Buyer2Brand

Brand Research is not Market Research

One of my favorite online resources for trends, case studies and strategic approaches to branding is Brandchannel - hosted by Interbrand. It isn't just a collection of the firm's own work, but offers a real forum for discussion and third-party perspectives.

This article caught my eye by a guy named Joseph Benson. Joe is a B2B brand strategist whose past clients have included technology and financial services firms, among other industries. He's also the former VP of Brand Strategy at Sapient Corporation. I don't know him personally, but he offers some easily digestible insight on the difference between market research and brand research.

Most marketers understand the power of research to quantify buyer demand for new and existing products. Standard market research surveys are very useful to determine direction in areas like pricing, packaging, technical requirements, and purchase intent. In the IT industry, I've found that technology vendors are great at using customer research to gage customer satisfaction with the product itself (features/functions) as a direct feedback loop to Engineering, but not so great at examining their own organizational performance to the extent it informs the customer's total "brand experience".

Typical market research studies are not focused on qualitative measures - such as buyer perception, product preference drivers, and the relative success of vendor marketing efforts. Brand research on the other hand aims to understand WHY customers chose the product they did - the true differentiators among competitors as the buyer perceives them - and why they would be willing to pay more for a stronger brand. Brand research is best conducted by the vendor either in one-on-one interviews with its most profitable customers (who cares why the losers bought?!), or when appropriate, in small focus groups. 

So the basics of brand research answer the following questions: Why did your most profitable customers choose you? Who are the market influencers they trust to advise them? What marketing messages resonate most with them? The folks who specialize this stuff are usually domain experts, so they know enough about the market to probe deeper.

According to Benson, brand research is the way to go in the following quick-hit scenarios: when a company (new brand) is first launched into an existing category; when a vendor is exploring if its brand can be extended to a new product type without dilution; and when companies merge and need to merge their brands correctly. Mature organizations use brand research more regularly to steward the brand itself - continually measuring the changing dynamics of customer choice and aligning the organizational behavior of executives and frontline employees behind it. In the final scenario, when a vendor's offerings have become commoditized and the brand diluted, research can find new meaning and relevance with target customers and teach the organization how to revitalize its outdated promise.

Salespeople need to sell your brand

Branding is a marketing thing, right? I mean, what role could salespeople possibly play - especially in selling IT, where the sale is consultative and the purchase decision complex? So goes the prevailing wisdom.

With the coming of the Web 2.0 world, that tired argument has gone out the window. In consumer markets, branding experts talk of turning every employee into a "brand ambassador" - someone who actively promotes and "lives" the brand in every interaction with customers, partners and prospects. Forward-thinking tech vendors are realizing that the sales field (which owns the customer relationship in most cases) needs to play this vital role in building brand equity. Millions of dollars spent on direct mail and PR and keyword buys can't replace a warm body in this vital role.

CIO Today has written a comprehensive article on how to make each salesperson the living embodiment of your brand. A great brand is built by repeated actions. With every interaction, the sales rep provides the personality in front of all your branding efforts - good or bad. Actions speak louder than words, the article asserts, so every communication must be viewed as an opportunity to assert brand image and drive brand loyalty.

First, a vendor needs to understand its unique brand. Assuming that Marketing is doing its job in this regard (and in B2B tech that's a big assumption), sales support then needs to train the sales force to wrap the brand experience around the sales process that is already in place. This training shouldn't focus on the tactical - like enforcing sales presentation design templates. It's strategic sales training that seeks to institutionalize brand message consistency within each step and at every level of the consultative sales process. The key to Brand Selling is instantiating the vendor's core values, history, and operational procedures within the customer relationship itself.

Brand Selling is in fact one of the keys to selling higher inside a customer/prospect organization, the CIO Today article asserts (and I can't tell you how many of my clients over the years have had THAT as an objective!) Brand promises are no longer limited to the functional product/service level, therefore delivering on these promises forges a deeper emotional bond (yes, the "E" word) between vendor and customer based on trust and authenticity (i.e. what makes a great brand). The customer comes to view the vendor's unique mission and philosophy as not just empty words, but as directly helping them achieve return on their investment. To be sure, this strategic selling of "shared outcomes" gets the attention of CIOs.

A vendor salesforce that actually "lives" its differentiated brand personality with each and every customer interaction elevates its game. They infuse customer relationships with a deeper understanding of values shared. Some specific suggestions in the article include:

• Start by polling employees for examples of how your company delivers on its mission statement or unique selling proposition (if brand is unknown). Look for inconsistencies.
• Rewrite case studies and success stories to reinforce how your philosophy and values came to life for the customer's benefit.
• Hold occasional "brand refresher" meetings with customers to reinforce the long-term benefits of partnering with your company.
• Take the time to resolve customer issues in person, as personal attention and face-time breed familiarity, extend contacts across management, and uncover new opportunities.
• A sales force is the ultimate marketing research resource - integral to refreshing the brand and testing its premises - so a regular feedback loop to Marketing is imperative.

