The BL[OZ]
The importance of branding in launching new products
By
Orit Oz
, 15/05/2017
Prior to the recent release of Mazor X, Oz Branding worked with Mazor Robotics to create a compelling brand promise for the new product — Align with Experience.
min read
There is no greater satisfaction than watching our customers successfully launch groundbreaking and transformative products that take the market by storm — especially when we played a role in branding them!
Which is why we’re so psyched by the extensive media coverage and enthusiasm surrounding the recent release of Mazor X —a transformative guidance platform for spine surgeries developed by Mazor Robotics.
According to Ori Hadomi, Chief Executive Officer of Mazor Robotics in a quote for Yahoo Finance: "The Mazor X system is the culmination of a multi-year development effort by our team of robotic, algorithm and imaging experts, incorporating market feedback gathered from thousands of clinical cases performed with the Mazor core technology. It exemplifies our vision of healing through innovation and our ongoing dedication to patients by expanding guidance capabilities in the spine operating room. We believe it can change the way spine surgeries are performed.”
During the development of Mazor X, Oz Branding and Adlai & Partners worked with Mazor Robotics to identify key values for multiple customer segments, created a compelling brand promise for the new product — Align With Experience.
The changing role of CMOs in B2B marketing
By
Miri Peled
, 15/05/2017
Customer empowerment has led to a changing CMO role as CMOs become the customer voice within their organizations. But what does this role actually involve?
min read
With the evolving nature of the marketplace, the role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is quickly transforming and becoming one of the most strategic functions in most organizations.
As a result, the skill set required of the CMO and the marketing team is also changing rapidly. Once responsible mainly for market research, corporate brand management and advertising, the CMO now has additional complex responsibilities that extend far beyond traditional marketing — including technology (digital marketing), analytics, customer experience expertise, and content.
According to Bill Lee, founder of the Center for Customer Engagement in an interview with CMO.com: “CMOs today have a real opportunity to get a competitive jump by organizing more forcefully around today’s buyer—who is changing rapidly. It’s arguably the most important trend in marketing.”
The customer leads the way
With digital disruption and an ongoing increase in Internet and social media usage, consumers now have almost all the information they need at their fingertips. In fact, research shows that the majority of customers engage in online research and brand comparison before they commit to a specific product or service — even (and often especially) in the world of business to business (B2B) — and continue to use online platforms at multiple points across their buyer journey. This has far reaching effects on the marketplace, and businesses are being forced to adapt their marketing strategy accordingly. Instead of interruptive marketing fighting for a customer's attention and money, twenty-first century businesses need to focus on both offline and online marketing to attract potential customers, increase sales and maintain an ongoing relationship with their customers.Expanding the CMO’s Role
These changes to customer behavior, as well as the ability of companies to reach a more diverse and global customer base, have led to an expansion or even a complete redefinition of the CMO’s role, in both B2C and B2B marketing. As advocators for customers — or the “voice of the customer” —CMOs will need to lead changes across companies. This involves playing a more active role in areas such as global branding strategy and public profile, product development, leading the move from a product-centric to a customer-centric model, content planning and generation, digital media, and more.
Using online marketing to generate a buzz (or a moo)
By
Miri Peled
, 15/05/2017
When Afimilk was preparing to launch its new AfiLab, the company turned to Oz Branding for assistance in creating a combined online and offline campaign.
min read
Afimilk case study: all you need is lab
When Afimilk — a pioneer and global leader of management technology for dairy farming — was preparing to launch its In-line Milk Lab internationally, the company turned to Oz for assistance in creating a combined online and offline campaign for the launch.
The two companies had already worked together successfully on Afimilk’s ongoing corporate branding needs, so they eased straight into defining the specific market needs for AfiLab Milk Analyzer, building a compelling visual identity and brand promise for the product, and creating and implementing a creative concept for the campaign. The relaunch of AfiLab was planned for the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California in February 2015. For this reason, the main campaign goals were to create in-person traffic to the Afimilk booth, significantly increase online traffic to all Afimilk web pages and specific mini sites before and after the expo, and also generate a substantial number of quality leads for the sales team.
This was done using a combined online and offline approach:
- Online – including digital ads in a variety of professional magazines, a social network campaign that was launched 6 weeks before the expo, the creation of a specific AfiLab mini-site, blog posts on the subject, a newsletter, a PR, and more.
- Offline – including brochures, a booth at the trade show, giveaways, printed ads, and more.
Global marketing challenges for B2B companies
By
Orit Oz
, 14/05/2017
Challenges in global marketing for B2B companies, the complexities involved in growing a global brand, and ideas on how we can overcome these challenges.
min read
The International B2B Marketing Conference 2015
We had a wonderful time learning about and discussing the challenges in global marketing for B2B companies at our International B2B marketing Conference earlier this month. We'd like to give a big thank you to our partners at the E3 International Agency Network for working with us. And, we'd especially like to thank the over 200 people who attended, including executives who came from over 10 countries around the world!
