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In a Data-Dominated World, B2B Branding is Making a Big-Time Comeback: Karen O'Mahoney
48 Plays4 years ago
In the B2B landscape, data dominates and, arguably, makes marketers less creative and interesting.
Decisions are heavily (overly?) influenced by KPIs and metrics. The numbers don’t lie, right?
But here’s something exciting (at least to me): B2B companies are starting to rediscover the value of brand and branding.
In a noisy, ultra-competitive landscape, it is critical to stand out from the crowd.
A brand has to be differentiated, compelling, memorable, and interesting.
Otherwise, you’re just another company battling for attention, even if your product is amazing.
Karen O’Mahoney says many B2B companies are starting to focus on the fundamentals and what really makes them different.
They’re focusing on how they want customers, prospects, and employees to see the brand and what it offers.
Karen, CEO of Brandlucent, says developing a brand strategy is not a one-and-done exercise. It’s about making sure that a brand evolves and changes as a company grows, pursues new opportunities and markets.
Your brand should be your “North Star” that propels your company forward and allows you to boldly and distinctly stand out from the crowd.
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Transcript
Introduction to Marketing Spark
00:00:02
Speaker
You're listening to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight, tools, and tips from marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches in 20 minutes or less.
The Importance of Branding in B2B
00:00:11
Speaker
In a marketing world increasingly dominated by data, branding still matters. Karen O'Manney, the CEO and founder of Brand Lucent in Montreal, heads up a strategic branding agency that works with B2B tech companies to harness the power of their authentic brand. Welcome to Marketing Spark. Hi, Mark. Thanks for having me.
00:00:31
Speaker
As I said off the top, in a B2B world dominated by data, I'm curious about your thoughts on the
Refocusing on Core Brand Amidst Noise
00:00:38
Speaker
state of branding. How much of a focus are B2B companies putting on branding these days, given the fact that there's so much noise, there's so much content, there's so much social media out there?
00:00:49
Speaker
What I actually find that a lot of people really have honed in on their brand and because of that, because of all the noise, really. What we see in a lot of companies is that they're really starting to focus back to the core, back to what really makes them different. When you think about brand, a company's DNA is impacting sales and marketing, but also obviously has its place in leadership and decision-making and direction.
00:01:15
Speaker
So for a lot of people, it's coming back to what do I want my company to be? Where is my company direction taking me? And how does that affect all of our teams?
Evolving Branding Strategies
00:01:24
Speaker
So everything from product teams to development to HR operations, the whole company. And so from that point of view, we find that a lot of B2B companies are coming back to their brand and really starting to think about it a lot more to say, okay, well, we have the power in our hands to really wield this company and adapt to whatever landscape comes up.
00:01:44
Speaker
But now we want to see where we want to take this and where our vision is going to go. So before we move forward, let's take a step back to why are brands coming back to the brand? I mean, it strikes me as, as a brand person myself, is that Brandon is always important branch should always be part of what you do and how you position yourself. Why are they coming back? What does that mean? Does that mean they, they didn't pay attention to brand. They were focused on other things. Maybe provide a little bit of context.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. So I think what it is, a lot of the time it's people are thinking about their brand as one and done, right? So it's like a lot of the time they will think about doing a brand strategy, for example, and they're saying, Oh, you know, we've done it like a while back. And they're like, that's been fine. It's kept us going so far. It's kept us going for the last few years. And they take that and you can bring out a lot of these brand strategies and messages through marketing, through content, through all of the ways that you're engaging. But the thing is what
00:02:38
Speaker
they have been noticing overtime is as the company grows as it changes it's now time to refocus and say okay well we've changed we've grown we started to open to new markets we start to look at different directions and that's where it's coming back to the brand strategy i would say not miss maybe i should explain that it's coming back to a brand strategy to see where next right so it's.
00:03:04
Speaker
It's keeping that focus on a point in the future. The minute the point in the future is suddenly behind you, you should have done your brand strategy again.
Consistency in Brand Values Across Departments
00:03:14
Speaker
So it's like that idea of keeping it ahead of you so that you can continue to have it as your north star.
