B2B firms favour sales over brand building in survey

Propolis has published research showing that 76% of B2B businesses are prioritising short-term sales over long-term brand building. The findings are based on a survey of 150 UK Chief Executive Officers and senior business leaders.

The study points to a broader shift in how companies allocate marketing budgets under commercial pressure. It found that 76% of respondents believe budgets are too tight to support marketing activity not directly tied to lead generation.

Another 77% said revenue growth now takes precedence over market visibility, while 76% said hard leads are currently more valuable than brand awareness.

Marketing spending appears to face a tougher test in the boardroom than sales expenditure. More than four in five respondents, or 81%, said marketing budgets are harder to justify than sales budgets in the current climate.

The figures suggest many business leaders are backing channels and programmes that can show a near-term commercial return. That reflects the pressure many companies face to protect income and defend performance when budgets are under strain.

Longer cycles

The research also highlights a tension familiar to many B2B marketers. Buying cycles in business-to-business markets often stretch across six to 12 months, meaning activity aimed at raising awareness or shaping demand may influence a deal long before any sale appears in performance data.

That lag can make brand investment harder to defend than lead-focused activity, particularly when boards want immediate proof of value. In practice, marketing teams can come under pressure to show a direct line between spend and revenue, even when the path to purchase is long and involves multiple touchpoints.

Propolis argues that the risk is not simply a narrower marketing strategy, but a weaker future pipeline. If investment shifts too far towards activity aimed at capturing existing demand, businesses may do less to create the demand that supports growth further down the line.

The issue also reflects a wider debate over marketing's role in commercial decision-making. In many businesses, sales outcomes are easier to count and attribute in the short term, while the impact of brand building tends to emerge over a longer period and through less direct measures.

Boardroom pressure

The survey suggests this difference in measurability is shaping boardroom choices. Senior leaders appear more willing to defend spend that can be quickly linked to leads and conversions than investment designed to strengthen market position over time.

That distinction matters in B2B markets, where purchase decisions are often made by multiple stakeholders after long evaluation periods. Awareness, reputation and familiarity can all influence those decisions before a buyer is ready to speak to a sales team.

Richard O'Connor addressed the gap between short-term measurement and long-term value in comments accompanying the findings.

"When businesses prioritise only the marketing activity they can immediately connect to leads and revenue, they risk undervaluing the brand building and demand creation that influence buying decisions much earlier in the journey. The danger is that this leads businesses to cut the very marketing investment that helped create that growth in the first place. But we need to stop framing this solely as a marketing problem. It's a business problem, and the onus can't sit entirely with marketers to fix it. Chief Executive Officers have a responsibility to understand where sustainable growth comes from and give their marketing teams the support they need to demonstrate their commercial contribution, whether that's better access to commercial data, greater financial understanding, or much closer alignment between marketing and sales," said Richard O'Connor, Chief Executive Officer, Propolis.

His comments place responsibility on senior management as much as on marketing departments. The research suggests the challenge is not only proving return on investment, but also deciding which forms of return a business is prepared to recognise when setting priorities.

For companies that rely on long sales cycles, the findings raise questions about whether current budget choices could reduce future opportunities. A sales-led strategy may support immediate targets, but the survey indicates many leaders are making those choices in an environment where longer-term demand creation is increasingly difficult to defend.