At our conference we had the pleasure to hear from several marketing and branding experts in different regions around the globe. Each of them spoke about the complexities involved in growing a global brand, the challenges all of us face, and ideas on how we can overcome these challenges.
The next few posts will cover each presentation in more detail, but in the meantime, we'll give you a short summary of the topics covered by each speaker:
Dirk Assent, Managing Partner at Bernstein Gmbh, Bremen, spoke about how to tackle the internal and external challenges of a divided market (or, as he puts it: Why marketing in Europe is like a polar bear.) Mike Golden, the CEO of Adsmith China, Shanghai, spoke about the marketing successes as well as the many branding failures in bringing products to China.
Our very own Dina Gidron at Oz Branding also addressed the crowd about the trends in online and offline marketing, and Eyal Tryber, CEO of the Israeli Maytronics company, shared fascinating insights about building the Maytronics brand globally. We also heard from Matt Bowen, President and CEO of Aloft Group in Boston, who shared with us the success factors involved in growing your brand in the US.
We gained a lot in insight at this conference and enjoyed seeing old colleagues and meeting new ones. We hope you did too!
How B2B Brands Drive Sales
By
Orit Oz
, 14/05/2017
One of the most difficult parts of B2B branding is selling the brand to sales. Many B2B brands fail because they haven't been integrated into the sales force
min read
If General Electric and IBM were sold tomorrow, their brand value alone would be approximately $45 and $75 million respectively. These brand valuations sit right next to well-known consumer brands such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola, illustrating that B2B brands, similar to their consumer brand cousins, also drive billions of dollars in value and market capitalization in intangible assets of "goodwill."
Why would anyone want to spend an additional $31 million in purchase price for a brand alone? It's not just your average person who pays more for a brand. It's top-level executives too.
A 2012 McKinsey survey of more than 700 executives with substantial influence on supplier selection in the United States, Germany, and India found that consideration of the brand was a central decision when deciding whether or not to purchase.
The survey found that the brand was almost as important as the sales team in encouraging them to purchase.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-b2b-brands-highest-brand-value-waldemar-pfoertsch
What can we learn from this? Well, for one, that B2B purchasers are human beings at the end of day. They are a lot less value-driven than they like to think, and heavily swayed by the brand, which helps them simplify evaluating the product.
Despite the enormous added-value of a strong brand in a purchasing price, one of the most difficult parts of B2B branding is selling the brand to sales. Many B2B brands fail because they haven't been properly integrated into – and accepted by – the sales force.
To ensure that your brand is accepted by your salespeople, you'll want to make sure you're providing the answers to these questions:
Consider a sales and marketing workshop, where salespeople explore the meaning behind the new brand and how it can help them be more successful. One practical exercise during the workshop might be to develop a pitch book – a sales tool that should communicate what the company does, why it does it, and why it is better than the competition. This time, however, you'll want to develop it through the perspective of a salesperson who understands the value, messages, and how to communicate the company's brand.
Why would anyone want to spend an additional $31 million in purchase price for a brand alone? It's not just your average person who pays more for a brand. It's top-level executives too.
A 2012 McKinsey survey of more than 700 executives with substantial influence on supplier selection in the United States, Germany, and India found that consideration of the brand was a central decision when deciding whether or not to purchase.
The survey found that the brand was almost as important as the sales team in encouraging them to purchase.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-b2b-brands-highest-brand-value-waldemar-pfoertsch
What can we learn from this? Well, for one, that B2B purchasers are human beings at the end of day. They are a lot less value-driven than they like to think, and heavily swayed by the brand, which helps them simplify evaluating the product.
Getting the Sales Team on Board
Despite the enormous added-value of a strong brand in a purchasing price, one of the most difficult parts of B2B branding is selling the brand to sales. Many B2B brands fail because they haven't been properly integrated into – and accepted by – the sales force.
To ensure that your brand is accepted by your salespeople, you'll want to make sure you're providing the answers to these questions:
1. Are You Telling the Right Brand Story?
It can be helpful to first take a step back and reevaluate if your internal B2B brand story is the same of that of your customers. The same McKinsey study from above found that often the two audiences focused on completely different things --- B2B suppliers focused on sustainability, global reach, and corporate responsibility whereas customers focused on honesty, responsibility across the supply chain, and level of specialized expertise.2. Do Your Salespeople Understand What a Brand is?
Your salespeople need to understand that a brand is what happens before you enter a room and after you leave. It also provides a framework for communicating the values behind your company's product or service.3. Do Your Salespeople Understand How A Brand Can Help Them?
This is where "branding in" can be vital. "Branding in" connects the entire company to the brand promise and implements it in their day-to-day responsibilities. For starters, you'll need to make sure marketing and sales are communicating in the same language.
Consider a sales and marketing workshop, where salespeople explore the meaning behind the new brand and how it can help them be more successful. One practical exercise during the workshop might be to develop a pitch book – a sales tool that should communicate what the company does, why it does it, and why it is better than the competition. This time, however, you'll want to develop it through the perspective of a salesperson who understands the value, messages, and how to communicate the company's brand.