00:03:20
Speaker
So how do brands not adopt the one and done or our brand is written in stone approach because, you know, as you know, well, I'm being immersed in this. It's brand is very fluid. It's very dynamic. It evolves over time and it can evolve very quickly. So you always have to be on top of it to make sure that your brand is relevant. It resonates and it's aligned with the way that
00:03:46
Speaker
people are thinking and talking and acting. From your perspective, how do brands make sure that they're always being brand focused, they're always making sure that their brand is fresh and up to date? Yeah. So I mean, from our point of view, it's coming from that central core, right? So it's coming from that central leadership team and moving out from there. So the first thing is commitment. It's really saying, okay, well, are we committing to where our brand is going to take us? And if that's the case,
00:04:13
Speaker
Let's keep it relevant let's keep on top of it let's build it into our company values let's build it into our company goals and start to actually reflect that in all of our departments so this is that idea of having your brand be something that's actually adopted and taken to actually run your company and i think a lot of people see brand a lot of the time in terms of marketing only and they don't see it in terms of the full part of your company.
Integrating Brand into Daily Operations
00:04:39
Speaker
So when you know the marketing and the messages around marketing can adapt as long as they're still on brand right you know you can have campaigns that are about different things as long as they are within the brand dna itself right so they don't go against the brand values they don't go into the company mission they don't go into the company purpose.
00:04:58
Speaker
However what we don't see a lot of the time is maybe people adopting the brand across their companies and that's something that we try to help people to do which is to build in those company goals for each department around the actual brand itself so the adoption and the actual usage of the brand in an everyday sense.
00:05:17
Speaker
And that's how you keep it relevant, one, to the employees, but also to everyone you work with. Because, again, if your employees understand the brand, they're living it as well. So if you imagine you're an operations person, you understand the brand, you live the brand, you talk about the brand, you work with your teams, and you operate within the brand structure, now, whenever, every time you work with a client, for example, you're going to bring that same dynamic.
Creating Brand Ambassadors
00:05:43
Speaker
You're going to bring that same element of the brand with you.
00:05:46
Speaker
experience translates across how we work every day as well. One other question I wanted to ask you in terms of making sure that all employees and all departments are aware of the brand and brand strategy is how do you make that happen? How do you make them aware of the fact that this is something important? This is something that needs to be reflected in their work. So for example,
00:06:07
Speaker
I talk a lot about MailChimp and what they do as far as brand, buyer persona. So what they'll do in their office is they've got these big posters with different types of customers to remind all their employees that these are the people that matter. These are the people that you should be focused on when you're doing sales or marketing or customer success. So how do you apply that same approach to a company to make sure that you're
00:06:33
Speaker
Brand is not only living and breathing but all your employees are always aware of the importance of brand and how it has to be an integral part of how they work. Yeah, and MailChimp is a great example. I really like MailChimp's brand and anytime I've ever gone to an event where they've had experiential boots and stuff, it's always been fantastic. But yeah, so back to your question. Yeah, so if I think about it, it's like,
00:06:57
Speaker
When we talk about your brand living across the whole company and reminding people of those things, we want that to come from the departments themselves. How do you do that? You get commitment from the top down, first of all. I've done this in the past where I was part of a branding exercise within a department, and we didn't have necessarily buy-in from the top levels of leadership.
00:07:22
Speaker
That's why we always work with leadership because we want to make sure that whatever we commit to is something we can deliver on.
00:07:28
Speaker
So that's the first step right so we get commitment from the top first then from there you want to build your team of brand ambassadors and we do this in in brand business ourselves we have like a one day workshop that we take people through you have to remember that when your brand changes and even a slight change in your brand can have a huge effect on the employees right so it's gonna say okay well I thought we were about this stuff and now we're kind of slightly changing direction or how does that impact my job so there's a lot of change management that goes into
Post-COVID Brand Strategy Shifts
00:07:56
Speaker
that.
00:07:56
Speaker
And you're basically trying to understand who's on board, how can we convert those people into random masters from a point of view so that they are engaged and that they can adopt it. So from there, you're kind of getting this idea of like, okay, you're helping them understand that you're helping them see how it's relevant, you're helping them see why we're doing the things that we're doing.
00:08:17
Speaker
throughout this workshop or however you want to create your brand ambassadors. Then from there, you want them to build their own goals for their own departments that are relevant to them. For sure, having those buyer personas around the office and all of that stuff, obviously, COVID is changing that now. But having things that are relevant, having your values somewhere visible, having your mission somewhere visible, having your vision, talking about things a lot. But then having
00:08:44
Speaker
Each department actually come up with their own goals and saying okay well how do i want to live this value but how do we want to reflect this company piece this part of our brand in how we work and have them see how that can translate again we can come in as a brand new experts and tell them here are some examples that's great but at the same time when it comes to the day today they are the experts in what they do.
