BRAND THE UNBREAKABLE FRAME

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SECTION II THE SELF-DIRECTED BUYER Modern buyers have all the information they need about you literally at their fingertips. Better informed, connected and more skeptical than ever before, they crawl the Internet looking at your digital footprint. They explore and solicit comments and reviews written about you on every platform. A little freaky, right? The Corporate Executive Board acknowledges this shift. They found recently that the average B2B buyer is 57% through their purchase decision before engaging any representative of your organization. 1 Today’s self-directed buyer will experience the character of your organization long before you even step in the door (assuming there’s one there to begin with). If you aren’t putting direct messages out there about your brand—or if your brand isn’t differentiated enough to stand on its own—the modern buyer is more than happy to build their own story for you based on everything else they’ve read or heard. THE AVERAGE B2B BUYER is 57% through their purchase decision before engaging any representative of your organization. A strong brand and communications strategy executed across all of your channels, online or off, allows you to communicate with the self-directed buyer in a way that exemplifies your brand story and essence while also meeting their information consumption needs. 10 1 https://salesandmarketing.com/content/mapping-buyer%E2%80%99s-journey
MARKETING TECHNOLOGY FOR BRAND MARKETERS SECTION II Dictating and controlling this brand and communications strategy is no small task. From demonstrating ROI and securing budget to attracting top talent and training employees, the demands on brand marketers are high in all areas of business. There’s little time to listen to your audiences and, therefore, limited room for agility or adaptation. What’s more, many B2B and professional services organizations lack the internal infrastructure needed to measure and monitor client experiences and gather feedback. A NEW GENERATION OF DECISION MAKERS Besides consumer brands’ influence on customer expectations, business marketers must now take into account the motivations, behaviors and buying habits of digital natives and, more specifically, millennials. A term loosely applied to those born after 1980, digital natives are the next generation of decision makers who are entering the C-suite, launching startups and buying professional services. Fortunately for all of us, the advancements in marketing technology have helped to overcome this hurdle. Although challenges can vary across industry or market, digital is an empowering tool that allows marketers to break down organizational silos, listen intelligently, respond quickly and adjust plans in a nimble way. This ultimately results in a unified experience for the customer by effectively closing the feedback loop. each group’s unique needs and expectations. In turn, they will uncover and understand the data at their fingertips, applying insights and finding the alignment between their audience(s), business strategy and industry opportunities. Millennials’ growing role in the workforce and marketplace is not a ground-breaking discussion; however, it’s important to note this group’s relevance in how brand continues to evolve. Knowingly or not, this group is demanding more out of B2B brands— they desire to work for, and with, companies that feel authentic and real. The sea of sameness won’t cut it with these folks. As the B2B industry becomes increasingly commoditized, establishing a strong brand is paramount to achieving differentiation, which is key to building true customer loyalty, regardless of generation. The role of the Brand Marketer in this situation is to clearly identify audience sets and understand 11
Page 1 and 2: BRAND: THE UNBREAKABLE FRAME BY RYA
Page 3 and 4: SO THE INEVITABLE QUESTION THAT IS
Page 5 and 6: DEFINING BRAND & TRUE DIFFERENTIATI
Page 7 and 8: THE BRAND PLAN PYRAMID SECTION I St
Page 9: THINKING DIGITALLY SECTION II When
Page 13 and 14: DEFINE YOUR DIRECTION (CONT.) SECTI
Page 15 and 16: EXPRESS YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACT
Page 17 and 18: CONCLUSION BRAND is no longer simpl
Page 19: ABOUT One North is a digital agency

BRAND THE UNBREAKABLE FRAME

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