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B2B Branding: the key principles
The five things buyers let companies with good brands do
Clients regularly give well-branded firms more permission - greater allowances, more opportunities - than their lesser-known competitors. Clients let these firms have:
1. Access.
Any one who's ever tried to get into to see a top executive knows half the challenge is simply getting in the door...and anyone who's ever bought complex services or technology knows half the challenge is letting the right people in the door. Executives set up rules some written, some unwritten - their staffs use to filter in and filter out people vying for attention.
One rule schedulers use is, "Do I know these people and how they will be help my boss?" And one way they assess that is, "Have I ever heard of this company."
The difference between those that gain access and those that don’t is strong and appropriate brand.
2. Latitude
Many companies are no better than their last project. Clients place more trust in well-branded firms and let them extend themselves beyond their own stated capabilities. Clients let these firms take on projects of greater size, which may be due to their greater scale, but they also place a greater level of trust in these firms.
Trust, an intangible quality, is directly related to the level of brand permission these firms enjoy. Lesser-known firms are often limited to their existing qualifications. If the company hasn't done the precise project for a precise peer-client, the company is not given permission to take on the challenge.
3. Recovery
The willingness to let a company "experiment" on the client's income is very low, especially today. Clients want to pay for tried and true experience. Nevertheless, even when working with a large firm with the precise experience the client seeks, mistakes do happen, and failures do occur. The difference between when a lesser known company stumbles and when a well branded company fails comes in the permission to recover. Well-branded companies are given greater permission to restore confidence; lesser-known firms might not be given this chance.
4. Scale
This is very tricky. Many people will cry that the permission to scale (and the permission to set standards -we‘ll come to that in a moment) is more a factor of size and track record, than brand. But at the margin, the decision comes down to trust and perception. These qualities are built into a smart brand - or more importantly great brands know how, when, and to whom to emphasize scale and size to build trust. It's that extra amount of trust that a branded company has that gives them the permission to take on bigger projects than competitors - even in some cases where they don't have the track record to back it up. Well branded companies will run circles around even entrenched, well-qualified companies in market, after market.
5. Set standards
Often, companies will invest in emerging technologies and services simply because they come from someone they believe will eventually set a standard.
VHS and Betamax are two often sited consumer examples. Beta was the better technology, but VHS won out because it came from manufacturers capable of setting a standard.
Part 4 – To-do list for building a B2B brand |