The results of stronger brand loyalty with customers is indeed quantifiable - as it sets the stage for successful up- and cross-selling over time.

Rebranding is about realignment

I've written on rebranding before, but its a decision-making process that merits more discussion.

Most IT vendors are not "startups", in the strictest definition of the term. Most are small companies that are actively selling and winning first customers, then servicing and supporting those customers while working to improve their product or service. Most have active PR and other outbound marketing initiatives that build awareness and fill the sales pipeline. All assert their positioning in the marketplace relative to competitive alternatives.

In a new book Why Johnny Can't Brand (Portfolio 2005), authors Bill Schley and Carl Nichols explore when and why companies should rebrand. They argue that many companies rebrand prematurely or unnecessarily, shooting good brands in the foot instead of strengthening them. The three most common catalysts for misguided rebranding are: new executives trying to make their mark, the need for instant gratification trumping long term commitment, or organizational malaise/boredom.

To gain a foothold in the market, small to mid-size B2B technology vendors typically "chase the money" - closing business for the sake of the reference and the revenue, thanks to the sales staff's existing relationships. If branding's maxim is "customers create your brand", then what happens if some of these early customers fall outside of the positioned target market? Over the years it typically takes a vendor to attain critical mass, markets are in constant flux. Differentiation can be challenged by new competitors or emerging trends. Since "brand happens" with or without the vendor's active stewardship, the result over time can be a spotty understanding of exactly why customers utilize the product or service. The daily demands of customer growth and pace of market change can outdate, dilute, or distract a brand.

Such ventures are prime candidates for Rebranding - which doesn't always have to mean a complete overhaul. Rebranding can in fact have nothing to do with redesigning visual assets (logo, tagline) and instead focus entirely on operational or internal mindset changes. Rebranding is essentially an exercise in realignment. It is rediscovering the single unifying principle that aligns the organization with its customers. It means listening as those who bought tell you why you are special, why your offer resonates, and why your product is relevant. It is evolution more than revolution, but holds great power to re-energize a company.

If you are considering Rebranding, make sure it's not for one of the reasons Schey and Nichols cite above. A quick brand audit is a great way to get a read on if your brand is truly misaligned, not just fatigued. A reinvigorated brand can deliver more qualified sales leads & stronger customer loyalty, but brand equity needs time, dedication and maintenance to grow. Rebranding should not be undertaken lightly, and management support is a critical success factor.

Ventana Research on customer satisfaction

Ventana Research is a fast-rising midsized analyst firm specializing in performance management.  In the rapidly consolidating world of industry analyst firms, it's encouraging to see Ventana's growth as an alternative to Gartner and Forrester's dominance.  It does a good job at covering CPM/BPM from the perspectives of IT, supply chain, finance, operations, contact center, BI/data warehousing, and sales/marketing.  A lot of its research notes and articles are still publicly available - also nice while it lasts.

Ventana's Contact Center practice released some startling findings recently on the state of customer satisfaction in our industry.  Of 100 organizations surveyed, 95 percent agreed that improving customer sat is among their company's strategic objectives, but less than 5 percent said they knew what it would take to do it.  This is indeed frightening in an industry that invests 6 times more to gain a new customer than to service a current one, and waits 7 years to turn a net profit from the relationship.

Ventana wonders whether this is a problem of culture, a failure of efficiency and effectiveness, broken business processes, or poor information management.

The firm concludes the last problem is the root cause, but I think it's cultural.  Even if most IT companies could attain the nirvana of "a single view of the customer", the industry would still suffer from an assembly-line approach to managing customers.  Customers are processed and passed off departmentally from Marketing (the lead) to Sales (the close) to Service (the project) to Support (the headache) in an approach that is TOO process-oriented and not PEOPLE-oriented.  Ventana calls out the industry's "structural inability to relate to customers" - where support staffs are left to recover the relationship (or ultimately kill it).

So how does this all relate to Brand?  Ventana explains that customer sat levels are determined by ALL of the customer's interactions with a vendor organization, and are damaged by broken promises.  These leave emotional responses like frustration and disillusionment.  If strong brands are promises kept and positive experiences delivered, then an institutional focus on brand-building would foster a culture where customer satisfaction was of paramount importance.

Experiential Marketing relevant for B2B

Customer loyalty is equal to the collection of positive experiences which produce positive customer emotions. The more positive experiences customers have, the stronger their loyalty and therefore the stronger the brand. But don’t take my word for it. CMO Magazine has written a great article on how more B2B companies are using experiential marketing and includes 4 great case studies – including IBM.