Witness Your Brand Increase Revenue
Align your sales and marketing together in building your brand by answering these questions as a company. Bring in experts to help you if possible (we know of a good one offhand) When all of the employees in your company, including the salespeople, are working together towards the same message, value, and goals, your brand value will start to climb, and your sales will too.
Should I Still Speak to My Customers Face-to-Face?
By
Miri Peled
, 14/05/2017
Are you struggling to find the right marketing mix? Get some tips on creating an offline marketing strategy that is complemented by your online strategy
min read
In today’s digital age, we tend to focus a lot on online marketing (also known as Inbound marketing), which includes the use of social media, email marketing, and other online platforms to communicate with our customers.
Integrating online and offline marketing
With all of this focus on online marketing, we tend to think that we should invest all of our energy in our online presence. But it’s not that simple as customers don’t only spend their time online. While online marketing is crucial to growth and success, you need to also engage your customers using offline methods – especially in B2B industries where long-term relationships with customers are crucial to success. A good way to understand this is to compare it to the use of social media in our personal lives. Most of us frequently share personal information about ourselves, our families, our hobbies, and more, on social media platforms. Despite the fact that these platforms seem to “replace” direct relationships, that’s not usually the case, and most of us still make a lot of effort to meet with our families and friends on a regular basis to nurture our inter-personal relationships. If we apply this example to business, we can build well-balanced marketing strategies by combining the use of social platforms to share knowledge with potential customers and build their trust, with inter-personal, offline interactions.
Not mutually exclusive
Using both online and offline marketing doesn’t mean that you need to create separate strategies for each. Instead, you need to create the right marketing mix for your company and field where your offline marketing strategy is actually complemented by your online strategy, and vice versa. Here are some examples:1. Trade shows
Trade shows may be traditionally associated with “offline” marketing, but you can leverage your investment in them by using a digital strategy to promote your company’s presence at the event. This can be done through digital ads, social media campaigns, landing pages, calls-to-action, and even webinars or videos talking about the upcoming event and where to find you. These promotions can be used to both promote your business in general, and to set up meetings or collect quality leads.At the event, you’ll be able to meet these potential customers (and other) face-to-face and most importantly, to follow up after the event based on what they told you about their specific needs. Again, the follow-up communication can be done through both direct communication and digital communication such as newsletters.
Read here about the online approach to event marketing>>
2. Samples to customer
Offer potential buyers and distributors that leave their contact details via digital platforms free samples of your products (where relevant) or promotions. In this manner, you can collect quality leads from customers, communicate with them directly to get them to try your products, and continue to engage with them through online campaigns. You can also use geo-driven campaigns to attract potential buyers and then refer them to local points-of-sale.
3. Digital campaigns and demos
Use digital campaigns and landing pages to encourage potential buyers to leave their information and then call them to set up a live demo of your product. You can continue to nurture the relationship with these potential buyers after the demo through a combination of offline and online marketing techniques.
4. Join social media groups
Join and contribute to social media groups in your field, use them to increase your brand awareness, and look out for offline networking initiated by these groups, including impromptu meet-ups and offline conversations. You can also initiate such offline events in order to meet potential leads face-to-face.
The best of both worlds
So the answer is yes – you should DEFINITELY still speak to your customers face-to-face, and communicate with them in every way possible to secure and nurture long-term trust and relationships, and meet their specific goals and needs. To get the most out this combined approach, make sure your brand promise, messaging, and visual language is consistent across all platforms so that your potential buyers and promoters recognize you wherever you are.
Creating an Exceptional Digital Experience for Millennial Buyers
By
Miri Peled
, 14/05/2017
Exceptional Digital Experience. millennial buyers have the first digital contact and are determining which vendors should even be considered by the C-suite.
min read
Most C-suite executives in the B2B technology world understand the influence millennials have on their decisions to purchase from one vendor versus another.
According to recent Google research, it's generally the millennials who have the first digital contact with the vendor, albeit as B2B researchers.
That means millennials are determining which vendors should even be considered by the C-suite.
Image by Google/Millward Brown Digital, B2B Path to Purchase Study, 2014
According to an IBM study, millennials value a hands-on, authentic experience with a brand. The challenge for B2B organizations, therefore, is creating a relevant, seamless digital experience that millennials can connect to – at the right time and in the right digital channel.
That's why an exceptional digital experience for all of your customers, including millennials, is so crucial. Since a CEB study found that buyers are now as much as 57% of the way through the buying process before actually engaging with a seller, you need to create a lasting impression that will raise your vendor to the top of the list.
Digital and customer experience for B2B companies are becoming synonymous, and that's why an engaging and relevant digital strategy focuses on the customer.
In order to capture and sustain the attention of millennial buyers, you'll need to involve the C-suite to align all parts of your business to provide value to the customer – whether R&D, HR and company culture, or sales.
