Why Brands Matter in E-Marketing
By Shari L.S. Worthington
President
Branding seems to be largely ignored and undervalued, especially in niche tech and manufacturing markets. That's bad news because it is more important than ever in this brave new world centered on digital communications. Vendor web sites, Wikipedia, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, GlobalSpec, e-mail, text messages, etc. - this is a world where buyers are empowered by massive amounts of information, yet overwhelmed by infinite touchpoints. Infinite touchpoints - do you realize what a monstrous change that is for marketing? A strong brand is a necessity to stand out from the chaos.
 A brand is a product of service whose dimensions differentiate it from competing products or services (Philip Kotler). The differentiation can be functional, rational, or tangible, the desired goal of most B2B marketing programs. But it can also be symbolic, emotional, or intangible, as is often the case in the world of consumer marketing. Brand equity relates to how customers regard a brand relative to competing offerings and is based on the customers' experience with the brand. You can influence what the customer thinks about you but the final decision is based on their experience with you. You may want your company to be seen as, say, the leading developer of high quality, high performance fiber lasers; but if your customers experience long lead times on delivery and spotty product performance, you'll be positioned as an unreliable underperformer.
Brands play a critical role in today's B2B markets. In the case of generic and commodity products, such as thermocouples or laboratory supplies, buyers may limit their choices to well-known brands in order to reduce risk and time-related costs. In the case of critical and bottleneck products, such as specialty instrumentation, buyers may use a brand name as a shorthand descriptor for previously demonstrated value. This saves the buyer time and effort.
Brand loyalty is a wonderful thing. It provides predictability and security of demand for vendors, and it creates barriers to entry that make it difficult for other companies to enter a market. This loyalty can translate into a willingness to pay a higher price ... or at least preserve the current price so vendors don't have to constantly offer drastic cuts to gain attention. And so, branding is an important component of any marketing program, especially so in today's too-much-info-to-process digital world.
One of the biggest changes brought to us by the Internet is Web 2.0 interaction. Prospects are no longer passive sponges; they are active learners who ask questions and push back when marketing fluff is spewed at them. The marketing funnel - awareness, interest, evaluation, commitment - has been replaced by the marketing spiral - interaction, participation, conversation, engagement, community affinity (David Armano). Conversations are going on in the usual places - company corridors, industry events, telephones - and across a plethora of social media networks. A company's ability to interact and engage customers online is what will separate marketing success from failure.
As we join and nurture these conversations, our company brands will be front and center. We need to integrate branding and social media into our marketing programs, and we need to make sure meaningful differences between our company and competitors are communicated in a natural manner. Remember, we want our company and our personnel to be seen as the best resource in the industry for information on our piece of the market, whether it's flow control or network security.
Read more on social media strategy development.
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