When it comes to building credibility with your potential customers and helping your sales team close the deal, brand recognition and awareness is important. Corporate branding and the demand generation are interlinked, particularly when it comes to your growth phase. There are other reasons why you need to invest in Muze Creative‘s brand marketing and you need to know what they are.
Building Credibility
The most important reason to invest in brand marketing is the fact that it builds credibility. When you are a company people know and trust, people are more likely to buy from you. Great examples of this are Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, GE and Intel. When you have brand credibility, you will have a competitive advantage.
Whether you are in the growth phase or the start-up phase of your business, you need to position your brand as the market leader. Your marketing team will need to leverage the profile of the founders of the company and create positive brand perception. This will have an impact on customer behaviour.
When it comes to building credibility, the CEOs of the company play a major role, as they are the face of the business. They will need to be seen as thoughtful leaders. The employees are the guardians of the brand and will need to be held accountable for maintaining the reputation of the company in the industry. They are also the ones who will interact with potential customers.
It is important to remember that brand credibility is fragile. There are a lot of examples of major brands that have fallen from grace because of scandals. It can be very expensive to recover from these scandals. However, if you have market credibility, you can recover better if you are transparent and show empathy for the victims of the scandal. You also need to fix the problem quickly.
Attracting Investors
Business leaders and founders are constantly looking for financiers to boost their business. Before any investors take action, they will look at the company as a whole and not only what the company has to offer. Investors will look at corporate reputation as well as the credibility of the CEO and founders before they make their decision.
Investors will often ask themselves what they are looking at when viewing a company or product. The brand will have to be bigger than a product before they consider investing. Companies will need to look beyond one product or a single solution.
When investors are asked about the most common mistakes made by companies, a love for the product and not the problem they solve is the biggest. When a company builds its brand on a product and not the problem they solve, they are unable to pivot later.
This is a serious point because your brand is like your home. The more you invest in renovation and maintenance of your home, the better the asking price when you sell. This is similar to the investment in your corporate brand. The better the investment, the higher the equity.
Engaging With Customers
In the digital world, B2B buying decisions change dramatically. These buyers are as empowered as customers. It is important to note that CIOs are not the only people making buying decisions and the way businesses interact with vendors is changing.
The firm Forrester states that 90% of businesses start any purchase with search. Around 74% will do half their research online before they make any offline purchases.
Research has also found that B2B customers are not engaging with suppliers directly until they are 50% to 60% through the sales funnel. At this point, it is too late to influence their decision making. On the other hand, digital engagement will start immediately and help you better make decisions.
If you take the time to learn how to read the digital body language of customers, you will be able to serve them better through relevant content and personalisation. This will generally improve the customer experience and gives your sales team greater influence over any decision making.
To benefit from this, marketers will have to use strategies that engage with customers and educate. This should be done instead of a hard sell. Content has to be interesting as well as optimised for digital discovery.