The key to positioning your business-to-business (B2B) brand online lies in authenticity, which you can achieve by focusing on two main things: making your content approachable and showing how you help the customer. By creating useful and high-quality content, you’ll show that you truly care about helping your customers solve their problems, which will show them why they should care about working with you.

What Is Brand Positioning In B2B?

Brand positioning in B2B is a different approach than brand positioning in consumer markets. In B2B lead generation, it's not enough for you to simply get more views on your website or have more followers on LinkedIn. These tactics might help you get your company in front of new prospects, but that doesn't necessarily translate into business. When you’re trying to position your company online, it's important that you start by identifying how customers perceive you and what makes your brand unique so that you can focus on telling stories about your product or service from their perspective.  Here are three key questions to ask when establishing your brand:

1, What story does your customer want to hear?

2. What qualities do they attribute to you?

3. How do they speak about or interact with your brand?

The answers to these questions will tell you everything you need to know about your brand positioning.

How to Position a B2B Brand Online

In business-to-business (B2B) marketing, it’s imperative that you carefully choose your company image. The way people perceive your brand makes a big difference in how they see your business and how willing they are to work with you. Choosing an image for your brand is an important first step towards attracting customers to buy from you. Here’s how to get started:

1. Decide On A Tone Of Voice 

Before developing content, think about how you want your brand voice to sound; make sure it stays on message and consistent through all media platforms (social media accounts, website content, and digital ads). For example, if you know your audience enjoys humor—or tends to be more serious—then aligning yourself with a humorous tone may resonate well with them. Or if data plays heavily into what your brand offers or sells, then keeping your tone focused on information will likely serve you better than making jokes will. Whatever kind of writing style feels most natural for you—choose one! Not only will being authentic help develop relationships with potential customers but it also leads us to our next point...

2. Decide How You’ll Communicate With Customers 

When it comes to content types, there are several ways you can communicate with your customer base. Look at other companies in your industry and find out which ones tend to speak most closely to yours. Facebook posts typically tend toward being funny or educational, while Twitter is generally used for quick updates without too much detail and LinkedIn is mostly educational, thought-provoking and inspiring.

3. Connect With Your Audience And Learn From Them 

It sounds cliché but don't underestimate listening to what people have to say about your brand when getting familiar with what resonates best. Be open-minded when considering new ideas about how your company can evolve - especially when addressing customer concerns or suggestions.

Differentiate Yourself From Your Competition

It’s not just about standing out. You want to show that you can help your clients more than any other business they’ve previously worked with. Asking yourself why you are different will go a long way towards helping you figure out how to position your brand online. Are you offering more service than anyone else? A better price? Faster turnaround time? These are all things that potential customers will be looking for, so having answers ready is crucial for building trust. For example, if you offer faster turnaround times, then make sure that’s clearly displayed on your website. If it isn’t already clear what sets you apart from others in your industry, it’ll take longer for people to choose you—even if it should have been obvious otherwise. Make sure there are no questions left unanswered!

There's value in being bold: Once people understand who you are and what sets you apart from other companies within your industry, they need to be able to quickly tell whether or not working with you makes sense for them or not.

Create Compelling & Informative Content

People tend to think of marketing and sales as two separate things. But in reality, marketing and sales often go hand-in-hand. Your sales team knows the commonly asked questions that leads tend to have. Use the information from this alignment to create content that gives leads the answers they need without having to ask. At its core, lead nurturing is about providing your target market with useful information. What makes a piece of content useful? It solves a problem for your audience or provides them with something they don’t already have. In other words, it adds value to their lives or business (or both). Content helps you position your B2B business by answering important questions leads have about how to use your product or service effectively. A good place to start when creating educational pieces of content is your FAQ page. What are people most commonly asking on social media, email, phone calls, etc.? Are there similar concerns among many different companies? Solve these problems with helpful articles, videos, infographics, whitepapers, and more. 

No Silver Bullet

B2B brand positioning can be tricky but just remember that there is no silver bullet that works for everyone. Make sure you’re taking into account what your target audience is looking for and keep in mind your USP – what makes you unique from other similar businesses? By being mindful of these things, it should help position your business as a thought leader in your industry. It doesn’t mean you need to produce flashy content (although if you do, great!) as long as your content focuses on meeting industry needs and giving potential clients solutions or insight they wouldn’t find elsewhere. Once those needs are met, those readers will become valuable leads and customers who buy from you time and time again.