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Foundation

Brand strategy is a crucial aspect of any business's marketing efforts, and B2B industrial marketing is no exception. In this highly competitive industry, developing a strong brand strategy can set your company apart from the competition, increase customer loyalty, and drive long-term success. In this article, we'll explore why brand strategy is so important for B2B industrial marketing, and what you can do to create an effective brand strategy for your company.

## Why is brand strategy foundational for B2B industrial marketing?

### **It differentiates your company from competitors**

A strong brand strategy helps you stand out from the competition by clearly communicating your company's unique value proposition, what sets you apart from your competitors, and what you offer that others don't. This helps customers quickly identify your brand and understand why they should choose your company over others.

### **It builds customer loyalty**

A unique brand strategy not only differentiates your company from the competition but also helps build customer loyalty. When customers have a positive brand experience, they are more likely to choose your company for future business, recommend your company to others, and become ambassadors for your industrial brand.

### **It improves customer engagement**

A well-designed brand strategy improves customer engagement by creating delightful and consistent experiences across all customer touch points, including your company's website, social media channels, product packaging, and customer service interactions. This consistency builds trust and reinforces your brand identity, making it easier for customers to recognize and remember your industrial brand.

### **It supports long-term success**

Having a stable and unwavering brand strategy is crucial for achieving long-term success as it establishes the groundwork for growth. With a clearly defined brand strategy in place, your company can steer clear of being diverted into areas outside of the brand’s specialization and therefore focused on identifying opportunities to enter new markets. In essence, a well-crafted brand strategy serves as a blueprint for expansion.

## How to create an effective brand strategy for B2B industrial marketing

### **Conduct market research**

In order to devise a brand strategy that truly resonates with your target audience, it's imperative to conduct market research to gain a comprehensive understanding of their needs, preferences, and what they seek in a B2B industrial marketing company. By doing so, you'll be able to use this information as a foundation for crafting a brand strategy that deeply resonates with your target audience.

### **Define your brand positioning**

After gaining a comprehensive understanding of your target audience, you can begin crafting your brand positioning strategy. This involves determining the category in which your company can take the lead, as well as the specialization or benefit that you can offer to your customers. By doing so, you'll be able to create a distinctive value proposition that distinguishes you from your competitors and highlights what sets you apart from the rest.

### **Develop your brand identity**

Armed with your research and positioning you can now tweak or overhaul a creative and memorable brand identity system. This includes your brand’s Verbal Identification: name, slogan, messaging, etc. and your brand’s Visual Identification: logo, icon, and other supporting graphics and images. This is the most important part of an effective brand strategy as it is your brand’s identity that keeps your company top of mind vs your competitors.

### **Create a consistent brand experience**

Create a consistent brand experience across all customer touch points, including your company's website, social media channels, product packaging, and customer service interactions. This consistency reinforces your brand identity, improves customer engagement, and makes sure that the customer experience is reinforcing all of your marketing efforts.

### **Measure and refine:**

Finally, measure the success of your brand strategy and make refinements as needed. Collect customer feedback, analyze your brand metrics, and use this information to make improvements to your brand strategy and continue to improve your customer's brand experience.

In conclusion, a solid brand strategy should be the footing that determines the success of all future B2B industrial marketing efforts. Using the blueprint above, developing a brand strategy will set your B2B industrial brand apart from its category competitors, increase customer loyalty, and drive long-term success.

When it comes to internet marketing, industrial businesses tend to be a bit late to the party.

Many B2B companies are just beginning their digital journey. They may be upgrading an ancient website from the pre-social media era. Or, they may be building their first-ever website.

Whatever the case may be, B2B business leaders get a lot of conflicting website advice.

One of the most important decisions when considering a new website is the choice of CMS. A CMS, or Content Management System, is where your marketing team will spend a lot of time. A CMS is a tool for organizing, editing, and publishing all website content. It's the brain powering your website.

Choosing the wrong CMS can cost your business a lot of time, money, and frustration. There are hundreds of different tools out in the wild. Each CMS has slightly different functionality, pros, and cons depending on its intended use case. A great CMS for one business might be a terrible choice for another. Even businesses that sell the same product may prefer one CMS to another for a variety of personal and technical reasons.

Today we'll look at the top eight content management systems on the market for B2B industrial companies. Let's get started!

## **8. [Squarespace](https://www.squarespace.com/)**

Do you need a fast website up and running within a week? Do you have a low budget for website development? If you answered yes to either of these questions then Squarespace might be the best choice for you! This platform allows users to create full websites right from their browser. Little to no coding knowledge is required. Content management is easy, even for beginners.

### **Pros**

- Ideal for startups or low-budget businesses.
- Easy to set up and manage.
- Offers a wide range of good-looking templates.
- Pre-built integrations make it easy to set up and use popular apps.
- No coding knowledge is required.

### **Cons**

- Large or complex websites can become difficult to manage.
- It can be challenging or impossible to build heavily customized features in their ecosystem.
- Limited customization options on templates.
- Unable to fully optimize performance.
- Difficult to implement advanced SEO strategies.
- Risk of losing all website content if the CMS platform experiences technical difficulties.

## **7. [HubSpot CMS Hub](https://www.hubspot.com/products/cms) (CRM as a CMS)**

Even if you aren't familiar with content management systems, you might know this acronym: CRM.

Some customer relationship management (CRM) platforms offer website builders as well. This means your marketing data and website content live together in one place. This combination can be extremely powerful.

HubSpot CMS Hub is a great example of this feature. Its web and marketing features work together seamlessly. There are some limitations to this platform, but it may be a good option for companies that embrace CRM technology.

### **Pros**

- Direct integrations with CRM tools for analytics, lead tracking, and more.
- Manage your website and marketing assets from one system.
- Sales, marketing, and management teams can collaborate easily

### **Cons**

- Limited customization options.
- Underwhelming technical performance. Difficult to optimize.
- Difficult to execute advanced SEO strategies.
- Steep learning curve.

## **6. [Joomla](https://www.joomla.org/)**

Joomla is a free and open-source CMS. This platform helps non-developers create visually appealing websites. It comes without some of the technical challenges of more advanced platforms.

