by Bob Grant

While B2C branding encompasses that emotional feeling consumers experience when seeing a business’ logo or slogan, there is a different way of marketing that brand when it comes to getting this reaction from business to business.

B2B branding has its own unique marketing efforts, however, with the help of social networking, well-constructed, targeted email campaigns, press releases, and new product announcements, marketing your brand to another business is yielding excellent results.

A few well thought out email messages to a smaller targeted group works well, and monthly e-news distribution to your customer base keeps you customers informed and keeps your company on top of mind. Capturing emails at trade shows or when visitors download a white paper, request a quote, or contact you from your website, are excellent ways to build your email database.

Rating high in the search engines, whether organic or paid, to generate web traffic is becoming the standard of any marketing strategy. Through SEO and SEM businesses are vying for that top spot in the search. Once there, they have the ability to drive any business looking for information to their website. Building content on your website and positioning yourself as the thought leader in your industry will help drive search engine ranking.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are also proving to be extremely valuable in helping a business with their B2B branding. Businesses making connections with their audience whether it’s a consumer or another business can be achieved through social media marketing. Since these sites are so popular many businesses are joining and taking full advantage of this marketing tool.

No longer are businesses interested in simply spouting their message and hoping another business will bite. it takes a well formulated integrated marketing communication plan that includes offline and online digital marketing to grow and sustain a business in the b2b marketplace.

Many people in business believe their logo and slogan make up their corporate brand. And while they are integral to a company’s image, there is so much more to what a brand really encompasses.Your brand is your/company evidence of distinction.

In developing a brand strategy for a business, you have to understand that your brand reaches far beyond the artistic components such as how your website looks or the uniforms your employees wear. A brand is the entire experience that a person has from the moment they hear the business’ name, their experience on your website or with customer service and how well you stand behind your product. The visceral reaction that people have when hearing the name of your business or seeing your logo, is your brand.

Developing a brand strategy requires consistency in what your business delivers and how it is delivered. The corporate brand also needs the support of management from CEO on down the chain of command. The brand essence must be reflected by every employee. This does take time but today, with consumers communicating through social media, it is imperative that every company have a brad strategy.. Interacting with customers on Facebook or Twitter in a positive and timely manner raises the customer’s experience. Any message you send will directly impact your brand, keeping these messages positive, customer focused and consistent helps to quickly develop a brand. The company with a strong brand strategy will have a marked advantage  over their competition.

Your brand will also be secure because you stand behind your product or service. Customers will be willing to pay because they know your business supports them and you deliver. Top quality will always win out.

Change is important to brand strategy. Ask customers what they like and don’t like, and listen to them. Customers appreciate a business that is willing to go the extra mile to accommodate them.

Brand is the fundamental beliefs of your company. It helps bring definition and certainty to your name making it recognizable and trustworthy.

by Bob Grant

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” This famous line by BillyShakespeare comes to mind after reading John Colapinto’s recent engaging New Yorker article “Famous Names” on David Placek and his company Lexicon.

In the world of business, marketing, and advertising we pay a great deal of attention and money to how companies, products and services are named. Brand names are important.  Brand names help us remember and help us associate a good or bad experience with a product, service, or company.

But where do successful brand names come from? Colapinto illustrates how David Placek and his company came up with the name BlackBerry for Research In Motion. Placek’s staffers interviewed commuters riding the ferry from Sausalito to San Francisco. The company also conducted mind mapping brainstorm sessions, generating hundreds of word associations. They dismissed words that contained mail or email references as not being joyous enough. One word that made the final cut was blackberry.  Lexicon’s word smiths and linguists felt black evoked the color of high-tech devices, and the oval keys looked like drupelets of a blackberry.

Colapinto points out that not all successful brand names are professionally developed. He notes that Google came out of a misspelling of googol, which is defined as the number 10 raised to the 100^th power. I suppose that it was one way of expressing infinity.  Coca-Cola was devised by an accountant who thought the two C’s looked good in advertisements.  Many companies, from Hewlett Packard to Grant Marketing simply name the company or product after the founder. However, naming is just the first step.

This brings us back to Shakespeare’s question, “What’s in a name?” Bernd Schmitt, marketing professor at Columbia Business School, asks in the New Yorker article, “Would Amazon be just as successful if it was called Nile?”  The answer is likely, yes, just as a rose by any other name would likely smell as sweet.

What makes BlackBerry, Amazon, and thousands of other brand names successful is not just the name itself, but the product and company that stands behind that brand name, and the brand strategy and marketing strategy that brings that product to the minds of the consumers who will buy the product.

