How to Foster a Strong B2B Brand Digital-First Experience That Differentiates

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B2B marketers can relate to customers who’ve rapidly shifted into all-out digital mode in their daily professional lives. That’s because so many of us have done the same, with numerous departments and agencies transitioning to remote or hybrid work in the wake of COVID.

At TopRank Marketing, we’ve been fully remote since March of 2020. And while that setup brings with it plenty of welcome perks and advantages, there are undeniably things that go amiss from a distance. We were reminded of some during our first in-person TopRank Summit in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Having an opportunity to see coworkers face-to-face drove home for me the relative challenges of engaging people, developing rapport, and creating emotional connections through a screen.

This dilemma is one that the B2B marketing industry is grappling with at large. Just as the day-to-day rhythm of Zoom meetings and Slack conversations can become monotonous, so too does the daily drumbeat of digital ads and content that buyers and decision makers are exposed to.

How can marketers deliver customer experiences that differentiate, drive growth, and delight in today’s digital-first brand landscape?

A session during the aforementioned TopRank Summit inspired me to put the first of those terms at the forefront.

Dare to (B2)Be Different

During our agency get-together, we had the privilege of being joined by world-class speaker and author of Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist, Sally Hogshead. She gave a talk centered on this idea: different is better than better.

Yes, we should always aspire to be the best, and that mandate has been ingrained in many of us throughout our careers. But simply aiming to be better means we’re trying to improve upon an existing model or archetype. Is that the path to standing out in an increasingly crowded digital space, amid changing customer expectations?

[bctt tweet=”“Simply aiming to be *better* means we’re trying to improve upon an existing model. Is that the path to standing out in a crowded digital space? Brands need to be DIFFERENT.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN #B2BMarketing” username=”toprank”]

Drawing from the perspectives of Sally and other visionaries, let’s explore the elements of a customer experience that differentiates in a digital-first world.

1 — Button up the basics

Before you can start breaking new ground, you’ve got to make sure you have your bases covered. I recently wrote here about three essential components of impactful B2B marketing content:

Influential
Authentic
Credible

While there is tremendous flexibility within these parameters, you want to be sure that any brand experience conveys this trio of qualities. Every time a customer or prospect interacts with your brand you want them to perceive it as leading industry conversations, staying true to itself, and demonstrating expertise.