Joomla has a powerful user management system and multi-language support by default. It's a good option for content-heavy international websites.

### **Pros**

- Free-to-use, open-source platform.
- Easy to set up and manage, even for beginners.
- Decent for SEO optimization.
- Offers a wide variety of high-quality plugins.
- Provides advanced user management.

### **Cons**

- Performance can be slow and may require more server resources.
- Many useful plugins require payment.
- Free templates have limited functionality.
- May encounter issues with specific browsers.
- Customization options can be limited.

## **5. [Drupal](https://www.drupal.org/)**

Drupal has been around for over 20 years, making it one of the most mature CMS platforms on the market. This platform is more complicated to set up compared to something like Joomla. Using Drupal to its full potential requires experience and coding knowledge.

On the other hand, Drupal's customization is more powerful than simpler platforms. It is a high-performance tool for large websites. Drupal websites can handle millions of simultaneous views without a decrease in speed!

### **Pros**

- Can handle complex and large websites with heavy traffic.
- Open source with a strong development community.
- Provides a high level of security.
- Great performance and technical customization.

### **Cons**

- Not beginner-friendly due to a steep learning curve.
- Requires coding knowledge.
- High system requirements.
- Limited plugins (modules).
- Few templates are available; most websites are custom.

## **4. [Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/ca)**

Shopify is the best option for e-commerce connected websites. Despite its many competitors, none offer the suite of tools that Shopify does. It's an easy-to-use platform for e-commerce setups large and small.

Shopify can be configured in a variety of ways depending on your needs. It may be used as a full CMS, or integrated with other platforms as an e-commerce handler.

Shopify has a robust library of plugins and templates that non-technical people can configure. Developers can edit these plugins to customize them even further. Shopify is a great platform to consider if you have any kind of online store.

### **Pros**

- Offers tons of customizable themes and plugins.
- Simple to set up.
- Easy to add, edit, or remove commerce items.
- There are many developers and tutorials available.
- Integrates with multiple channels (Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and Facebook).

### **Cons**

- Built primarily for e-commerce, so content management functionality can be limited.
- Not fully optimized for speed.
- Plugins can be expensive.
- Transaction fees range from 0.5% to 2%.

## **3. [Webflow](https://webflow.com/)**

Webflow is a popular low-code CMS solution that has gained traction in recent years. It enables designers and marketers to create dynamic websites with little or no coding experience. Unlike many other CMSs, Webflow has a plugin-free ecosystem. It features a variety of customizable templates. Compared to other options on the list, Webflow is one of the fastest and easiest. However, it is not as user-friendly as the simplest tools like Squarespace.

### **Pros**

- No need for plugins.
- Fast development time.
- Scalable websites for small to large organizations.
- Secure hosting.
- User-friendly, allowing for easy updates and the creation of complex features with little experience.

### **Cons**

- Limited default options for Ecommerce.
- Limited customization of code.
- Steeper learning curve compared to similar builders like Wix or Squarespace.

## **2. Headless CMS ([Strapi](https://strapi.io/), [Sanity](https://www.sanity.io/), [Contentful](https://www.contentful.com/), [DatoCMS](https://www.datocms.com/))**

Traditional CMSs are monolithic in structure. This means the front end (what users see) and the back end (what editors see) are closely connected. A headless CMS decouples these two sides.

There are benefits to separating the back-end and front-end. With a headless CMS, your content lives independently from the design of your website. This makes your website more secure. It allows you to more easily change the design of your website while retaining your CMS data.

A headless CMS may also be faster and more reliable in some cases than a traditional CMS.

There are many headless CMS options. More hit the market every year. A headless CMS must pair with a front-end framework like [NextJS](https://nextjs.org/), [Gatsby](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/), [Vue.js](https://vuejs.org/), or [NuxtJS](https://nuxtjs.org/).

Together, front end frameworks and headless CMSs create a powerful and secure ecosystem.

### **Pros**

- Provides the most secure way to manage content.
- Offers extreme flexibility with few limitations.
- Can be custom tailored to each business.
- Advanced SEO configuration is simple.
- Easy to scale from small to large websites.
- Provides omnichannel marketing capability.
- Performance is easy to manage.

### **Cons**

- Setting up requires diverse coding knowledge.
- Can be more expensive than other options.
- Templates must be custom created.
- Content previews can be a challenge depending on the headless platform.

## **1. [WordPress](https://wordpress.com/)**

Our number 1 pick for a CMS is also the world's top choice: WordPress.

WordPress is the most popular CMS, and has been for many years. Over [30% of the top 1 million websites](https://trends.builtwith.com/cms) in the world use it.

WordPress is so popular due to its flexibility, plugin ecosystem, and powerful user management tools. Although WordPress is most often used as a traditional CMS, it may be used as a headless CMS, too.

Whatever website idea you have, WordPress has the flexibility and plugins you need to make it a reality.

### **Pros**

- Has a vast knowledge base.
- Offers plugins for nearly every problem.
- Is flexible and easy to manage.
- Can be configured and scaled for businesses of all sizes.
- Is fully open source.
- Has millions of templates to choose from.
- Offers the option for headless CMS functionality.

### **Cons**

- Security can be an issue depending on the setup, potentially leaving it vulnerable to hacking.
- Requires updates and maintenance to use safely.
- Can become slow and unstable without proper care.
- Customization can be expensive.
- Lacks much innovation in the default setup.

When businesses choose a content management system, they must consider their goals and the tools they need to integrate. This is an important decision that can either empower a business or waste time and money. There is no perfect CMS. Companies must weigh the pros and cons of each to find the right solution. From SquareSpace for startups on a budget to headless CMSs with endless customization options, each CMS has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Are you struggling to choose the right CMS for your industrial business? Don't worry, BlackBean Marketing is here to help! [Contact us directly](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/b2b-marketing-consultation) for a free consultation to see if we can assist you in making that decision!