An exceptional customer experience will reflect this alignment.
Image by Google/Millward Brown Digital, B2B Path to Purchase Study, 2014
According to an IBM study, millennials value a hands-on, authentic experience with a brand. The challenge for B2B organizations, therefore, is creating a relevant, seamless digital experience that millennials can connect to – at the right time and in the right digital channel.
That's why an exceptional digital experience for all of your customers, including millennials, is so crucial. Since a CEB study found that buyers are now as much as 57% of the way through the buying process before actually engaging with a seller, you need to create a lasting impression that will raise your vendor to the top of the list.
How can your B2B organization transform itself into a digitally mature organization and leave a lasting impression on millennial buyers?
This post will offer three suggestions for creating an exceptional digital experience.Focus on the Customer Experience
Remember what we mentioned above about creating a relevant and seamless digital experience? You'll need to examine your customer's priorities to provide content that focuses on them and their needs. For B2B organizations, this means not only prioritizing strategic concerns such as customer experience, but also growing revenues and reducing costs. It also means making tactical decisions to improve the digital experience (see the graph below).
Digital and customer experience for B2B companies are becoming synonymous, and that's why an engaging and relevant digital strategy focuses on the customer.
Assign the C-Suite Responsibility for Digital Strategy
In order to execute the digital strategy effectively, you'll need guidance from someone who's been assigned responsibility for the digital strategy.In some companies it's the CEO, in others it's a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or chief digital officer. Whatever the title, someone in the C-Suite must lead the company with their end vision, with any changes being a result of this end vision.
In order to capture and sustain the attention of millennial buyers, you'll need to involve the C-suite to align all parts of your business to provide value to the customer – whether R&D, HR and company culture, or sales.
An exceptional customer experience will reflect this alignment.
Employ the Right Third-Party Solution Providers
Whether it’s front-end applications, performance analytics, web design or content strategy, your company may realize it needs support from a third party to reduce risk and help them gain expertise. According to this Forrester study on digital transformation in B2B, 87% of companies use a third-party solution for at least one component of their digital transformation. One of the conclusions of the Forrester study is that it is vital to choose a third-party vendor that not only provides time and materials, but an end-to-end partnership as well. Find a solution that understands your broader goals in the marketplace and have them accountable for some measure of quantifiable success (whether it be more traffic, a lower bounce rate, or higher keyword rankings).Getting on the Short List
By focusing on the customer experience, assigning someone in the C-Suite responsibility over digital strategy and choosing the right third-party vendor, you'll create a digital experience that is successful in catching and sustaining the attention of B2B millennial buyers. In addition, you'll have to provide them with relevant and engaging top-of-the-funnel content in the channel of their preference. For now, these millennial "buyers" may just be influencers determining which companies are on the short list. All the more so that their digital experience be exceptional.
Overcoming Global Borders
By
Dina Gidron
, 14/05/2017
A Case Study in Effective Online and Offline Marketing. Trends in online marketing, Microtargeting, mobile, content, Amplification and Old-school marketing
min read
A Case Study in Effective Online and Offline Marketing
Note: This is the last of a 5-part series on our annual international B2B marketing conference this past November. Read Part 4 here. As VP Strategy at Oz Branding, I decided to share our experience with Elcam Medical at the Global Marketing Challenges for B2B Companies conference, as it demonstrated the importance of combining both online and offline marketing approaches. Before delving into the Elcam Medical case study at the conference, howev er, I thought it important to remind you of five important trends in online marketing:- Microtargeting – which involves finding a specific subset of customers in your marketplace
- Mastery of mobile – Mobile will dominate your market, no matter what the industry.
- Quality content – You'll need to fill that mobile channel with quality content, not to mention all of your other channels (and differentiate between these channels).
- Amplification – You'll also want to figure out how to amplify that content so it reaches as many potential customers as possible.
- Old-school marketing – Nothing beats face-to-face interaction.
Elcam Medical– No Longer "Just" an OEM
Now that we have those trends in mind, I want to introduce you to Elcam Medical, a medical device company that is a world leader in medical stopcocks. This fluid control application is part of a larger set sold to a hospital through a multinational company. Elcam Medical, whose humble beginnings started at Kibbutz Baram, is a well-known OEM in the medical device industry. The challenge is creating awareness of the product to the end user who benefit from the patient safety and time-savings measures the device offers. Once the end users recognized the brand more, they would be able to create additional demand from the market, rather than relying solely on OEM representatives that may have a different agenda. How then could Elcam Medical go about positioning itself to be recognized more by the end users, in this case, ICU nurses in the medical device equipment industry? Oz Branding has been working with Elcam Medical for the past 4 years. In this case, we helped them devise a two-pronged strategy. The first challenge was to identify and understand their end user, a microtarget of ICU nurses, and develop channels to communicate with them. The second was to continue to strengthen its brand recognition with big multi-national companies, who are purchasers of Elcam Medical, but are familiar with it only as an OEM.