00:09:08
Speaker
So now we want them to come up with ideas and to help nourish those ideas around how are they gonna make the brand a reality for every stakeholder that they work with every partner that they work with every client that they work with.
Challenges in B2B Brand Strategy
00:09:22
Speaker
One of the questions that I've asked people on this podcast over the last, I guess, eight months since COVID emerged is how has their business or how have their clients changed post COVID? And I don't know whether that's a relevant question anymore, given the fact this is the new reality, this is the world in which we operate. But have you seen a discernible difference in what your clients or what your new customers are doing now when it comes to brand versus what they were doing
00:09:51
Speaker
nine months ago a year ago.
00:09:53
Speaker
I think what we've noticed is actually like, as I was saying, that there's been more than interest actually to working on their brand and brand strategy. And the reason for that is I think it's that longer term vision, that longer term strategy. So I think at the beginning, what we saw was a little bit of a reaction and typically having gone through the last recession back in 2008 and remembering that and seeing the reaction people had. And then it was like a little bit of a shuffling around and then everyone kind of came back to, okay, let's
00:10:22
Speaker
Head down let's let's keep on track right let's keep following our vision so seeing that again i was like there was a little bit of a reaction. But then they came back to say okay well we still have our long game right we still are playing the long term strategy yes we can work on tactics here and there to you know to react to what's going on but the long term strategy needs to remain the same. Now we're taking into context what's happening but again for for our clients in particular working b2b tech,
00:10:52
Speaker
They've probably never been busier, a lot of them, so it's kind of a strange situation for them for a lot of the companies who are out there working on. You know, totally remotely and they're using a lot of these B2B tech tools and products and services. They're seeing an uptake. Now, the other thing is what we've seen is the differences.
00:11:12
Speaker
that they're coming back to those grounding principles that I've said. Now we're seeing more of a focus on how do we keep our employees engaged. We're seeing a lot more of a focus on employer brand as well as your external focus brand. Basically, what it was, if you think about a lot of tech companies and they invest heavily in their offices and having these wonderful workspaces with lots of stuff, suddenly we don't have that anymore.
00:11:38
Speaker
It's really that time to reflect on what is it about our company that makes us different if we don't have all of those perks if we don't have all of those things.
00:11:47
Speaker
What actually makes people want to work here? I've worked in amazing workspaces that had a lot of stuff, but if you don't like the work, you're not going to stay. So it's coming back to that core. We talk about authentic branding. It's what is actually different, not what we say is different. It's more about what is the real differences in terms of our brand. So I think it's actually been
00:12:12
Speaker
I won't say a good thing because Covid has been horrible, but I would say for a lot of people it's getting them to re-shift and re-focus on what's really important, where they really want to go and how they really want to become these amazing companies that are changing the world.
Brand Lucent's Methodology
00:12:28
Speaker
Now, working with B2B companies over the last 12 years, many of them are very product centric. That's all about the tech. It's all about, you know, a team of developers creating more and more features to make the
00:12:43
Speaker
software increasingly sticky and attractive and serving the needs of different types of users what about some of the mistakes they make when it comes to brand because i don't think a lot of them or don't think enough of them are focused on brand and brand positioning and brand story time for that matter so from your experience.
00:13:01
Speaker
What are some of the mistakes that B2B companies are making when it comes to brand? What are the tools that they need to use or the approaches they need to use to realize that they are going in the wrong direction or they're not going in the right direction at all?
00:13:15
Speaker
One part was like that thinking it's one and done, right? So that part of saying, okay, well, we worked on our brand strategy where we're delivering on that. It's like, yeah, but maybe things have changed, right? So your product has evolved. You're, you know, like, as you said, you've added all these new features. How has that changed your, your company direction, right? So maybe it was like a focus before, let's say we're talking about a project management software. Maybe there was a huge focus before on like,
00:13:42
Speaker
the time management, time tracking, and all of that, and now you're moving into the financials. Well, now you're giving different benefits to your clients. Now you're positioned in a different way to them. They're already experiencing a different brand from the brand you're communicating. Now we want to get your brand ahead of you again. Now we want to start to say, your brand has changed, your brand has evolved, and let's go back to thinking about where's it going. Now just rather than in this world of like, okay, we want to pivot, we're going to add new features, we're going to move quickly,
00:14:11
Speaker
That's all great, but from a client perspective, I want to understand what you're becoming. I want to understand where you're going to because I'm investing in you. It's not just when we buy software, we're not just investing in us for now. We're typically putting all our data into us. We're using it every day. We're getting more and more invested. You want to see that the company direction makes sense for what you're going to need for your company direction.
