There are very few prominent B2B brands in the general market. A big reason is that many B2B organizations view marketing as a necessity for B2C firms and instead concentrate on personal selling for B2B relationships. In this neat article by Prof John Quelch, he says that Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and GE generate far more B2B revenues than sales to end consumers.
He further discusses why B2B firms should try to build brands.
B2B marketers have to address thousands of small businesses as well as enterprise customers. They cannot do so economically using the traditional direct sales force. Branding gets the word out and established share of mind. All this helps, when a potential prospect has a need that requires to be fulfilled quickly.
It is highly possible that without proper guidance or consistency, individual sales managers will each do their own ad hoc marketing. The result will be a hodgepodge of corporate logos, taglines, and packaging. Customers will be confused and the company will look disorganized.
B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers’ customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect them against lower-priced competitors. Expanding further throughout the chain does help for longevity and business stability and all B2B businesses prefer that as a high-value 3 year contract does help with regular cash flow for a while.
The professor provides examples of B2B brands:
Intel is the ultimate ingredient brand. It makes zero sales to end consumers, yet Intel built a consumer demand pull for its chips that required every PC manufacturer to incorporate them and to advertise Intel Inside on their products and in their ads.
GE and Microsoft are hybrid brands with some direct-to-consumer sales that have helped to build the reputations of what are primarily B2B firms. Their presence as B2C brands is what defines their daily identity but they’re strong B2B businesses with revenues in the billions. While GE has an advantage of being a venerable brand with multiple interests, Microsoft has had to build both its B2B and B2C identity.
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