Myth 1: Branding not important in a considered purchase
The following posts authored to date provide supporting perspective to dispute this claim:
Myth 2: Branding is expensive
The following posts authored to date provide supporting perspective to dispute this claim:
Myth 3: a Company creates its Brand
The following posts authored to date provide supporting perspective to dispute this claim:
Myth 4: Branding is not measurable
The following posts authored to date provide supporting perspective to dispute this claim:
Myth 5: Branding not as important as Positioning
The following posts authored to date provide supporting perspective to dispute this claim:
Top Myths of B2B Technology Branding
Currently (as of this posting date), Influential Strategies - meaning the author of this blog - is asserting...
5 Top B2B Technology Branding Myths:
- Branding is unimportant in a considered purchase.
- Branding is expensive.
- A Company creates its Brand.
- Branding is not measurable.
- Branding is not as important as Positioning.
Isolate this category for an updated list of posts debunking each Myth.
Mike's definition of Brand
Since I began this blog by comparing talking about brand to discussions of the Great Almighty, it's only fair that I impart to you, in the interest of full disclosure from the start, my own personal religion.
I decided to begin my mission evangelizing branding over 2 years ago, while attending Sandhill Group's Software 2004 conference. The tone of the conference that March, with the enterprise IT industry still emerging from the downturn of 2001-03, was sullen and introspective. Why were our sales still so flat? Why did our industry suck at marketing? Why did our customers hate us? I added to these laments one of my own: Why does my industry not respect branding?
In the course of my ongoing primary research on the state of branding in the B2B tech world, I've discussed the Brand Diety with many fellow IT marketing professionals. I've heard brand gurus from the B2C world evangelize their unique dogma, and seen way too many powerpoints about the future of our religion as a whole. Some descriptions include: "Brand is a personality." "Brand is a promise." "Brand is your DNA." So what's the definition that fits our industry best?
Brand is What Your Customers Say About You.
Simply put, your brand is the grade you receive from customers, prospects, investors and the marketplace at large on your ability to fulfill the need you promised to address. Did you make the pain you targeted indeed go away? Do you always deliver as advertised? Is your reputation one to be trusted?
A vendor cannot buy its brand. It's not a website or an ad campaign or a press release. It's created over time by a company's consistent behavior in the marketplace, by how the company sets expectations and then exceeds or disappoints. The vendor asserts its competitive positioning, executes against this in the market, and then is rewarded or punished by the brand it receives in reply. Customers define your brand, with or without your help. In this way, brand is about perception...and reality.
Brand Happens. So B2B technology vendors better start joining the conversation.
Talking about Brand is like talking about God
It has been said that talking about brand is like talking about God. Everyone has their own definition and beliefs. Still, I've taken on a new professional mission - to evangelize the power of brand to transform the way my industry sells enterprise technology and satisfies customers.
To understand the current perception of branding and its value for the B2B IT industry, I have undertaken an ongoing qualitative research study, interviewing some of the leading technology marketing minds on their branding dogma. In this blog, we'll examine and discuss findings from this project.
Buyer2Brand will strive never to be preachy in its tone, but instead present the beliefs and opinions of minds greater than my own, relate insights on the news with links to point of origin, and analyze emerging trends and best practices as asserted by sources we trust in common.
If you are a senior-level technology marketer, and would like to be interviewed, please drop me a line.
