We may think that bosses put the bottom-line before everything else, but nothing could be further from the truth. New research by Uffindell West called ‘Reputation & trust in B2B’ reveals that business leaders actually value trust and relationships so highly when choosing suppliers or business partners, that they’re prepared to pay a premium for it.
However, it’s not all good news. The results also highlight that when it comes to brand management, many B2B companies are still in the dark and are missing out on potentially huge opportunities.
The key questions we wanted to address with our audience of 500 senior B2B marketing decision makers was: how do you market your products or services? Does it take a quirky brand personality or clever advertising to stand out from the crowd? Is it a question of undercutting the competition, or are clients simply interested in referrals and recommendations?
The problem is that unless you understand the decision making process and the factors influencing it, all of your efforts to engage potential clients could be in vain. As retail pioneer John Wanamaker famously said: Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.
The biggest surprise when the results were analysed was that business leaders don’t deserve their hard-nosed reputation. Only the youngest and least experienced were focused on cost savings above all else, while a staggering 83 per cent believed that cost was unimportant when compared with quality and consistency. To them, the important consideration was the strength of the product and an ongoing relationship with suppliers built on trust.
In relation to evaluating existing business partners, this trend continued with 72.5 per cent saying the most important factor was positive past experiences, while 70 per cent judge suppliers on their relationship with company reps; in other words, all of the elements that make up brand experience.
It turns out that the old adage is true; people really do buy people. In each of the sections of the study, the relationship with the company was deemed as important as the relationship with the products the company offered. All of which proves that, just like consumers, businesses actually respond to and interact with brands on an emotional level. They value trust and reputation as much as the size of a business or its location, and as a result actively ignore advertising.
When asked which factors most influenced decisions when evaluating suppliers, newspaper recommendations and advertising were by far the least popular; 16.8 per cent and 15.9 per cent respectively. However, when asked if a recommendation from their peer group would affect their decisions, 61.1 per cent of the sample agreed.
To capitalise on this, companies have to rise to the challenge of developing a more engaging brand experience; of building emotional rapport to support ongoing investment in products and services. The survey shows this is what clients respond to best and seek out.
However, that might be easier said than done. It may have been a pleasant surprise to discover that businesses are indeed closely related to consumers, but what came as a huge shock was the fact businesses don’t appear to understand what a brand is, or the benefits it can bring. This is despite the fact that they were naturally drawn to businesses with strong brands when seeking out suppliers.
When asked What features of their own company best influenced the perceptions of others? the ‘way their company engages’ and ‘the personal touch’ were the top responses with 55 per cent and 45 per cent respectively. Brand languished near the bottom, picked by only 11 per cent. But the fact is that all three responses are elements of the same thing, i.e. brand management. The way a company interacts is part of its brand; its reputation is its brand and its people are its brand. The paradox of ranking the more emotional attributes higher than the brand itself reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the very nature of branding. It seems that businesses fail to recognise the influence of the emotional connection brands have with customers in building trust and reputation.
This misapprehension continued when the business leaders were asked to name the activities that would most improve their company’s performance. Given the importance of the brand experience in their own dealings with suppliers, logic dictates that the most popular decision would be to build their brand in order to capitalise on market share and seize new opportunities. However, when polled, identifying new market opportunities and a re-examination of company strategy were the top responses. Engaging consultants (17.5 per cent) and re-branding (16.4 per cent) were only beaten into last place by the instigation of redundancies that totalled only nine per cent of responses.
In order to perform in the B2B sector, brand and brand experience cannot be underestimated. Throughout the survey, the most crucial elements to a successful business partnership were always relationship, experience and trust, while competitive pricing or promotional activities came bottom. Many business leaders still possess a limited perception of branding, seeing the brand as cosmetic and overlooking its wider potential. The brand experience influences buying decisions in ways not immediately associated with the brand.
