What Does Your Gut Say About Your Brand?
by Bob Grant
B2B marketers who understand the concept of branding will fare much better than their competitors. What is a brand? Think of a brand as the gut feeling about a service, product, or company. What is your gut feeling about BMW? What is your gut feeling about Ford? What is your gut feeling about Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts? Get the picture?
The brand of these companies is not about their logos. It's about what the company stands for and what we as consumers think about them. This is also true in the B2B world. Think about your best vendor and why you buy from them, and think about your worst vendor and why you don't buy from them. Many companies, if not most, have a brand that was created organically. That is, a perception of the company was formulated by its buyers or prospective buyers based only on the interaction of those buyers with the company. That perception can be negative as well as positive. Think of the last time you had a bad buying experience. Your experience multiplied by many others having the same experience will place a negative brand perception on that company. The reverse is true for a positive experience.
However, a company can influence its own brand personality. The first place to begin is to look yourself (your company) in the mirror and ask who am I? What do I stand for? If you cannot define who you are and why you are different from your competitors, your marketplace and your competitors will do it for you. In fact if you are spending money on marketing and advertising and you haven't defined your brand position you are throwing your money away. According to some studies, 84% of marketing fails. This is due mainly to companies not doing the research on what their customers want and also not understanding and communicating their brand position.
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