B2B Marketing & COVID19

Part 4: How can you enrich your brand with what you've learned? Key question 1: Did you have a well-defined brand strategy to reference during the crisis? If your organization had spent the energy and time to create a strategy for your brand, what role did it play in helping you make decisions over the past several weeks? The purpose of strategy, and brand strategy in particular, is to help make decisions in conditions of uncertainty to fuel your competitive edge. If it wasn't a helpful touchstone to foster discussions and facilitate alignment in these conditions of uncertainty, it wasn't doing the job you hired it to do in the first place. On the other hand, perhaps the content of your brand strategy was not the problem, but rather there was a lack of true internal alignment around it that became evident. Potential pathways: 1. Brand strategy proved itself → Celebrate, and keep going. 2. Brand strategy didn't do its job → Decide if it's time for a refresh or a restart. 3. Brand strategy wasn't embedded in decision-making -> Plan how to cultivate a deep, shared understanding of the brand and how it should influence planning and execution throughout the organization, from the leadership to the frontline. Key question 2: During the crisis, how did your organization "live the brand" and demonstrate what it's about? Was it relatively easy or was it challenging to identify new ways of showing up for your customers during the "Inside Times?" Sure, some ways that businesses pivoted in response to the pandemic may seem natural in retrospect based upon their area of expertise—a hockey equipment manufacturer creating PPE; distilleries and perfumers making hand sanitizer—but it's not what they've always done. It's not what their processes are designed for or their teams trained for. Gearing up and having your team jump aboard enthusiastically to make any degree of change in short order requires a shared sense of what you're about that goes deeper than simply what you do or how you do it. When you know your customers, really deeply understand them, you develop a sense for the role your brand can play in their lives and businesses, which informs your brand positioning. If your organization found it very difficult to identify innovative B2B MARKETING in the Time of COVID-19 Most B2B marketers try to control their brands as much as possible, with purposeful decisions made around brand strategy and sustained efforts to make all aspects of the brand unique, memorable, relevant and authentic. To make their brand stand for something; to keep it top of mind; and, to keep it at the top of the consideration set for business buyers. As marketers, we establish the conditions for success as much as we can, and then other factors—most importantly, customers—that co-create the brand enter as soon as it's in the "wild." Expectations, interactions, reviews, discussions and even competitors all have some influence in shaping the brand. The truth is, marketers simply can't control everything about the brand experience. Business leaders and marketers have (re)learned that fact during these challenging months. Some businesses have found it fairly natural to bring their brand to life in new, meaningful and relevant ways, and saw opportunities very early to assist and engage with their customers and prospects—from serving their customers differently to deferring payment, and from creating relevant content across new channels to celebrating the heroes who keep us safe and keep everything moving. Others struggled to identify how their brands could provide resources, emotional support and goods or services in ways that would fit, and elevate, their brand, without appearing self-serving. The question is, into which category did your business fall? Was finding new ways for your brand to show up in the COVID-19 world relatively easy or difficult? A silver lining for marketers Marketers have the moment—should they seize it—to get to know their brand all over again and to choose what foundations to build on as they embark on the "new normal." If COVID-19 has given you the need and maybe even the time to (re)evaluate your brand, here are key questions for you to consider: 1 of 2

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