Marketing Sherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Report identifies the top challenges for B2B marketers.To summarise these challenges include lack of resources, strategic thinking, customer insight, clarity and alignment and having unclear value propositions. It is therefore becoming more essential for these organisations to take a strategic view about how their brand is currently perceived and how it influences potential customers. 

Characteristics of B2B companies

A B2B company is likely to have the following characteristics which in turn will determine and influence their marketing mix.

• The company relies on direct sales and usually its sales cycles are longer and contractual in nature
• The customer relationship is likely to be a long term and more personal one
• The customer base is smaller and tightly defined but can also be harder to reach and penetrate
• Products and services are often customised to the specific requirements of its customers

Because the business relies more on a direct sales approach to growing business there is often little emphasis on building a clear and credible brand proposition for the business.

When a B2B organisation gets it right

Harvard Business School (HBS) has identified 6 characteristics that successful B2B brands have in common.

1)      The company’s all have a strong brand story and use this as a blueprint to guide growth and its engagement with its customers

2)      They recognise opportunities where they actively engage interact and communicate their brand values to potential and existing customers

3)      The CEO of a B2B company is the brand ambassador for the business and his involvement in the sales process provides brand endorsement and reassurance.

4)      There is a singular centralised approach to managing the brand story rather than individual product or service divisions creating and distributing their own set of marketing messages

5)      Successful B2B brands measure customer satisfaction. They regularly conduct internal and external audits and analyse well how marketing messages perform across target customer groups

6)      The whole organisation tells the same brand story and is unified when it comes to communicating the company’s brand values. A brand manager cannot stand alone within the organisation. Everyone in the business delivers consistent brand messages which in turn reassures potential customers of their credibility

 The top three considerations for the B2B marketer when it comes to creating a brand proposition

1)      Auditing customer and employee feedback is a great starting point for a business embarking on creating its proposition.

2)      It needs to be lead from the top and cascade throughout the organisation so that there is a consistent representation of the brand

3)      The MD or CEO of the business becomes the brand ambassador for the company 

We regularly work with B2B companies define clear and achievable value propositions for their business.  We do this through facilitated Brand Workshops. The results and outcomes of these sessions has enabled these companies to restructure their current marketing and business strategies and consider more carefully the tactics they need to deploy to support future business growth and success.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for B2B organisations based in Twickenham working West London, Chiswick, Twickenham, & Teddington as well as SME clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk

What do we mean when we talk about positioning?

Your company’s positioning determines how you are perceived and compared in your market place by all your stakeholders including employees, suppliers, customers and prospects.

One of the biggest struggles for many businesses is clearly defining what their business is. Much of our work involves helping companies decide what makes them different and then determine their positioning.

The symptoms of unclear positioning

How well do you understand the dynamics of your business, its culture and most importantly your customer clusters and how they make purchasing decisions?  A business struggling to identify its point of difference will quickly recognise a set of issues or symptoms that are significantly impacting the business. Typically these symptoms include: unclear and inconsistent sales messages; customers regularly demanding or expecting discounts; an anxious sales force lacking confidence and therefore reluctant to charge a premium price for the products and services.; an extensive range of new product and service extensions that create further distraction from the core focus of the business, using up valuable resources and confusing customers even more.

Sound familiar?  Don’t panic you are not alone

The most exciting aspect for us as a business is helping business’s see the light and define a clear positioning strategy. Often it’s a light bulb moment for our clients and you can see how this ignites in them the motivation to streamline what they say and do about their business.

The main benefits clear positioning brings to your business include:

• You will have a compelling story to tell everyone about your business that your employees, suppliers and customers will easily see and appreciate its significance to them.
• With the right amount of substantiation your sales team will have the confidence to sell this story and control the sales cycle.
• You shouldn’t have to compete on price and discount your services because your potential customers trust your positioning and be assured by your confidence in what you offer.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for SME companies based in Twickenham working with business to business clients in West London, Chiswick, Twickenha, & Teddington as well as technology clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk

Does your business have the “er” factor

Your customers and prospects need to be able to see very quickly why they should buy from you. On a previous post we mentioned that many company mission statements use words like leading, biggest, oldest, cheapest to describe what they believe makes them different. We recommend however that a business focuses on what makes them genuinely different and focus on the words that make these differences stand out. For example is your company cleverer, faster, friendlier or better than other businesses offering the same or similar products or services as you?

Finding your “er” factor

Finding a point of difference or standing out from your competition isn’t always straightforward and we spend much of our time helping our clients determine this. How do we do this? By challenging the thinking within the organisation from inside out and outside in. Spending time listening to the feedback from the senior management team, the operational staff and customers gives us a very good insight into what the company is good and not so good at delivering.

In most instances there is a clear disparity between what the management team believe customers want and what the customers think of them as a business.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for SME companies based in Twickenham working with business to business clients in West London, Chiswick, Twickenha, & Teddington as well as technology clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk

If your first approach to winning new business is to cut your prices you are well on the road to not only losing valuable profits and credibility you will risk seriously eroding your brand and its values. So why do it?

In previous posts we discuss differentiation and making your company and brand stand out from the competition. Easier said than done I hear you say. However, if you do take the time to create a clear and differentiated proposition your prospective customers will see straight away that you are match for what they are looking for and are therefore less likely to compare you on price.

We appreciate that there will be times where  you will have to negotiate terms but ideally your first engagement with a prospective new client should not be about how much you charge or how much your products or services cost. We suggest you do the following to attract customers that are looking for the value you can deliver rather than the pounds they can save.

Know what your customers and prospects want

Know your market place and understand why your customers are buying from you. Remember to ask them now and then and not always assume you know what they want.