BlackBerry is successful because of the technology that made it easy for consumers, many of whom were business people who needed to rely on instant communication with their associates and customers. The BlackBerry name set it apart from the generic names of cell phones or mobile phones, and made the device a brand that stood alone. Alone that is until competition from I Phones, Androids, and the like.

Whether a brand name is developed by name branding professionals like Lexicon, or from the mind of a business owner, an accountant, or company research department, there are a few fundamental steps a company should perform before bringing the brand name to market.

1. Have the name, along with some other name possibilities, reviewed and critiqued within the company
2. Connect the brand name to some kind of association with the product, no matter how vague. Recall the “Blackberry” explanation.
3. Test the name through focus groups or survey of existing and prospective customers
4. Research the name through a trademark search to be sure there are no conflicts with existing names that would be close in appearance, application, and would cause confusion.

Once a brand name is determined, then move forward developing a brand and marketing strategy that will make that name resonate in its marketplace like Google, Amazon, Apple, and BlackBerry.

With the introduction of YouTube, and since the purchase of YouTube by Google, videos have become one of the most used forms of media today. This is not really news. We have been captured by video ever since the invention of silent movies. Then there was TV and commercials, 8MM cameras, hand held video cameras. Then came the Internet, and with the increase of broadband and the improvement of digital devices like IPads, Smartphones, and Flip video cameras, video is bigger than ever. Check out these facts:

• Video shares 51% of all Internet traffic
• YouTube is second only to Google for search engine share
• 490 million unique users worldwide per month

Grant Marketing has partnered with photographer and videographer Wayne Dion, to offer our clients professional video production and marketing. Grant Marketing has been helping B2B companies with their branding and marketing for more than 25 years.

Wayne Dion isn’t just jumping on the video band-wagon either. His career started in video production more than 30 years ago. Dion worked with crews on commercial video productions out of the Boston market. TV commercials and political infomercials were day to day work. His projects included video and lighting for ESPN, BBC, Fidelity Investments and local politics.

Whether or not you use the services of Grant Marketing, consider integrating video into your marketing efforts.

To discuss your video project, contact us at video@grantmarketing.com

by Bob Grant

It is often said that “Content is king.”  Content has become the new marketing buzz word in brand and marketing. CMO’s, Chief Marketing Officers are now aligned with CCO’s, Chief Content Officers. This is especially true for B2B marketers.  If you are a CCO, CMO, CEO, President, Marketing Manager, Sales Manager or entrepreneur, you need to embrace content marketing.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing frequently takes the form of custom magazines, print or online newsletters, digital content, websites or microsites, white papers, webcasts/webinars, podcasts, video portals or series, roundtables, interactive online, email, events. The purpose of this information is not to spout the virtues of the marketer’s own products or services, but to inform target customers and prospects about key industry issues, sometimes involving the marketer’s products. The motivation behind content marketing is the belief that educating the customer results in the brand’s recognition as a thought leader and industry expert. Content building and marketing strategy can help make you or your company the experts in your field, or at least give the perception that you are experts in your field. Today, purchasing and product selection is in the hands of the consumer/buyer. Buyers are not waiting around to be sold. They want to do their own research and evaluation before making important an often expensive buying decisions. If you are the company or person that can provide information that makes the decision accurately and easily, you have made yourself an important resource for the buyer.

How do you build content?

Before the Internet, marketers relied on brochures, data sheets, catalogs, and advertising to explain the features and benefits of their products and services. Customers and prospects also relied on these materials to educate themselves.  While some of these mediums are still important in some industries, engineers and buyers are doing their own search for impartial product information.  Marketers can now provide that information in the form of white papers, blogs, newsletters, webinars, podcasts, webcasts, videos, and published articles that are readily available online, and searchable through Google,  Bing, Yahoo, and other online directories, communities and online publications.

How do you distribute content?

Once you have created your content, whether a white paper, case study or other informative document or medium, you will need to make it available to individuals in your market place who may be searching for your valuable information.  You can use the following tactics as an example:

1. Post to your website
2. Post to your blog
3. Submit to white paper directories
4. Write and distribute online press releases
5. Post to social media networks
6. Post to discussion groups and other online communities
7. Design a Google AdWord and post to a PPC
8. Post to affiliate websites
9. Send to targeted trade publications

How do you generate sales from content?

