Brand experience
What is the prerequisite for a sustainably positive brand experience? Targeted B2B brand management! This ensures that the same messages and images reach both prospective customers and customers at various points of contact and in a wide variety of communication channels. This builds trust and strengthens loyalty.
BRAND EXPERIENCE.
Authentic, relevant, and emotional — three important characteristics for a positive brand perception.
The brand experience refers first of all to the sum of experiences that customers have with a brand in the B2B and technology environment when they interact or come into contact with it. The brand experience is the totality of feelings and impressions that one associates with a brand or a company. This includes products, services, communication, and all other touchpoints. In industrial communication, which is what we specialize in when it comes to brand consulting, there is also the fact that companies from the industrial sector communicate their brand messages to other companies, professionals, and decision-makers. Those we address in discussions are usually a very heterogeneous group. The degree of emotionality varies. Relevance is strongly dependent on the stage in the marketing funnel and the position. Authenticity is the essential link.
Designing the brand experience
A sustainably positive brand experience is crucial for companies, as it can have a direct impact on customer loyalty, reputation, and the long-term success of a brand. For us at the B2B agency, designing brand experiences therefore requires a holistic and customer-focused approach in which all aspects of the company are geared towards creating a positive and memorable perception of the brand.
The goal: long-term customer loyalty
Prospects and customers can associate a brand with positive or negative feelings resulting from their experiences, evaluations, and impressions. Brand experiences are therefore closely linked to emotions and feelings. This makes it all the more important to know and understand the customer. If the brand is customer-centric, if it understands and responds to the needs, desires, and concerns of its customers, if it manages to create a personal and relevant relationship, positive brand experiences are reinforced.
It is important for us as a branding agency to see and shape the entire customer journey — from the first interaction with the brand to purchase and follow-up. Especially in industry, follow-up is the crucial phase. After-sales, service, and support determine whether the brand experience is sustainably positive. If so, brand experience fosters customer retention and loyalty, making customers more likely to buy from the brand repeatedly.
Positive experiences along the customer journey strengthen loyalty to the brand.
Brand positioning, brand identity, and consistent brand management are the source of consistent brand experiences for customers. Coherent messages across different channels and interaction points help to reinforce the identity and message of the company and the B2B brand. Repeatedly outstanding brand experiences also stand out from the competition and help customers prefer one brand over another — even if the brand is not the cheapest in a price comparison.
Christina Bastl
Brand Consulting
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Brand experience in industrial marketing communication
As a B2B agency and brand consultancy, we place a good deal of emphasis on ensuring that the brand experience in industrial marketing communication is aligned with the needs, expectations, and expertise of the target audience. It must offer a balance between technical expertise and customer-focused values in order to build long-term relationships and trust in the business world. For us, these points are important in this regard:
- Specialist orientation: Industrial customers are technically savvy professionals who require specific expertise and technical details. Therefore, the brand experience in industrial communication must offer a balanced mix of technical information and a clear presentation of the value proposition.
- Product focus: In industrial marketing communication, the focus is on complex and technical products and processes. The brand experience has to emphasize the performance, reliability, and innovation of these products while focusing on their benefits to customers.
- Information-intensive communication: Industrial marketing communication often requires extensive and detailed information about products, technical specifications, use cases, industry trends, etc. This information needs to be easily accessible and well understood during the customer journey.
- Personal sales: In the industrial sector, the sales process often thrives on personal interactions and relationships between salespeople and customers. This is a key part of positive brand experiences. Salespeople need to be empowered to support the brand’s values and communicate brand messages effectively.
- Reference stories and success stories: Industrial marketing communication benefits from reference stories and case studies that show the successful use of products or solutions by other customers. This builds trust and positively influences the brand experience.
- Service and support: The quality of customer service and support is crucial in B2B markets. First-class customer support is another key point for positive brand experiences. Service staff have the same importance here as sales staff in the sales process.
- Long-term partnerships: Business in industrial, technology, and B2B markets is often long-term and based on partnerships and trust. The brand experience must consistently emphasize the company’s and brand’s commitment to building and maintaining a long-term relationship and offering ongoing customer support.
Brand experience in industrial and technology markets
For B2B brands, we need to move away from the images of global brands in B2B brand consulting. Global brands address broad target groups worldwide in their overall communication as a company and with their products and services. They live from their strong presence, which is characterized by their brand name, trademark, quality of the brand object, and availability and desirability. And in B2B brand consulting, we need to move away from the image of branded goods, where the brand performs a function for the origin, differentiation, protection, guarantee, and advertising in order to differentiate from other providers in general.