How to build a high-performance B2B brand

Is your brand a defined and integral foundation for your business? Or an afterthought you’ll work on at a later date? If it’s the latter, you’re missing out on market share, authority, loyalty, and much more by overlooking the importance of branding. So, if you’ve never considered branding until now, where do you start building a high-performance B2B brand?

In truth, branding is a complex and nuanced process that covers and impacts all areas of your business.

Therefore, undergoing a full branding process with a specialist company is the best way to fully realise the potential of branding to accelerate your growth and see the results you desire.

This applies to you whatever your business goals are, for example:

• Securing or retaining more customers
• Attracting investors to obtain funding
• Gaining market share
• Building brand awareness
• Boosting your authority and reputation
• Implementing your exit strategy to sell at the right price.

Before you embark on the full branding process, here are a few things to start thinking about to ensure you get the most from it and see the results you’re looking for from your business.

Before you get to know your customer better, you need to really understand yourself as a business and where you fit into your industry and the broader commercial landscape.

Often, we speak to business owners who have a certain image of themselves, their position, and their reputation.

However, when we begin to research and explore this, our learnings often reveal the external perception of their brand is disconnected from this.

Aligning your business with your values is a crucial part of the branding process.

What are your super-strengths? What makes you different, and why do people choose you over competitors offering similar products or services?

What do people like about working with your team? What problem do you solve, and is it the one you thought you solved? Nothing should be taken for granted, as we’re usually too close to our own brand to see it objectively.

Crucially, branding is about so much more than the aesthetic image of your brand. It’s how you’re perceived and what you represent in a broader sense, so it’s essential to start with you – this clarifies your position and is the crucial starting point to make your mark in your industry and begin experiencing the outcomes you crave.

Why are you here, as a business? What do you actually want to achieve? 

Every business has a ‘why’, and it’s important to articulate and convey your purpose as a thread that runs through everything you do as a brand.

It can be easy to assume this is obvious or feel you lack the time to define your true purpose and mission as a business in the chaos of day-to-day life.

We understand this, and we get it. Life is busy and running your own business is challenging.

But this is exactly why the branding process is such a pivotal part of a business’s growth and success.

Taking the time to step back and consider your why, working with branding experts to incorporate this into how you operate, present yourself, and connect with your audience is a powerful way to take the next steps in your business with support, meaning, and clarity. 

Knowing your audience is business 101, but the branding process delves deeper into the customer psyche and understands their fears, dreams, and the stage they’re at when they come into contact with your brand. 

The B2B buying process is longer than the B2C one, often with lengthy research and analysis and multiple approval levels factored in. 

Plus, B2B contracts are often longer-term than B2C relationships, which is another crucial factor to consider when mapping out how you present yourself to the world in an impactful way.

By exploring your customer and their processes from every angle with a branding expert, you gain a more profound insight into how best to serve them – and once that’s determined, it becomes a natural and more intuitive process to attract, serve, and bring value to the right customers.

Nobody wants to spend time with someone dull and self-centred. You’re unlikely to have boring friends, so why would you interact with boring brands?

The same is true for your customers and brand. 

Your audience doesn’t want to spend time learning about or doing business with a lifeless brand.

Therefore, think carefully about your best qualities and how to communicate them as a brand via your personality and voice. 

During the branding process, we work to various frameworks and models to establish and develop your unique character, voice, and personality. 

Is it time for you to build a high-impact brand that generates the reputation, authority, market share, investment, and loyalty you deserve?  

Studio LWD is a specialist branding and design agency building powerful brands for B2B businesses, from startups to multinationals. 

Contact us for an informal chat to discuss how we’ll be the driving force for your business success – email hello@studiolwd.co.uk or call us on 01253 829031.