The purpose of this two-pronged strategy was to create demand with regular companies, and spark a conversation of why this product's value is high enough to justify raising its price. With increased demand generation, sales would rise.
A Risky Yet Effective Strategy
The approach Oz built with them was dramatic and involved big decisions. In truth, multi-national companies don't want suppliers talking to customers. The question became how Elcam Medical would implement its strategy without damaging customer relations. First, all project work was done with complete transparency between Elcam Medical and its customers. The customers understood Elcam Medical would not sell directly to the hospitals and since there was no conflict of interest, sales have increased as a result of this project. Secondly, the idea was to focus on a concept of concern to end-users which wouldn't affect the suppliers. Fortunately, this concept had already been thought of and built into the product and reflected in the Marvelous stopcock, specially designed to increase safety and save precious time for the critical care teams. In order to have this concept strengthen the entire brand rather than one specific product, a designated website was created to promote Elcam Medical's most important feature for the ICU nurses: patient safety.
This turned out to be the main benefit for end users. They wanted to know: How did Elcam Medical ensure patient safety? That became the agenda of the website – to position Elcam Medical as experts in insuring safety in the hospital environment, especially within the ICU.
As new products develop they will also be shown on the website. More than just a promotion of the company's latest technology, the website helps to share a lot of professional data and information among medical professionals.
In order to identify the issues and concerns Elcam Medical's end users face, 12 LinkedIn groups were identified and scoured. Blog articles were written and posted to this website addressing these topics and continue to be expanded upon. For even wider distribution and increased awareness, professional online publications are approached with these same topics, helping to position Elcam Medical as leaders in patient safety.
Online and Offline Equals 100% Success
The best approach combines online and offline marketing. Simply put: You have to get out there. In contrast to attending the usual larger medical conferences and big trade shows, Elcam Medical started to attend more targeted professional conferences of nurses, albeit with a smaller booth. Whenever possible, they tried to generate awareness by getting on the lecture panel at the conference. Of course, paid online advertising promoting these conferences helped, but at the end of the day, online activity leads to offline activity, which leads to a personal relationship. As a result of this two-pronged branding strategy, many personal relationships have developed, both between Elcam Medical and the end user, as well as between Elcam Medical and suppliers. As an example of the results generated from this type of online and offline approach, I read an email we received from a big company representative who wrote to one of Elcam Medical's representatives she had met at a critical-care nursing conference:
This email was sent just 6-8 months into the branding process, the results are still in process.
The shift is dramatic in that it has changed the rules of the game – Elcam Medical now talks to nurses directly, creating its own relationships with the end user, which in this case, resulted in a huge amount of leads from one particular nursing conference. It shouldn't be a surprise that sales increased by 35% in 2015, the same year that Oz started working with Marvelous.
As a takeaway from the conference, I believe that this combination of online marketing and the creation of offline personal connections can move many Israeli companies further into the international marketplace than they are today. As they expand and move abroad, I'd like companies to remember this combined approach when considering how to overcome global borders.
This is the last post in our series about the annual international B2B marketing conference this past November.
Growing Your Brand in the USA: Key Success Factors
By
Orit Oz
, 14/05/2017
Matt Bowen, shared with us at the Global Marketing Challenges for B2B Companies the key success factors for Israeli companies to scale their product in the U.S.
min read
Note: This is Part 4 of a 5-part series on our annual international B2B marketing conference this past November. Read Part 3 here.
Matt Bowen, President and CEO of Aloft Group, shared with us at the Global Marketing Challenges for B2B Companies the key success factors for Israeli companies to scale their product in the U.S.
Mr. Bowen cited this article from Harvard business review which noted that in a survey of 112 Israeli companies founded between 1996 and 2013 that met or exceeded $20 million in revenue, most shared two common characteristics. The vast majority – 91% -- had both Israeli CEOs and had received funding from foreign VCs.
Mr. Bowen believes that in addition to these factors, Israeli companies that desire to successfully penetrate the US market must be truly remarkable. We'll examine three key factors that contribute to a company's "remarkability" in this post.
While the US market offers a lot of exciting opportunity for growth for any Israeli company, it is also quite diverse. The market forces can create a lot of voices, as well as choices, and your company's brand needs to be able to be heard above the noise. Mr. Bowen showed us how his company was able to zoom and focus on the market for one client, Greiner Packing, by creating customer personas. By focusing on specific personas and understanding what these personas do on a typical day, their pain points, values and possible objections to the product, his company gained a much clearer focus of who would benefit from the product and how. Here's a detailed example of a customer persona:
From this type in-depth understanding of your customers, you can start to build your company's story more clearly.
Mr. Bowen cited this article from Harvard business review which noted that in a survey of 112 Israeli companies founded between 1996 and 2013 that met or exceeded $20 million in revenue, most shared two common characteristics. The vast majority – 91% -- had both Israeli CEOs and had received funding from foreign VCs.
