The B2B Branding Conundrum: How to Get Started

The B2B Branding Conundrum: How to Get Started

Just because you’re B2B doesn’t mean you should ignore brand! Christian Schulz, DCMN’s Director of Client Operations, was a recent guest at Moritz Mollenkopf’s velox.video podcast where they discussed the importance of building your brand in the B2B sector. You can watch the full video in German below or read on for Christian’s key takeaways. Enjoy!

Find out where your brand is at in the startup cycle.

Take a look at our exclusive guide to the stages of startup growth to find out how your brand can go from zero to hero.

stages of growth guide - dcmn

GET YOUR COPY

A guide for digital brands of all sizes

More competition demands brandformance 

To kick off, Christian spoke about why brand building, or more specifically brandformance, is so crucial in the B2B world. “There used to be 80 brands fighting for users in any one vertical, and now there are 8000,” he says. “Each vertical is very fragmented, and brands are fighting for users’ attention in each of these segments. With so much competition, it’s not enough to have a good product at a good price point. Your brand also needs to be sexy. And I mean, really sexy.” He makes it clear that at some point performance marketing doesn’t work anymore, and it’s time to get into brand.

Just as in the B2C world, Christian isn’t saying ‘do brand and forget performance’. Instead he advocates for closer collaboration between branding and performance: “We often see branding and performance being treated as separate categories, but branding and performance both belong in one team“, he adds. This is something we call brandformance here at DCMN. The age of siloing your marketing objectives is long gone and brands like Wooga have taken note.

Brand is queen

We aren’t discounting the importance of product, far from it. In fact, Christian goes on to say that even though the product is still king, your brand is queen. He also shares concrete tips on the KPI’s you should look into as milestones for your business, both in terms of performance and brand – learn more about these at 6.07 min. 

Sometimes you have to look out of your sector for inspiration. Using the example of the digital B2C brand HeyCar, Christian shows how companies can build their brand without breaking the bank. He says that for founders of B2B companies who are weary of digitalisation, they should work to bring back the revolutionary mindset from the time they started their business. 

If you’re not sure where to start, maybe the right place is the beginning. “You don’t need to reinvent your brand, because every company has their origin story,” says Christian. “Now you just need to put it out there and take full advantage of the fact that you can measure the exact impact of everything you publish online.”

He advises older brands to go digital. ”Every startup began with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and was created to solve a specific problem. This is the perfect basis for a brand. Especially for slightly older companies who have skin in the game, Christian has some sound advice too. “Bring back the spirit you had 40-50 years ago when you were starting your company,” he urges them. “And remember that you achieved your success by trial and error!”. If you could start a company back then, you can definitely conquer digital today. Why not take what worked for you in the past and digitise it? This could be as easy as transitioning a CEO’s letter into a digital format, or having webinars over in-person meetups. The world is your oyster!

    Liked that?

    Here are some more articles that may interest you.

    Empowering the Future: Prepaid Cards and Apps for Kids

    Financial education has become a key priority for parents and educators, leading to the creation…

    Lost in Translation: Language Learning in Germany

    Unlock the secrets of language learning in Germany: explore motivations, preferred methods, and popular apps.

    Shopping Season Frenzy: Insights into German Consumers

    With Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas just around the corner, DCMN sheds light on…

    Marketing Expansion Template: A Worksheet for Going Global

    Our latest worksheet guides you through every step of building an internationalisation marketing strategy.

    Scale with TV: A Guide to Performance-driven TV Marketing

    Performance TV marketing is a tried and tested way to send your reach to the…

    Empowering the Future: Prepaid Cards and Apps for Kids

    Financial education has become a key priority for parents and educators, leading to the creation…

    How TaxSlayer Boosted Web Visits by 19% with Performance TV 360°

    Personal tax service company TaxSlayer applied DCMN's Performance TV 360° approach, combining linear TV and…

    How to do a Competitor Analysis

    If you want to know how your business stacks up against the competition, you need…

    Our Brandformance® Masterclass at OMR22

    Our latest webinar took a look into how FREE NOW has used data despite the…

    Our Offline Tracking Masterclass at OMR22

    Learn exactly how you can use marketing measurement products to refine your offline tracking and…

    AI Creatives – Everyone’s Talking About It, DCMN Did It!

    DCMN combined AI-generated creatives and traditional photography in one of the world's first AI-generated campaigns…

    The Best-Known Digital Brands In Germany In 2022

    DCMN's Brand Tracker ranked the top digital brands in Germany in 2022, according to consumers'…

    DCMN Bolsters U.S. Team with Appointment of David Figueroa

    Research commissioned by DCMN sheds light on changes within the marketing landscape after a tumultuous…
    Write a comment