Lesson From GE: Relevance is Key to B2B Communications

PR Newswire Editor’s note:
Who is your target audience? What is the advantage of your solution? Why should your audiences pay attention to you? Knowing how your brand can relate to your audiences’ needs is the first precondition for grabbing their attention. However, how could you build your brand into a household term that is instantly recognized by the average consumer? You might find your answer in GE’s brand communication practices.

At PR Newswire’s 2015 New Communication Annual Forum, Li Guowei, Director of Communications and Brand for GE Greater China, talked about the challenges for brands to create relevance to their audiences. Li analyzed the difficulties that B2B companies, especially multinational consumer brands, have faced during periods of transition and shared some best communication practices of GE. Li also spent some time talking about the new trends and approaches in the corporate communications field.

B2B brands are facing two big trends

According to Li, the entire public relations and marketing world is in a state of flux where unprecedented vitality and uncertainty reign. With social media and big data on the rise as well as traditional media having seen better days, some influential media professionals have started to switch their careers to public relations or have started their own businesses.

Furthermore, B2B companies are simply finding it harder to sell their products. Research shows that 40% of China’s steel output is surplus material. Meanwhile, a transformer manufacturer found that it could not sell 80% of its production, with the inventory still sitting in a warehouse at the end of last year. At the same time, multinationals have seen their reputation and popularity slide over the years. According to Li, “Everyone said that we want to rely on China-based companies and created-in-China brands. We can manufacture large aircraft as well as build high-speed railways and power stations. We now have enough of everything, and we have the world’s best e-business platform. Can multinational companies really provide something unique that we can’t do ourselves?”

B2B communications need to “find the highest degree of relevance”

There is no doubt that a solution to this challenge is something worthwhile for public relations and marketing pros to ponder. Li emphasized that the key is to create the highest degree of relevance, i.e. to find out what your company can do for the customers.

It is time for PR pros to make some adjustments to their strategies. First, PR professionals need to be very attuned to market trends and user needs. Second, PR folks need to understand how to play to a company’s  strengths and keep the business transition in mind. In other words, PR communicators need to identify their companies’ unique strengths and the demand across the entire Chinese market.

As the world’s largest diversified business group, GE makes airplane engines, power generation equipment and medical equipment, among many other products. For GE, it is important to understand what the China market needs right now and what the company can do to fulfil those needs. In a nutshell, China now requires innovation on a very large scale to provide solutions to the pressing issues arising from healthcare, aging and social benefits for China’s 1.3 billion people, and also to provide clean energy that can help get rid of the smog in the north of the country.

According to Li, GE’s strategy has been evolving around the pressing issues in China: GE’s businesses are involved in clean energy, medical equipment and aircraft engines; GE cultivates a global talent model for the employees in China; GE arranges exchanges that help Chinese employees develop corporate management experience at a global level. This is just to name a few of the things done by GE. In addition, GE has chosen and popularized some customized marketing taglines for the China market, such as “能源的未来” (meaning “The Future of Energy”) for the energy field, “关爱先行” (meaning “Care First”) for healthcare, “当智慧遇上机器” (meaning “When Wisdom Meets the Machine”) for B2B Internet and big data, and “源中国 汇全球” (meaning “Made-in China. Made for the World.”) for addressing how can Chinese companies go global. GE excels in all of these businesses, which are closely related to China’s needs.

So, how can PR pros build the brand relevance among their target audiences? 

Li mentioned two types of crucial relevance – benefit and emotional.

Benefit Relevance. According to Li, it is important to highlight the benefits that you can offer to your customers. For example, why do people like to shop on Single’s Day (Guanggun Jie or 光棍节, a festival on November 11 for single people to celebrate)? This day is the world’s biggest online shopping event, as consumers are driven to shop for all the big sales in order to save money. There is a very clear benefit-driven demand for the average consumer, who wants to buy cheaper goods. Giving an example from GE, Li said, “GE provides aircraft engines to Chinese aircraft manufacturers, providing a very strong benefit relevance — China’s development path needs GE, and we see the need to work together for our mutual benefit.”

Emotional Relevance. According to Li, companies need to create a unique emotional connection with their customers: “You can’t merely tell your audience your product is useful without demonstrating how it is related to their needs and building the emotional contact between you and them.” Li quoted from a comment the chairman of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd. (COMAC) once made to the chairman of GE: “There may be a variety of misunderstandings and disputes in the relationship between China and the United States. Nevertheless, the relationship between our two companies are based on shared values and visions, as is the relationship between the two company leaders. Through the manufacturing of avionics equipment, as well as the development of aircraft and other projects, we grew up together, and based on the experiences we shared during that period of growth, our relationship has become very strong. This emotional relevance is also crucial to the development of our corporate paths.” Li also shared another example by GE and Uber when the two companies partnered up for a large-scale “UberPink Action” event last October, providing pink health bags and opportunities for free breast cancer screenings to Uber customers. The event called for public attention to health and their participation to share this initiative with their families. This is another great example of how brands can show their customers that they care, and what companies can do to help solve the challenges that their customers face.

4  major components to create audience-centered communication strategies

How do communicators make sure that their communication efforts reach their target audiences and pique the audience’s interest? Should communicators develop all their strategies around and put their resources into social media by building a strong presence on WeChat? In his presentation, Li shared the four main components used by GE:

First, companies need to define the core of the brand’s goal. What is the reason for your brand’s existence? What is the positioning of the brand in your market, and how do you identify the target audience? This forms the basis of communication. Many government officials, including GE’s own staff, are constantly asking, “What can you do for China?” GE’s answer is: “China is creating some extraordinary innovations, and GE is here to help China achieve these innovations.”

Second, do not chain yourself only to social media; you can shape “thought leadership” through offline events. GE organizes five to six large-scale “thought leadership” events every year. The thought leaders make forward-thinking presentations and establish a leadership position in the industry at these large events. GE has organized events with the goal of educating its audiences on a variety of topics. Just to name a few: what kind of solution is needed to implement a clean energy strategy, how to use big data, how to improve the operational efficiency of a power plant, an airline, or a hospital, and how to use data to transform the workflow within a manufacturing plant.

Third, communicators cannot and must not abandon traditional PR tools. Traditional tools, of which the issuing of a press release is just one component, need to remain a part of your arsenal that will let your customers and the media know the latest news about your business progress.

Fourth, communicators need to pay attention to employee culture and how employees communicate. Businesses need to communicate their own visions and objectives effectively to their employees. At the PR Newswire 2014 New Communication Annual Forum last year, Li put forward three main goals of B2B brand communication: providing thought leadership, creating good content, and building the employer’s brand. He pointed out that these basic principles had not changed this year, even though the communication environment had changed.

Li wrapped up his presentation by sharing this main idea with the audience: the communication that truly understands the industry and provides new insight for that industry is the communication that is going to prove the most valuable. The communication that provides something that is truly practical and not only arouses public interest, but also has emotional resonance among the audiences, is the communication that is going to prove the most important.

All in all, multinational companies are in the midst of confusing times, but despite the confusion, we must be clear that none of these changes have had a bearing on the nature of communications. As marketers, we need to always be able to identify our own strengths, and use the new communication tools to establish a unique relevance to our target customers. This is the key element of the ultimate success of a company.

Source: PR Newswire

This article is based on Li Guowei’s speech at PR Newswire’s 2015 New Communication Annual Forum.

This article is translated and adapted from an original Chinese article written by Stella Shi, Marketing Executive at PR Newswire. Please indicate the source and provide a link should you wish to reprint it.