Brand is back
And it's here for B2B.
It's always been important for consumer.
Consumer
Brand creates emotion, identity for your customers.
If you Think Different, you get Apple. If you're Born to Ride, you get a Harley.
Making somebody feel makes customers throw out rationality. Irrational buyers accept irrational pricing - and that leads to irrational margins. Brand is most important in luxury.
Luxury goods are the only area in which it is possible to make luxury margins
-Bernard Arnault, Luxury dude
B2B Tech
B2B has examples of this, but it's pretty hard to get excited about a enterprise software. 'Us vs them' positioning is the most common, like Hubspot vs Salesforce or Workday vs Oracle.
But this is a counter position - yourself relative to another. The most powerful brands can build emotion in a vaccuum.
There's some examples of brand done really well. The one I'm most familiar with is Beehiiv. They are a newcomer in the email newsletter space (incumbent was Mailchimp, now more Substack). Webflow used to have strength but has dwindled.
These companies have a few things going for them
- Clear and opinionated positioning
- Strong visual identity - important for social selling
- Rabid customer evangelists
This isn't to say brand is the most important. But it is more important than ever in B2B in a sea of sameness - especially for startups.
"Beginning with brand rather than substance is dangerous." -Peter Theil
It's important not to focus on brand before having a product. For bootstrapped companies, thought, brand can help take down Goliath.