B2B Brand building is about building mindshare among the business buyers and other stakeholders. It builds value at every touch point. Here are the five key pillars on which a strong B2B brand is built:

1. Focus: The brand can’t be everything to everyone. Narrow the target groups, value propositions and solution offerings. This requires tremendous energy and discipline to introspect and accept.

2. Differ and Attract: Not always differentiations are easy to find or build. Stronger a company can differentiate; easier it is to get attention. For example, if your solution can save customers several million dollars or save hundreds of man-hour or free up top management’s precious time, the brand would definitely stand tall among the me-toos. Substantiate the claims with sufficient data and third party validations.

3. Demonstrate and Justify: Unlike B2C, B2B purchases require justified evidences for the sale to go through. For example, in the Outsourced Software Development market, demonstration of an offshore resource’s technical capabilities can crash the buying cycle time.

4. Innovate: Look at the airlines service industry. All of them buy their planes from either Airbus or Boeing. But only a few airlines innovate. The big question is: ‘How do I think differently, act differently and do things differently? How do I disrupt and change the rules of the game?’

5. Evaluate: The top 4 pillars will crash down if customers don’t understand your value proposition and differentiation. So test the messages for coherence and memory.  Finally, incorporate feedback, measure and engage in continuous improvement.

airbus b2b brand b2b brand building boeing business buyers buying cycle continuous improvement differentiation outsourced product development touch point value proposition