## Project Management is Essential to Your Project’s Success

Picture it. You and your Marketing Manager have just come up with some great ideas to meet your 2023 business goals. You’ve received your BlackBean proposal, and you’re all set to sign off until you spot that one line item: Project Management. Project Management is often an unseen and misunderstood force. That PM line item can be confusing: what am I paying for? Here’s a secret: it’s critical to the success of your project. A Project Manager is often your biggest champion. She's the glue holding it all together. They live and breathe your project, freeing you up to do what you do best.

## What is a Project Manager?

The short answer is: solid gold.

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/VLe9cJCjYWXLy/giphy.gif)

The long answer is, they play a part in every step of your project. PMs plan and organize everything before kick-off. They analyze, evaluate, schedule, and charter project tasks and deliverables. PMs keep everything in scope while managing and mitigating risk.

Project Management is like an iceberg. Much of the work they do is invisible to clients, but that doesn't make it unimportant. Each project requires six to ten detailed documents before any other work begins. In the end, this pre-work saves you money -- and your agency a big headache.

Let's do a deep dive into what a PM does, and see why they are essential to the success of your project.

## The Role of a Project Manager

Project management is the glue that holds your project together. Marketing projects are complex and detailed. A dedicated, organized PM spearheads the project.

Most marketing projects include several (or many) stakeholders. They range from designers and developers to clients, management boards, and other project influencers.

The role of the project manager is to handle communications, budgets, plans, and project data. Misalignment derails projects all the time. It's the PM's job to follow up with project stakeholders throughout the timeline to maintain alignment. They provide leadership, oversight, and focus to deliver on time and on budget.

As a key stakeholder, you might have three main concerns about project management: budget, deadline, and quality.

In a perfect world, every project would go smoothly. Nobody would have to worry about anything! We know that's not how the world works.

In reality, a PM greases the wheels. They ensure project success by overcoming obstacles and settling disputes and issues. A PM's many duties include:

- Realistic project planning with clear goals and purpose
- Scheduling your project for the production team, ensuring their focus
- Reducing costs by improving efficiency, mitigating risk, and optimizing resources
- Controlling scope to ensure that projects stay on budget
- Change management, helping clients adjust to new processes
- Defining team roles to eliminate confusion
- Identifying and assigning responsibilities for every project deliverable
- Serving as the primary point of contact, including weekly and monthly project updates
- Ensuring deliverables are of high quality, and match the project requirements

## Summary: The Power of PMs

Project Managers take control of the process from start to finish. By ensuring goals and initiatives are strategically aligned, they support stakeholders and keep both sides of the project team happy.

The PM is a planner and a scheduler. More importantly, they're a realist. PMs know the danger of reactive management. A reactive project is a project in survival mode. A good PM will make proactive choices to keep a project on track.

Without a project manager, every other stakeholder takes on the mental burden of planning and organizing. This is a sure-fire way to create misalignment between teams. Deliverables and timelines get missed. Nobody's happy in the end. Better project planning (from a PM) equals better projects and better results.

## Endorsements still matter in 2023

Your happy customers are a potential gold mine for your ongoing marketing efforts. Customer reviews are one of the most effective tools for generating B2B leads. Now more than ever, candid reviews by real humans contribute to sales success. Anyone can hire a copywriter to write flashy marketing documents, but a testimonial is real. It’s won by doing excellent work and selling exceptional products.

Despite the power of collecting customer reviews, many businesses struggle to tap into it. We get it – you don’t want to pester your clients, and maybe you’re even a little nervous that they might decline to comment — or have something bad to say.

We’re here to cast your doubts aside. Asking for customer testimonials doesn’t have to be intimidating. Here are six ideas to help you collect and use customer reviews to grow your marketing potential.

## You don’t know until you ask

It can be hard to stomach, but any feedback is good feedback. Many businesses don’t want to ask for a review in fear of hearing that their customers were dissatisfied or unwilling to give a positive endorsement.

The truth is, if you don’t ask, you don’t know — but your customers still feel whatever they feel! If you’re brave enough to reach out and ask for feedback, you win no matter what answer you receive. If their feedback is negative, you have an opportunity to right whatever’s wrong and be proactive in mending the relationship. If it’s positive, you have a great review to use however you see fit.

## **Let them sing your praises**

Happy customers want to sing your praises. They might even beat you to the punch! Maybe you find a kind email in your inbox raving about how amazing your team is. Well, guess what? You’ve got yourself a testimonial! 

All you have to do is reply with a thank you and a request to use their comments as a review. If their email isn’t meaty enough for your needs, ask if you can hop on the phone to chat more about it. By catching them at the right moment – when they’re already basking in your glow – you’ll have a better chance of getting a great testimonial!

## **Throw them a bone**

If the fear of asking for too much is holding you back from collecting testimonials, work on making the process easier for your customers. Consider the personality of each client and tailor your request accordingly. If you know that Paul loves to chat on the phone, offer to call him for 5 minutes. And if Randall is more of an email guy, send him two or three simple prompts to which he can type up a reply. 

No matter how you collect the responses, be prepared to guide your customers if they aren’t sure what to say. You don’t want to put words in their mouths, but remind them of comments they may have made to you in passing or ask how they felt when the project was complete. A little coaxing may be all it takes.

If you need some inspiration, how about this list of [15 Testimonial Questions to Ask your Happy Clients](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EHbUd2Kgre7DMLMW6Cf78S6XRqAvgeUOxODq_-Li1Ro/edit?usp=sharing)?

## **Keep It Simple, Silly**

There are many platforms for leveraging reviews. You might put them on your website, toss them in a proposal or pitch deck, or broadcast them on social media. Regardless of how they will live out in the world, keep reviews simple and to the point.

You do NOT need a 1,000 word essay from each customer. Attention spans are short. Reviews should highlight something your product or team does exceptionally well. Long, detailed breakdowns are better left for case studies and white papers.

If you get a long-winded reply from a customer, edit it down into a digestible sound bite. You want to get the meat of the matter as quickly as possible. Your readers will thank you!

## You’re great. **Prove it!**

Once you complete your customer testimonial, consider ways to back up the claims. Do you have data supporting how much you improved your customer’s production efficiencies? If so, find a way to incorporate that into the final piece. While your future customers will love to hear positive comments about you, they’ll also want the evidence of ROI!

