IBM and Salesforce were voted the two most respected brands in B2B Marketing’s recent B2B Leaders Report. Lucy Fisher investigates what these brands are getting right
With 93 per cent of leaders in B2B Marketing’s recent B2B Leaders Report claiming an inability to measure ROI makes it harder to justify future investment in brand, we set out to discover what it was that IBM and Salesforce have done right, given they are regarded as the two most respected brands by these same leaders. Perhaps if marketers can agree what constitutes a strong brand, they can effectively make the case for investment.
James Trezona, managing director of Mason Zimbler, part of Harte-Hanks, which has worked with both IBM and Salesforce, believes at the heart of the success of these two companies is a recognition of the need for brand alignment internally. They know internal teams are as important as end users when it comes to evangelising the brand message, he says. Many agree this is the foundation of success at some of the leading B2B corporations.
Start from within
“That’s been a strength of IBM for many years,” says Trezona, pointing out that a good starting point, in terms of measurement, is to evaluate the strength of the brand internally. “That’s often overlooked – but with really strong brands, and especially in B2B, your people are your salesforce.”
Trezona also points out that IBM does a lot of work on social channels, in order to nurture relationships. “We build social connections for their sales teams,” he says. “In the B2B world connections can be infrequent but also very large and significant. The way the brand speaks to people needs to appeal to them emotionally as well as rationally.” He believes that great B2B brands have the confidence to appeal to human emotions as well as rationality and that, in order to do that effectively, they need a strong sense of who they are and to remain true to that brand core at all times. “Be customer-centric and true to your principles: if you tick those two boxes you won’t go too far wrong,” he says. “If you don’t, you risk creating a cacophony of competing positions, which kills opportunities and makes it hard to rationalise investing.”
Focus on delivery
It’s often pointed out your actions, rather than what you say, define what people think of you. Yet in order to crystallise your brand in your behaviour, the essence of a brand needs to be distilled down into an easy-to-understand message that can be communicated externally as well as internally, and be reflected in behaviours or delivery.
Sian Smith, head of EMEA marketing at SAP, points out how important it is to have a consistent message and identity that can run through any customer communication. “Consistency and continuity are critical for success,” she points out. “Salesforce has been successful because it has built a very strong brand around being ‘the cloud business’ – the messaging is simple, it resonates well with its target audience and is easily accessible.”
Smith believes the effectiveness of a brand can be measured by analysing customer engagement online. There are now plenty of tools claiming to do this and measuring this online dialogue through sentiment analysis and social media is key to ongoing success, she believes. “Ultimately, brand is about ‘promise’ – and delivering on that promise is key,” she says. “And while brand cannot be about facts and figures or brand audit results, the insight derived from the various touchpoints and channels a brand has with its customers – whether a B2B or B2C brand – can prove useful in measuring levels of engagement.
And the issue of brand definition is a real problem, given that the B2B Leaders Report revealed over half of leaders think their brand is not well understood by those outside the company, let alone within it.Advertising is synonymous with brand promotion. But Brown says: “If your advertising doesn’t actually reflect the way your company works, it may in fact be throwing petrol on a fire you want to go out. You damage the brand if you say one thing but do another. It’s so important to live the brand and it’s not all about money.”
The link between the brand promise and the experience or delivery of it is absolutely critical, points out Thomas Brown, associate director, research and insights at the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). With B2B companies often communicating to smaller audiences, and working to lengthier sales cycles than is typical with B2C, he says, it’s a service-dominant area, which relies heavily on its people. “There is not that same level of complexity when it comes to selling a can of Coke,” he says. “My number one piece of advice is to recognise that we’re in a service-dominant world and that it’s about people and experiences – not advertising.”
This underscores the earlier point, then; if you want to improve your brand, it might not be about spending a fortune on smart communications but rather about looking within to the promise a brand makes to its employees, to its customers, and whether that is backed up in the ultimate experience it delivers – at least as a starting point. “If employees understand the brand promise and leadership are at the front and centre of this, it can be more effective than, through metrics, trying to prove and justify investments,” says the CIM’s Brown.
Don’t forget about the product
But nor can we forget about the product. The recent fall from grace of handset manufacturer BlackBerry, once regarded as the ultimate business phone, illustrates this well. “BlackBerry lost touch with the demands of the market,” points out Steve Kemish, managing director of Cyance.
“It didn’t continue to innovate and it launched flawed products that were not what the user needed. That’s why R&D is so important.” He says customer service departments can help marketers to keep on top of any issues and that analysing the data this department holds can be massively illuminating.
Rob Morrice, chief executive officer, EMEA & Asia at Stein IAS, is another firm believer in the fact marketing needs to be about more than simply ‘selling stuff’ and that the strength of the underlying product is paramount. “Salesforce does proper market research,” he says. “They look at what customers need.” He names marketing automation software provider Eloqua as another company he believes does this well, and one that has seen considerable success as a result of its focus on the product.
“I’d have put Eloqua right at the top of the list,” he says. “They are pioneering the newest in software and it’s directly related to ROI. They are revolutionising the industry – and that’s why they got $800 million off Oracle.” Marketing, and brand, Morrice points out, is not simply about selling, but also about identifying what the market needs.
