How market research helps strengthen and measure brand value in B2B

Key takeaways: We explore how to measure brand value in B2B market research, by quantifying and qualifying customers’ perceptions of it against those of competitors. In this way, we can measure how strong the brand value is and make actionable recommendations about how to strengthen it further.

What is brand value in B2B?

Brand value in B2B is the equity or strength a company has in the minds of its customers and prospects.

It represents the intangible assets associated with a brand name that add value to its products or services beyond their functional benefits.

Many people tend to use the terms brand value, brand equity, and brand health fairly interchangeably in marketing or market research.

We don’t tend to mean the actual financial valuation of a brand – for example, Google is worth $207.5bn, according to Forbes. That type of brand valuation is typically measured through cost, market, or income-based valuations i.e. how much money the brand is worth.

Later in this article, we explore how to measure brand value in market research, by quantifying and qualifying customers’ perceptions of it against those of competitors. In this way, we can measure how strong the brand value is and make actionable recommendations about how to strengthen it further.

A strong brand tends to be prominent and based on a clear, anchoring idea. It is perceived as providing one of the best solutions to a customer’s problem or need.

Benefits of having a strong brand in B2B include becoming a go-to option on customers’ supplier shortlists, simplifying the decision-making process for buyers, and having the right to charge extra.

A strong brand is also a point of differentiation in competitive markets and can make you the safe choice i.e. the classic ‘nobody gets fired for buying IBM’ view.

To build a strong brand, you need to understand three core aspects of brand value that B2B market research can measure:

• What brand associations are desirable in your market
• How people perceive your brand
• How they perceive competitors

Measuring brand value through perception tracking

These areas of brand research measure a series of KPIs based on customer and prospect perception tracking over time. You can work out areas for improvement for the brand based on insights from these metrics alongside more exploratory insights from qualitative market research.

Brand tracking

There are lots of ways to measure brand equity. Brand equity metrics include awareness, associations, performance, authority, consideration, and so on.

Brand tracking studies show how effective your marketing activities are by:

• Measuring brand health and how it changes over time
• Demonstrating the ROI of marketing overall
• Identifying low metric scores needing improvement

In a research survey or interview, the line of questioning often includes asking respondents to name brands they are aware of or would consider when looking to buy a product or service in that sector.

This can be done unprompted and then prompted later on if the respondent does not spontaneously mention the brand. Respondents can then rate aspects of the provider, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses.

Customer satisfaction

Satisfied customers are more likely to maintain or increase their spending with your company and recommend its services or products to others.

Dissatisfied customers are more likely to decrease their spending, switch providers, and perhaps dissuade others from considering your brand – harming your brand value.

The primary aim of a customer satisfaction (CSAT) study is to find out to what extent your customers are satisfied overall. In B2B, usually, you’ll go deeper by also asking questions to see how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with specific aspects or criteria. 

Doing this often indicates what may be driving customers’ overall satisfaction scores. For example, you could ask for individual satisfaction scores for service aspects like your prices, product quality, website ordering, delivery, customer service, etc.

NPS or hero metrics

If customers are likely to recommend your brand or products, they may help you acquire new ones through word of mouth. It also suggests that these are loyal customers and you’ll retain them.

That’s why the net promoter score (NPS) is a popular brand equity metric to monitor and improve, but in our experience, it’s a less reliable indicator in B2B than it is in B2C.

There are different types of customer loyalty in B2B, such as ‘forced loyalty’ where there’s no other realistic choice of provider. We have come across businesses with revenue growth even while their NPS declines.

B2B brands need a different ‘hero’ metric to measure for brand value too – something which increases as and when sales do.

This is similar to the ‘north star’ metrics that product managers use. For example, for Slack it’s reportedly the number of messages sent within a company.

Taking into account competitor benchmarking

A tracking study will have limited use if you’ve only measured your brand value chain in a vacuum. It’s essential to measure your competitors’ brand health too.

After all, your brand health may look good in isolation – but if competitor perceptions are better, then you have work to do.

• Context is crucial with satisfaction scores – if 88% of your customers are satisfied with your performance, that sounds great, but not if 94% are satisfied with a competitor’s service quality. If competitors in your space receive higher satisfaction scores for similar services, you need to know the reasons why.
• Competitor intelligence should help show where your brand needs improvement – to get more customers, make them satisfied, and take a greater market share. You’ll also get a competitor-based customer satisfaction benchmark to compare your company against.