Mr. Bowen believes that in addition to these factors, Israeli companies that desire to successfully penetrate the US market must be truly remarkable. We'll examine three key factors that contribute to a company's "remarkability" in this post.
Step 1 – Zoom and Focus
While the US market offers a lot of exciting opportunity for growth for any Israeli company, it is also quite diverse. The market forces can create a lot of voices, as well as choices, and your company's brand needs to be able to be heard above the noise. Mr. Bowen showed us how his company was able to zoom and focus on the market for one client, Greiner Packing, by creating customer personas. By focusing on specific personas and understanding what these personas do on a typical day, their pain points, values and possible objections to the product, his company gained a much clearer focus of who would benefit from the product and how. Here's a detailed example of a customer persona:
From this type in-depth understanding of your customers, you can start to build your company's story more clearly.
Step 2 - Tell a Bigger Story
From his vast experience in the field, Mr. Bowen told us: "Companies that seek to enter the US market successfully need a bigger story." That also means not overly focusing on your products or technology, but how it can make your customer's lives better. It's the customer's emotional connection to the brand that ultimately builds your customer relationships and brand loyalty.Step 3 - Cultivate Relationships to Inspire Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is a goal that is achieved by a journey - a journey with each customer. Through focusing and zooming in on your market and telling the right story, you'll start to build relationships. Customers with good experiences will be happy to share it with the world, especially if they believe in your product. Many of these relationships will develop into brand advocates and slowly build your brand and customer loyalty.
To Make it In America, Be Remarkable
As we've explained, there are three key factors to successfully entering the US market. First, your company must focus and zoom in on its market. Creating in-depth customer personas can help with this. Secondly, you'll need to come up with a way to tell a "bigger story" – one that doesn't focus too much on your products and technology, but how it will add value to your customer's life. Finally, you'll need to build relationships with customers based on exceptional customer experiences in order to create brand advocates and loyalty. These three factors can go a long way in making your company truly remarkable and successfully scale in the US.
Getting Over the Great Wall: Marketing Successes and Failures in China
By
Orit Oz
, 14/05/2017
Mike Golden, CEO of Adsmith, gave us some tips at the B2B International Conference about what to do (and what not to do) when marketing your brand in China.
min read
Note: This is Part 2 of a 5-part series highlighting the speakers from our annual international B2B marketing conference this past November. Read Part 1 here.
Mike Golden, CEO of Adsmith China, gave us some tips at the B2B International Conference 2015 this November about what to do (and what not to do) when marketing your brand in China. This country of 1.3 billion people and an estimated 6.5% growth for the next five years (and that's slow!) offers an exciting opportunity for global brands.
He told a cautionary tale of a luxury brand company that decided they didn't need a name in China. As a result, newspapers came up with their own competing versions of the same brand. At one point, people started to trademark those names. That's another reason why it's so important to create a Chinese version of your company name. If you don't do it, someone else will.
Fortunately, his company is successful at transforming Chinese versions of websites into clean, white homepages. One example he showed us was Lycored, a company specializing in food ingredients. They were able to localize the Chinese version of their website with images while at the same time create a nice, clean homepage:
"No one was talking about the threat of resistance. It was an invisible threat – but once it appeared, it was already too late. We gave this threat a face and a name, so people could start talking about it," Mr. Asset explained. "There's an old saying, `If you want to own the solution, you have own the problem.' So we were the ones to start talking about it."
They were also able to use a lot of red. Red is a very lucky color in China, Mr. Golden explained, so it was great that Lycored uses red.
Fail Small, Fail Large
Although China offers a lot of opportunity, it can also be an overwhelming experience. "Some people come to China to try it for a year. It's a disaster, and they leave. That's a large fail," explains Mr. Golden. "The small fails are going up this very steep learning curve and learning the problems marketing in China." Mr. Bowden then detailed a practical list of marketing challenges companies face when entering the Chinese market and how to alleviate these "small fails."
Challenge #1: No one Can Read or Understand Your Company Name
He brings the example of Heineken and Coca-Cola, who not only create Chinese versions of their names, but made sure that the Chinese characters that formed the words were meaningful and related to the brand as well. For example, Heineken in Chinese means “happy power," and Coca-Cola means "happy mouth
He told a cautionary tale of a luxury brand company that decided they didn't need a name in China. As a result, newspapers came up with their own competing versions of the same brand. At one point, people started to trademark those names. That's another reason why it's so important to create a Chinese version of your company name. If you don't do it, someone else will.
