Branding Basics for Industrial Marketers
To be successful at branding, your efforts need to go much deeper than
simply promoting your company's name to target audiences. You need to focus
on "relationship building"
with your customers, encouraging them to associate your brand with positive
emotions and feelings that will make them want to continue coming back for more.
It seems that everyone is affected by branding, and our decisions about
what brands we prefer can start early in our lives. A recent
Associated Press news report based on a research study involving
children and food wrapped in McDonalds wrappers claimed that "…kids'
perception of taste was 'physically altered by the branding.' The Stanford
University researcher said it was remarkable how children so young were
already so influenced by advertising."
Obviously, as industrial marketers,
our branding efforts are targeted to a more mature audience. But we're still
looking for the same type of positive perceptions and
loyalty exhibited in the kids' research study. Branding efforts can
affect and influence customers throughout their lives. Today, we need to take
advantage of the many opportunities presented by technologies available to
us to improve and succeed at our relationship-building and branding efforts,
specifically Internet marketing technologies:
websites, forums, blogs, podcasts, etc. Let's
review branding basics to help us come up with some creative ideas for
using these technologies to boost our branding efforts.
The basic principle of branding: A brand is a relationship.
"A brand is a relationship -- the connection between your customers and
your company or product. Like all human relationships, this connection is based
on experience attitudes and expectations. 'Branding' is about shaping and
deepening that relationship," David Curtis writes in a column in The New
York Enterprise Report.
He adds, "A strong brand makes your
business more visible and more credible. So instead of seeking customers,
they may find you… a strong brand commands loyalty, which means better
customer retention." The brand "relationship" is similar to the other
relationships in our lives, taking the same natural steps, and following a similar progression.
Start by getting acquainted with your customers and their needs.
Branding requires a commitment to using marketing technologies to your
advantage. This means that we need to provide valuable content on our websites,
content that differentiates our brand from others. In Industrial Marketing
Management, Daniel H. McQuiston of the Department of Marketing at Butler
University in Indianapolis, Indiana writes, "In today's competitive business
environment, industrial marketers must work harder than ever before to achieve
some degree of differentiation for their products to avoid being viewed as a
commodity. Many firms have sought to achieve this differentiation by branding
their products. Branding, however, is more than simply putting the company's
name on a product and broadcasting that name to its target audiences."
McQuiston adds, "For industrial products, branding is a multidimensional
construct that includes not only how the customers view the physical product,
but also the logistics, customer support, and corporate image and policy that
accompany this product." In other words, you should get to know your customers'
expectations -- and then meet or exceed those expectations.
Establish an emotional connection.
Branding also involves making an emotional connection with your buyers.
Ask yourself, "What will make your customers 'feel good' about buying your
brand?" If your brand can contribute to your customers' self-esteem, you'll be
successful at making an emotional connection with them. In his book, Small
is the New Big, best-selling author Seth Godin says, "I think that when traditional marketers talk about 'brand,' self-esteem
value is what they mean. A true brand is something where the self-esteem
value far exceeds the utility. It might be Heinz ketchup or a Rolex watch
or a Marlboro cigarette, but in each case there's a truly emotional connection
between the brand and the user."
Ask for a commitment to
your brand.
Whether we're focusing on branding or not, in all of our marketing and
sales efforts we need to include some type of "call to action" in our ads,
postings, etc. Most types of actions taken by your customers can lead to more
of a commitment to your brand. So, don't forget to tell your customers what
they need to do -- or what you'd like them to do -- to get them to try, buy
or buy your brand again. Make it easy and "natural" for customers to keep
coming back for more, and take advantage of happy, long-lasting relationships
created by your branding efforts.
If you would like more information on how
ThomasNet can help you build your brand online,
please contact us at 1.866.621.9441
or visit PromoteYourBusiness.ThomasNet.com.
Sources:
"Build a Brand that will Build Your Business," by David Curtis. The New
York Enterprise Report, May 2005.
http://nyreport.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Feature.showFeature&FeatureID=237&noheader=1. Accessed 8/19/07.
Small is the New Big by Seth Godin. New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2006.
"Study: Food in McDonald's wrapper tastes better to kids."
The Associated Press, August 6, 2007.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/06/mcdonalds.preschoolers.ap/index.html.
Accessed 8/19/07.
"Successful branding of a commodity product:
The case of RAEX LASER steel," by Daniel H. McQuiston. Industrial Marketing
Management, Volume 33, Issue 4, May 2004. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science. Accessed 8/16/07.
