thefunnel

The official version of a web satisfaction case study, based on a project that I worked on a while ago, has now been published. It’s interesting how hours and hours of work can be compressed into a couple of pages. The customer satisfaction results, are very encouraging, but web site improvement is not a one time event, and there need to be a relentless effort in continuous tweaking, and improvement, based on the Voice of the Customer.  For B-2-B technology web sites this can be particularly challenging. Enjoy Web_CaseStudy .

This post might be a bit different to the ones than what I written before, but here’s a question for you all. In B-2-C, who is the stronger brand? The brand manufacturer itself, or the distributor of the brand (assuming it’s not the manufacturer)? There are plenty of articles about this topic (who has the power) and what tactics can be used to deal with it, but I thought this, my particular personal experience was interesting enough to bring up. At my work, I used to have a computer, brand X, that I was really happy with (it actually still works, but it’s a bit limited in speed and capacity). Then I got a new one, brand Y, because I needed an upgrade. Brand Y turns out to be a real disaster. Hard-drive failures, motherboard failing, sluggish, you name it, several times. Some of the software problems probably hasn’t anything to do with the computer itself, but every time I log on, what do I see. Not the operating system,or the network, or the virus checker, but yes, brand Y. So, brand Y is doomed. I will not recommend, actually, I’m an active detractor spreading the bad news, and I will never, ever, buy brand Y again (spending my own money), ever. And all this is confirmed by my organization, who has now signed up with brand Z. Anyway, I need a new personal computer (compatibility, need at least one non, you know), and it’s on sale at one of the distributors of brand Y. To my big surprise, I find myself considering the never, ever brand! Why? Because I trust the distributor, I trust their no questions ask return policy. In fact, I trust the distributor brand way more than the brand (Y) itself, go figure, to the point that I’m willing to take the risk, with my own money! And, I’m a marketing guy who should know better. I think this just shows the real power of the a brand, or  the brand of the carrier of a particular brand. How about that for a Porter’s Five Forces example? Or maybe brand Y was smart enough to even fool the most seasoned marketing guy. Only time and google  side wiki will tell. By all means, like to have some comments for a change.

What is the value and how do you measure a B-2-B brand? A common theme in marketing literature is that the value of a brand can be expressed by two factors: Are customers willing to recommend you, and are they willing to pay a premium? Both factors are obviously good to know and have their own implications on your position and marketing / pricing strategy, but before you start to drill down deeper into the recommend factor, you really don’t have any actionable insight. To look what’s behind whether or not someone will recommend you, you have to look at individual brand attributes. Every brand is different, and you can go as deep or wide as possible, but for many B-2-B products it comes down to the following higher level categories: Price, Product quality, Quality of service and support / technical support, Knowledge of the sales organization / representative and product fit to the customer need. Each of these can be individually measured to further understand for what attribute a company is under-performing or performing well. But, that is not enough, because all customers are not equal and every attribute must be further segmented by various types  customer. At a minimum these are customers, non-customers and competitors customers. Depending on the company strategy existing customers might also have to be segmented into key accounts and others. In addition attributes needs to be segmented by product category. All this creates a challenge for marketers in regards to the qualified sample size, but since brand perceptions change slowly for many b-2-b products, it’s better to measure extensively less frequently, rather than do quick on the surface assessment that only provides artificial non-actionable benchmarks.