying situations?)

• Distinctiveness (can buyers recognise us quickly?)

• Pipeline quality (not just volume)

• Long-term revenue contribution of brand spend

Anything else risks being noise.

5. Be Brave

The most overlooked aspect of strategy is courage.

Great B2B strategies make choices that will feel uncomfortable: saying no to attractive but distracting opportunities, committing to brand investment when the board is impatient for leads, or creating campaigns that challenge industry norms.

The IPA’s databank evidence is clear: brands that take risks and invest in creativity deliver significantly higher commercial returns. Safe strategies may get approved more easily, but they rarely scale.

The Brandtale Perspective

At Brandtale, we see strategy not as theatre but as action. It should be grounded in evidence, anchored in clarity, and executed with courage.

The best B2B strategies don’t look like everyone else’s. That is precisely why they work.

Good strategy doesn’t just deliver growth. It builds brands that endure.