You might assume as an account manager at a B2B demand generation agency like Europa, that I wouldn’t be the obvious author of an article about branding. And while here we don’t spend our days talking about innovative logos or dynamic colour palettes, we do know a thing or two about how important strong branding is when it comes to uncovering opportunities for our clients.
The two marketing worlds interact more than you might think; here I explain how.
The importance of a strong brand name
At the end of one of our recent client campaigns, one of our researcher team remarked about the ease of speaking to key contacts due to our client’s strong and memorable brand name. When calling he found that even if the contact wasn’t sure of what our client did, they were aware of the name and instantly knew that they had a reputable offering. This opened the door to a longer and more in-depth conversation.
To put it bluntly – more opportunities were uncovered as the trust, the reputation, was already there.
The importance of brand awareness and reputation
Some might consider awareness simply as recognising logos, colour schemes, and the like. However, it is a whole lot more than awareness; a company brand is visible whenever there is any interaction with all audiences – especially potential clients.
This interaction builds reputation: all corporate activity and actions help solidify that reputation, and a solid reputation leads to a quicker sale.
How can a Europa-type demand generation campaign contribute to branding?
One of the less obvious benefits of a telephone-based demand generation campaign is that our client’s name is constantly shared with influential decision-makers within key target organisations. This either builds any existing brand awareness, introduces it to a new audience, or through demonstrating an understanding of relevant issues, enhances our client’s reputation.
At Europa, we work with a range of clients with very different levels of brand awareness in their marketplaces. Some have a century or more of trading: others are start-ups or new arrivals.
So we tailor our campaigns to suit this – we might focus our efforts on primarily building brand awareness as our main objective while advising clients to build their reputation through other marketing campaigns. Or, with a better-known brand, we might dig deeper – promoting their proposition and delivering a greater number of opportunities.
So when calling client targets, Europa is not only ‘selling’ to them – we are also promoting the entire branding of our client and its corporate mission. Demand generation and branding go hand-in-hand as we build awareness and nurture a longer-term reputation.
If any of the above resonates with you, then please do get in touch. We’d love to help build awareness of your brand and uncover potential opportunities in the process.
