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B2B Branding: the key principles
“Why bother with branding? Just get out and sell more"
This is a common response of many companies when confronted with the effort and expense of building a brand. As a result, brand concerns are repeatedly sideline.
The real question companies should be asking themselves is: “Do we want to control market perception or just let it happen?”
What so many don't realise is that every company, and everyone in a company, is already involved in brand building whether they know it or not. Each communication, each interaction with the marketplace contributes to the overall perception and understanding of a company.
The risk of ‘just letting it happen’ isn't so much that the market will develop its own impressions of your company, whether you like it or not, it's that you'll be missing out on highly competitive opportunities to make your business brand a direct and powerful force for sales and growth.
How?
Based on experience helping numerous companies confront and overcome the brand challenge, Andrew Breslin Brand Consultants have a set of key principles and tools for building brands that sell. They are available to you here.
The first is about understanding the purpose of a brand from the buyer's perspective - a prerequisite before trying to market or sell anything.
The second is a set of five things buyers let companies with good brands do that they don't let companies with ill-defined brands do.
The third is a five-item "to-do list" - five things your company can do, starting today, to help build the right brand on a budget.
What do we mean by "a brand"? Let's start with what a brand
is not.
A brand is not your corporate name, logo, website, or brochure. These are elements of your corporate identity. They are ways you can help build a brand, but they are not the brand.
What a brand is
If you were to think of a brand on personal terms, your brand would be your self image and character - how you see yourself and how you want to be seen by others.
More important than your self image alone, though, is how your image and character affect your relationships. For example: how you are as a friend, a spouse, a confidant etc.
Similarly, your brand plays an important role in corporate relationships: how customers see your company as a provider; how suppliers see your company as a customer; how employees see your company as a place to work; how investors see your company as a steward of their wealth; how prospects see your company as a potential solution etc.
Part 2 – You and your business brand |
