B2B Brand-Ism #3: Great Relationships Make Brands Great.
Behind every great B2B brand is a loyal following of great A-level customers. Understanding them is the key to accelerated growth.
There was a time when B2B brand growth was almost exclusively tied to the abilities, reach and relationships of the sales team. They controlled the information and the conversation when it came to engaging the marketplace. To grow sales, you simply had to grow the sales team, adding new talented sales professionals to new regions or new lines of business. Not true anymore. Today’s buyers have already done a great deal of research and progressed much further along the decision-making path before a company salesperson is even contacted.
The new B2B buyer wants to learn, explore and discover before they even speak with your company. They have access to endless amounts of information and they control the pace and timing of interaction, sometimes going to great lengths to not be contacted, and often to not even be found. Relationships are more important than ever before; but at the front end of the buying process, they’re being formed in a much different way than in the past. They are being built through the content that brands choose to share, and the many different ways it’s shared.
Smart B2B brands recognize that the key to success in this age is not to “stalk” prospective customers with product-centric person-to-person communications until they finally succumb (most won’t anymore). The key is to identify a great audience (or audiences), understand their pains, wants and needs thoroughly, and then develop content around those factors. Content raises awareness, elevates interest, and ultimately leads to engagement.
Identify your best relationships, the A-LEVEL relationships: The ones that love you as much as you love them. There’s tremendous power in understanding why this mutual love exists. And there are ALWAYS common threads. Discovering those threads is the first step. Once you do, you can develop and deploy messaging and content designed specifically to attract even more new great relationships to your brand, and grow exponentially.
Yes, great relationships make brands great, and understanding the wants and needs of your best relationships will help your business achieve and maintain great success.
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Call us at 908-534-9044 (and ask for Ed), email edelia@www.delianet.com, or just fill out the form below.
In case you missed our other Delia-Isms, Delia-isms #1 or Delia-isms #2, click to read them.
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