Brand recognition and awareness play a huge part in building credibility with customers and helping the sales team close a deal. Demand gen and corporate branding go hand-in-hand, especially for growth-phase companies. If a prospect doesn’t know your company, the sales rep will spend the first few precious minutes explaining who you are.
Wouldn’t it be better and more effective if your prospect had already heard of you? That way, instead of describing your company, you could spend time describing your offering. Here are the key reasons founders and stakeholders should invest in brand marketing:
Brand Marketing Builds Credibility
People buy products they like from companies they know and trust. Think Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks or B2B companies such as Intel and GE. In today’s market, brand credibility is your competitive advantage.Whether you are a startup or a growth-phase business, it’s imperative for marketing heads to position the brand as a market leader, and leverage their founders’ profile to create positive brand perception and customer behavior.
As the face of the company, CEOs play a major role in building the credibility of the company. Ideally, they should be seen as thought leaders. Employees should be the guardians of the brand and be held accountable for maintaining its industry reputation as they interact with customers and prospects.
Your brand’s credibility and reputation are fragile. We’ve seen many examples of that—from Uber’s sexual harassment and gender bias issues to United Airlines yanking a passenger from his seat and the recent dead puppy incident. Yes, it’s expensive to recover from brand damage or scandal. But if you have market credibility you can recover from a crisis, provided you are transparent, show empathy for the victims and fix the problem fast.
Brand Marketing Attracts Investors
Founders and business leaders are constantly looking for financiers to support their growth and exit strategies. Investors view a company as a whole before investing, not just its product or products. They also consider corporate reputation, the CEO and founders’ credibility and financial performance before making an investment decision.
A brand needs to be bigger than a product. Companies need depth that goes beyond a focus on one product or one solution. Having helped many startups change strategy and rebrand for various reasons, it is clear now that it is a key to invest in creating a corporate brand. This proves that a brand in which customers can believe in and leadership they can trust.
A brand is like your home. The more you invest in maintenance and renovation, the more the asking price will be when it’s time to sell. Similarly, the more you invest in the corporate brand, the higher the equity.
Brand Marketing Engages Customers
In today’s digital era, B2B buying decisions are changing dramatically. B2B buyers are now as empowered as consumers. CIOs are not the only ones making the ultimate buying decisions, and how businesses interact with vendors is also changing.
Research also indicates that most B2B customers don’t begin to engage directly with suppliers until they are about 50 to 60 percent through the customer journey.
Marketers, therefore, have to design strategies that educate and engage customers, not “sell” to them. Content should be interesting and search optimized for digital discovery.
Last Words
Building your brand is key to driving sales, boosting partnerships and accelerating growth. You want customers to trust your name, eager to learn more and be proud they can rely on your brand to run their business. Consider brand building as a long-term commitment and investment and not an expense. So include these keys into your brand marketing to see the positive results, Do share your thoughts with us.