Does b2b branding matter anymore?
Posted on November 14th, 2007 in Brand awareness | 2 Comments »
Over on his blog, Todd Miechiels wrote an
interesting post questioning whether b2b branding is relevant anymore. He says that micro-brands and one-to-one communication make brands unimportant.
The idea is that b2b communications can be so wel targeted that you don’t need to rely on the brand to make purchase decisions. You can rely on the merits of the message.
To the contrary, I think that the situation described means that brands matter *more* now. The overwhelming nature of micro-communication and hyper-targeting content make it increasingly difficult to evaluate messages on their own merit. Shorthand communications like brands are essential to filtering and examining the content.
In this way, brands can stand in for whole conversations….conversations that don’t have to had anymore. Why re-communication your brand promise with every communication? Isn’t it easier to have your brand do that for you?
It sure is easy for the purchaser. They don’t have the time or attention to constantly re-learn who you are. Shorter, more direct communication is always better, and good branding makes that possible.
2 Responses
Paul, I agree with you that brands are critical. Being able to quickly communicate your position, value, in an instant is of course critical. I was saying that with the ability for marketers to get rapid, targeted data back through the use of internet marketing, brands should be tested more frequently, under more scrutiny, and creators of those brands should be held accountable for their ideas to aid in conversion and opportunities.
Yes! a brand can stand in. I agree wholeheartedly. And I have a few more thoughts on that as well.
John Quelch, a Professor at Harvard Business School, and director of WPP Group plc has written about “How to Build a B2B Brand”. Dr. Quelch provides three reasons brand-building should be important to B2B CEOs. I will quote from his post those three reasons, and add four of my own:
“First, most B2B marketers have to address thousands of small businesses as well as enterprise customers. They cannot do so economically using the traditional direct sales force.
Second, if left unattended, individual managers will each do their own adhoc marketing. The result will be a hodgepodge of corporate logos, taglines and packaging. Customers will be confused and the company will look disorganized.
Third, B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers’ customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect them against lower-priced competitors.”
Now for my additional points:
Fourth, selling through the channel requires a strong brand. Channel partners need a brand to promote as they (almost never) have a brand that businesses want to buy from. Business buyers are comfortable buying from a channel partner if they represent a brand with which the buyer is familiar.
Fifth, the brand is the tip of the arrow of marketing. A strong brand enables the rest of the marketing (and sales) to get through to the buyer. The business buyer needs to know who the company is before they’ll pay attention to what they have to say.
Sixth, a strong B2B brand enables a higher margin because the “brand promise” provides a lower risk to the decision maker, and enables that decision maker to justify their decision to others – because the brand is familiar to them as well. “Nobody every got fired for buying from IBM” is the ultimate brand promise.
Seventh, a poor branding effort creates a poor brand promise. For example, Phil Mickelson (sponsored by BearingPoint) is probably the second best golfer in the world. BearingPoint, therefore, is associated as being the second best. Accenture is associated as being the best. Which would you want to buy from?
Can you think of other points as well?