In fact, consider including short testimonials as part of your case studies and product brochures. Combining hard facts and evidence with personal testimony is a powerful sales motivator.

## Please Sir, can I have some more?

Sometimes you need more than a quote or short paragraph from your customer. If you’re writing an entire case study, for example, you may want to expand a review into a case study or content feature. If so, consider the following:

- **Identify opportunities early** – If you can tell that a particular customer relationship is going well from the get-go, plant the seed early that you’d like to feature them in a case study. This way, they’ll be prepared for your request and might even start thinking about what they could say as they continue to work with you.
- **Ensure their comfort** – Case studies often have a lot of detail about the company you’re highlighting. Don’t blow your shot at capturing a great story because your customer gets uncomfortable with what’s being shared. Work together to ensure nothing confidential is disclosed, and they don’t feel negatively about the finished product.
- **Pay it forward** – Your customer may have gone above and beyond to contribute to your case study or testimonial. How can you return the favour? It could be as simple as picking up their coffee tab, sharing their latest LinkedIn post, or referring their business to someone in your network. Find a way to keep building on that great relationship!

Next time you see an opportunity to collect a customer testimonial or case study, don’t hesitate to make it happen! The worst that can happen is that your customer says they don’t have the time. And that’s okay; there are other fish in the sea – but you’ll never know until you ask.

At BlackBean, we’re accustomed to working with businesses that are just beginning their marketing journey. Our clients may be established and profitable companies, but their marketing knowledge is low. In many cases, their marketing strategy only recently became a priority due to increased global and regional competition. 

Often when we ask our prospects what kind of marketing they’d like to do, we get a pretty vague answer: “all of it.”

Nobody wants to miss out on an opportunity. There are many paths to marketing success, and each can support the other. A marketing strategy that accounts for every available opportunity is known as an omnichannel strategy.

Today, let’s look at omnichannel marketing for B2B companies. We’ll define omnichannel marketing in more detail, offer some pros and cons for businesses considering an omnichannel strategy, and give examples of how omnichannel marketing can support a B2B brand.

## What is omnichannel marketing?

At its most basic level, omnichannel marketing simply means marketing through every available avenue. Omni meaning all; channel meaning path, opportunity, vehicle.

In practice, omnichannel marketing has a few more defining characteristics. The most important characteristic is its customer-centric philosophy.

Omnichannel marketing strategies strive to provide a consistent customer experience across all brand interactions. It means that whether customers interact with your brand in print, online, or in-store, they’re getting the same message in the same voice, emphasizing the same product benefits.

### Which channels are “omnichannel”?

Ideally, an omnichannel strategy lives up to its name. If you *can* be represented somewhere, you should be. In practice, not every channel is equally worthy.

There are few businesses whose marketing budgets are so vast that they can throw money at every opportunity. “Omnichannel” should never become a synonym for “underfunded and undersupported”. Instead, omnichannel marketing should focus on doing the best job possible on the most channels possible, emphasizing valuable channels at the expense of niche or risky ones.

For B2B businesses, an omnichannel strategy should include, at a minimum:

- Digital advertising (search/display)
- Email marketing (newsletters, updates, offers)
- Website/content marketing (articles, white papers, guides, case studies)
- Direct marketing (cold outreach, ABM)
- Social media marketing (organic/paid posting, affiliate marketing)
- Other inbound marketing channels (live chat, phone call, text message)

Remember that omnichannel marketing is all about consistent customer experience. Each of the above strategies should support (and be supported by) your sales and support team.

### Omnichannel marketing example: Apple

An easy consumer example of a company that excels at omnichannel marketing is Apple. Their visual brand is minimalist, clean, and high-tech. You’ll never see a cluttered, visually busy iPhone ad. Not online, nor on TV, nor printed on a bus shelter.

That brand experience extends to their Apple Stores — famously among the most profitable retail spaces per square foot. It shines through in their annual Keynote events. Even their product packaging places an emphasis on quality, minimalism, and sophistication.

This constant reinforcement of brand attributes is the true power of omnichannel marketing. Everywhere consumers go, they interact with Apple marketing content. Each interaction reinforces Apple’s brand strengths, helping them maintain their position as the world’s premiere developer of mobile and computing hardware.

In fact, Apple’s marketing strategy flies in the face of some common assumptions about marketing. For instance, instead of maximizing retail shelf space, Apple strictly controls its product placements. They would rather have fewer square feet that conform with their exacting brand standards. Even in big box stores like Best Buy, Apple invests in custom furnishings and displays to differentiate their section of the store from the rest. This “store within a store” model is now widely adopted by brands looking to offer a premium, tailored experience.

Product packaging is something customers only experience once. After the product’s unboxed, the box goes in the recycling bin. Yet Apple invests heavily in product packaging. Why?

Because of their commitment to customer experience. In the age of the unboxing video, having the nicest packaging is a product differentiator. Opening a brand-new iPhone *feels* special. Flagship mobile devices compete pretty evenly on technical specs. When the facts are about even, it’s feelings that move more units. Apple gets it.

## Does omnichannel marketing work for B2B brands?

B2B brands experience radically different sales cycles than consumer brands like Apple. Does omnichannel marketing work for companies that sell heavy industrial equipment, or specialized electrical controls?

An argument can be made that omnichannel marketing is more potent for long B2B sales cycles than it is for consumer goods. Though a person may use their iPhone every day, the sales cycle from initial research to final purchase might only be a few days on average. Of course, the strength of omnichannel marketing is that it’s always working away on consumers, ensuring your brand is top-of-mind for whenever customers make a purchasing decision.

For B2B companies, sales cycles might take *years*. Often, industrial companies capture prospects at the research phase. Put up a landing page, run an ad campaign, collect email sign-ups for prospecting.

What’s happening to those prospects in between sales communications? Without an omni-channel marketing strategy in place, they’re either left without any brand interactions… or they’re interacting with your competitor’s brand!

