By Eric Hammis, courtesy of 3Sixty Interactive
Chances are darn good that if you are a marketer, or a business, you have dabbled a bit in brand awareness. And chances are also good that you’ve quickly found out that it can be a bit tricky. Now the bad news. If you are a B2B company, creating a brand awareness campaign is even more trickier. But it can be done, and we’d like to show you how with our step-by-step guide to building a B2B branding campaign.
It’s All About the Audience
As soon as you step foot into the branding arena, a B2B branding campaign is already at a disadvantage, and that’s because identifying and finding your audience is much trickier. B2C has it easy, with a large pool to choose from when it comes to their target audience. But there’s one advantage to marketing in the B2B realm, which is that you can become a boarder line stalker to your target audience. In the B2C world, too much can be your downfall, but in B2B, that’s not the case. Establishing your target audience should be the first step in the process and you don’t have to be afraid of of putting too much out there. GOAL!!!!
Once you establish your audience, it’s time to start launching all your material, right? WRONG! Before you jump in head first, you need to establish a set of goals and numbers that you want to achieve. Without first establishing your goals, how will you know if your campaign is achieving success or not? A bench mark is essential when creating a B2B branding campaign.
Test Your Variables
Again, the B2B world is tricky, so it’s difficult to know what is going to hit and miss. So when you start your ad campaigns, or any branding strategy, try different versions to see what works. You can do this by creating 2 ads with the same goal and run them simultaneously. Once they start generating some action, take a look at which one is performing better and get rid of the ad that is lacking. The same can go with social media. Try different posts and see what works best. The nice part of this little strategy is you can continue to make adjustments and try new techniques. You never know what might work better if you don’t at least give it a good old college try.
Make Yourself Look Professional
If you can establish yourself as a thought-leader in your marketing space, then you can consider your branding campaign a success. This is especially the case in B2B. Businesses are always going to be looking at a variety of your competitors, so if you’re able to make yourself look professional and stand above the rest of your competition, you are in with your target audience. A great way of doing this is by educating your target audience on what it is that you do, and this can be done with a professional blog. Corporate blogging is a great tool when trying to establish credibility and trust with your audience. Keep in mind, a good blog needs to be running on a consistent basis. This means there needs to be a schedule, and that schedule needs to have at least a weekly post.
Measure, Then Measure…Then Measure Some More
Measuring brand awareness isn’t as clear cut as simply looking at numbers and deciding
whether it’s working or not. Take a look here at our recent post on 4 Strategies For Measuring Brand Awareness. But it can be done, and it needs to be done. It’s quite simple, if you’re not measuring what you are trying, then how do you know if it’s actually working? By measuring your brand awareness campaign, you can determine what is and what isn’t working and make the proper adjustments. Again, the B2B marketing world is extra tricky, so make it easy on yourself and measure what you are doing.
In The End
Actually, there is no end and never will be. When it comes to digital marketing, especially with a B2B branding campaign, things are going to constantly change, which means you are going to be forced to make adjustments on the fly. What worked one year might create the sound of crickets on your site the following year. So be sure you are trying new things, measuring what you are doing and staying ahead of the curve. If you can do this, your B2B branding campaign is sure to help you hit your goals.