A key challenge facing branding organizations is how to project a consistent, coherent, and compelling brand identity using an expanding list of offline and online communication tools. Such firms are faced with coordinating brand messages across different communication functions and venues (advertising, public relations, trade exhibits, sales literature, online efforts, etc.) and must ensure that messages from different levels and divisions portray brand consistently.
Increasingly, smart business-to-business marketers are not stopping at communicating the brand’s values and attributes only to customers and prospects. Rather, they recognize the importance of internal brand communication. They align the promises to customers with the internal policies and procedures that enable employees to meet their commitments.
Best practices regarding brand communication are grouped under four primary key findings.
- The most important characteristics of brand communication are – sufficiency, consistency, stability, and focus.
- Strong brands adapt and refine external communication elements over time but remain true to their heritage.
- External brand communication must portray the brand’s strength, image, and leadership across a variety of vehicles and audiences.
- Great brands are built from the inside out.
Difference between Consumer and B2B Marketing
- Consumer marketing is concerned with matching the resources of the selling organization with the needs of consumers.
- It focuses on end users
- Organizational marketing is concerned with provision of products and services to the organizations.
Key Issues In B2B Branding – Budgets for B 2 B campaigns are often smaller
Dependence is The Key
Academics in marketing and sociology have, based on several years of close observation, pointed out the importance of “dependence” in understanding close relationships.
Dependence is The Key Academics in marketing and sociology have, based on several years of close observation, pointed out the importance of “dependence” in understanding close relationships.
When a customer is dependent on a seller, they need a close relationship. For example, imagine the customer is putting their entire Internet business in the hands of an Internet consulting company. The customer is now dependent on the consulting company. Can you see how the customer might now want a close relationship? Won’t they need the consulting company to be there in case anything happens?
What Makes A Customer Dependent? Essentially you can think of a few things that would make a customer dependent. We will list those below along with some short discussion.
Strategic Importance of the Product – when a customer is purchasing something that is strategically important to them, it makes the customer more dependent on the seller – and therefore more close relationship-oriented.
What do we mean by strategically important? Well, essentially it means something that allows the customer to differentiate what it sells or how develops and sells in the market. Here is a simple, but realistic example.
MS2.com sells a software product known as Product Lifecycle Automation. Without going into the specifics, the software essentially allows companies to develop and market their own products faster. By so doing, these customer companies are able to differentiate themselves in the market. This makes customers who purchase the software dependent on MS2.com.
Now, before concluding that it must be complex (like fancy software) to be strategic, here’s another example.
When NutraSweet (a sweetener) first entered the market, it sold its formula to Coca-Cola. This allowed Coke to differentiate its cola from all competitors in the market. Thus, NutraSweet was strategically important to Coke. NutraSweet, however, is not complex.
Thus, you don’t have to sell something that is complex for it to be strategically important!!
So, ask yourself – Is what you sell strategically important to your customers?
Downside Risks – when a customer is purchasing something for which there are large downside risks (i.e., if it doesn’t work, the customer is out of business), this obviously makes a customer more close relationship-oriented.
Note how similar this is to the so-called “Mission Criticality” of the product or service they’re buying. If you’re selling some- thing that is mission critical to a customer, they are closing relationship-oriented.
So, ask yourself – Does what you sell have big downside risks for your customers?
Switching Costs – when a customer must build up high switching costs in order to buy and use your product or service, they become more close relationship oriented. What types of switching costs are there?
We typically think of switching costs in terms of obvious things like equipment or software. So, if you have to change software in order to buy a seller’s product, you incur high switching costs. While this true, it is a limited view of switching costs.
For example, switching costs can come in the form of training or replacing people, or even new procedures that are geared to work with a specific seller (such as information links or administrative controls).
When a buyer must build up any of these switching costs in order to buy a seller’s product, the buyer becomes close relationship oriented.
Finally, we should note that switching costs might take the form of psychological switching costs. These arise due, in part, to the comfort a customer may derive from purchasing from a seller with a strong brand name.
So, ask yourself – Does what you sell require large switching costs for your customers?
Modularity – when a customer is buying something that is easy to mix and match within their usage system, it makes them less (not more) close relationship-oriented.
To understand this, first understand the concept of a “usage system”. Most products are purchased as part of an overall system. A “usage system” is simply a set of products that must be used together to be useful to a customer. An example would be an Internet connection. By itself, and Internet connection is worthless. Its value becomes apparent only within the context of its usage system (a computer, browser, and the Internet connection).
Many things that firms sell are in fact part of a larger usage system (databases and applications, WAP-enabled cell phones and WML coded content, etc.).
To the extent that what a customer is buying is easily mix and matched inside the usage system, they become less relationship- oriented. Thus, if any database can be used with a given application, then the customer for databases becomes less relationship oriented towards a database vendor. You can readily see how industry standards and the open source movement have a profound impact on modularity when it comes to technology and the Internet.
So, ask yourself – Is what you sell highly modular for your customers?
