John Quelch, a Professor at Harvard Business School, and director of WPP Group plc has written about How to Build a B2B Brand. Dr. Quelch provides three reasons brand-building should be important to B2B CEOs. I will quote from his post those three reasons, and add four of my own:

• "First, most B2B marketers have to address thousands of small businesses as well as enterprise customers. They cannot do so economically using the traditional direct sales force.
• Second, if left unattended, individual managers will each do their own adhoc marketing. The result will be a hodgepodge of corporate logos, taglines and packaging. Customers will be confused and the company will look disorganized.
• Third, B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers' customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect them against lower-priced competitors."

Now for my additional points:

• Fourth, selling through the channel requires a strong brand. Channel partners need a brand to promote as they (almost never) have a brand that businesses want to buy from. Business buyers are comfortable buying from a channel partner if they represent a brand with which the buyer is familiar.
• Fifth, the brand is the tip of the arrow of marketing. A strong brand enables the rest of the marketing (and sales) to get through to the buyer. The business buyer needs to know who the company is before they'll pay attention to what they have to say.
• Sixth, a strong B2B brand enables a higher margin because the "brand promise" provides a lower risk to the decision maker, and enables that decision maker to justify their decision to others - because the brand is familiar to them as well. "Nobody every got fired for buying from IBM" is the ultimate brand promise.
• Seventh, a poor branding effort creates a poor brand promise. For example, Phil Mickelson (sponsored by BearingPoint) is probably the second best golfer in the world. BearingPoint, therefore, is associated as being the second best. Accenture is associated as being the best. Which would you want to buy from?

Can you think of other points as well?