B2C brands often have an easier time gaining and maintaining advocates, especially if they have a great product. But this task is arguably not so simple for B2Bs. So is this why business-services companies are realising the importance of investing in their brand strategy?

Establishing and evolving your brand strategy is an essential task for any company. This year, it’s clear that B2B organisations in particular are seeing improved ROI when investing in this area. According to a recent survey of 150 B2B marketing executives conducted by consultancy firm Spencer Brenneman, 2017 will see a 20% increase in spend on brand strategy. This is an 86.7% increase seen over the past five years, and in the next five years, 81.3% of these companies expect to invest more.

For B2B marketers, we’re seeing email and organic search as the most popular and effective online methods for generating leads. Email ranked in first place, with 73% identifying this channel as the most lucrative, while 70% named organic search. And in fact, according to the latest data, lead generation is the top priority for 85% of B2Bs, with sales, lead nurturing and brand awareness also taking the top spots. We believe that B2Bs are realising that since they may not have any tangible products to sell, it will be their brand and reputation that clients are most likely to buy into. Therefore, a lot of consideration has to be taken to focus on key areas such as their desktop and mobile site, online presence, and SEO. And aside from Email and Search, multiple forms of content marketing and advertising will therefore also be crucial ways to secure leads.

So which B2B companies have been demonstrating a sound strategy? Xerox for example, prioritised creating a multi-faceted strategy back in 2015 with their campaign “Work Can Work Better”. The company wanted to promote its business services, and move away from simply being known for digital printing. In order to do this, Xerox focused on content marketing, with an integrated campaign featuring TV and print ads, online video, and even a rebrand of the company’s site. At the time, Xerox’s business services were the company’s biggest revenue generator, but according to analysts, site traffic to its services pages didn’t reflect this. Following the campaign however, the company achieved a staggering 1.7 million views of its YouTube video in just 4 months, and since then, Xerox has also announced that it would be spinning off its business services unit into its own publicly traded company.

Whether you’re a business-centric or consumer-driven company, devising a brand strategy can be a large undertaking. As we mentioned earlier, in today’s competitive environment, customers have their pick of brands to show loyalty too, so simply relying on your product or service isn’t enough. That’s where we can help sculpt your brand, making it one that prospective audiences will want to invest in. Best of all, we’ve just launched our new service, We Are Leasing, which has been designed to let you choose the exact areas of your brand you wish to focus on. So if it’s strategy you’re keen to improve upon, do get in touch  and see how we can help.

Are you prioritising strategy for your brand this year? Do you think this is key to achieving lasting results? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.