Like most of you, I have just survived that time of year in the lead up to Christmas where I was out and about doing probably the most retail shopping I’d done all year. While strolling around the shops looking for the ideal gifts I start thinking about the brands and stores I’m attracted to. Who is effectively spending their marketing efforts to grab my attention and create a sale?
This year in particular the retail sector has been reported as doing it tough. They have been marketing hard in the run up to Christmas to stimulate purchases and get the money from my credit card into their bank account. Their efforts have paid off with reports by consumer comparison site Finder, that Aussies are facing a $2.7 billion Christmas debt hangover. That’s way more sales than predicted by market analysts.
While shopping for presents my realisation was that the big brands are good at stimulating sales. There is a lot the B2B sector can learn by tapping into the principles they are using to attract and engage customers, communicate their difference and ultimately turn me into a returning customer.
At Di Marca we call them ‘First Principles’.
Principle 1: Be more human
Business audiences wake up as humans – From the business owner to the lawyer, manufacturer, grower, and salesperson, everyone in every business wakes up as a living, breathing member of the human race; people that are driven by the way they feel about things.
People act emotionally first (how they feel), and rationally second (how they think). By connecting to people on a human level we start to make our B2B brand more human and approachable. Put more effort into treating your customers as people and not transactions. You want to be more relatable, more human, more interesting. Show people you care about them and tell stories about your brand you’ve never told before.
“Walking around the stores, it’s the brands and their people that go beyond product functionality and price, and tell me short stories about what they’re selling to keep my attention and interest in buying”
Principle 2: Create an emotional difference
You can’t own functional benefits. Full Stop! They don’t offer any real difference to what your competition’s products offer. Dig deeply into your products and services, get under the hood of your business and discover the emotional connections you can make to your customer’s needs, beliefs, and aspirations. It’s not easy, however when you discover your emotional difference, you’ll be a lot more interesting.
It is about recognising that when you touch people in meaningful ways that make them not only stop and think, but feel good about your brand, they are more likely to engage in a meaningful way.
I’m not talking about creating “emotional” marketing that gets people all misty-eyed about your products and services. Rather, it’s about promising them something that evokes emotion and draws people closer to your business and sets you further apart from your competition.
“The standout brands hook me in quickly and lead with something emotional, they offer me something I want to feel”
Principle 3: Invest in being noticed
B2B brands need ways to differentiate themselves to standout and be noticed – The products and services they produce easily blend into what the competition offers. It is increasingly difficult to differentiate on a product, feature, or service level as competitors find it easy to quickly duplicate what you offer.
So how can B2B brands effectively differentiate? The secret sauce is in the question. You need to be different to your competition. Choose a different brand colour, communicate with emotional language first and rational second, tell interesting brand stories, get skilled marketers onboard, put your best foot forward and invest in your brand throughout the year to build brand memory structures.
It goes without saying, if your advertising and marketing is not noticed, everything else you’re doing is a waste of time.
“It’s not the store promotions that are shouting at me that grab my attention. It’s the well-designed brand identities combined with simple and clever messages. It’s the brands that have been promoting to me well before I’ve stepped into the shopping centres to start spending that are really resonating”.
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Principle 4: Be aligned from the inside out
Employing people who align with your brand values is vital for B2B brands. In many B2B scenarios, it is the company’s own employees who develop, produce, market, and sell their products and services.
Creating a sense of common purpose through your cultural values is key. Motivating people to work effectively and encouraging them to promote what the business stands for while collaborating with their colleagues, suppliers and customers are important foundations for any B2B business.
“The stores I stepped into, was happy to stay and look around, made me feel welcome. I was greeted with a smile, by well-trained people who listened and made me feel like I was the only customer that day. I’ll be going back there next time”
Principle 5: Consistency is king!
In B2B business, better relationships mean better business. Your business, just like your personal lives, is built from enduring relationships. In business, great relationships are also built from delivering a consistent customer experience where people feel looked after and believe they receive more value than what they are paying for.
Consumers want consistency in their brand relationships. It’s the same as people wanting consistency in relationships with their families, friends and colleagues. The same as B2B customers wanting more of the same from the brands they engage with.
You can’t put enough emphasis on being consistent. It goes without saying that people always want more of what they like and what makes them happy! Give them more of the same, maybe even a little bit better than last time and turn them into a returning customer!
“While shopping, I do find myself being naturally drawn into quite a few of the stores I’ve previously had good experiences and enjoyed shopping in”
Principle 6: Be shareable
People love sharing their interests, experiences and content they like. Today, people have superpowers and can jump online in an instant through their social networks and be the best salesperson you’ve ever had.
Create content to promote your brand that is more that an explanation of what you do and how you do it. Get away from using ‘business speak’ and start creating content that is clever, insightful, makes people think, and is expressed in a way that you really talk to people.
Have some fun with your brand, adding a little bit of humour to your brand is a good strategy. Humour gets looked at and shared more than any other marketing.
“It’s interesting while walking around that I’ve been paying attention to a range of brands that have only until now only lived in my mind. Shared with me on social channels with simple marketing that has stuck. Now I’m responding to them in retail environments”
Be more B2C
Step back, have a good look at your B2B brand and ask yourself…am I just creating marketing to tick the boxes and wondering why my brand isn’t getting me to where I want it to be?
Time to start looking at what the B2C experts are doing and how they are marketing their brands. Deep dive into how they attract new customers, get the best employees to serve those customers, through to retaining the customers they’ve worked so hard to get in the first place.
“If B2B brands open up to learning from B2C brands it will help them differentiate, grow revenue, hire top talent, and more easily deliver a sustainable customer experience”
My brand agency, Di Marca is a B2B agency that specialises in building brands and growing businesses. Reflecting on my retail experiences as a consumer over Christmas confirmed that there really isn’t much difference to how good B2C and B2B marketing grab my attention and how I’m treated and looked after as a customer. Nothing beats standing out as a brand, good communication, a welcoming smile and feeling like I’ve been looked after.