Although omnichannel marketing can generate leads for B2B companies, what it does best is protect and nurture opportunities. Omnichannel marketing can be a powerful tool for B2B brands because it supports prospect nurturing while defending valuable leads from being scooped up by competitors. 

## How to get started with omnichannel marketing? Develop a brand promise.

You know how 90% of an iceberg is below water? Planning an omnichannel marketing strategy is a bit like an iceberg. Planning and research are invisible but essential components to the strategy. Getting your message and position just right is absolutely critical, even if that planning and research never directly reaches your customer’s eyes.

The first thing to do is to collect customer data. Naturally, for an omnichannel strategy, we want omnichannel data. Everything from website analytics to in-person sales data can help marketers understand their audience better. The goal here is not to build infinite buyer personas, or to identify every single message that may resonate with purchasers. Instead, we’re seeking the universal: the message that encapsulates your product, buying experience, and brand — let’s call it a brand promise.

### What’s your brand promise?

You may have clued in to the fact that omnichannel marketing and [branding](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/industrial-marketing-services/brand-strategy) are closely related. Because every marketing channel supports such different types of content and messaging, finding a strong general position encourages consistency across channels while allowing each to play to its strengths.

We might call that generally-specific message a “brand promise”. A brand promise is a general statement of value that informs customers of the benefits of your product and business. Apple’s brand promise is “Think different”, for example. Coors Light’s is “the world’s most refreshing beer.”

In both cases, the promise made is emotional or subjective rather than a literal or factual. There’s little that Apple does that is truly “different”, and as one of the biggest brands in the world, purchasing an Apple product is hardly an example of “thinking differently”. Equally, “refreshing” can mean different things to different people.

But we know what both promises *mean*. We can see the *Think Different*-ness of Apple’s marketing campaigns. The other tech companies are boring stiffs who don’t “get it”. Apple is the people’s tech company: hip, cool, progressive, attractive. Buying Apple means tapping into this cool factor. 

Here’s a practical example of how this brand promise works. From a technical perspective, a Windows computer can accomplish any creative task that a MacBook can. Windows PCs typically offer faster hardware for a lower price. But Macs are the de facto work stations for creatives. Entire industries pay a massive surcharge on their hardware because their workers demand Macs. That’s the power of “thinking differently”.

Researching and planning an omnichannel marketing should start by identifying a strong brand promise. This isn’t something that gets brainstormed in a single meeting on a Friday afternoon. As the beating heart of your omnichannel strategy, a brand promise deserves more care and attention.

## Live your promise: applying your brand to each channel

One you’ve settled on a brand promise, it’s time to express it. Take an inventory of each channel your business currently uses, and each you’d like to use in the future. Ensure your reach extends only as far as your grasp. That is, be realistic about what you can accomplish this month, this quarter, this year. If you have to start with a multi-channel strategy instead of going full omni-, that’s OK.

The brand promise is the root of all our messaging. For each channel, we need to understand the types of messages that work best. Then, we develop messages specifically for each channel that support that promise.

### Example: understanding Instagram for B2B

For example, let’s break down Instagram as a messaging channel:

- Heavily image-based
- Support for short-form and live video
- Typically consumer-focused
- Used recreationally by a wide audience; many niche topics available, organized by hashtag
- Strengths: immediacy, strong visual branding potential, reaching prospects at home/outside of work
- Weaknesses: poor at communicating complex messages, users demonstrate lower business intent than platforms like LinkedIn, hard to execute without creative support

A proper breakdown should be more targeted and thorough based on your industry, brand promise, and positioning. We can draw some general conclusions from this high-level summary. Content on Instagram should be immediate and focused on visuals. Complex topics should be avoided, as they are hard to communicate on the platform. Finding (and understanding) the right niche via relevant hashtags is especially important for reaching B2B prospects on typically B2C platforms. Since we’re reaching people outside of work or on their coffee break, we don’t want to beat them over the head with product features and economic benefits. This is a good place for soft selling.

Let’s once again consider Apple as an example. Their Instagram feed is full of artistic video and photography, targeting the hashtag #ShotOniPhone. You won’t find many product shots or technical explanations. Instead, they focus on a singular product feature — their camera technology — and contextualize it for their audience and for the platform. Look at these great photographers who *Think Different*. If you had an iPhone, you too could *Think Different*.

### The right message for the right channel

B2B brands should seek similar angles. Maybe your brand promise involves going the extra mile for every customer. Perhaps your Instagram account can support that brand promise by highlighting unique stories from the people on your support team? There are many ways to leverage casual communication channels for business gain. Find the fun, the silly, the cool, the romantic… whatever it is, find an angle that supports your brand without trying to turn the channel into something it isn’t.

The beauty of omnichannel marketing is that not every channel needs to be a direct lead generator in order to contribute to selling success. Having your business represented outside of working hours in a personal, relatable way has an impact on customer perception during the work week. People buy from people (and brands) they like; don’t be afraid to make someone smile, even if it doesn’t directly support your selling strategy.

## Is omnichannel marketing right for my business?

Not every business is ready to embrace omnichannel marketing. It’s a complex strategy most suited to larger businesses with the budget and resources to invest in all forms of content marketing, from articles to video.

That is not to say that smaller businesses must avoid omnichannel marketing. Businesses of any size with the right mix of creativity, marketing investment, and sales expertise can leverage omnichannel marketing. As long as the first commitment made is to quality — that every article and every post be valuable to your audience — expanding to many channels is a great way to enrich your marketing performance.

### Omnichannel pros and cons

The benefits of omnichannel marketing include:

- Expanded reach. Ensure your brand lives everywhere your customers do
- A marketing playground. Leveraging many marketing channels opens up opportunities to be creative and try new angles
- Protection from competition. Extending your brand reach wards off competitors. Make sure your customers find you on social media, not your competition.
- Many paths to purchasing. Not all customers are the same. Offering multiple paths from research to purchase reduces friction and ensures a good customer experience for a wider audience.
- Strategic thinking baked in. By identifying a brand promise and leveraging it to build an omnichannel messaging strategy, you’ll learn more about your business and institute a framework that ensures brand potency and consistency.

