Most businesses are focused more than ever when it comes to their objectives and growth plans for the next 1-5 years. With the impact of the pandemic and now a recession – we have to be! There’s no room for not having a solid strategy and plan. Those that aren’t continuing to push forwards and grow will be the organisations most at risk. Here are some of our top tips on how you can make sure your B2B brand is ready to hit the ground running in 2023.
Review your brand strategy
Make sure you have a relevant and clear vision, mission, purpose, brand value proposition and values. Whilst your strategy won’t change often, it’s important to refer back to it continuously. Make sure your brand strategy is still relevant to help you achieve your business goals in the short- and long-term.
If you do need to make tweaks to your strategy, do it now or early in the new year so you can hit the ground running with clarity. Don’t forget that your brand strategy should live and breathe in your organisation. Which brings us nicely onto the next point!
Communicate your brand strategy internally and externally
So, you’ve crafted a brand strategy that’s spot on. It clearly communicates your direction, drive, what makes you different and the leadership team are happy with it. What can then happen is that it sits in a folder on your system and doesn’t really go anywhere! It’s super important to have a clear and consistent plan for embedding your brand strategy into your ongoing communications with your team and clients alike.
For example, team comms meetings are a great place to remind everyone of your brand strategy and how the company is performing against it. Your brand values are also a brilliant asset for making sure your team is on track with your strategy. Just ensure that your values are memorable and meaningful so that your team can see how they help guide them. Your values should be embedded in your HR plan, if they aren’t already, for recruitment, onboarding, and personal development meetings, to measure team performance vs. your values.
Alongside ensuring the essence of your brand is embedded in your sales and marketing campaigns, it’s also essential that your brand is engrained in your customer’s experience. Make sure that your brand experience always lives up to your brand promise at every point of interaction.
Perfect your LinkedIn strategy
LinkedIn is without doubt one of the best channels to build relationships with new and existing clients. Make sure you’re measuring your best performing content and what’s resonating, including the best times and days to post, frequency, etc. Consider what your strategy is for personal, company and paid activities.
Most companies are now posting regularly on their LinkedIn company pages, but are you embracing other effective B2B LinkedIn opportunities? Automation is a fantastic way to take a very targeting approach to building connections with the exact target audience you want to engage with. Once you’ve grown your personal connections, sending out added value automated messages helps build your relationships and warm up cold connections.
LinkedIn ads can also be super targeted. You can also quickly test which messages best resonate with different target segments. Don’t forget, strategy is one thing, but considering the best way to structure your copy, imagery and video is another. You can be seen in the right place, but how engaged is the audience with the content you’re sharing and the style in which you’re sharing it?
Give your website some TLC
So often websites become static, or they aren’t readily reviewed and updated, to make sure they’re performing as well as they should. As a basic, all companies should have an eye on their website traffic, bounce rate, time on site, referral sources and the best performing pages. SEO should also be consistently looked at. How are you ranking vs. competitors and what opportunities do you have to climb up the search rankings. If it isn’t performing as well as it should – why isn’t it?
Websites that are updated more frequently with quality content, considered SEO and healthy backlinks will always outperform the rest. The SEO race is always on. Those that can get ahead, tend to keep ahead and then it’s difficult to challenge their rankings. Make sure you know where you’re at and what your opportunities are. There are lots of ways for all organisations to generate website content. There’s always expertise to be shared and learnings from SEO analysis to generate more relevant traffic and leads.
We hope this article has given you some food for thought when it comes to reviewing and executing your brand strategy. Get in touch with us if you’d like support in any of the areas mentioned in this article!
Email hello@weareembrace.com or call 01625 789050.
This latest thinking article was written by:
Becky Readon
Managing Director
