Growing Market Share - Branding In The B-to-B Industry

The marketing of B-to-B has exhibited a bit of a metamorphosis in recent years. Suddenly, brands are realizing that their advertising and marketing efforts need to look more like its consumer cousins. This is the right marketing tactic, because it reflects the realization that the customer’s own personality needs to be stimulated if you want to create a brand preference beyond price and availability.

After this revelation, however, the brand strategy crumbles. Each matrix is different depending on the product manufactured or marketed, but the fundamental miscalculations are similar in each category.

Brands confuse the business of their business with the business of their brand and describe their brand in terms of product rather than brand equity that adds value to that product.

This is quickly apparent when you consider manufacturing.

For most of the category the brand IS the product, and the brand imaging is all about the company itself rather than the customer it wishes to influence. The brand is misrepresented by corporate identity.

The market sees itself as a commodity and, therefore, confuses brand promise with product efficacy.

In some ways, this is correct because most business-to-business brands have close competitors that manufacture similar products at the same price point.

As a result however, never has a true brand been more important than in generic categories. It may be the only means by which customers can choose beyond generic benefits and marketing messages.

If your price point is similar — and your product is identical — then build your brand around the precepts of the customer you wish to influence to differentiate and hold meaning to the target audience.

In this model we have simply replaced the self-descriptor axis with a value line that identifies the possible customer.

The brand opportunity will vary depending on the precepts that your target market views as true and important.

In this example, let’s say that your target is risk adverse and is more interested in service than price (not to say that price does not matter at all).

So, if you manufacture XYZ widget, you would allow the product to sell the attributes (category table stakes) and overlay the value of the brand on top of it. This will identify the preceptive needs of the target market within the category.

In this example the business of the brand is all about keeping risk and change to a minimum and backing it up with an emphasis on better service.

Suddenly, the target market that seeks the status quo finds the widget offered them by a brand that promises to deliver the widget with an added value that reflects the corporate values of the customer.

This identification of values helps them choose and will steal market share from the competition.

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