Some drawbacks of omnichannel marketing are:

- Expensive, especially for smaller businesses. Doing great marketing across five or ten distinct channels is complex and time-consuming. Therefore, it can get expensive quickly.
- A slow burn. Executing an omnichannel strategy (and reaping its many benefits) can take months or even years. It is a long-term investment in marketing success, not a short-term lead generating strategy.
- Can be risky. Expanded messaging, including more casual, personal messaging, can introduce risk into your marketing. There’s always a chance that a joke won’t land, or an anecdote will inadvertently offend.
- Requires full-team buy-in. This is arguably a benefit, but it’s surely a challenge. Providing a consistent customer experience across every brand interaction requires full buy-in. Your sales, marketing, support, and management teams all need to contribute to pull it off.

## The bottom line: brand matters

At the core of marketing is branding. No matter how much money you throw at marketing, it simply won’t work if the message isn’t right.

Omnichannel marketing enhances the importance of messaging. If you commit to an omnichannel marketing strategy without building a strong brand promise, you don’t just get your messaging wrong once. You get it wrong for each and every channel. That’s a costly mistake.

If you’re interested in expanding your marketing strategy to new channels, why not start with a brand audit? We can help you [dig deep](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/insights/cat-digs-deep-on-branding--industrial-brand-strategy) and find what really matters to your business and your customers.

BlackBean Marketing is a marketing agency for blue-collar innovators. Our expertise is in marketing and sales enablement for industry and manufacturing -- from metalworking to biotechnology. Industrial businesses have unique sales and marketing challenges. We aim to solve them with you. \
Whether you need sales document design, strategic consulting, content development, or a powerful new website, our interdisciplinary team can service your request. We're personable, agile, and creative. We're BlackBean Marketing.

An industrial marketing agency in service of your growth

Marketing

Branding

Web Dev

What can we do for you? Our team can handle your marketing needs, no matter how wide-ranging or complex they may be.

Services

Our Clients

Bolt-on

Industrial Marketing Agency

Bolt-on marketing performance for B2B industrial companies.

D. Williams

Cost effective, and profitable ad campaign

CaraGreen - Marketing Support

Green building materials supplier CaraGreen came to us with an advertising problem. Their search advertising campaigns delivered clicks in spades — thousands each month. What they didn’t do was deliver value.

Lacking in strategy, conversion tracking, and product focus, their ad campaigns failed to deliver on metrics that really matter for businesses: leads, sales, and revenue.

We worked with CaraGreen to scope out and implement a new campaign, develop landing pages, and improve lead attribution. The result? More leads — *way more leads* — for less money.

We began our advertising engagement with CaraGreen by conducting a campaign audit. The first step to fixing a problem is to understand it. Through our audit, we identified the following key issues:

- Conversions were improperly tracked. According to Google Ads, nearly 100% of users converted. In reality, less than 1% of paid search users took action.
- Ads sent users to low-value web pages. Rather than sending users to a lead generating landing page, many users arrived on blog pages without a clear path to converting.
- Target keywords were vague and low-intent. The campaigns were structured to focus on click volume, not performance metrics like lead generation rate.

The audit revealed a fundamental lack of campaign direction and intent. Our job was clear: structure a campaign that focused on delivering leads, not clicks and impressions.

Through keyword and competitor research and user behaviour analysis, we identified two product categories that were ideal candidates for paid advertising: recycled countertop materials and acoustic wall panels. We developed two landing pages for each product category. One page for each included a quote request form. The other was a click-through page, intended to funnel users toward valuable pages on the main CaraGreen site. The new pages include accurate conversion tracking. We also installed a live chat application on the website and landing pages to offer another path for users to connect with CaraGreen.

We developed a new ad campaign with an ad group for each targeted product. Based on our keyword research, we selected a tight group of exact match keywords for each ad group. Paired with an extensive negative keyword list, we knew the updated campaign would generate fewer clicks of far greater quality.

Engagement metrics from advertising traffic immediately improved when the new campaign and landing pages launched. Everything from average time on page to average pages per session improved dramatically. But page views aren’t revenue. What about business metrics?

Lead generation conversion rate improved from less than 0.5% to over 7%. The campaign consistently delivers leads at a cost per acquisition of less than $25. Based on the client’s estimated closing rate and average customer value, the campaign offers up to 7.5X return on marketing investment.

By focusing on advertising fundamentals and business outcomes, we implemented an efficient, cost effective, and profitable ad campaign, transforming paid search from one of CaraGreen’s least efficient marketing channels to its most efficient.

Background

Challenge

Solution

Results

Improving Key Areas

EMC Canada - Marketing & Website Development

They say a rising tide lifts all ships. When EMC Canada engaged with us, their dated website left campaigns marooned, hurting conversion rates and dampening user engagement. Working with EMC, we identified several challenges that undermined the impact of their website for marketing important events and programs. By addressing these challenges, we were able to improve overall website visibility and campaign conversion rates, all through our easy-to-use proprietary content management system, Bene CMS.

We worked with EMC to identify several key areas for improving the website:

- The previous website was difficult to manage for content editors, often requiring developer involvement to make simple changes.
- The look and feel of the website was dated. Staff were concerned that prospective members may be turned off by the old-fashioned design.
- Content was poorly organized and hard to find. Users struggled to find important events and programs.
- Given Quebec’s large manufacturing sector, improving the user experience for French-speaking Canadians was paramount.

As EMC’s website serves as a portal for their programming and events, improving user experience would improve the efficiency of all active and future campaigns. The website itself would be our “rising tide”, improving marketing performance across the board.

We broke the problem down into several distinct project phases: a design consultation, where we collected feedback from users across the organization; an in-depth wireframing and website architecture project, aimed at reducing website complexity and improving usability; a website development project, where we enacted our recommended changes; and a brand refresh, where we upgraded the organization’s branding to suit its new website.

We improved French language support on the website with an embedded translation feature. Our wireframing and website architecture project significantly reduced the number of clicks required to navigate to critical content. EMC staff communicated a desire to make the website feel bright and clean. The new website and accompanying brand refresh do away with dark, muddy colours in favour of a clean, modern aesthetic.

