Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Brands Matter - Part III

 
 
Customers buy in a blink. Malcolm Gladwell;s book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking asserts that customers make most buying decisions (and the best choices) by relying on ther two-second first impressions (or their adaptive unconsciousness) versus a long, drawn-out process involving lots of rational information.  Gladwell and others have exposed a dirty little secret known in marketing research circles that customers usually cannot articulate how they really feel, what they actually think or why they buy a particular brand.  The driver of their real feelings, thoughts and actions, is their unconscious.  Buyers make split-decisions based on stored memories, images and feelings -- which is what a brand is all about.  A strong brand equals a strong two-second impression whether you're buying potato chips or specifying a machine tool, cutting tool or software product.
 
Strong B2B brands are branded from the inside-out, top down and bottom-up. Aligning the whole organization from customer-facing reps to inside employees with the corporate brand strategy is crucial to driving brand value and customer loyalty, especially in the B2B world. If every employee does not "live" the brand strategy, then the company may face lost sales and unhappy customers.  On the other hand, if every employee understands its brand promise, there may be minimal negative impact on sales and customer satisfaction.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Brands Matter - Part II

 Brands drive B2B marketing.  Those that recognize this fact and leverage their full brand assets will create a true, strategic competitive advantage.
 
Ironically, technology has led to brand importance in the B2B world. The growth of the Internet and e-marketplaces along with accelerating technological product obsolescence has resulted in a hyper-informed and commoditzed B2B marketplace.  Buyers are overwhelmed with myriad logical choices, features, benefits, information, data, metrics -- parity and clutter. They want to make an easy, safe and right choice. Thus, "brand' becomes the compass or default for navigating the purchase process.
 
B2B customers often evaluate potential suppliers according to numerous, rigorous criteria -- a scientific request for proposal (RFP) process.  But does anyone really think a big dollar decision will come down to a numeric score or check list?  How does a supplier even make the RFP list?  You guessed it: through their recognized brand.
 
Strong B2B brands benefit from organically created branded, web-based communities of loyal customers who evangelize the brand. When it comes to marketing technology products, marketers all too often ignore the full package of customer benefits to instead focus only on product features.  I rather suggest three dimensions of benefits to build positioning platforms:
 
     1st - Functional (what the product does)
     2nd - Economic (what the brand means to the customer in time and money)
     3rd - Emotional - (how the brand makes the customer feel)
 
Brands that deliver beyond functional and economic levels with emotional benefits will command an incremental price premium and create strong competitive advantage and customer brand loyalty.
 
Emotive propositions resonate in B2B markets whether customers admit it or not.  People say that they are not influenced by advertisements but data suggests otherwise. In the early-to-mid 1980s, IBM did not have the best computer systems or pricing.  "Big Blue," however, became the enterprise systems market leader because you never got fired for buying IBM.  IT Directors "bought" a relationship, company, reputation, service, people, assurance. In other words, they bought goodwill of the brand.
 
Recent research supports the notion that buying decisions in B2C and B2B spheres are largely based on irrational impulses often unknown to the buyer.  For example, the IBM customer was strongly motivated by job security and peace-of-mind. Today's B2B customers may articulate their need for ROI, higher performance, a better mousetrap.  Yet, they really want to do business with a name or people they can trust -- to buy from a "leader."  Strong brands play to these important drivers.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Brands Matter

 To stay alive and flourish in highly competitive environments, business-to-business companies spend more time and money on R&D. Companies focus on making their products smarter, faster, more cost-effective and reliable. They also find ways to improve and add services so that they provide customers with a complete and satisfying experience.
 
But how can these B2B companies truly differentiate their offerings and be relevant to customers over the long-term?  This is where branding applies.  Brands matter in B2B markets.  In fact, they matter even more in B2B than business-to-consumer.
 
Cut throught clutter: Brands matter because the B2B marketing communications world is characterized by numbing sameness, commoditized feature wars and laundry lists of product benefits. In other words, there is a sea of noise, parity, clutter and dullness. Branding, however, allows a company to distiguish goods or services.  Branding today is a strategic tool that helps the supplier cut through the clutter of the market, get noticed, and connect with the customer on many levels and in ways that matter. A strong brand becomes the customer's "shorthand" for making good choices in a complex, risky and confusing marketplace.
 
Tap into emotional drivers: Brands matter because companies act just like people when it comes to evaluating what products or services they buy. Along with a number of explicit rational criteria, a powerful irrational impulse is always present to influence the purchase decision. A strong brand with an effective positioning strategy speaks to and taps into the totality of the buyer needs.
 
Facilitate delivery or promise: Brands matter when supplier teams are doing business with buyer teams. Through effective branding efforts, the brand becomes the "glue" that binds the supplier culture and organization together, enabling the brand to make good on its external promise. Customers will reward a brand which delivers a unified, consistent and satisfying experience with repeat business.
 
However, common beliefs in B2B marketing tend to overlook the importance of brands. Consider the following thoughts:
 
Consumer brands are defined and presented largely on emotional appeals -- "warm and fuzzies." In B2B, products and services, rather than "brands" are pitched, sold, and transacted through cold logic.
 
Consumers are drawn to brands' irrational benefits (status, prestige, affinity, self-security). Business customers speficy and purchase based on rational drivers (pricing, specifications, product peformance, metrics).
 
I suggest that such thinking by B2B marketers is not only naive, and defies logic, but also undermines their ability to drive incremental business value and ROI.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

MY OBJECTIVE:

To share common sense lessons learned with 40-plus years experience in marketing, sales and as a B2B publisher.

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