Regional Brand Identity for Business Engagement

The 3 “P”s You Have to Know

What are the most common brand challenges that workforce, education or economic development organizations face? According to the latest live webinar for Business U’s Community of Practice, more than 80 percent of attendees said “fragmented messages to customers”; while 67 percent believe that there are too many partner logos within our system which confuses customers. How do organizations overcome these issues to build a highly effective brand that businesses value?

You may have heard of the 5 P’s of marketing in the private sector (product, price, place, promotion, and packaging). In the world of the public sector and business engagement, Business U narrows that to three key elements that will help organizations collaborate around a regional brand; these are Portfolio, Process & Packaging.

Portfolio
To move from a transactional to a transformational approach to build long-term relationships, an agenda-free interaction with a business customer is required, along with an expanded portfolio of services and solution-based initiatives that can solve a business’s immediate need. With these high valued services at your disposal, you become a resource partner with depth and breadth that builds credibility in the eyes of the business customer. This is the first success ingredient for regional branding. To build a business engagement portfolio, start by developing a regional asset map with your partners.

Process
Too many logos mean that you have many partners who are all trying to do similar tasks to engage business and industry such as prospecting, outreach and consulting. Get on the same page with your partners and develop process maps to avoid duplication of efforts to expand your market reach.

Package
Once you’ve developed a regional portfolio of services across multiple verticals (e.g., workforce, education, economic development, and chambers), package your entire asset map in a single portal specific for industry. Your goal is to make it easy for businesses to find you and locate the services they need, resulting in repeat business along with an increase in referrals from happy customers and partners.

Want to learn more about cutting edge business engagement practices? The B2B Engage Community of Practice meets formally once a month via a live webinar that tackles thought-provoking topics in business engagement coupled with hands-on training in using the B2B Engage^TM CRM platform to build long-term business relationships.

Check out our schedule and contact us if you want an invitation to our next live event.