Looking beyond sales

Editor's note: Carly Fink is principal, head of research and strategy, at Provoke Insights, a New York research firm.

Business-to-business (B2B) is often more sales-driven than its business-to-consumer (B2C) counterpart. In this type of environment, advertising and building a brand are crucial even if there is a strong sales force in place. Advertising supports the full B2B customer sales journey by helping to generate awareness and leads for the sales team and by reinforcing satisfaction with the brand. Even if a B2B firm is more sales focused, this article will address why it is important to monitor your branding and advertising initiatives as well as evaluate the success of your brand compared to the competition.

In addition, the article will also include how to monitor the impact of the sales team when evaluating the organization’s brand equity. As the media mix has become more complex and companies are producing substantially more content than ever before, the relationship between sales and advertising is even more intertwined. Firms need to consistently monitor and evaluate the role of sales and advertising and its impact on the company’s acquisition and retention rates. 

Considered secondary

B2B organizations should recognize the value of brand equity (brand health) and the need to understand their brand equity as compared to the competitive landscape. Often, in sales-driven firms, brand equity and advertising are considered secondary. There is a misconception that brand equity is only valuable in the B2C space. Only 14 percent of B2B marketing decision makers find brand equity a key performance indicator (KPI) metric when evaluating their firm. Research shows customer satisfaction and revenue are the most utilized criteria. By solely using these criteria as KPIs, a company is only viewing the outcome. In contrast, utilizing brand equity as a KPI metric will allow companies to understand how to improve different aspects of the customer sales journey.

Also, organizations do not operate in a bubble. Competition plays a critical role that impacts sales and retention rates. For B2B companies, intimately knowing the competitive landscape can help them understand what your brand is doing better than other firms, as well as determine areas that need improvement. Evaluating your brand and the competition by only using KPIs such as sales and customer satisfaction does not lead to a clear comparison of your customer sales journey versus key competitors.

In order to improve and better understand the customer sales journey, brand equity in a sales-driven environment needs to be evaluated and monitored. Brand equity measures consumers’ awareness, association, perceptions of quality and loyalty and while it’s not often utilized in the B2B space, it really should be considered essential.

There are several challenges related to the monitoring of equity for B2B brands. Often drivers that influence the brand equity score can vary by industry, company size and the specific audiences targeted by the company. Depending on the sector, sales teams may be more influential and in other organizations, different marketing channels may take on a larger role (e.g., conferences).

Create a relationship

The B2B audience is typically more rationally driven by logic and relationships, while consumers tend to be more emotionally driven. Prospects are more likely to look for attributes such as most innovative, best reputation and thought leadership when selecting a company. B2B brands need to prove their expertise and create a relationship with the client.

As compared to B2C, the B2B consumer sales journey is significantly more complex. A few key reasons include:

• Products/services may be complicated and prospects need to be educated prior to making a purchase decision.
• There are several decision makers and the procurement department often influences and slows down the process.
• The gratification of the product or service may take longer, as it may need to meet long-term business objectives.

While B2B advertising efforts most likely exclude advertising on television, Facebook, YouTube or radio, there are several media channels that may be relevant. Conferences, brochures and sales calls are examples of traditional B2B channels. Digital channels may include e-mail, paid and organic search, content marketing and LinkedIn. Whatever marketing channel is used by a firm, it is key to understand its significance in influencing the consumer sales journey.

In the business-to-business environment, personal interaction and the relationship between the sales force and the customer are essential. Along with the quality of the human interaction, salespeople communicate the brand perception, explain the product/service and negotiate the cost. As a result, in a sales-driven company, the sales team directly influences brand equity. The sales team is a personal channel directly delivering the brand’s benefits. Their goal is not only to acquire new customers but also to retain the long-term relationship with current customers.

A company needs to know the strengths and weaknesses of its sales force and also the impact of the sales force on its brand equity score. When evaluating the sales force, several factors influence the success of the team such as knowledge of the company and the products, social competencies, communication skills, professionalism, trust, motivation and even demographic attributes.

A comprehensive assessment

Conducting a survey to assess brand equity among your target audience allows a firm to determine its strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competition. Prior to conducting quantitative research, secondary research and in-depth interviews can help to better develop the appropriate design of the questionnaire. Also, it helps to provide a comprehensive assessment of the consumer sales journey.

Competitive intelligence

Prior to conducting primary research, secondary research can help gain a better understanding of the landscape. It ensures that your primary research is as impactful as possible.

The first step is to determine the primary competition. As opposed to evaluating a long laundry list of competitors, select the three-to-five most important companies that you would like to benchmark. To gain a full perspective of the landscape, select a few of the largest revenue producers in the industry, as well as new competitors with significant upside potential.

Once the list is chosen, it is essential to look at the firm and competition customer journey and try to answer the following questions:

-- What does the sales funnel look like?
-- What is the role of the sales team?
-- What is the marketing mix?
-- What are the products or services offered?
-- What is the unique selling proposition (if there is one)?
-- What are the strength and weaknesses?

In many cases, access to competitive intelligence may be limited. Some simple methods for collecting this information include: visiting Web sites and social media pages; signing up for e-mails and whitepapers; and attending trade shows/events.

Purchasing low-cost marketing analytic tools such as SEMrush can provide a better understanding of the digital advertising landscape by providing intel on Web traffic, SEO, SEM and display ads.

In-depth interviews

Prior to conducting brand equity research, conducting in-depth interviews among prospects and customers can be extremely informative. Given that research for businesses can be more challenging than consumer research, half-hour online or phone interviews are often a successful approach to reach this target as they offer flexibility for respondents to choose a convenient time to be interviewed, thus increasing their willingness to participate.

The interviews evaluate your organization and the competition in regard to: context surrounding the decision-making process and determining pain-points during the consumer sales journey; the relationship between customers and the sales team; brand preference – why customers prefer one company over others; how the needs of customers differ when selecting a brand.

Brand equity survey

When developing the questionnaire to measure brand equity it is important to think about the full consumer sales journey as well as take into account your findings from previously conducted research.

Based off of the consumer sales journey, the structure of the survey should include the following four areas:

Memorability: How familiar are they with the brand? Is it top of mind during the selection process?

Exposure: What type of interaction do they have with the brand? Marketing channels? Sales team? How do they learn about the brand?

Perception: What characteristics resonate (e.g., innovative, trustworthy, thought leaders, cost)? Which brand(s) is preferred?

Short- vs. long-term relationship: What is the relationship with the company (prospect, current customer, lapsed customer)? How satisfied are you with the brand? Would you refer the brand to a colleague?

The competitive intelligence and in-depth interviews provide a concise list of competitors, market/sales materials and attributes to include in the questionnaire that will be developed.

After the survey is fielded, results will indicate how a company is performing relative to its competitors and communication methods. Advanced analytics, such as linear regression, will determine which marketing channels have the highest correlation to drive awareness, consideration and, ultimately, a purchase. This type of analysis will also show the influence of the sales force throughout the consumer sales journey.

The outcome of this research will not only help a B2B company determine where to allocate the money for the highest return but also determine its strengths and weaknesses relative to the competition.