Make Branding Strategy Your First Move
Why Marketing Strategy Must Grow Out of Branding Strategy
My client Suzanne Tulien of The Brand Ascension Group and I violently agree about something – effective marketing comes after a firm establishes its brand identity. Suzanne talks about “Brand DNA”, which is a fabulous metaphor, because truly, the brand has to be in an organization’s bones before it can mean anything to customers.
So much of b2b marketing, alas, is a brand-less recital of features and benefits. A marketer can only do so much with that kind of raw material. Let’s take the hypothetical ABC Company that sells material handling equipment – fork lifts, conveyors, industrial shelving, etc. This company might come to someone like me and say, We’re great – here’s everything we do. We need to put it into the website!
- Low prices
- Wide selection
- Quality product lines
- Attentive customer service
- Next day delivery
- Custom engineering in-house
- In business more than 30 years
- Ten locations
- BBB approved
- Thousands of satisfied customers
- Consultative sales approach
- Extended warranty programs
- Lowest service rates in the Northeast
- Safety training seminars available
Wow, I think. What a great company! And it probably is. The problem is every material handling company on the web makes the same or similar boasts. There’s nothing here to make the prospective customer favor ABC Company over the other 10 or 20. We can translate company attributes into customer benefits all day long and pack them into each web page as tightly as we want, but at the end of the day, this company is still going to look very much like its competitors – unless it has a distinctive brand.
If only ABC Company had an overriding message. If only they had one thing they were known for, that they believed in – a value or quality every other element of their business served to support. Then you could create some powerful marketing.
McDonalds – Convenience
Wal-Mart – Low prices
3M – Innovation
IBM – Competence
ABC Company – ?
People can remember one or two attributes, but never 10 or 20 or 50. When customers know you for doing one thing they care about with excellence, they infer you will excel in all the other stuff.
Think about the leading firm in your b2b sector. I’ll bet one or two characteristics of that firm comes to mind. Those characteristics are their brand – whether they realize it or not.
What is your brand? What are the one or two characteristics customers, competitors, and stakeholders think of when they think of your firm?
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Hi Brad, this is an area where so many companies struggle. In my work with companies of all sizes, the majority fail to clearly articulate a distinctive brand, and often don’t have a clear sense of what “brand” really means. The sad part is that so often they market the “me too plus” way and the distinction is right under their nose and they miss it.
Karen, You and I think so much alike I sometimes wonder if we share the same brain, which would make a really weird sci-fi-marketing video.
One of my friends in industrial sales used to jokingly describe himself to customers as “Me Too Less Five Percent.” Unfortunately, it was rather black humor, because customers would in fact drive him into that exact position.
I’ve got some posts coming up that will address this issue in more depth. Business model differentiation is the challenge of our time.
Great post Brad. There are “gimmes”–the things you must have just to be considered. Success comes as you say from a distinctiveness—I’d call it your value promise—that differentiates you from competitors and makes your target have to listen to you as your promise is not only unique but highly relevant or compelling.
But never ever define your value promise as an attribute e.g., convenient and innovative. Define your value promise as a benefit that really matters e.g., we save you time and make your day frustration-free (versus convenient) or we can help you increase your revenue (versus we are innovative). Convenient features and services (your innovations) then becomes your proof that you can deliver on your promise to save time and frustration (grow their revenue using your innovations). This may sound subtle but the difference is significant. I can say “I’m sorry but I have enough convenience with my bank so I’m not going to consider you” (or, “I have enough innovation with my vendor so I am not going to change vendors) but I will never say, “I have enough time” (“We have enough revenue). So we listen.
Read my blog to learn more about value promises http://www.plantescompany.com/blog/
Hi Kay, That’s a very good point (and I am loving your book, BTW). From a communication standpoint, clients often have a difficult time expressing their value from their customers’ point of view, even when they fully understand it. Do you find the same phenomenon at the strategy level, as you help organizations define their business models?
Clients always want to talk about their attributes versus benefits they offer when we are involved in business model innovation. That’s why I like the word value promise (versus proposition). It forces outside in thinking which is critical for business model innovation. The other thing that is REALLY hard for companies to see is their true or potential core competency–the mega skills that cuts across the organization that enables them to offer benefits that matter and move into new markets. It’s like fish trying to see water. Companies, especially with long track records, cannot see the mega skill that has enabled their company to succeed. So they make the assumption that it was a certain strategy that created success and then hold too long onto strategies that no longer fit the market. Or they fail to invest to keep their skill unique.
By the by, how do you get your picture in a comment?
Have a good day.
Excellent post, Brad. It’s still good for a b2b to have all that on their web site, but not make it the focal point. Instead, it needs to have a clear tagline, slogan or something that clearly communicates what makes the different and what they do. I’ve seen too many terrible taglines that could apply to any business.
Learned that very well when I did the research on this article.
http://tr.im/enjpitch
Kay, You give organizations much to think about. These are challenging observations that successful companies must deal with.
Meryl, Superb article – (I just Tweeted it), with rather startling results. I guess I’m not surprised that so many taglines/elevator speeches go in one ear and out the other. They all sound the same!