10 Proven Strategies for Lasting Partnerships

When you’re in the B2B manufacturing world, having loyal clients is like striking gold. These relationships go far beyond making a sale. They’re about building trust, helping each other grow, and making sure both sides succeed for the long haul. But earning that kind of loyalty isn’t always easy.

How to Inspire Customer Loyalty and Achieve Long-Term Success

For B2B companies, it is no longer enough to be just another player in the market. For long-term success and customer loyalty, you need to become a brand your target audience genuinely loves.

Is Your Brand Your Greatest Asset?

If you asked your management team, employees, and customers “who” your company is, what would they say? Would internal and external perceptions align? Would customers agree that the value you provide is the value they feel they are getting?

Why Your Sales Team Needs to Be Your Most Authentic Brand Advocate

Are your sales and marketing functions copacetic? Or are they more like two ships that, if you’re lucky, pass in the night? Aligning your company’s marketing and business development functions:

• Unifies your team
• Builds strategic cohesion
• Keeps the sales pipeline flowing

But … Do Your Employees “Get” Your Brand? 

Are your employees killing your company brand? 

“Great company—possibly one of the best to work for.” 

“You learn to appreciate good companies because almost all companies are better to work for than this one.” 

Which one of these sounds most like what your employees might say? Or perhaps somewhere in-between? These quotes, from online employee reviews, illustrate how important employee perceptions are in shaping external perceptions of a company’s brand. 

The B2B Brand Experience: Make it Personal and Practice Reciprocity

In today’s business environment, there is little to no distinction between a company and its brand. The two are so intertwined that a Weber Shandwick report found that “corporate reputation and brand reputation are now nearly indivisible.”

Is Your B2B Brand Strategy on Target?

Branding is about much more than defining your company and developing products or services. In fact, a recent survey from BuzzStream found out that nearly half of consumers stated they will quickly unfollow a brand that engages in too much self-promotion. It translates to all business relationships—even in B2B, people are interested in what they get from the relationship, not what you are offering. Companies often get caught up in their own B2B branding strategies and goals, which leads to shameless self-promotion and a real disconnect with the target audience.

Powerful Brands Gain Loyalty through Passion and Performance

Everyone knows that loyal customers are the backbone of any successful B2B company. B2B brand loyalty is important—but how passionate are your customers? When you think of people who are passionate about a product, consumables typically come to mind. Picture the hordes of people who wait anxiously and are willing to stand endlessly in long lines for products with an apple on them, or those who won’t (or can’t!) start their day without their favorite branded coffee.

Connect with Consumers Through Your Brand Essence

Social media plays an important role in how consumers discover, research, and share information about industrial manufacturing brands. If social media is not a part of your brand development strategy, learn to embrace Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and the likes because it will only lead to heightened company success. According to Nielsen, Sixty percent of consumers researching products learned about a specific brand through social networking sites. Additionally, Nielsen found that 53% of social networkers follow brands. It is cycle that feeds itself—and it’s evident that a social media presence is critical for communicating your brand essence. If you haven’t adopted a social media strategy, the time is now to do so.