The buying process has shifted away from sales to marketing — at least in part.
As a result, a large part of your company’s sales effort is being made before your sales team ever gets involved.
Here’s why:
Your buyers are doing a majority of their research online, long before they ever let you know they’re interested in your offerings. As a result, your company’s digital presence is taking on the role that used to be the responsibility of your sales team. And your buyers are connecting more with brands these days than they are with sales people.
Your sales team will still play a critical role in closing deals, of course, but the more traditional role of information gatekeeper/disseminator has shifted to your company’s digital footprint.
And since your company’s digital presence is your first and possibly only touch point with prospective buyers, real emphasis should be placed on making sure your digital presence is as articulate, creative, informative, reassuring, and persuasive as possible.
This is why your brand strategy is so important today.
Your brand is the sum of everything your prospects, clients, investors, employees and anyone else experiences in interacting with your company and its offerings. Some have called it your overall company image. Others refer to it as the promise you make and keep with the market.
In short, your brand is the tool your business uses to reach and influence prospect behavior.
It’s the perception the market has of your business. And hopefully, it’s the reason customers choose your company over the competition.
When you focus on your brand, you tell your company story the way it should be told.
You control the narrative.
You provide the lens through which prospect perceptions are formed.
You use marketing as a value-add, connecting your prospects with your message early and often in their customer journey.
You assist them in their research, even before they know what they’re looking for, and provide the insights they need to make informed decisions.
In doing so, you turn bystanders into buyers.
But that’s not all.
- Strong brands enjoy perks others don’t. Self-perpetuating perks that grow businesses year over year:
- Strong brands pull from a larger pool of prospects, require fewer resources to convert prospects to customers, and have lower customer acquisition costs.
- Strong brands enjoy more unsolicited opportunities (think RFPs), win more bids on reputation versus pricing, and garner higher profit margins.
- Strong brands benefit more from customer loyalty, enjoy greater repeat business, depend less on new customer acquisition, realize higher lifetime customer values (LCVs), and profit more from referrals.
- Strong brands attract more potential funders, investors and merger/acquisition opportunities.
Most importantly, your brand is an investment that, if managed properly,
will pay dividends throughout the life of your company.
So mine your brand to profit from its potential.
Walter High has built a career from his proclivity for using marketing creativity as a tool for business growth. He is a multi-disciplined marketing expert with deep experience in conceptualizing and executing successful strategic branding, product marketing, and demand-gen/capture initiatives in B2B and B2C arenas. Contact Walter here.