What Is Brand Management?
Brand management is the ongoing work of keeping a brand consistent and building its value over time. A brand is made up of tangible and intangible parts: the product and the logo, and also your relationships with customers, the way your sales team describes the company, and the impression your website and trade show booth leave. Done well, brand management brings better margins, higher conversion rates and more loyal customers. The key is consistency over time, so it works best as a continuous process.
B2B companies sometimes assume brand management is for consumer brands. In practice, B2B purchases take longer and involve more people, and buyers meet your brand many times before they place an order. Whether your brand looks and sounds the same each time has a direct effect on how much they trust you.
Brand Management vs. Brand Strategy
Brand strategy sets the direction: which markets you compete in, who you serve and what value you offer. Brand management puts that direction into practice and keeps it consistent year after year. You need both, and brand management only works when the strategy behind it is clear.
The Brand Management Process in 4 Steps
The strategic brand management process usually follows four steps. It applies to a new brand entering a market and to an established brand that needs repositioning. Here is what each step involves and what B2B companies can do at each stage.
1. Define Your Brand Positioning and Values
Start by understanding what your brand stands for and where it should sit in the market, then define your unique selling proposition. The aim is a brand that is clearly different from competitors and matches what customers need.
- Interview customers, sales staff and engineers to find out why customers really choose you.
- Review how your main competitors position themselves and look for the gaps.
- Write a one-sentence positioning statement to guide everything you communicate afterward.
Read more about how to reposition your brand.
2. Turn the Positioning Into Brand Elements and Marketing
With clear positioning, the next step is to express it through brand elements such as the logo, colors, typefaces, slogan and packaging, and then plan marketing that carries the same message at every touchpoint. This is what builds brand awareness.
- Create brand guidelines so your team and outside partners work to the same standard.
- Align the wording and visuals of your website, presentations, catalogs and trade show materials.
- Choose channels that reach your buyers. For B2B companies that often means LinkedIn, trade shows and search content.
Read more about what brand identity guidelines should include.
3. Measure and Monitor Performance
Next, measure how your marketing performs and what it does for brand equity, looking past the surface numbers. This shows whether your positioning and marketing are working, and where to adjust to keep existing customers and win new ones. Three areas are worth tracking:
- Awareness: searches for your brand name, website traffic and social media followers.
- Perception: regular customer interviews or surveys on how customers describe you.
- Business results: changes in enquiries, win rates and average order value.
4. Sustain and Grow the Brand
The last step is maintaining the brand and growing its equity. That needs a management system, including brand internalization so employees understand and support where the brand is going. The system protects the trust you have built and guides new products and services in the future.
- Name a person or team responsible for the brand and for approving external materials.
- Check brand consistency across touchpoints regularly, for example with a yearly brand audit.
- Use brand workshops and training so new employees understand the brand as well.
- When your market or business strategy changes, assess whether the brand needs a refresh or a rebrand.
The 6 Bs of Brand Management
- Brand asset management: managing the tangible parts of the brand that customers see, experience and remember, and keeping them consistent across your marketing.
- Brand awareness: how familiar the public and your customers are with your brand, and how visible it is in the market.
- Brand recognition: how easily people identify your brand from its logo, slogan, packaging or other elements without seeing the name.
- Brand equity: the value customers place on your brand, based on their experience with your products and services.
- Brand loyalty: customers who keep buying from you and recommend you to others.
- Brand reputation: how the public and your customers see your brand’s status, character and quality. Often it is the first impression people have of you.
Brand Management in Practice
Repositioning: Spirit by Dyaco
Spirit, the fitness brand from Dyaco, was already well established but lacked a brand identity that connected with its end users. Geber rebuilt Spirit‘s identity and brand book in 2016, and the logotype and typefaces are still in use ten years later.
Employer Branding: Wistron ITS
Brand management also shapes hiring, since a strong reputation attracts better candidates. Wistron ITS, a leading IT services and software outsourcing company in Asia, worked with us on a corporate film built around “The Partner You Can Trust”, showing its people, its commitment to innovation and its focus on customers. See the Wistron ITS case study.
Brand Internalization: DIGITIMES
A new positioning only works if the whole company applies it. For DIGITIMES, we ran two brand workshops across management levels and wrote a brand guideline of more than 100 pages, so the team could put the new positioning into practice. See the DIGITIMES case study.
Brand Governance: Wafer Works
A brand lasts when someone inside the company owns it. In 2012 Wafer Works, a Taiwanese silicon wafer maker, set up a branding committee across its departments and trained its staff to handle every customer touchpoint. The vision and values we defined with it still open its website and sustainability report.
Brand Management FAQ
Why is brand management important?
It is the roadmap for your brand’s direction. It builds lasting relationships with everyone who deals with the brand, from employees to customers, and helps the brand adapt as the company grows. Over time, the company becomes less exposed to sudden changes in the market, and stakeholders experience the brand the way you intend.
What are the benefits of brand management?
- Stronger brand associations and a clearer difference from competitors.
- Higher perceived value, which supports pricing, customer loyalty and sales.
- Clearer direction for employees working toward the company’s goals.
- One consistent message for every stakeholder, aligned with your strategic plan.
How long does the brand management process take?
It never really ends. Brand management is ongoing and depends on regular review and adjustment. Once it is part of how the company works, it keeps strengthening brand equity over the long term.
How is B2B brand management different from B2C?
B2B purchases involve procurement, engineering and management, and decisions take longer. B2B brand management therefore depends on professional trust and consistency: your website, catalogs, sales presentations and trade show presence should tell the same story and answer each role’s questions. Consumer brands rely more on mass reach and emotional appeal.
Where should we start?
Start with positioning. Be clear about the place your brand should hold in customers’ minds, then check whether your existing materials are consistent with it. If you want outside help, see our brand strategy services or contact us.