00:14:39
Speaker
So I think a lot of the time we don't see people sharing that we don't see them sharing. Here's where we're going. We see a lot of, you know, here's what we're doing, but we don't see a lot of years off. We're going to become. And I think that's something that's often missing is that sharing of our own stories, our own client experience, our own, our own journey as a company and what it's going to become.
00:15:03
Speaker
Let me ask you a difficult question, only because I think it's gonna be a long answer, but what is Brand Lucent's branding methodology? When you have a client that comes to you and they're struggling with their brand, or they need a brand refreshed, or they wanna create a new brand, what are the different steps that you take them through so that they go from not having a brand or a strong brand to having something that's compelling, that resonates, that actually makes a difference in terms of their positioning in
Discovering Authentic Brand Elements
00:15:30
Speaker
the landscape?
00:15:30
Speaker
So we always start with our brand strategy. So that's really one of our major programs that we offer. And we do this in a very program-centric way. We've created programs out of all of our services. And that's because we want to give people a finite amount of time. We're saying, OK, this is going to take this amount of time. It's going to cost us some money. And you know exactly what you're getting.
00:15:49
Speaker
which I think is something that a lot of companies don't do because they're saying, well, it depends. They're saying, well, I'm going to tell you that this definitely does cost this much and it definitely will take this amount of time. That's one thing that we wanted to commit to very early on because it gave people the right expectations upfront. I think when you're a service-based business a lot of the time, it can feel very much like,
00:16:12
Speaker
will it go deep enough and so on we've built this program so that it actually has gotten better and better every time we've done it and that's because we're learning from our clients as well as we go so we're iterating we're building new areas of the business because of popular learning along the way so that's my brand strategy program typically then it's a very exploratory process we work as i said with the leadership teams we work with them and we collaborate we take it away we work on the creative side of things and we come back with our major brand strategies and roadmap
00:16:42
Speaker
And from there, we can say, OK, well, here's our recommendations. Here's what you're going to need to be doing. Now, from there, you could take it any which way, depending on what the recommendations are. But we typically work in areas like brand identity, brand naming. And brand naming could be like many sub-brands, a few different products. If there's areas that we need to go into more detail, like let's say if you do have multiple sub-brands or you do have several different products, you might have a brand strategy for each of them.
00:17:09
Speaker
employer brand, which I've talked about quite a bit already, and obviously brand success to help them along the way. The idea here is that we really are learning from them, spending a lot of time with them at the beginning especially to understand more about
00:17:25
Speaker
their products, their teams, how they work, what makes them different, how their processes work, how their approach works. Again, when we think about, as you were saying earlier, you're looking at a lot of product-based companies who are investing heavily in their products. There's still some magic around the how, the approach and how they work and how they typically operate.
00:17:47
Speaker
and how their support works and how they work in their team. So we want to harness that and we want to really find out what's the special sauce, what's the authentic piece there that really sets them apart and makes them so much different from their competitors.
Engaging with Karen O'Manney
00:18:04
Speaker
It's been really helpful to talk about brand because a lot of the times we're focused on tactics and how we can get stuff done and how we can make things happen and the metrics and the KPIs around metrics. So brand and branding is extremely important. If you're a B2B company and you are looking to take advantage or move forward within this competitive landscape, I think a focus on brand is a must do. Karen, where can people find out more about you and as important, how can they learn more about brand loosen?
00:18:32
Speaker
We're pretty active on LinkedIn, so definitely connect with us on there. Our Instagram game is getting better. We definitely are investing more in that, more time in it right now, but obviously you can check us out on our website, brandlucence.ca. I'd love to connect with anyone on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is kind of where we play. That's our field.
00:18:52
Speaker
Karen, well, thanks. Thanks a lot for being on a guest on Marketing Spark. And thanks to everybody for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe by iTunes or your favorite podcast app. For show notes of today's conversation and information about Karen, visit marketingspark.co slash blog. If you have questions, feedback, would like to suggest a guest or want to learn more about how I help B2B companies as a fractional CMO consultant and advisor, visit marketingspark.co slash contact.
00:19:22
Speaker
I'll talk to you next time.