B2B branding: a profit-pumping heart

This post first appeared as an online article in Marketing Mix, South Africa’s magazine for intelligent marketers.
Brands mean ownership
We can all recall an ad that lost its link with the brand: “Great! Clever, sharp, funny, hard-hitting. What company was it?” Or, even worse, ‘What was the product?’ No brand: no ownership.
In B2B marketing, branding is about [...]

Brands

B2B marketing: what’s the story in South Africa?

This post first appeared as an online article in Marketing Mix, South Africa’s magazine for intelligent marketers.
Based on the content of SA’s marketing press, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is only one type of marketing happening across the country: B2C.
Perhaps this is because marketing peeps don’t get the concept of B2B and choose [...]

Making B2B marketing work

Mapping audiences in B2B markets: building a marcoms strategy

B2B markets are complex structures consisting of different audiences that influence customers’ buying decisions. Marketers need to understand who these audiences are, how they influence one another and the significance of their influence on buying decisions.
Mapping audiences and their connectivity within a ‘sphere of influence’ is the first step in creating a marcoms strategy that [...]

Making B2B marketing work, Marcoms

B2B Marketing for Dummies

IAS b2b Marketing, winner of Agency of the Year at the UK’s B2B Marketing Awards 2009, has created a concise guide that highlights how to deliver the right B2B messages to the right people at the right time.
The minibook addresses key issues that anyone working in marketing may face with B2B brands. It’s easy to understand [...]

Brands, Making B2B marketing work

A B2B message from The Man in the Chair

It might be hard to believe, but the print ad below is 50 years old.
Promoting the business, professional and technical magazines published by McGraw Hill, the message is as fresh and relevant today as it was fifty years ago: sales start before your salesman calls.
In July this year, the Business Marketing Association staged a ‘live’ version [...]

B2B buying motivators, B2B sales, Brands, Making B2B marketing work, Marcoms

Re-positioning B2B brands: a quick case study

  

The leopard cannot change its spots

In other words, basic characteristics cannot be altered.
Oh, yes they can…
The spots on these ‘leopards’ were changed to fingerprints as part of brand re-positioning for clients demonstrating biometric-based access control solutions at Europe’s biggest corporate security show in 2006.
This was just part of a campaign to influence market perceptions [...]

B2B sales, Brands, Making B2B marketing work, Marcoms

Market reflections: managing B2B brand perceptions

What are ‘market reflections’ and why do they matter?
Think of the brand as a reflection of your company in a mirror. You hold the brand up to this mirror and it reflects everything the company represents in the market. You don’t see the brand staring back at you, you see what the market sees.
When an end-user [...]

B2B sales, Brands, Marcoms

Branding: the heart of B2B marketing

Creating a market-identity
A lot less has been written about the importance of brands in B2B as opposed to B2C, and yet the authors quoted in the previous post, ‘Brands build business’ suggest that brands may be more important in B2B than they are in B2C.
My experience is that brands are more important in B2B because [...]

Brands, Making B2B marketing work