A brand playbook is a must-have for B2B tech companies. It documents your positioning, messaging, and identity, getting everyone on the same page. And when you clearly and consistently align the stuff you make with the people you make it for, you generate awareness, confidence, and trust all around.
A B2B brand playbook is your company’s DNA on paper. For B2B tech firms, nailing your mission, positioning, messaging, and identity is what separates you from the masses. This guide walks you through the 5 steps to build a brand playbook that will set your organization up for success.
Each year, thousands of B2B tech companies struggle to stand out and get noticed. It’s not their tech that sucks, it’s their brand. Too often it’s an afterthought (or in some cases a no-thought), all over the place—messy, inconsistent, and missing out on creating awareness, confidence, and trust.
A brand playbook tells everyone why we exist—employees, customers, partners, and investors. It helps us document how to position, message, and visually communicate why our company and solutions are the right fit. It also helps us maintain our brand reputation as we grow the business.
TIP: Brand and culture are tied at the hip. Make your brand playbook part of your HR onboarding process, and start your company all-hands or town halls with a brand recap. It gets new employees off on the right foot and keeps your brand top of mind.
In this step-by-step guide to a B2B tech brand playbook, I’ll show you how to keep everyone on the same page and speaking the same language. We’ll follow a process inspired by years of helping tech firms get their brand together, plus lean on April Dunford’s excellent book, Obviously Awesome.
Ready? Let’s go.
Before we start talking, we need to know who we are, what we’re in, and why we exist.
Get these right, and you’ll have a solid foundation to build your brand playbook. Skip them, and you’re building a house of cards.
Need help nailing down your mission, vision, and values? Let’s talk!
By now, you should have completed a positioning exercise with your key stakeholders. If not, stop right here and head over to this guide before moving forward: How to Position B2B Tech Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide.
Once you’ve nailed down your positioning, you’ll have everything you need to define how your solution fits in the market. A Positioning Canvas helps you map out your competitive landscape, unique strengths, and how you differentiate.
Now that your positioning is locked down, it’s time to put it into words that your audience will notice. Your messaging should translate your positioning into something meaningful for them and back up your sales and marketing.
Boilerplates:
Brand Pyramid:
This is where you show why your solution actually matters. The themes, capabilities, and benefits from your positioning exercise will feed into a Value Point Table. This will help you break down the value you deliver.
This is where the visual and physical representation of your brand comes into play.
Almost every tech solution starts here—at Step 5—instead of Step 1. That’s OK when you’re getting going, but if left unchecked it will bite you in the ass. Trust me. Do the work in the first four steps. Your future self will be grateful.
To make it easy for you to put all of this into action, I’ve created a free, customizable Brand Playbook Template based on the exact process we’ve just covered. It’s in Google Docs but easily downloadable as Word, PDF, RTF, or other formats.
Whether you’re just starting to build your brand or refining an existing one, this brand playbook template for tech startups gives you everything you need to ensure everyone is on the same page, speaking the same language, and pulling in the same direction.
However, if this feels too daunting, I’m happy to help. Reach out anytime.
Brand playbooks document how our organization and our solutions are perceived in the minds of the people we’re trying to help. Without it, we’re flying blind, hoping our solutions will be enough (spoiler: they aren’t).
A clearly defined and communicated brand makes everything easier. Our entire team knows the story we’re telling, our customers know why they should care, and the stuff we make becomes more than just another tech solution taking up space.
Start building your brand playbook today, and create a brand that sticks with people long after the first touchpoint.
Need help with your Brand Playbook?
Let’s chat—because you’ve got better things to do than fly blind.
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This article is AC-A and also published and discussed on LinkedIn. Join the conversation!