Challenge #2: Your Website and Marketing Collateral isn't Localized
One method of localizing all of your marketing collateral is to have it translated into Chinese. But that's not necessarily enough, Mr. Golden warns. The next step is to take the marketing collateral and give it to real Chinese marketing people and copywriters. Good copy is extremely important. Visuals are just as important as copy. While it isn't necessary to completely disregard the global brand, you do need to combine it with some amount of localization. The amount of localization depends on the market and the brand. For B2B companies, you want to strike the right amount of balance between global and local branding. (For an example of localized content, see the example in Challenge #4).Challenge #3: The Great Firewall of China
In terms of the web, China is a particular challenge to global brands, since it blocks many sites such as Google, Twitter and Facebook. Even if your site sits on the same server as a site China has decided to ban, your website page might not load. And according to Mr. Golden, this happens a lot. Make sure people can open and use your website to learn about your company and product.Challenge #4: Creating a Website with Clean White Space
According to Mr. Golden, the Chinese don't seem to appreciate the beauty of clean, white space on their homepages. He gives an example of an online trade magazine which shows the typical layout of many Chinese websites:
Fortunately, his company is successful at transforming Chinese versions of websites into clean, white homepages. One example he showed us was Lycored, a company specializing in food ingredients. They were able to localize the Chinese version of their website with images while at the same time create a nice, clean homepage:
"No one was talking about the threat of resistance. It was an invisible threat – but once it appeared, it was already too late. We gave this threat a face and a name, so people could start talking about it," Mr. Asset explained. "There's an old saying, `If you want to own the solution, you have own the problem.' So we were the ones to start talking about it."
They were also able to use a lot of red. Red is a very lucky color in China, Mr. Golden explained, so it was great that Lycored uses red.
Challenge #5: Distributing Your Content in China
Since China blocks all of the mainstream sites from the US, it has created Chinese alternatives. Your company will have to familiarize themselves with sites such as Baidu, WeChat, Weibo, and Youku and the differences between them and their US counterparts. The numbers on these sites and networks are huge, Mr. Golden says, but it can still be hard to reach the people. For instance, Baidu, he explains, uses a completely different algorithm than Google. Speed and number of pages are major factor, as are metatags and other factors that Google no longer takes into account. In addition, sites with more pages rank higher. From Mr. Golden's experience, sometimes companies will need to call Baidu personally in order to increase their website's loading time. Trade magazines are another excellent source for distributing content. They can offer cost-effective advertising opportunities, as well as paid advertorial opportunities. Advertising laws, however, are very strict. Any advertising consisting of experts that speak of benefits of a product must be cleared with the Chinese government beforehand or risk being fined.Successful Penetration of the Chinese Market
Mr. Golden ended his presentation by telling companies interested in entering the Chinese market to first ask themselves the following questions:- Is your brand ready to travel? If not, maybe go to a branding company (Oz or one of the E3 partners :P)
- Do you have a solid strategy? Don't go to China just to try it out.
- What are your priorities? Think especially in terms of your geography, people, and target markets.
- What marketing actions are right for your brand and your customers? Do you understand the media your customers are using?
- Do you have all the information you need? It takes talking to a lot of people to find out what's really going on.
Why Marketing in Europe is Like a Polar Bear
By
Orit Oz
, 14/04/2017
There's no blueprint for the perfect European campaign, There's no list of boxes that you can check off. That's why marketing in Europe in like a polar bear
min read
Note: This is Part 1 of a 5-part series highlighting the speakers from our annual international B2B marketing conference this past November. Read the introductory post to this series here.
When our head of VP Strategy at Oz Branding, Dina Gidron, asked Dirk Assent, managing partner at Bernstein, Gmbh to talk about marketing in Europe at the B2B branding conference in November, he admits that he struggled to find material to talk about.
"There's no blueprint for the perfect European campaign. There's no list of boxes that you can check off to find out if you're doing wrong or right in Europe. That's why today I'm going to talk to you about why marketing in Europe in like a polar bear," Mr. Assent announced.
Mr. Assent continued to explain that although life in Europe seems quite romantic and uncomplicated, this perception changes when we talk about the European Union.
He explained that although the term "union" implies that it works in coordination with other countries in a unified manner. In reality, the European Union is far from a unified entity, especially as a marketplace. To illustrate this point, he explained that the United States has 300 million people who are unified by the same language. Europe, in contrast, has 500 million people and 23 official languages.
"If you're doing business in Europe as a whole, you have to do whatever you do for the US times 23."
It's an oversimplified example, he admitted, yet it clearly presents the magnitude of the challenge of marketing in Europe.
Discovering the Synergies between Different Countries (The Polar Bear Analogy)
Of course, language is only one of the many things dividing the countries. There are also vast social, legal and cultural differences. Instead of harping on these differences, Mr. Asset cautions, they need to be embraced. At the same time, you need to find the common denominator, or synergies, between the many countries.
When marketing in the European Union, he explained, you simply can't create a campaign that tells different groups of people the same story, uses the same pictures, and talks about the same issues.
"It doesn't work, because you aren't embracing the differences", he says. "You have to instead create a flexible structure that adapts to their needs."
At first glance, it seems quite contradictory to try to both embrace differences while adapting to different needs. How can we accomplish this in marketing?
In order to demonstrate how to accomplish this, he made an analogy of marketing in Europe to the anatomical design of a polar bear. At first, Mother Nature asked the polar bear what it wanted to look like, and he requested black skin in order to soak up the sun's rays. Later, the polar bear realized that it might be better to have white skin because there's a lot of snow, since if he's white he'll be protected from his enemies.
