Are We a Brand or a Marketing Agency?
Jami Mullikin • February 13, 2025
At Wonder, we get this question a lot: Are you a brand agency or a marketing agency?
The answer is: we are a Greenville, SC-based strategy, marketing, and media firm.
We work with clients who value long-term marketing relationships. That means we meet you where you are—whether that’s building a marketing engine for growth or refining the foundation of your brand.
Brand vs. Marketing: Understanding the Difference
Brand vs. Marketing: Understanding the Difference
Brand strategy is a once-in-a-decade initiative. It’s a deep, foundational effort that defines your company's identity, positioning, and long-term differentiation. It’s essential, but it’s not something you redo every year.
Marketing, on the other hand, is an ongoing activity. It’s how your brand interacts with the world daily—through campaigns, content, lead generation, and customer experiences. Without a clear marketing strategy, even the strongest brands can struggle to connect with their audience effectively.
The Next 90™ Marketing Operating System
The Next 90™ Marketing Operating System
We focus on marketing strategy and execution
using our proprietary Next 90™ Marketing Operating System. This system helps define what “good” looks like for your marketing three years from now, lays out a one-year plan with our Marketing Activation Plan™, and enables activation with 90-day Priorities.
The Next 90™: Setting the Foundation
When we begin working with a client, we start with The First 90™. This is our initial engagement to assess your marketing needs. If we uncover a misalignment in your internal or external brand perception, we address that first—because without brand clarity, marketing efforts will lack effectiveness.
Marketing is an Activity, Brand is an Interaction
Marketing is an Activity, Brand is an Interaction
Marketing touches every aspect of your business, from sales to customer experience. That’s why we define a Brand Platform—a strategic framework ensuring your brand is consistently communicated across all marketing interactions.
We activate brands through strategy, marketing, and media, but our media efforts focus specifically on lead generation and demand generation for B2B businesses.
Choosing a Brand Agency: What to Look For
Choosing a Brand Agency: What to Look For
If you're hiring a brand agency, ensure they bring more than just a logo and color palette to the table. Ask yourself:
• Have they led brand strategy for billion-dollar B2B companies?
• Do they understand how to build a brand from the inside out?
• Can they prove their work goes beyond aesthetics and into meaningful business impact?
At Wonder, we don’t believe in branding for branding’s sake. We believe in strategy-first marketing that drives measurable growth. If brand strategy is essential for your success, we’ll make it a priority. If not, we focus on building and activating a marketing strategy that delivers real results.
So, are we a brand agency or a marketing agency? We’re both—when needed. But at our core, we are a strategy, marketing, and media firm dedicated to helping visionary B2B brands grow.
Not sure if you need a brand agency? Take our free Brand Health Assessment
to find out where your brand stands and whether a strategic refresh could benefit your marketing efforts.
Discover how to measure B2B marketing success with multi-touch attribution, ABM insights, and metrics that prove ROI and drive smarter strategies.
Starting a B2B marketing program can feel overwhelming. With so many tactics and platforms to choose from, knowing where to begin is often the hardest part. From selecting the right channels to aligning with sales, the early stages can make or break your campaign. That's where Wonder comes in. We help businesses get up and running in market quickly and effectively, often within the first 30 days.
