Most B2B buyers aren’t looking to make a purchase now. But they could be in a week, month, or several years down the line. That’s why understanding brand health matters – no matter what your CFO says.
“The brands that are the most well-known are the brands that are bought” is an industry adage most of us have heard before. You could have the best product or solution in your category, but it wouldn’t mean a thing if no one has heard of who you are.
Aside from a healthy business outlook, how buyers view and experience a brand goes a long way to being put on consideration lists. When buyers start actively looking for a solution, they don’t go straight to Google; They use their heads and hearts. Only one to three brands come to mind at that point, and in 90% of cases, they’re usually the ones that are purchased.
Despite this, brand health indexes have historically focused on rational indicators like balance sheets and revenues generated to measure where (usually B2C) businesses stand in the market. This would make sense if we were all robots making decisions on hard facts alone. The trouble is, we’re not. Even those of us in B2B!
That’s why Transmission is excited to launch a B2B brand health index that takes a different approach to rankings. One that gives a brand health snapshot in select B2B industries to showcase the businesses that are delivering the greater value in the eyes of B2B buyers. Because honestly, why bother polling anyone else?
Meet B2B Brand Health: The APEX Index 2023.
Why a B2B brand health index?
Because B2C brand indexes are a dime a dozen and so few exist for B2B industries – despite housing some of the most valuable brands in the world.
In 2022, our State of B2B Brand Building research revealed that brand building represented just 5-20% of overall B2B marketing budgets – no thanks to the fact that 42% of B2B CFOs don’t believe brand health impacts the financial health of their business. It’s a worrying statistic, especially when considering how brand accounts for as high as 50% of a business’ total value. And it shows B2B organisations have a long way to go with brand building despite it being a space that’s ripe for investment.
A quick look at the landscape makes it obvious that most B2B organisations are happy to play it safe within the confines of barely differentiated lists of features and visually samey brands. So, to keep the ball rolling and encourage greater investment in brand marketing activity in B2B industries, we wanted to highlight the organisations tackling brand in ways B2B decision makers are taking notice of.
Is your brand featured in The APEX Index 2023? If so, request a FREE personalised brand health report breaking down our results and what they mean for your business here.
Why brand health?
With B2B buying cycles being as long and complex as they are, current and, more importantly, future perceptions of a brand can play a huge role in determining the future success of a B2B business. When buyers think a brand is capable of delivering higher value than nearby competitors, they’re more likely to shortlist it. They’ll also be less price sensitive, meaning profit margins have the potential to grow too – a result no CFO will say no to!
B2B Brand Health: The APEX Index 2023 analyses 1,200 senior B2B buyers’ Awareness (A), Perceptions (P), and Experiences (EX) of brands in four high-growth B2B verticals: Cybersecurity, FinTech, Renewable Energy, and Logistics Tech. By asking 300 B2B buyers in each vertical, we’ve ensured that our results paint a clear picture of how our featured brands perform in the eyes of those purchasing their solutions.
Doing so also allows us to understand what it takes to build a successful brand in each vertical – highlighting which organisations are making the most of their brand’s opportunity and those that have the potential to become go-to names in their industry.
For more info on our methodology, visit B2B Brand Health: The APEX Index 2023.
How does this index differ from others?
While rational indicators can give a detailed view of current business performance, they don’t tell the whole story for brand health. Yes, it’s important to understand the financial value of brands. However, they’re static, historic measures. When prospective buyers are not in active buying mode or are at the start of the buying cycle, financial value and stability is not how they initially evaluate whether to consider shortlisting a brand (that’s procurement’s job later on).
When we use brand health as both a benchmark and a diagnostic tool, we get an idea of what buyers are thinking and how they might behave in the future. It helps guide how and where brand budget should be spent to capture demand in the future.
Our approach to creating The APEX Index allows us to shine a light on how the most exciting B2B organisations – not necessarily the biggest – in Cybersecurity, FinTech, Renewable Energy, and Logistics Tech are capturing the hearts and minds of B2B buyers in their sector. By setting out what good looks like, we hope to help businesses define the next in their vertical, establish trust in their proposition, and build B2B brands that we’ll all talk about for years to come.
Find out how each brand performed and dive into the results of our findings: Check out The APEX Index 2023 here.