We were able to realize results for each identified core challenge. Our streamlined Bene CMS content management platform made content editing easy for staff. French Canadian user growth improved by 273% since launching the new website. The new brand delivers better marketing performance. Site-wide conversion rate improved by 26%. Conversion rates for their most important service offering, the WILWorks program, increased by 177%. Streamlined website architecture improves SEO performance, as well. Since June 2022, EMC Canada’s organic web traffic has increased by 19%.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

Website

UI/UX-First Website Design

Skills Centre - Website Development

Skills Centre is an employment and career services agency operating out of British Columbia's rugged West Kootenay region. As the largest provider of employment services in the region, thousands of people rely on Skills Centre services to upgrade job skills, find work, and access community resources. Skills Centre engaged with BlackBean in 2021 to rebuild their website in order to better serve their organizational objectives.

The previous Skills Centre website presented a unique UI/UX challenge. The website received tons of organic search traffic and high engagement from its many visitors, but not the *right kind* of engagement. Users arrived on the popular regional job board, leaving before exploring Skills Centre's training and employment services. These services are Skills Centre's core mandate, but remained underutilized by its prospective clients.

Our solution was to 'go with the flow'. Skills Centre successfully attracts dozens of viewers per day to its website, largely through its presence in Google for search terms like 'kootenay job board' and 'jobs near Trail BC'. Instead of trying to deflect users from the path of least resistance, we leaned into the job board. We developed a tagging system to highlight relevant Skills Centre services for each job. Is the user looking at a job that requires first aid certification? They'll see a call-to-action to register for first aid training through Skills Centre.

The Skills Centre job board was rebuilt to distribute traffic to relevant services. This technique supports Skills Centre's strengths in terms of user acquisition. The goal was to align with the wants and needs of their audience, adding value instead of imposing a different experience.

Before rebuilding the website, over 85% of website traffic visited the job board and went no further. On the new website, 43% of users engage with content other than the job board on their visit. Content engagement improved substantially. Users spend an average of over three minutes on-page on the new website, compared to just 1:29 on the previous version. Average search position and overall search volume also increased due to improved website quality and SEO. As percentage of traffic share, search traffic has increased from 45% to 60% since launching the new website.

Insightful design drives real results

 Background

Informing their audience

Okanagan Specialty Fruits - Website Development

Not every marketing challenge is about lead generation or increasing volume. Okanagan Specialty Fruits is the parent company of Arctic Apples, a non-browning apple developed for retail and food-service applications. Their website failed to broadcast their values and service offering, instead generating consumer searches for information on GMO foods.

Rather than increasing traffic, OSF wanted to improve the composition and quality of traffic to the website, targeting prospective employees and businesses looking for services and partnership rather than consumers seeking information on GMOs.

The primary challenge for this project was to reframe the website's content to serve OSF's business objectives, while displaying the information in an appealing and professional manner. The goal was to reduce or eliminate traffic from consumers looking to learn about (or debate the merits of) GMO products.


To this end, we identified a set of content that primarily delivered consumer traffic. We redirected this traffic to the homepage or to relevant pages with B2B intent.

Our website design struck a balance between friendly, personal, and casual, and professional, technical, and capable. We worked to update their branding while retaining its original look. The new website features more strategic content including an upgraded job board and a streamlined, B2B focused sitemap.

OSF's results are best expressed by its organic search keywords. Once dominated by GMO keywords, OSF's search profile now largely consists of branded terms, informational fruit growing terms, and biotech related queries. Despite a significant reduction in overall search traffic due to elimination of low value keywords and content, search visitors spend 87% longer on the website now than ever before, finding relevant B2B information for their high-value queries.

Informational Website Development

Navigating a Marketing Minefield

Arctic Apples - Marketing Support

Arctic Apples is a B2B producer of non-browning apples. Their focus is on serving the retail and food-service markets with individually-portioned, pre-sliced apples. As a GMO product, Arctic Apples face increased skepticism and scrutiny from their prospective customers. They struggle to educate end consumers on the safety and nutrition of their products while emphasizing selling propositions for their B2B market. Finally, Arctic Apples had minimal consumer awareness and brand recognition. They sought an execution partner to aide their internal marketing department with campaign execution.

Arctic Apples' biggest challenges pertained to messaging and communication. A key goal for this engagement was to increase positive brand recognition among consumers across the US and Canada, particularly among the USA's growing Spanish-speaking community. They struggled to balance educational information for a vocally negative anti-GMO consumer audience with a need to sell to organizations and retailers at scale across the USA and Canada.

Fundamentally, our engagement with Arctic Apples is about execution. We offer design and web development execution services to allow their internal marketing team to implement campaigns and strategies. We provided a range of marketing and web development services to Arctic Apples, including:

- Design and development of a sales and informational website featuring consumer content (blogs, educational articles, recipes) and targeted marketing content for retailers and food service organizations
- A full Spanish version of the website to improve accessibility for the growing Hispanic market segment in the USA
- Packaging design for their individually portioned apple segments
- Production of a wide range of sales and marketing resources (flyers, one sheets, technical documentation, etc).
- Execution of a North American giveaway campaign featuring an Arctic Apples branded YETI cooler

Our engagement has allowed Arctic Apple's internal marketing staff to execute more swiftly on a variety of campaigns including Amazon Shopping campaigns, giveaways, and B2B sales initiatives. With our support, Arctic Apples generated over 21,000 form submissions for their YETI cooler giveaway.

Our enhancements to the website resulted in an 8% improvement in overall pageviews and a 27% decline in user bounce rate.  Users visit 12% more pages per session. Key markets including cities across the American Southwest saw increased traffic, particularly in areas with high Spanish-speaking populations.

Evergreen Marketing for a Non-Browning Apple

Growing reach for a growing business

Fertilizer and Supplement Marketing

Diablo Nutrients - Website & Marketing Support

When we began working with Diablo Nutrients, they had little understanding of their own marketing funnel. While they had a general understanding of their target market, they wanted to take their marketing to the next level, especially online. In order to do that, they needed to understand their own brand's strengths and weaknesses and find a niche for themselves in a crowded cannabis growing market.

