How do you feel about cybersecurity? Now imagine you are the CISO of Marks & Spencer - how do you feel now?
You'd feel pretty different I’d think, given the recent $300m ransomware attack. Feelings would definitely be involved, in fact there is a high incidence of burnout in CISOs as they face mounting pressure. Yet taking only a cursory look at B2B marketing you’d be forgiven for thinking that B2B buyers make purely rational decisions. Then the second thought you’d likely have is that, hang on, aren’t B2B buyers humans too with emotions just like the rest of us? And then when you think about it a bit more, aren’t making big business decisions some of the most emotional decisions that get made, with reputations, careers and jobs on the line? That's where understanding salience can really help marketeers gain an edge.....So I found it very heartening to read the recent LinkedIn research on B2B buying of Gen AI which brings to life the emotional side of buying Gen AI as well as the key role of salience.
💉Salience is awareness on relevance steroids!
“But what is salience?” I hear you ask! Salience is fundamentally about mental availability but it's not simply brand awareness; it's about building strong memory connections between your brand and specific needs or contexts where you can provide value. In B2B environments, salience becomes particularly complex because buyers face highly contextual, multi-layered needs shaped by their industry, organizational health, role-specific challenges, and business objectives.
❤️ABM + emotion builds brand salience
This complexity makes account-based marketing (ABM) a powerful tool for building salience. Rather than attempting broad appeal, ABM creates precision connections between your brand and very specific buyer contexts. But most B2B marketers focus heavily on product features and logical arguments, missing the emotional underpinnings that create lasting memory pathways and can make brands more retrievable from memory when buyers have specific needs - aka which make brands more salient. And given 70-80% of winning vendors have been identified before any formal buying process starts that is a critical growth lever.
🫂Enterprise decision making is emotional and collective
It’s easy to think that since emotions are individual and B2B decisions are collective, that emotions can't matter in B2B buying and only rational messages are relevant and shared amongst buying groups, but this prevents marketers from leveraging emotional connections. In reality, whilst buying committees are composed of individuals, they each bringing distinct emotional responses, fears, and motivations that combine in collective decision making. The challenge lies in understanding emotional asymmetries within buying groups. Different stakeholders carry varying levels of risk and reward. The risk-averse IT person might amplify the CFO's budget concerns, creating collective resistance stronger than any individuals enthusiasm or reluctance for change.
🤔It's not enough to be simply memorable…you’ve got to be memorable in the right context
Most marketers understand individual motivations but more could get value by mapping how these emotional drivers interact within group settings. Successful B2B salience requires moving beyond traditional persona mapping to include emotional stakes and risk profiles. This approach recognizes that building mental availability isn't just about being memorable, it's about being memorable in the right emotional context for each stakeholder while addressing the group's collective emotional dynamic.
The brands that master this will find themselves naturally coming to mind when their customers face challenges, ultimately transforming from vendors into trusted partners.