How To Create a Brand Identity for a B2B Audience
You might invest hours into coming up with a great company name, logo, and tagline. However, this work is just the beginning of establishing your B2B brand identity.
Your brand’s identity is the personality you project when selling yourself to other businesses, the sum of your parts. Though it may seem to be less necessary than other day-to-day operations, crafting a strong identity is vital.
Consider: Recent studies find that many business customers view most B2B marketing as boring. That perception often starts with uninspiring branding.
Get the details on how to create a brand identity that captures the attention of your target B2B audience for long-term success.
Key Takeaways:
- Creating a B2B brand identity means establishing a clear personality for your company that attracts your ideal clients.
- Your brand identity is the foundation of successful marketing and helps you stand out.
- Eight key steps can help you create a strong brand identity.
What a B2B Brand Identity Involves
Your B2B brand identity is the totality of how you present yourself to other companies and organizations. As a result, your branding is the foundation of your marketing and should guide all aspects of it.
A great example of a strong brand identity is Apple. Without even seeing a logo, you can often identify the company’s products, packaging, promotions, or even its employees by certain characteristics.
How B2B Branding Helps You and Your Audience
When you understand how to create a brand identity, you give your audience a shorthand to know who you are from the jump. You can get the right people curious about you and to form an affinity for your brand.
You also attract partners, employees, and other stakeholders who match your vision and mission. That consistency facilitates brand loyalty and eliminates price sensitivity.
How To Create a Brand Identity in 8 Steps
When you’re ready to put the rubber to the road, use these steps to create your B2B brand identity.
1. Research What Your Customers Want
You need to understand how your messaging resonates with your target audience. Your primary goal should be ensuring that they immediately identify you as the solution to their challenges.
Discover your audience’s pain points and make it obvious you meet the need.
For example, McDonald’s convinced people it was the place for easy and inexpensive meals with, “Have you had your break today?” Geico made shopping for insurance feel like an easy way to save money by telling people, “15 minutes could save 15% or more.”
Find out what makes your ideal customers tick before you start crafting your brand.
2. Set Your Values
Once you know what your customers want, isolate what you stand for through core brand values. Beyond a tagline, you have to make resolving customer issues the core of how your company operates.
Incorporate those values into a motivating mission statement. In company manuals, reaffirm those principles in how you operate to integrate them into your B2B brand identity.
3. Design (or Redesign) Your Branding Materials
Try to communicate what you do for people in your branding materials. For example, FedEx’s logo includes a subtle arrow that highlights transportation and movement.
Another example is how Amazon also uses the arrow that points from the A to the Z to show you can get everything there. (Maybe you’ve noticed how the saw on the Renegade logo denotes how the firm helps you cut through as a B2B brand.)
Design visuals that illustrate your value proposition.
4. Highlight Personality Over Product
One reason a B2B brand identity is so often bland is that companies assume business clients only care about the numbers or nuts and bolts of what they can do. However, personality matters in business, because clients want to work with partners who have a stake in their success and understand them.
When you can show that you are passionate about your mission, you stand apart from others in your industry.
5. Set the Tone for Client Expectations
Your B2B brand identity is a promise to your clients. Make sure you deliver.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of imitating competitors simply to draw in clients. Learn how to set realistic expectations while demonstrating that you provide a worthwhile return on investment.
6. Prioritize Authenticity
Honesty and humanity are still valuable commodities, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. Remain transparent with clients and prospects when you can’t fulfill what you intended.
In cases where you can’t come through, proactively find other solutions. You show you’re a real partner and an engine for client success, which wins people over and strengthens your B2B brand identity.
7. Actively Promote Your Brand
Your branding does you no good if it’s not out there in the world. Make sure your marketing efforts promote your brand and stay consistent with its core principles.
The primary way to keep your brand visible is with constant content marketing on your website, guest blog posts, social media, webinars, and testimonials. Keep your brand at the forefront of your messaging.
8. Monitor and Modify
Just as a person grows and evolves, your B2B brand identity is not set in stone. You could ruin it with inconsistency and inattention, but you can build it up with careful work.
Pay close attention to branding, just as you do with marketing and advertising, to keep your branding in line with your goals.
The Power of a Strong B2B Brand Identity
Creating a strong B2B brand identity is not easy, but doing so gives you irreplaceable leverage in the market. Implement these tips to start building a powerful brand identity.
Michael Brenner is a keynote speaker, author, and CEO of Marketing Insider Group. Michael has written hundreds of articles on sites such as Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Guardian, and he speaks at dozens of leadership conferences each year covering topics such as marketing, leadership, technology, and business strategy.