The white paper, case study, or other content medium should reflect keywords that are associated to your product or service or might be the keyword phrase that someone is searching to solve a problem. For digital content the keywords can be coded to link to your website. Also for full text of a content piece, visitors should be required to download by providing their name and email address. The person who downloads your content may not have an immediate need for your product or service, but you can build a database of potential customers that you can continue to nurture for future sales. Some content may not be appropriate for download, but should require an action step for the visitor to interact with your company.

by Bob Grant

All indications are that American manufacturing is coming back and will lead us out of our economic doldrums.  According to a recent study by the Boston Consulting Group wages are rising in China, and although significantly lower that US wages, when combined with other production costs and shipping the China advantage drops to single digits. This has encouraged manufacturers like Caterpillar, and NCR to bring back manufacturing operations to the US. While China and other countries will continue to manufacture many products used in the US, we will see lot more products “Made in the USA” in the next five years according to Boston Consulting Group.

According to a study by Global Spec,  20 of 23 industries expect higher sales in 2011 including paper, printing and textiles,  packaging machinery, chemicals, plastics and rubber, medical equipment and instrumentation.

Manufacturing companies of all sizes should be evaluating their sales and marketing strategies to take advantage of this new opportunity. According to the Global Spec study 75% of engineers and purchasing agents will spend three or more hours per week for work related purposes. These individuals spend time viewing supplier websites, online catalogs. They also do searches on general search engines, read e-newsletters, and subscribe to online events like webinars.

How can manufacturing marketers prepare and take advantage of this potential new business?

1.     Develop an online marketing plan – with the continuing increase of engineers and buyers using the Internet for research and locating vendors for products and services, be sure to develop an online marketing plan and strategy, including e-mail marketing, webinars, and social media.

2.     Build content on your website – Engineers and buyers will visit company websites that make their jobs easier. They are looking for resources to make decisions. If you have a catalog, make it online searchable. If you have engineering information, place it on your website. The more  specific content you have on your website will also help make it more popular with search engines, which will give your site more favorable positions for  certain keywords and phrases.

3.     Track activity for ROI – At a minimum, add Google Analytics to your website, so that you can track how vistors located your website and which pages converted them to leads. There are also other programs that can identify visitors and keep track of subsequent visits. Programs are also available for tracking phone calls from your website.

If you need help with any of these suggestions, contact us.

By Bob Grant

The recent article by Michael Barbaro in the New York Times about hundreds of condo owners suing Donald Trump because they bought into the lie that Trump actually stood behind and owned some “Trump” properties that the condo owners purchased. In fact Trump merely licensed the use of his name and brand to sell these properties.

This is not at all unusual as many famous people license their name and identity to sell products. Need I say, “Buyer beware.”? While it is certainly the responsibility of the consumer to investigate whether or not there is a sincere and valid connection between the brand and the product, product manufacturers have a responsibility to offer honest branding.

Consumers need to be more knowledgeable about branding. Branding goes back to the days when cattle ranchers branded their cattle so that you could tell which cattle belonged to the “W” Ranch and which belonged to the “XY” Ranch.  If you bought  “W” Ranch beef, you could count on it that it came from the “W” Ranch.

This brings to mind the whole notion of good brands, and bad brands and how they can easily shift from bad to good or good to bad. Remember when Tiger Woods was a good brand? American Express, Buick, and the very game of golf wanted to be linked to Tiger Woods. Then a little mishap with the misses, and the Tiger Woods brand quickly turns into the “untouchable.”

By Bob Grant

Condominium complexes that promote themselves as being Trump properties, when they are such in name only, do a disservice to the consumers who buy them, the real estate investors, and Donald Trump himself. As news leaks out, and condo owners feel duped and bring suit, all of a sudden the Trump brand itself begins to be tarnished.

Good brands are developed and stay healthy when their unique evidence of distinction and the ability to deliver on their promises to the consumers who purchase their products supports them.  Brands are developed from within an organization, company, or even a person. It is the very essence and quality of that entity that creates its brand.  The Tiger Woods brand was a good brand, when Tiger was playing golf like no other golfer before him, and Donald Trump was a good brand when he first developed a real estate empire in New York. They have not been able to maintain their uniqueness since.

Companies and organizations are the same. They need to constantly be vigilant of their brands and protective of that brand so that they continue to serve consumers with honest and dependable services and products, and prevent their good brands from going bad.

By Bob Grant

Integrated marketing expert, Professor Don E. Schultz, in a recent article in Marketing Management magazine describes quite accurately the importance of the value of brand as an asset.  He points out that the value of the brand makes up 48% of Coca-Cola’s enterprise value and 37% of that of Google. However, the point of his article is that marketing and brand managers do not understand that relationship which makes it difficult for them to get the support of financial officers to back brand and marketing initiatives. From my experience it is just the opposite.