Know your competition

Look for those companies offering a similar service or product offering to yours. What are they doing differently or the same? Learn why they are winning new business and why you are losing out on your sales pitches against them.

Know your market

Keep abreast of changes taking place in the market place. Adapt and evolve to the changes that will affect you and your customers. Regularly update your customers of what’s happening too.

Know your stuff

Demonstrate your knowledge by becoming an expert. Participate in trade events, expert panels in trade and relevant business publications. Win awards for doing things differently and better. Then communicate this knowledge to your customers and prospects. Reassure them constantly that their business is safe in your hands.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for SME companies based in Twickenham working with business to business clients in West London, Chiswick, Twickenha, & Teddington as well as technology clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk

It’s a well-known fact in business that when times are good and business is steady we invest little time in speaking to existing customers and creating new prospects. However when business slows down we begin to panic and focus our attention on our marketing and what’s in the sales pipeline. Rather than panic we recommend using this time to reflect on your business, your customer base, and the profitability of these customers. More importantly clarify what you do as a business to win more prospects and how you get them to buy from you?

So why doesn’t everyone want to buy your products and services? By turning our opening statement into a question we like to challenge are clients with the following set of questions.

Is your service or product clearly differentiated from your competition?

We find many companies describe themselves in a similar way. How many times for example do you read mission statements that contain the words, leading, biggest, best, oldest, and cheapest?

Is your competition winning business from you?

Perhaps your sales pitch isn’t strong enough or your sales pitch sounds like the competitions and the prospective customer can only make the final purchasing decision based on price

Are you up to date on what’s happening in your market place?

In busy times we are all guilty of not keeping ourselves up to date with changes taking place within our market place. Take some time to review what’s happening, read your trade press or attend a trade event or conference to update your industry knowledge.

Talk to your customers

Quite often when speaking to our clients and new prospects they hold strong beliefs about that their customers want from them. However recently we have undertaken customer research projects and the findings don’t often align to the thinking of the business owners. We advocate taking the time out to speak and meet with customers and discover their pain points and challenges so that you do align your offering more effectively.

Know your prospects

By knowing what makes you different and effectively communicating these differences you will begin to attract prospects that can easily recognise that your product or service offering is a match for them.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for SME companies based in Twickenham working with business to business clients in West London, Chiswick, Twickenha, & Teddington as well as technology clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk

Recently we ran two Brand Workshops to help two very different businesses define their brand and their competitive positioning. The results and outcomes of these sessions has enabled these companies to restructure their current marketing and business strategies and consider more carefully the tactics they need to deploy to support future business growth and success.

 Our Brand Workshops help businesses on many levels:

• Checking that your management team’s thinking and understanding of the company’s brand and is aligned to the company’s vision for growth.
• They challenge the thinking and understanding behind what the business perceives its core strengths and weaknesses to be.
• A close look at the competition and how they are positioned also helps a company define its key point of difference in order to compete more effectively and win new business.
• In some cases we also conduct an external audit on a company’s behalf to discover the views and issues of its customers. Feedback on customer service, price, value, product & service delivery are all areas we can research for you. This exercise clearly highlights areas of the business the company needs to reassess and define.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for SME companies based in Twickenham working with business to business clients in West London, Chiswick, Twickenham, & Teddington as well as technology clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk

We are always so busy helping everyone else with their marketing activities that the words ‘cobblers’ and ‘children’ spring to mind when it comes to promoting ourselves!

Greenfisher is our design partner of many years and we felt it was high time we shared some of their more recent work with everyone.

‘In brief’ says what it is on the tin. We’ve been tackling some really diverse and interesting projects and we hope you’ll be interested to see what we have been up to.

If you would like to receive a copy simply email Ingrid @exigentmarketing.co.uk

or visit the greenfisher website

Is this where you are…?
We’ve been too busy reacting to existing business but recognise we need to develop new business and create more awareness in the market place.

The marketing objective here is one of competitive positioning, clearer customer segmentation and substantiating the businesses success to date.

Planning

Create a strategic and tactical marketing plan that specifically supports sales objectives:

• Review and audit existing processes
• Evaluate sales and profits to ascertain sales strategies
• Create tactical marketing plans for segmented customer target groups.
• Explore 3rd party relationships and sponsorship opportunities
• Media planning and negotiation with key media, trade press and trade exhibitions

Corporate Identity and Brand

• Refresh existing branding and ensure its relevancy and potency in the market place
• Update existing corporate collateral
• Corporate brochure design and layout
• E-Bulletin design template for customer communication

Website

• Refresh existing site and review existing content.
• Prepare case studies to highlight successes to date
• Include lead capture mechanisms

Events

• Review existing face to face activity and propose an
• Event marketing strategy and approach to events and
• Trade show attendance.

If you can identify with the above and feel this is the marketing solution you need complete our enquiry form and we’ll give you a very competitive quote !

Is this where you are…?
We are looking to launch a new business
or a new product or service offering.

The overriding marketing objective is to create a platform and decide on your overall competitive positioning in your market place.

Included in this marketing package is the following:

Planning

A tailored strategic marketing plan to include tactics to support your sales objectives:

• Audit of all existing communications
• Customer profiling and segmentation
• Recommended tactics and approach
• Costing & Budget

Corporate Identity

Reviewing your current corporate image and associated collateral and messaging.

• Create logotype branding or redefine existing branding.
• Create messaging and positioning statements
• Create a design template for all corporate stationery
• Create a design template for powerpoint
• Create a design template for sales presentations

Website

Create a website to position the company, its product or service offering as well as any enquiry forms. It does not the creation of an ecommerce site.

If you can identify with the above and feel this is the marketing solution you need complete our enquiry form and we’ll give you a very competitive quote !