Let’s just call it like it is. We live in the Age of Distraction. Slack messages. Email threads. Meetings about meetings. Threads to read to know if you were supposed to read them. It’s easy to mistake movement for progress. But the real breakthroughs? The real clarity, traction, and transformation? They come when you carve out time for deep, uninterrupted work. That’s where the magic of a clarity comes in. That’s the power of a Clarity Break. What Is a Clarity Break? In the language of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), a Clarity Break is time you intentionally schedule to step away from the day-to-day and think. Not react. Not multitask. Just think. No meetings. No inbox. No distractions. You block the time. You find a quiet space. You bring a notebook. And you give yourself permission to wrestle with the real questions: What’s working? What’s not? Where are we stuck? What needs to change? You don't need to have an agenda. You just need space. Why It Works Clarity Breaks work because they shift your mind from urgent to important. You’re not trying to check something off a list. You’re trying to understand what belongs on the list in the first place. It’s like cleaning your windshield after driving through a rainstorm. Same road. Different view. In the past few years, I’ve built the discipline of taking regular Clarity Breaks. Some short. Some long. And every time I do, I walk away with more clarity, stronger decisions, and renewed energy to lead. Problems I’ve Solved in Clarity Breaks This isn’t theory for me. These are just a few of the things I’ve worked through. Sometimes in a coffee shop, sometimes in my home office, sometimes in a cabin on a mountain where I can see for miles. Personally, the mountains are simply good for my soul. Proven Processes EOS teaches us to document the way we work. But that doesn’t happen in the chaos of back-to-back meetings. In a Clarity Break, I’ve outlined and refined the processes that drive consistency in our delivery at Wonder. Core Processes Big decisions about how we operate need space. And space is what Clarity Breaks create. I’ve mapped the foundational ways we serve clients with my notecards and flow spread across the floor. Value Propositions The best messaging doesn’t come from brainstorming with 10 people in a room. It comes from thinking deeply about what your ideal client actually values. That happens in quiet. In stillness. In reflecting on the true needs of others. Offers Too Good to Refuse The best offers come from clarity, not complexity. When I stop trying to be clever and get laser-focused on solving a real problem in a simple way, that's when irresistible offers show up. Sales Commission Structure Even tactical, structural issues, like how to design a comp plan that drives the right behavior, have found their way to clarity in the space of my Clarity Break. Get clear. Clear the calendar, that is. The Clarity Break is one of the simplest, most overlooked tools in EOS — and one of the most powerful. It’s also deeply personal. No one schedules it for you. No one demands it. But if you make the time, protect the space, and show up ready to think, you will find what’s next. If you're running a business and haven't created a rhythm with Clarity Breaks, this is your nudge. Start small. Block an hour. Bring a notebook. Leave the laptop. If you're not running on EOS, but the idea of creating intentional space to think resonates, give it a try. The best leaders think. And the best thinking happens when you finally stop doing everything else for everyone else.
Discover why true B2B marketing success starts with fundamentals, not automation. Learn why mastering clarity, consistency, and customer insight matters more than chasing flashy tools and shortcuts.
Long sales cycles. Complex products. Relationship-driven growth. Learn why smart B2B brands need a marketing agency that gets their world—and builds momentum every 90 days.
In B2B sales, the traditional approach has been clear-cut: marketing drives awareness and generates leads, while sales takes those leads and closes deals. But the reality is more complex. Buyers don’t move through a predictable funnel, and purchase decisions aren’t made in isolation. This is where Account-Based Marketing (ABM) changes the game. Rather than focusing on individual leads, ABM aligns sales and marketing around target accounts—companies that fit the ideal customer profile (ICP). It’s a dynamic, data-driven approach that helps teams work together to engage prospects throughout their entire buying journey. Account-Based Marketing (AB M): Not a New Idea, But a Better Execution The concept of ABM has been around for years—previously known as “Key Account Marketing.” What’s different today is the power of digital data and technology. With a combination of first-party and third-party data, advanced targeting, and personalized messaging, ABM enables teams to: Identify the right accounts with precision Engage the full buying team within each organization Deliver the right message at the right time based on where each prospect is in their decision-making process By focusing marketing efforts on accounts that sales has already prioritized, ABM ensures that resources are spent on the highest-value opportunities. Why ABM Works Better for B2B Sales 1. B2B Buying Decisions Are Made by Committees Very few B2B deals are decided by a single person. Instead, purchase decisions often involve 8 to 13 stakeholders across different roles: Initiators - those who start the buying process Researchers - team members gathering vendor options Influencers - stakeholders pushing for features they favor Decision-makers - leaders signing off on the purchase Traditional marketing often targets just one individual, but ABM engages the full buying committee, ensuring the right people receive relevant content and messaging throughout their journey. 2. ABM Uses Data and Technology to Deliver Meaningful Engagement One of ABM’s biggest advantages is its ability to meet buyers where they are—not just with broad awareness campaigns, but with targeted content tailored to their stage in the buying process. Using marketing automation, CRM data, and intent-based signals, ABM delivers messaging that speaks to the unique priorities of each stakeholder—whether they’re just starting research or narrowing down vendors. The result? Higher engagement, shorter sales cycles, and stronger conversion rates. Account-Based Marketing: A Smarter Way to Drive B2B Growth ABM isn’t about generating more leads—it’s about generating the right opportunities. By aligning sales and marketing around a focused list of high-value accounts, engaging full buying teams, and leveraging data-driven insights, ABM helps B2B companies win more deals with the right customers. If you’re ready to refine your sales and marketing strategy with ABM, let’s start the conversation. Let’s talk.
