What’s the difference between a house and a home? When you truly inhabit your surroundings and make them feel like an extension of yourself, you’re experiencing a shift from the ordinary to the unique. That same shift occurs for your customers when you go from being a name to becoming a brand. You’re no longer just a vendor to them; you’re part of an identity that’s now integral to how they do business. Marketing automation allows you to inhabit your brand in ways conventional marketing can’t match.
Why Branding Matters
If you think branding’s just for consumer products, think again. B2B businesses need the edge branding gives them. In B2B sales, the buying journey is longer, lead nurture programs are more intensive, and your clientele typically spends years with you. On average, you’ll spend seven times as much to acquire a new customer as you will to retain one you’ve already reached, so retention is a high priority. Branding also earns you the attention of new leads by making you memorable, especially as most B2B companies don’t brand themselves effectively.
When B2B Isn’t B2B
We call it business to business, but that’s only part of the story. You’re not selling to a company but to people – B2P. Your leads respond to brands that align with their goals and organizational philosophies. Customers want a brand that recognizes them as individuals and speaks to them on that level. Marketers must have a way of forging and maintaining those individual connections, but that level of contact is time-intensive without a technological assist.
Enter automation.
Your MARKETING AI® takes care of routine processes, helps you understand your customers, and lets you coordinate your message across all platforms so you can build a well-integrated brand with a strong voice and a distinctive presence in the marketplace.
Go Natural
Because you’re selling to people first, you need to speak the language they use. That means dropping the arcane jargon or dry business buzzwords in favor of natural communication. More isn’t always more, especially when you’re trying to connect with someone whose in-box is already full with email dressed in the same starchy prose that plagues most B2B correspondence.
Whether you adopt a more casual style or something a little more traditional depends on your business, but be wary of your assumptions. It’s a common branding mistake to create content for the audience you think you have instead of the one that’s actually tuned in. Test the tone, style, and length of your content regularly. Marketing automation technology lets you test a wide range of variables so you know what resonates with leads.
Staying Authentic and On-Brand
Making your customers feel at home with your brand is important, but it’s also vital to feel at ease with it yourself. Who you are as a brand is an outgrowth of your organization’s philosophy, its history, and its personnel. Memorable brands are authentic; they aren’t carefully constructing an image but revealing a glimpse of the company’s true self. Do some soul-searching to understand what your organization’s unique value is, and you’ve found the core of your brand.
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