The Key Failure of B2B Branding
. . . is seeing it as a microcosm of B2C branding.
I can’t tell you how many presentations I’ve been to where big B2B brands (and brand agencies) have trotted out the same old Proctor and Gamble case studies regarding “how branding is done.” And yeah, I’m not arguing that the case studies work for P&G. But, if you throw tens of millions of dollars at promoting a product over a period of decades, of course it’ll have a strong brand. It’s been seen so many times that it’s become part of the culture. So yes, when you look at the strongest brands, they’re going to be consumer brands. And, almost naturally, you’d assume “strongest brand = strongest branding,” right? Take these lessons and apply it to B2B, right?
Wrong. B2B is not a microcosm of B2C. Consider:
- The audience is fundamentally different. B2C is about reaching a broad audience. B2B is about reaching the right audience. And that right audience might be tens of thousands of people, or tens of key decision-makers.
- The communication is fundamentally different. On the consumer side, yes, people might spend 50% more for a detergent they recognize and feel an emotional attachment to, but on the business side we’re usually talking much larger investments—investments that frequently need to be decoupled from emotion.
- The budgets are fundamentally different. P&G has spent tens of millions to billions of dollars over time to build their brands. B2B brands typically don’t have these kinds of budgets.
This is why you’ll see B2B brands making the same key mistakes, over and over:
- Brand segmentation for no reason. You want to have a corporate brand, a product brand, and a technology subbrand that powers the product. Why? You now have 1/3 the budget to devote to each brand—and 3X the chance that your audience will miss all of them. Ask yourself: Does your customer care that you have a family of branded products with a branded technology within them, or do they simply care about you and what you do?
- Overspending on brand, underspending on communication. Yes, your brand is important. What’s probably more important is what your products or services do for your key audience. Is your new machine the ONLY way to do something? Does it outperform the competition by 8X? Does it save $7MM per year? Sorry, but these are a whole lot more important than a product family logo and snappy slogan.
- Overestimating what they can do, internally and externally. It’s easy to look at the examples of the consumer giant brands and think, “we can do this here, too.” But the reality of it is that B2B budgets may prevent you from having the reach and frequency externally to really move the needle in terms of perception of your target audience. And you may not get the buy-in you expect from your teammates, particularly in a technology environment where everyone is an expert.
So what can a B2B brand do? Approach the problem differently:
- Find out where your audience is. Whether you’re talking to financial planners or semiconductor engineers, you know what your target is. Now it’s time to find them. Yeah, there are magazines that cover every industry vertical that you know about, but there are also blogs, forums, and online communities that engage those same audiences—and that you probably don’t know about. It’s time to use tools like Google blog search, Technorati, and Alexa to find out where your audiences are.
- Engage them directly. Most small, focused communities are small and focused because they have a specific interest. They know what they need to do their job better. Can you help them? Great. That’s your ad message. Back it up with facts. And go beyond that, to participating in forums, sponsoring special interest groups, and offering online training on your website.
- Get visible and start conversations. Still using a newsroom format? Lose it. Replace it with a blog using a standard blog engine like Wordpress. This nets you several benefits:
- Enhanced visibility—search engines like the frequent updates and style-free content of an RSS feed, so you’re going to rise in the search engines.
- More media—it’s easy to incorporate video podcasts or other content into the blog on a “special feature” basis, without having to commit to doing podcasts every week. You’ll also find internal resources for writing you never knew you had—many financial and technical people working closely with details are interested in being heard, and this can be an outletn for them.
- Real-time feedback—customers now have a place to comment on your stories and announcements, which gives you the chance to start a conversation. Nervous about open comments? Moderate them.
- Give them tools. We mentioned online training. How about ROI calculators that help your customers understand how they can save money with your solutions? What about an internal social media strategy that allows them to create verified, trusted groups of their own colleagues in other divisions to share information, or to post ancillary information about topics of interest? Or social media which encourages them to submit interesting imagery or applications they are working on with your real-world tools? There are many opportunities to engage your audience beyond what you’re using today.
So what does this all mean? It means, treat your audience as a social network, not like a broadcast audience.
As a B2B marketer, your audience is the definition of a small, engaged group. They’re the ideal place to use social network tools. So: Bring them together. Give them information. Give them tools. Because when they spend hours with your brand, it is to your great advantage.