It’s fairly straightforward to include competitor benchmarking in a brand tracking market research project, so you monitor and measure your own brand health along with that of competitors at the same time.

Again you can measure this in terms of awareness, associations, performance, authority, consideration, satisfaction, NPS, and so on.

Where it can get complicated is making sure that you include the right competitors in a) complex markets and b) international market research.

In some markets, the list of competitors can be lengthy. You may need to prioritize the competitors – but if you shorten the list too much, you potentially miss out on smaller competitors who are growing threats.

Also, watch out for companies that don’t sell the same products but can still be a threat, because if you’re losing customers to a brand in another category, they’re an indirect competitor. Job-to-be-done research can be useful in identifying these indirect competitors.

How measuring brand value informs strategic decisions in B2B

You can use the insights and recommendations from brand value research to inform your decisions in many ways – for example:

• Driving organic growth: Identify specific areas of poor brand health and address them – e.g. to increase awareness, consideration, and purchase intent. Use the insights to move your brand towards desired, differentiated, and credible positioning. Longer-term, build on your credibility, aiming for more aspirational positioning to become the ideal brand.
• Informing M&A activities: If you can prove you’re acquiring a well-performing brand, the due diligence report should look good. If the brand is strong, it will be many customers’ go-to choice – they’ll understand the benefits of buying and may be willing to pay a premium for it too. But it’s important to understand why it is strong, so you know how to maintain and grow this brand reputation after the acquisition.
• Optimizing the path-to-purchase: Strong brands inspire ideal buyer behaviors such as preferential brand loyalty and advocacy. Below-average brand recall or awareness scores on a tracker could suggest that there are barriers in the customer journey. Low consideration or purchase intent scores may indicate friction in the purchase process.
• Informing product and service development: Monitoring your brand equity and improving its positioning could reveal gaps in your product portfolio. Alternatively, it may reveal unmet needs that neither you nor your competitors are currently servicing. The insights should lead to a market opportunity analysis and if that’s successful, they can also inform better products or services.

For more details, find out how to do brand research in B2B comprehensively.

Best practices for measuring brand value in B2B

#1 Explore how your brand identity influences its value

You might think that a visual brand identity is a relatively less rational factor in B2B decision-making. But subjective preferences can play a part.

It only takes visitors to your website 50 milliseconds to have an opinion, 8 Ways Media reports. And simple aspects such as the signature color can increase brand recognition by up to 80%, CEO Today claims.

Therefore, your visual identity needs to be appropriate for your target audience and sector. It should also trigger the right desired brand associations, be distinct, and fit in with your positioning.

Market research can show you how the target market will react to and interpret different visual identity options. Moreover, you can find out how to optimize it and differentiate it for a bigger impact.

#2 Use a segmentation to check your brand positioning

Many businesses manage multiple brands – for example, Alphabet is a corporate-level brand, one of its subsidiary brands is Google Search, Pixel is a group of product brands, and so on.

When considering changes to the brand architecture, you may need to answer questions such as:

• Should you try to reposition some brands to make them more distinct?
• Are there any gaps in the existing portfolio that would need to be filled by building a new brand or repositioning an existing one?

Different groups in your customer base will have varying perceptions of your brand building and positioning. Brand equity research at only the overall level risks overlooking some important nuances.

Therefore, for the best results, brand value research should build on your customer segmentation by including your key buyer types. B2B market segmentation studies can support a wide range of sales and marketing activities.

When you have limited time or resources, you could prioritize customers that appear to represent the best opportunity. For example, look for a high or strong expected customer lifetime value, profitability, and likelihood to purchase.

#3 Sense check any changes to brand positioning with employees

Any changes to brand positioning need to resonate with key internal stakeholders. They will need to set the tone for the brand at touchpoints with customers.

Brand research conducted in a vacuum risks alienating stakeholders. If its insights and recommendations don’t build on existing internal perceptions, they’ll be less likely to accept the results.

And if a brand changes its marketing approach to embrace a new identity, but customers see something different when interacting with its representatives, there’ll be a disconnect. This disconnect and lack of brand consistency could undermine the new positioning.

Therefore any brand development services project should also include some key internal stakeholder research, to capture their perceptions of what the current brand stands for.