Boring 2 Brilliant
Making the most of B2B marketing opportunities
B2B BRANDING is different from B2C in some crucial ways, including the need to closely align corporate brands, divisional brands and product/service brands and to apply your brand standards to material often considered ‘informal’ such as email and other electronic correspondence.
The difference between consumers and businesses When consumers buy something, not a lot’s at stake. You don’t bring in a consultant to help you choose toothpaste; you make a decision in seconds and buy it. Consumer marketing experts contend with that level of customer involvement in a world full of fastmoving
consumer goods and we wish them well. When businesses buy things, often a lot’s at stake, such as profit, jobs and even lives. This is one reason why you hear the term ‘stakeholders’ used in a business context and why you often have more than one stakeholder making a purchasing decision. Ownership and contract cycles tend to be long in B2B, and so are the buying cycles.
Doing your research
B2B markets are complex places with all sorts of stakeholders with different motivations, all influencing each other. All of the stakeholders are potential targets for your B2B marketing campaigns so you need to find out who they are and how they
relate to each other. Try creating a ‘Web of Influence’ in order to map out your marketing opportunities. Identify those that will influence the decisions taken by your purchasers and then it’s easier to decide where to direct your marketing efforts and whom to conduct in-depth research with.
Positioning a brand by planning
You need find an irresistible argument as to why your offering is precisely placed to meet the challenges of the businesses you’re marketing to. You need to identify the space in the market that only your brand can occupy: we refer to this as the ‘Blue Ocean’ space. This is really important – your brand needs to be different from the rest or why choose it? Brand planning is about establishing the difference and making your brand the most attractive. The apex of a brand plan is the strategic proposition. This is a statement of what you do and how you do it differently and better and more efficiently than your competitors.
Contacting your market creatively
When business brands have something to say, it’s usually to a very select group of businesses. Whom are you going to talk to? This is where that clever ‘web of influence’ comes in very handy – now you can prioritise the market into the most essential people to talk to. This is known as segmentation.
What are you going to say?
Right, you’ve segmented your market by influence, now what do you say to them? Well that’s what your strategic proposition is for. It’s also a good base to build messages around for some of the people you’re going to talk to. But ensure your messages are relevant to each individual stakeholder.
How are you going to contact them? If you’ve done your research, then you’ll know your stakeholders’ ‘channel preference’. Channel preference is the way your market likes to communicate and be communicated to and might include social networks, emails, face-to-face meetings with a sales person, or good old-fashioned letters.
B2B doesn’t have to be boring – get creative
Most B2B marketers say that creativity is both desirable for their brand and important for achieving results. But if you study most B2B campaigns, you’ll see evidence to the contrary. A B2B creative idea is hard to get right unless you know what you’re looking for. A good approach is to use ‘positive difference’ – present people with an interesting idea that shows their professional universe in a way they’ve never seen before. They will feel good about what they do and hopefully about what you want them to do – take an interest in your brand.
Taking marketing online
When it comes to B2B marketing, websites and online marketing channels are the most important tools for B2B brands; they’re the centre of the B2B marketing universe. Creating an effective website means you need to define the various user groups that will visit your site. Pick out the groups from your ‘web of influence’ whose support will be the most valuable to your business. These are your most profitable segments that your website needs to cater for.
B2B BRANDING is different from B2C in some crucial ways, including the need to closely align corporate brands, divisional brands and product/service brands and to apply your brand standards to material often considered ‘informal’ such as email and other electronic correspondence.
The difference between consumers and businesses When consumers buy something, not a lot’s at stake. You don’t bring in a consultant to help you choose toothpaste; you make a decision in seconds and buy it. Consumer marketing experts contend with that level of customer involvement in a world full of fastmoving
consumer goods and we wish them well. When businesses buy things, often a lot’s at stake, such as profit, jobs and even lives. This is one reason why you hear the term ‘stakeholders’ used in a business context and why you often have more than one stakeholder making a purchasing decision. Ownership and contract cycles tend to be long in B2B, and so are the buying cycles.
Doing your research
B2B markets are complex places with all sorts of stakeholders with different motivations, all influencing each other. All of the stakeholders are potential targets for your B2B marketing campaigns so you need to find out who they are and how they
relate to each other. Try creating a ‘Web of Influence’ in order to map out your marketing opportunities. Identify those that will influence the decisions taken by your purchasers and then it’s easier to decide where to direct your marketing efforts and whom to conduct in-depth research with.
Positioning a brand by planning
You need find an irresistible argument as to why your offering is precisely placed to meet the challenges of the businesses you’re marketing to. You need to identify the space in the market that only your brand can occupy: we refer to this as the ‘Blue Ocean’ space. This is really important – your brand needs to be different from the rest or why choose it? Brand planning is about establishing the difference and making your brand the most attractive. The apex of a brand plan is the strategic proposition. This is a statement of what you do and how you do it differently and better and more efficiently than your competitors.
Contacting your market creatively
When business brands have something to say, it’s usually to a very select group of businesses. Whom are you going to talk to? This is where that clever ‘web of influence’ comes in very handy – now you can prioritise the market into the most essential people to talk to. This is known as segmentation.
What are you going to say?
Right, you’ve segmented your market by influence, now what do you say to them? Well that’s what your strategic proposition is for. It’s also a good base to build messages around for some of the people you’re going to talk to. But ensure your messages are relevant to each individual stakeholder.
How are you going to contact them? If you’ve done your research, then you’ll know your stakeholders’ ‘channel preference’. Channel preference is the way your market likes to communicate and be communicated to and might include social networks, emails, face-to-face meetings with a sales person, or good old-fashioned letters.
B2B doesn’t have to be boring – get creative
Most B2B marketers say that creativity is both desirable for their brand and important for achieving results. But if you study most B2B campaigns, you’ll see evidence to the contrary. A B2B creative idea is hard to get right unless you know what you’re looking for. A good approach is to use ‘positive difference’ – present people with an interesting idea that shows their professional universe in a way they’ve never seen before. They will feel good about what they do and hopefully about what you want them to do – take an interest in your brand.
Taking marketing online
When it comes to B2B marketing, websites and online marketing channels are the most important tools for B2B brands; they’re the centre of the B2B marketing universe. Creating an effective website means you need to define the various user groups that will visit your site. Pick out the groups from your ‘web of influence’ whose support will be the most valuable to your business. These are your most profitable segments that your website needs to cater for.
