Let’s take a look at B2B branding and what it is and why it’s crucial for your business. We will also look at how to create a brand message that works for your company, and we will look at how we can get your brand out to future clients and the clients you already have.
The first thing most people assume when they hear brand is that it is your business logo, tagline, or your business’s mission statement, well it’s not. The examples that are listed above are items to help speak for your brand, but your brand is what occupies your clients head. It is what comes to mind when your clients, or potential clients hear your business logo, or any marketing messages. It is about the approach, the character your company holds, and how you stand out from other companies. You could say that your brand is what your clients will talk about when you are not around.
You could also say that your brand is what your clients can count on, your merchandise, assistance, and your employees.But if you cannot see a brand, yet it is supposed to be another persons feelings, how do you create a brand?
A great example is to look at How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, it was first published in 1937. In this he wrote, “So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.” This works very well with creating a brand for your company. The more time you spend getting to know and talking with your clients the more you will understand what they want, what they need, their standards, and how they see your business. Knowing this information will help you understand which branding messages to use to get your clients attention.
When Buying B2B Your Decisions Should Not be Based on Emotions- Or Should They?
When you are creating your brand you need to make sure you are building an emotional connection with your clients. Vendors for B2B, make a lot of assumptions that their clients make more enlightened choices, and that they usually pay a lot of attention to the value of the businesses instead of the brand. This is wrong.
Google and CEB Marketing Leadership Council took 3,000 B2B purchasers and surveyed them, they found that most B2B vendors that are good are their jobs know that emotion is key in B2B marketing. When a person makes a bad buy it’s not that big of a deal, but when a company makes a buy there are a lot of risks at hand,companies put a lot of money towards their purchase. A bad purchase for a company could mean they have to let employees go, or they do not get the client. Having an emotional connection with the clients helps eliminate the risks.
Companies that are looking to purchase B2B spend a lot of time making sure that the have all the information they could possibly need, and they make sure their decisions are solely based on logic and ration. But instead you want to make sure that you may very close attention to all of the emotion, especially when your company expense. A very interesting speech from Simon Sinek, from his TED Talk (that was filmed at TEDxPuget Sound) shows that the biggest and most important aspect to having a memorable brand is why; why do you do it?
Having the best brand is a continuous operation of influencing, discovering, and accomplishing your clients views on your company. In order for your brand to be the strongest your company needs to make sure they are taking all of the responsibility to make sure your clients are being given the best steady, constructive encounter with your business.
Surveys, like the one we saw Google do, are able to tell us that the idea of a reasonable company shopper are in our imaginations. Keeping up with emotional connections with your clients calls for a lot of effort. Why do it?
The answer is really easy. Business that have a solid representation or an outstanding character will bring in more clients, encourage more clients to stay, and help your company bring in more employees.
Now that B2B branding is on your mind and your company is looking at all the aspects that building a solid brand will need, we can continue to help you design new ways to get a great message out, check out the next part in this series.
Reading list:
Designing B2B Brands: Lessons from Deloitte and 195,000 Brand Managers (Carlos Martinez Onaindia and Brian Resnick, Wiley, 2013)
Complete B2B Online Marketing (Maura Ginty and Lauren Vaccarello, Wiley/Sybex, 2012)
How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie, Important Books, 2013)