While I don’t doubt for a second that big brand companies like Coca-Cola, Google, IBM and Apple  senior financial management totally understand the value of brand and I imagine that they are in sync with their marketing and brand managers. However, in smaller and less brand visible companies, it is my experience that the marketing and brand managers understand the financial benefits of the company brand and struggle to convince the financial managers to support brand initiatives.

Mr. Schultz does point out that short-term fiscal year accounting systems work against support for long-term brand funding. This may be why financial managers of small to medium size companies find it difficult to justify expenditures on brand development.

I would be interested in hearing from others about who has the better understanding of the company’s brand value.  Is it the marketing and brand managers, or is it financial managers?

by Bob Grant

Facing poor sales in September, 2010 The Gap decided to make a logo change, as if an updated logo was going to turnaround slumping sales. The new logo immediately received negative reaction from customers, publications and independent bloggers. The Gap quickly reverted back to their old logo.

According to the April 8, issue of the NY Times, in March with Gap’s North American sales of same store sales down 9% The Gap recently announced a reassessment of its brand. According to John Seifert of Olgivy, the Gap, “sort of lost its story and lost its focus on what made it different and special.” Seth Farman, Gap’s chief global marketing officer, is reported to have said, the Gap “needs to set a clear point of view for the brand.”

It was at first surprising that a large corporation like the Gap would think that a logo change would change the brand of the company. Logos, being a visible representation of a company, are often thought of as the company brand. The very definition of a brand goes back to the wild west days when cattle ranchers “branded” their cattle so one ranch’s cattle could be differentiated from another ranch. Today, well established logos do connect us immediately to the company, think Nike, IBM, and Apple. However, the logo is just a recognizable reminder of the company it represents, but the true brand of a company is what the company itself represents in the minds of it customers, potential customers, and its employees.

Developing one’s brand is not an easy process. A company needs to evaluate who they are as a company and who they want to be as a company. It’s important to ask stakeholders and employees inside the company about their perceptions of the company. It is equally important to uncover what customers and potential customers think about the company and what the company is promising to them. Once the research is complete, how do you synthesize that research into brand messaging and positioning statements that will resonate with audiences inside the company and outside the company. Then comes the awesome task of turning that brand into reality by altering the way the company does business and getting everyone inside the company on board to back up the company’s new brand.

The Gap is on the right track and it will be interesting for us brand strategist and marketers to see how they will improve their brand and increase their sales.

As reported in the New York Times, Google announcement that it is changing its algorithms to reduce ranking of what it calls low quality sites, meaning sites with little original content or content built solely from third party sites like Demand Media. Google said that it will raise the rankings of higher quality web sites while reducing the rankings of lower quality sites.
Google makes about 500 changes a year to its algorithms and most of them are minor. However, according to Armit Singhal, a Google Fellow, who worked on this recent change, announced in an interview that users were likely to quickly notice this one. If we believe Google, this change is in the best of interest of consumers who rely on Google for reliable and original information when they go “Googling”.
There are hundreds of companies whose business model revolves around navigating Google’s algorithms and helping their customers increase their searchable rank among Google’s pages. The Times article reports that Demand Media, for example, uses software to track what people are searching for on Google and other sites, generates headlines based on those searches and pays small amounts to freelancers to write the articles. Demand Media is reported to be worth $1.9 Billion.
While this change may have some impact on Demand Media and, other companies that seek to grow their businesses around Google, what impact, if any, does it have on business-to-business companies and their web sites?
If we trust that Google, yahoo, Bing and other search engines’ goal is to provide relevant content for consumers, then those of us in marketing and branding need not be concerned about this latest Google change. We have always recommended to our b2b and industrial clients, that the best way to gain good search engine results is to have excellent content on their web sites.
If you are an expert in spring manufacturing, you serve your customer best by providing detailed information on the types of springs that you offer, the sizes, the materials, the applications for these springs, and a lot more. With well thought out and written content you offer a beneficial service to your customers and those potential customers who need information on springs.
Whether or not you make springs, gaskets, bearings, or any other product, we need to depend on major search engines like Google and Yahoo to direct users looking for quality information. It’s to Google’s credit that they make it easier for this to happen.

Bob Grant, Grant Marketing

www.grantmarketing.com
For the full article on Google in the NT Times go to:
New York Times – Google