Four simple ways to start building the best B2B brand strategy
Expertly focus your brand strategy to set your business up for success and growth
As a business-to-business (B2B) organization, building your brand strategy to precisely communicate your identity, offerings, and values is essential to the success of your go-to-market approach as you build relationships and nurture leads.
Keep reading to learn the four simple steps to start building a brand strategy, and why partnering with a B2B marketing agency to assist with your strategy can be beneficial.
#1: Set measurable goals.
As with any business initiative, you have to define what success looks like to measure the success of your brand strategy.
The objectives your brand wants to achieve will look completely different from other brands because every business’s current circumstances differ and they aim to achieve unique goals.
Your team needs to consider: What do you want to get out of your brand strategy? It could be an objective such as:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Improving website conversions
- Developing buyer loyalty
- Establishing a referral system
- Or all of the above!
By identifying your goals, you can build your strategy around those objectives to set your team up for success. In fact, a recent survey found that 70% of marketers set goals for their initiatives, projects, and campaigns and 47% of them are successful most or all the time. [1]
#2: Allow your unique selling propositions to shine.
While B2B buyers are more practical than business-to-consumer (B2C) customers, they still need to understand why your business is superior to your competitors.
Especially in practical industries like technology, the top few picks of a B2B buyer might offer identical services, so what elements of your brand stand out to make the buyer choose you over your competition?
Is it your mission, vision, and values statements? Your bold brand colors and modern logo? Clear identification of your target audience’s pain points and how you solve them in your brand messaging? The way that your sales team communicates with potential buyers?
In addition to logical unique selling propositions (USPs) like cost benefit and improved performance, be sure to utilize emotional appeals such as increased confidence from customers and improved reputation. It’s all about proving the value of your brand and why it’s superior to any other that your prospective buyers are considering.
#3: Define your marketing personas.
To accurately appeal to your target audience, you should define marketing personas that act as archetypes for the buyers or stakeholders your brand is targeting.
As a B2B organization, you’ll need to define more personas than a B2C company since you’re appealing to a variety of decision makers whether that be a committee or multiple members of the C-suite. Creating personas allows you to tailor your brand messaging to each decision maker’s perspective.
When constructing marketing personas, start by defining the following for each type of buyer:
- Needs/Problems/Challenges
- Goals
- Role in the buying journey
- Demographics
- Gender
- Age
- Education level
- Psychographics
- Websites they visit
- Social media platforms they utilize
- Tradeshows and conferences they attend
- Ideals they hold
- What influences their choices as a businessperson
Although your actual clients may not precisely fit your personas, it’s a helpful tool to define your target audience and tailor your brand to their needs and desires. Marketing personas can be regularly updated as you interact with your audience throughout the buying process and learn how they differ from what you expected.
#4: Focus on content marketing initiatives.
There are many types of initiatives you can incorporate in your brand strategy from email and social media to webinars and videos, but as a B2B organization, the one that you should focus most of your efforts on is content marketing. This strategy has become increasingly popular among B2B content marketers with a recent survey finding that 91% stated increasing brand awareness as one of their content marketing goals. [2]
Content has always been a key part of any successful B2B marketing strategy, but the increased reliance on digital content to stay connected and research potential purchases only grew during the pandemic. Over half of B2B buyers reported they rely more on content to make purchasing decisions than a year ago and 62% said they engage with three to seven pieces of content from a company before reaching out to their sales team. [3]
When designing your content marketing strategy, consider incorporating the following types of content that buyers have reported as the most valuable for researching B2B purchases: [3]
- Case studies
- E-books
- White papers
- Research/survey reports
- Webinars
With content being so essential to your success as a B2B organization, it’s recommended that you partner with a digital marketing agency that can design a unique content strategy tailored to your buyers’ needs and preferences.
Enlist the support of a B2B marketing agency!
As a business owner, it’s great that you’re interested in implementing a brand strategy, but to take your company to the next level, consider partnering with a B2B marketing agency that has the resources and expertise needed to set you up for success.
With nearly 20 years of experience, our team at Different Perspective has supported our B2B clients in all different industries from healthcare and legal to real estate and technology that range from unique local businesses to established national companies.
By accurately communicating your business’s advantages and utilizing our expertise, we can implement an effective B2B brand strategy to support your sales efforts and get the results you’re looking for.
Ready to transform your marketing?
Let’s talk!
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