H as your brand had a check-up lately?

In business to business marketing, it’s easy for companies to take brand health for granted. Brand health doesn’t show up as a line item on your balance sheet, and you can’t tell exactly how much it’s worth, but if your brand’s health is failing, you can be sure it will negatively impact your financial results. As the economy slows and companies cut back on expenses suddenly redefined as “optional,” how sure are you that the companies you depend on will keep buying from you?

Brand equity is, of course, a key factor in assessing brand health.  Beyond knowing what your current customers think of you, answers to questions like these are critical:
• What do your non-customers think of you?  What do they believe about you that drives them to choose one of your competitors over you?

• If companies decide to buy your products based on the advice of intermediaries, what do the influential intermediaries (like the media, brokers and consultants) say about your company?

• Are you promoting the full experience customers have with your brand or just the features and functionality of your products? Brand equity is not the only risk factor for your brand’s health, however. Focusing exclusively on equity could lead you to ignore the symptoms of more dangerous threats.  Your brand might benefit from consideration of these questions to help you detect potential ailments:

• Customer segmentation. Do you have a clear understanding of your most – and least – profitable customers?  Do you know which companies you want to reach?  Often, B2B marketers target anyone who they believe might buy their product or service, but that broad approach can dilute your brand and hurt your brand health.  By segmenting your potential customer base, you can identify groups of customers with similar needs and expectations.  These segments then can be tied to your expected revenue to highlight who you should – and shouldn’t – pursue.

• Customers’ underlying needs. Do you know what your customers want from you now?  Do they even know?  And what will their needs be in the future?  Truly knowing your customers in their own context can lead to compelling insights about how to satisfy them in new ways and to greater differentiation from your competition.  If you offer new solutions tailored to customer needs in your industry segment, your brand health will improve.

• Marketing positioning and communications. For B2B companies, the brand is an extension of the relationship the purchasers and users have with your services and your sales force.  The degree to which your sales force and marketing materials consistently deliver a differentiated value proposition about you will determine the health of your brand. If we called your customers, could they tell us your value proposition – what makes you unique?

Unfortunately, controlling your positioning is not as easy as controlling your company’s marketing and sales messages. The impressions that customers and prospects have of you determine your positioning.  Is there a disconnect anywhere between your current positioning and what you want it to be?  Do you know how to bridge that gap?  And are your marketing communications helping bridge that gap, or are they just maintaining the status quo?

If you can answer each of the above questions, then you probably have a pretty steady finger on your brand’s pulse.  If not, the right qualitative and/or quantitative research can help you diagnose the problem and prescribe meaningful action to improve your brand’s health and future growth.