Consumer brand builders like Starbucks and other retailers have been thinking about customer experience for more than a decade. But the approach of most B2B marketers to connecting with customers is still stuck in Powerpoint mode. The experiential marketing trend holds promise in helping transform our industry's marketing from a product orientation to more of a client orientation.

Come to find out that IBM has a guy with the title of "program director of brand experience design". He argues that business clients are not emotionally inured, and bring to any decision the same mix of human qualities usually attributed solely to consumers – and consumer marketing. What a concept.

Don’t think that just because your technology product or service is complicated and your messages very specific that your company can’t improve its user experiences, CMO explains. Examples the article cites include how to “sex up” experiences most of us already control and execute – such as call center scripts and product roadshows.

Here's a summary of the article's guidelines for a memorable customer experience:

• Make sure the information or entertainment imparted is truly relevant to the customer, not just to you
• Involve a rank of influencers are the client company - not just the buyer - for a more collegial, communal experience
• Make sure it’s delivered clearly in a limited time frame that respects busy schedules
• Leave plenty of time for conversation and interaction. Keep it high level and strategic to create a more consultative experience.
• Find ways to delay introducing your technology into the experience, and then showcase only what it enables for end users
• Avoid talking about your industry and competitors

Finally, the experiential marketing experience created doesn’t have to be an expensive, full-day exercise that demands customer immersion in some fictional world of your creation. How about sprucing up that lobby of yours to make it more warm and inviting?

Remember the cardinal rules of customer-driven brands (i.e. ALL brands):
Every experience communicates Brand. The customer experience is the Brand.

Entrepreneur article on Rebranding

This month's Entrepreneur Magazine has an excellent column on Rebranding by John Williams. 

John's major points are:

1. Don't confuse rebranding - which is a comprehensive, frequently expensive change of strategic direction for a company - with the simple need to update your look.  A simple refresh of design elements or slight naming alteration, which may be all that is required, is not the definition of rebranding. 

2. Rebranding should only be undertaken based on a proven need to alter course (e.g. new market, new trend, new product direction).  Given changing market conditions, it may even be crucial.  Rebranding should be based on sound strategy supported by facts related to sales and profits, not driven by organizational fatigue.  Ideally, everything should be changed at once.  For B2B companies, this starts with all sales tools and the website.

3. Be prepared to lose some customers.  The more dramatic the change of strategic course, the more customers will probably become alienated and abandon your product or service.  No worries, as long as you embody and deliver on your new brand promise to the new target audience(s).  Branding is about using mindshare to win marketshare.

John is an eloquent torchbearer for my mantra that Brand = solid differentiation.  In his words, "you simply can't be all things to all people".   He believes as I do that Brand Happens.  "Branding isn't an option today -- (it's) either by default or design." 

He offers one final piece of advice of particular interest to tech vendors: changing the name of the business to the name of the product is rarely advisable.  It is usually self-limiting and stymies the organization's ability to pace marketplace evolution.

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.

Your Customer controls your Brand

Forrester Research recently held its 2005 Consumer Forum.  Although the thrust of the agenda addressed how to reach the teaming masses on the Internet, the present market's realities sure sound like they have a lot of relevance to B2B tech marketers as well.  Forrester has always been the best of the major IT research firms at straddling the B2C and B2B worlds with an integrated perspective.  The main takeaway of this year's meeting can be boiled down to this: "Customers are in control."  There were 4 major themes:

1. Your customers aren't listening anymore.
   We live is a skeptical age.  Trust is down.  Company and brand messages are ignored.  There is simply too much noise out there.  Customers are listening to each other, not you.  They are talking, so you must listen instead.  They are newly empowered, so engage them on their terms.  Listen, respond, and learn from the messages they send each other about your products and your brand.
2. Innovation should come from your customers.
   There are many flavors of innovation (design, process, product, etc.), but they all should share a common source.  Whatever the initiative, innovation drives should reflect how customers use your product or service, how they communicate with each other about you, and what they want your brand to mean.
3. Harness the power of social computing.
   Web 2.0 is all about collaborative networks.  Engage your customers with blogging, RSS, podcasting, social networking, and other next-gen marketing tools.  Any forum that promotes viral marketing and word of mouth is better received by buyers and customers alike than a top-down, dictatorial approach.
4. Open source ain't just an engineering term.
   Open source development is all about taking an outside-in approach to the product evolution process.  But this business model is beginning to impact traditional B2B marketing processes as well.  Internal process improvement initiatives (service, support, etc.) should strive to receive as much information as possible from the outside and incorporate findings into design and implementation.  Forrester asserted that insights from secondary research studies trump traditional primary research methods in uncovering perceptions of your brand in the marketplace today.

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.