Amazingly, Mother Nature found a solution that takes both needs into account. Polar bears have black skins which soak up the sun's rays, and are stored by a layer of blubber underneath this skin. On top of this black skin, the polar bear has a layer of white fur that camouflages him in the snowy climate and helps to keep him safe from his enemies.
He even illustrated Mother Nature's idea of this flexible structure with a diagram of his own (We loved your diagram, Dirk!):
"No one was talking about the threat of resistance. It was an invisible threat – but once it appeared, it was already too late. We gave this threat a face and a name, so people could start talking about it," Mr. Asset explained. "There's an old saying, `If you want to own the solution, you have own the problem.' So we were the ones to start talking about it."
Mr. Assent cautioned that this is only one way of marketing in Europe. Again, there is no official blueprint for marketing in the European Union, only thousands of examples, including this one. However, this was a successful example of how his company was able to create a flexible structure with a coherent message that allowed each individual country to continue to build upon that structure. Each country could change the theme, language, type of crop, and even the story, but the central concept would remain the same.
The end result of this marketing campaign? Bayer was successfully positioned as the leader and preferred partner in integrated weed management.
"There's no blueprint for the perfect European campaign. There's no list of boxes that you can check off to find out if you're doing wrong or right in Europe. That's why today I'm going to talk to you about why marketing in Europe in like a polar bear," Mr. Assent announced.
Mr. Assent continued to explain that although life in Europe seems quite romantic and uncomplicated, this perception changes when we talk about the European Union.
He explained that although the term "union" implies that it works in coordination with other countries in a unified manner. In reality, the European Union is far from a unified entity, especially as a marketplace. To illustrate this point, he explained that the United States has 300 million people who are unified by the same language. Europe, in contrast, has 500 million people and 23 official languages.
"If you're doing business in Europe as a whole, you have to do whatever you do for the US times 23."
It's an oversimplified example, he admitted, yet it clearly presents the magnitude of the challenge of marketing in Europe.
Discovering the Synergies between Different Countries (The Polar Bear Analogy)
Of course, language is only one of the many things dividing the countries. There are also vast social, legal and cultural differences. Instead of harping on these differences, Mr. Asset cautions, they need to be embraced. At the same time, you need to find the common denominator, or synergies, between the many countries.
When marketing in the European Union, he explained, you simply can't create a campaign that tells different groups of people the same story, uses the same pictures, and talks about the same issues.
"It doesn't work, because you aren't embracing the differences", he says. "You have to instead create a flexible structure that adapts to their needs."
At first glance, it seems quite contradictory to try to both embrace differences while adapting to different needs. How can we accomplish this in marketing?
In order to demonstrate how to accomplish this, he made an analogy of marketing in Europe to the anatomical design of a polar bear. At first, Mother Nature asked the polar bear what it wanted to look like, and he requested black skin in order to soak up the sun's rays. Later, the polar bear realized that it might be better to have white skin because there's a lot of snow, since if he's white he'll be protected from his enemies.
Amazingly, Mother Nature found a solution that takes both needs into account. Polar bears have black skins which soak up the sun's rays, and are stored by a layer of blubber underneath this skin. On top of this black skin, the polar bear has a layer of white fur that camouflages him in the snowy climate and helps to keep him safe from his enemies.
He even illustrated Mother Nature's idea of this flexible structure with a diagram of his own (We loved your diagram, Dirk!):
BayerCrop Science: Finding the Common Denominator for all Markets
One of his company's clients, BayerCrop Science, a major player in the herbicide market, offers a wonderful example of a marketing campaign that was successfully turned into a polar bear. Bayer is a company faced with a huge threat to the herbicide market: Resistance. Resistance is similar to the idea of immunity in medications; if a certain type of herbicide is used too much, it's useless in preventing weed growth. One simple solution to the problem is the use of rotation in certain herbicides. But this seemingly simple solution becomes very complicated to discuss in a marketplace such as the European Union. You have different crops in each country, in addition to different products, portfolios, product and trade structures, and topics. How did his company create a marketing campaign that would address the issue individually for each country, in a universal way? They decided to start with talking about the common denominator in each market.
"No one was talking about the threat of resistance. It was an invisible threat – but once it appeared, it was already too late. We gave this threat a face and a name, so people could start talking about it," Mr. Asset explained. "There's an old saying, `If you want to own the solution, you have own the problem.' So we were the ones to start talking about it."
Mr. Assent cautioned that this is only one way of marketing in Europe. Again, there is no official blueprint for marketing in the European Union, only thousands of examples, including this one. However, this was a successful example of how his company was able to create a flexible structure with a coherent message that allowed each individual country to continue to build upon that structure. Each country could change the theme, language, type of crop, and even the story, but the central concept would remain the same.
The end result of this marketing campaign? Bayer was successfully positioned as the leader and preferred partner in integrated weed management.
