The Missing Link in Differentiation: Reputation

Every marketer wants her company to stand apart from the competition. In fact, differentiation has been the number-one or number-two priority of B2B marketers for the past three years, according to ITSMA research.

Traditionally, brand positioning has been the primary means for making a company stand out. A good brand is a promise to customers that it is worth considering above all competitors. In an instant of recognition, a good brand conveys a credible shortcut to a comforting sense of reliability, trust, value—even emotional attachment. Above all, a good brand reduces the perception of risk, to the point where customers (as well as investors, analysts, and trading partners) are willing to pay more—and buy repeatedly—because the risk of failure in choosing an alternative is perceived to be too great.

However, we need to change the language of branding. In fact, we need to stop using the word brand altogether. Nothing conveys the mysticism of marketing more than a discussion of the companys brand. To those outside marketing (think CEO, CFO), branding seems like little more than logos and expensive advertising. On the other hand, a discussion about what makes companies stand out from the crowd and shortens the sales cycle—in short, differentiation—gets their attention.

For services providers, differentiation comes through the services experience. That experience should convey a sense of consistency and reliability. Customers need to feel comfortable that once they have investigated the benefits of a brand and invested their trust in it, those benefits will continue and will not require continual reaffirmation. Therefore, differentiation requires internal alignment around not just messaging but also operational issues such as internal processes, quality control, and customer satisfaction.

Increasingly, however, differentiation has also come to rely upon reputation—especially in the digital era. Indeed, at ITSMA, we believe that differentiation and reputation have become two sides of the same coin. Differentiation is what you say about your company, while reputation is what others—not just customers but also analysts, bloggers, and the media—say about you. Though reputation traditionally has ranked as a lower priority for marketers than differentiation, that situation must change. With the rise of the Internet and increasing customer power, differentiation and reputation have become equally important and increasingly integrated. Marketers need to link their traditional differentiation campaigns with new techniques for monitoring and influencing their companies’ reputation among influencers.

Reputation in Crisis

Today, marketing pours most of its energy into differentiation, all but ignoring reputation—unless, of course, there is a crisis. Then marketers bring in the PR specialists to communicate damage control messages with the right spin. A well-orchestrated crisis management plan neutralizes the negative PR and restores the company’s fine reputation.

That approach, however, has become obsolete. As marketers lose control over the conversations that customers and other influencers are having about their companies via blogs, social networking sites, online communities, and other emerging forms of digital collaboration, managing the company’s reputation has become a full-time job. News travels fast today, and bad news travels even faster. A single opinion can be amplified through interactive discussion and scaled up through linking and sharing until it wields enormous influence—in a matter of hours.

No longer does someone need to go to the trouble of organizing a protest to bring down a company’s reputation. Automated online software allows even the laziest, most mildly annoyed discontent to send a long-winded, prefabricated rant to companies or to his or her Congressman with the click of a mouse. Reputation-ranking engines are an integral part of the purchasing process of electronic commerce sites like eBay. Customers can also share their opinions without much effort on scores of community Websites such as Facebook or MySpace that do all the heavy lifting—or they can post videos on YouTube. It is only a matter of time before the reputations of B2B companies begin to face the same mercurial, uncontrollable odds as consumer companies.

Five Steps for Influencing Reputation

Although times have changed and the line between marketing and disingenuousness—at least in customers’ eyes—has become a knife’s edge, it is still possible to have a positive influence on reputation by clearly defining the goals and methods for doing so across the organization.

The following is a list of five steps you can take to help influence and shape your company’s reputation:

1. Get aligned internally before going outside. Companies cannot hope to have a major influence on customers’ opinions unless employees understand and believe in the reputation and points of differentiation that they are communicating. This is particularly important for services marketers, given that their reputations rely so heavily on employee interactions with customers.
2. Find external advocates. When it comes to differentiating on the customer experience, customers and their peers are the most effective marketers. Services providers need to orchestrate a client experience that creates advocates that will propagate their message in peer interactions—and then provide opportunities for these advocates to congregate and talk.
3. Engage the critics. Companies should acknowledge detractors’ issues and solicit feedback. If companies do not respond, their detractors can become dangerous and emotionally fueled, with seemingly limitless energy to spread bile. Indeed, reputation management is no longer a spectator sport. It requires monitoring the conversations about the company and engaging in them in whatever form they take—from blogs to social communities and trade shows.
4. Use influence, not control. Companies can no longer control what people say, but through their actions they can influence the conversations. The challenge, of course, is that many people are talking, and marketers cannot possibly find and monitor them all. That is why it is important to narrow the field by identifying the key influencers in the industry and focusing efforts on their conversations. Beyond the usual suspects—analysts, journalists, and the like—there are new faces on the block: A single disgruntled customer or influencer with a high social rank can take out a company’s reputation in an instant, which is why it is important for companies to revisit their list of key influencers frequently.
5. Amplify the message. After identifying the most important influencers in the market, companies need to build programs designed to amplify their messages among those influencers. In particular, ITSMA views word-of-mouth marketing, case studies and other proof points, Account-Based Marketing, and idea marketing/thought leadership as highly effective ways of “influencing the influencers.”

‘

Comments are closed.

ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. We work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA annual program clients include business leaders such as AT&T, Cisco, Deloitte, EMC, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Tata Consultancy Services, among others. Our comprehensive research, consulting, and training on topics including ITSMA Account-Based Marketing℠, Brand Positioning, and Solutions Development provide the insight and experience companies need to improve business results. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.