The Essential Drivers of B2B Brand Growth

Consistent brand growth is a crucial element of B2B marketing plans. Strong brands tend to attract money faster and with less risk.

But how should you go about growing your B2B brand?

The silver bullet advice we usually see on the internet about ‘one thing you need to know,’ rarely provides any insights and ends up limiting your imagination.

To help you avoid this, we’ve compiled a list of attributes that are essential drivers of B2B brand growth.

1) Culture of Innovation: Successful brands encourage employees to share ideas and criticisms irrespective of the position they hold. Innovation is core to their values. Instead of just addressing or solving problems as they appear, the most successful companies set a higher standard. It means innovation is built in the brand culture instead of being assigned as a task. An innovative brand keeps improving the product even when it’s much above the market standards. It helps them stay ahead in the competition. Cultivating innovation as a work culture raises the bar by expecting innovation as the natural process of the organization. It also motivates employees to learn and enhance the skills to suit their organization’s environment. Driving further brand growth.

2) Value Proposition: Identifying your unique proposition value is the main pillar of any B2B brand growth. It helps you position yourself as different from the competitors. The customers of the most successful B2B brands are able to quickly understand the offerings, create strong differentials between them and the competitors, and have clarity of the message. Not only do successful brands have a unique proposition, but they also communicate that message to their audience. And not only do they communicate, they also deliver those values. Value propositions have enormous potential to help you attract customers and successful brands know this instinctively.

3) Talent Management: Talent management is an integral part of many successful B2B brands. Employees are their biggest asset and that’s what makes them successful. Organizations who think of their employees as investments thrive even in the constantly changing markets. The employees work their best when they know their company is investing in the future. Like many business strategies, even talent management requires an intentional approach. Successful B2B brands develop a good company culture and understand what motivates their employees. These motivated employees anchor the company out of turbulent times.

4) Technology Strategy: Technology runs our world and creates opportunities for efficiency, scale, and growth. Successful B2B brands invest in technologies that help both their customers and their employees. They even go one step ahead and make technology align with their business needs. A technology strategy ensures a long-term vision, focuses on the future, and predicts what their organization’s business needs will be. When technology is aligned with business needs, it brings along operational efficiencies. The efficiency output may include improved employee productivity, improved customer experience, or enhanced team collaboration. Ainnovate new solutions and good technology stack has been a key driver in B2B brand growth if you look closely.

5) A Great Value Chain: With the ever-increasing competition in the market for unbeatable prices, good product quality, and customer loyalty, companies must continually examine the value they create. Successful B2B brands create a great value chain that discerns areas of inefficiency, then implements strategies to optimize the procedures. They make sure customers feel confident and secure enough to remain loyal. The ability to deliver the most value with the least possible cost is how B2B brands drive growth. They make sure all the important components such as inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing, sales are aligned with their value proposition.

6) Market Penetration: All successful B2B brands have a better market penetration than their competitors. And it gives some direct advantages to their brand. It can lead to direct sales and adoption of the product with little sales and marketing efforts. It also discourages other competitors to enter the market because of increased competition. The best way to achieve good market penetration is to keep innovating and improve the product to retain the customer base. Successful companies understand this and hence they keep investing in customer value creation and cause the rest of the market to compete.

7) Value Capturing: There is a stark difference between value creation and value capturing. Both are key drivers in B2B brand growth. A brand that is successful in monetizing its audience will always have an upper hand in the market over those who can’t. The value of a strong brand and its operations can’t be captured if they are not priced appropriately. Successful B2B brands not only innovate new solutions but also provide opportunities to their customers to try those innovations. And to do that, the price gap between value creation and value capturing should be kept at a minimum.

8) Test Marketing: Test marketing is defined as a strategy used by companies to check the viability of their product or marketing campaign before the launch. This factor could be considered as an essential driver of B2B brand growth. Successful brands test extensively and hence they know what works in the market and what doesn’t, even before they launch their product. This helps them align consumer’s interests with the company’s values. And in return, customers see the seriousness of the brand in providing a good customer experience. Along with all these benefits, test marketing also minimizes the risk of a full-fledged launch and saves a good chunk of resources.

9) Portfolio Management: A business thrives when each project is delivered successfully. But what separates a great B2B brand from others is how well they anticipate the project’s potential and formulate a plan to manage it. A successful B2B brand can easily ensure its portfolio’s outcome supports the organization’s strategic goals. This informed decision-making helps them minimize the risks of a failed project and maximize the impact of successful ones. Effective portfolio management helps clarify the broader company goals, improve resource management, and increase productivity.

10) Market Research: Good market research not only uncovers customer needs but also helps you reflect on your ability to deliver solutions. A successful B2B brand is always in the mode of evaluating its business model. It includes researching the target market and the systems in your business that get affected by changing marketing conditions. If the evaluation suggests their current business model is not working, they can pivot their strategy to suit the market conditions. Market research also helps you identify new marketing opportunities that are still invisible to the competitors. A successful brand always identifies low-risk, high-reward areas where their company can expand its offers.

12) Team Diversity: All good brands have one thing in common, team diversity. As mentioned before, innovation is a key part of a successful B2B brand growth. And innovation comes when you allow different perspectives to thrive. When your company has a diverse talent pool, it helps you identify new customer demographics and possible solutions to serve those customers. Listening to people with diverse backgrounds creates an environment of respect, communication, and the free exchange of ideas. Having different voices is an asset in the modern world and successful companies make sure they possess that diversity.

13) A Good Review Process: No business is immune to changing marketing conditions and rising customer expectations. A successful brand never takes their customers for granted and hence set up a good review process. You may think you know what your customer’s problems are, but a review process reveals problems they face while using your product/service on a daily basis. The feedback loop is constantly fed through customer service representatives. Hence you need to have a system where your bottom line workers can easily communicate customer feedback with the product team. Having the team together allows everyone to understand their responsibility in making things better for the organization.

14) Good Bottom-line Worker Management: Growth is an outcome of all the activities of an organization. And a good indicator of a successful B2B company is how well they manage their bottom line workers. In addition to their profits, a good brand puts people first. If people become your priority, the profits definitely follow. Good brands understand this and keep improving the systems which allow even the most basic bottom-line worker to align with their brand values. A good bottom line worker management program allows companies to attract hard-working candidates, which helps them drive brand growth.

Conclusion

Growing a brand consistently over the years is a challenging task. If you follow the above list, you realize how each factor depends on the other. There is no segment in your B2B business that should feel less valued. The strategy you employ is a mesh of all the factors mentioned above. A brand is simply a culmination of all the little things you do with your organization. Right from giving a good customer experience to valuing your most important assets – employees. If you want to grow your brand consistently, it is advisable to keep an eye on all the little things and not only profits.

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