BRANDING: The Rise of the B2B Brand

The Rise of the B2B Brand 

What is B2B Branding?

B2B branding involves rethinking how a B2B company is viewed by a range of stakeholders—not just customers, suppliers and investors but also potential acquisition targets and future employees.  Leading industries are starting to practice many of the elements of B2B branding, from identifying the key audiences for their messages to ensuring that their approaches to branding align with their business strategies

Importance of B2B Branding  

B2B organizations need robust, coherent brands if they are to grow as fast as they tell shareholders they will.  Their conventional marketing and communications efforts often seem ineffectual next to the ebullient messages and often larger marketing budgets of their customers.  Their trade-show booths and trade-magazine advertising do more to reinforce existing perceptions than to help position B2Bs for growth in new areas.  In the face of greater competition from B2Cs and other “appealing brands” (Google, Apple), branding provides differentiation for B2Bs and a vehicle for attracting talent.

How to be Effective

Focus on the key issues first: Who are the audiences you need to influence, and how do you want to be viewed by those audiences.  Keep the brand strategy simple and clear. Most people remember only a few brand values, so don’t dilute your efforts by trying to “get all the key themes in”.  Express the brand experience consistently across all key “touchpoints”.  This is the most important points where customers interact with the brand, from brochures to after-sales service.  Instill employee pride in the new brand strategy with a well-planned launch; make sure employees start and keep ”living the brand”.  Take the long view.  Yes, it is possible to design a new logo in a few weeks, but a commanding brand grows from many repeated experiences. 

Over time 1 the rise and rise Of the B2B Brand Many leading industrial businesses are rethinking how they are viewed by a range of stakeholders—not just customers, suppliers and investors but also potential acquisition targets and the employees of tomorrow.  As such, these businesses are starting to practice many of the elements of business-to-business (B2B) branding— from identifying the key audiences for their messages to ensuring that their approaches to branding align with their business strategies.  And perhaps most important, they are now willing to give brand strategy quite a bit of their time and energy.

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