We identified a number of challenges for Diablo Nutrients during our research and consultation phase:

- Diablo has a positive reputation among experienced growers familiar with their product, but very limited brand exposure to the casual growing market at large.
- Due to the nature of their products, there were a variety of legal requirements and restrictions to be met for every marketing campaign.
- Diablo's unique branding cuts both ways. It resonates very well with the right audience, but the wrong audience may struggle to connect. "Finding their tribe" was an important strategic consideration.

Before we could make recommendations or put a plan into place, we needed to understand their industry and competition. We began by compiling a market research document, using customer information from their website and social media channels as well as data collected from a marketing survey we administered. This research helped us understand Diablo's target markets more deeply, identifying primary and secondary customer personas and the most effective channels to use to speak to each. We analyzed competitors large and small to identify opportunities for growth and establish a clear picture of Diablo's market position. This helped us develop marketing collateral that resonates with their audience and supports their team's marketing objectives. Our deliverables included:

- A new website featuring tools that resonate with Diablo's customers: feed calculators, location finders, grower's tips, and technical documentation.
- A wide variety of brand collateral including sales and technical documents, social media content, and trade show materials.
- Ongoing support and advisement on marketing investment and strategies.

Our market research helped Diablo's marketing team get on the same page and coordinate their efforts. It continues to inform Diablo's social media and newsletter content strategies and offers insight into their customer's needs as they continue to grow their market share.

Grab Marketing by the Horns

Cool Prices in a Hot Market

SWAN Heating and Air - Marketing Services

When we began working with Swan Heating, they had a lot going for them: plenty of website traffic, hundreds of 5 star Google reviews, and a good reputation in their service area surrounding Denver, Colorado. What they weren't getting was results. Their advertising performance was falling behind as leads grew more expensive and harder to find. Our task was to optimize their digital marketing performance, ensuring that all that traffic didn't go to waste.


- Swan Heating, an established HVAC business in Denver, needed to improve the quality, quantity, and cost of their online leads
- Though their website received plenty of traffic, Swan felt their business had begun to fall behind their competitors, especially regarding their search advertising performance
- When we began working with Swan, their year-over-year leads from Google search advertising had fallen by over 40%, while cost per lead had increased by nearly 25%
- While their website received plenty of organic search traffic, it was out-of-date, lacked proper tracking conversion tracking, and was not optimized for lead generation

Swan Heating had plenty of potential customers *filling* their online marketing funnel, but that traffic wasn't transitioning into enough leads or sales to justify its acquisition cost. In order to fix this, we first needed to understand why this was happening. We knew the website needed an update, so we started there, designing a lead-generation focused WordPress site to replace their out-of-date website. We also configured proper conversion tracking to measure website performance more accurately. Finally, we sought to understand why the Google Ads account performance had decreased. We performed an audit on the account, then implemented recommended solutions, serving as Swan's advertising management team.

- A performance-first website was designed and built using WordPress. This website featured improve page load times and visuals, as well as improved calls to action intended to provide customers with more opportunities to connect with Swan
- An advertising audit was completed, revealing a number of inefficiencies and performance issues. These issues were corrected and an advertising administration strategy was put in place
- Website and landing page conversion tracking was implemented to improve attribution accuracy.

Positive results were seen both immediately and through the next year. Website users and pageviews both increased by over 20%. Recorded revenue attributed to the website increased by over 100%, while website lead volume improved by 85%. Advertising performance improved similarly, recording record year-over-year conversion volumes as well as up to 50% cost per lead reductions.

- In the year since our team began administering the advertising account, conversion costs dropped by over 15% year-over-year. Lead volume increased by 48%
- Since May 2020, lead costs have dropped to their lowest recorded value since advertising began in 2015 — a decrease in cost of over 50% compared to the all-time account average
- Since the new website launched, website traffic increased by approximately 50%. Unique pageviews increased by 36%, and bounce rates dropped by 5%

Finding Efficiency in a Competitive Market

Advertising

Solving for Success

ClearSolv - Website and Advertising

When we first engaged with ClearSolv in 2019, they were a startup solvent distributor with an unfinished SquareSpace website and no means to collect online leads. ClearSolv had their sights set on attracting clients in the cosmetics, cannabis, and botanical extraction industries. They needed a marketing partner who understood their needs and could communicate their message to customers effectively.

Our engagement with ClearSolv led us to understand several key challenges impacting their marketing success:

- ClearSolv's client base was limited and they had no online marketing funnel to generate leads
- Their brand was incomplete. They required a new logo and a variety of branded materials including business cards and trade show materials
- Their sales team needed a lead generation website with targeted content that spoke to purchasing departments at extraction, cosmetics, and manufacturing businesses
- ClearSolv needed a strategy to generate website leads at a reasonable cost per acquisition

Our first steps were to research the solvent and chemical supply industry, identifying competitors and learning industry terminology. We then applied our research to the branding process, producing a brand identity that spoke to their audience. Once the brand was completed and approved, we developed a responsive WordPress website, writing content for each page intended to drive conversions. After the website was complete, a Google search advertising campaign was strategized and launched to drive traffic to the website.

While many businesses struggled through the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, ClearSolv thrived. Taking advantage of increased demand for solvents such as isopropyl and denatured ethyl alcohol, we proactively scaled up our advertising, focusing our campaigns on medical manufacturers and hand sanitizer production. Since March 15 2020, the advertising campaign has generated an average of 6.5 leads per day from businesses across Canada and the US. Leads from ads comprise over 80% of all recorded leads in 2020.

- Scaling the advertising campaign aggressively and early allowed ClearSolv to dominate paid search results through the height of the COVID-19 crisis, resulting in explosive growth
- The updated website generated nearly 700 combined phone calls and form submissions from January to May 31 2020, at an average cost per lead below $20 CAD

Industrial Marketing Agency

Bolt-on

marketing performance for B2B industrial companies.

An industrial marketing agency in service of your growth

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Our Clients

CaraGreen - Marketing Support

EMC Canada - Marketing & Website Development

Skills Centre - Website Development

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