What’s the secret to building a successful late stage tech brand?
You head up the brand of a B2B tech company that’s rapidly moving towards late stage. It’s been a rollercoaster ride so far, and things have been happening at a break-neck speed. We get it. It’s a mad time. It’s easy to become focused on speed at the expense of distinctiveness. But we’re here to help.
As you approach being a late-stage tech company, you’ve probably got a strong presence in the market, a well-known product, possibly a bit more budget to play with and a mini brand you’ve developed. But how do you evolve it for the next phase, and where should you focus?
Watch 6 of the best give their advice below.
Nuggets of wisdom
Start with you
- Start from within – your job as a marketer is to highlight the DNA that is already within the company.
- Find your point of difference in your brand – Communicate what you’re about. Who you are, what you do, and what you do in their lives.
- As you mature the business, you need to focus on perceived differentiation.
- Your brand has to evolve as your company evolves. Remember it needs to scale across everything as part of the journey.
“It’s critical that your brand keeps pace with the company growth.”
Tom Ovens, Shaped By
Things to consider when scaling
- Focus on quality over quantity – you are only ever as good as your worst piece of marketing.
- Make sure that all the stakeholders involved within the business and brand are taken on that same journey and understand the motivation so they follow that same ethos and approach.
- Internally remember your teammates, employees and colleagues. Show them the opportunity to build on something that’s strong already.
- Consistency & building trust with your audience. Externally let your customers know who you are, and what you stand for, and show up consistently.
- You need to scale creative operations and be creatively excellent. You need to go a step further when you’re not a start-up and maintain it.
“Design impact perceptions of people who you aspire to work with, investors, future talent and other stakeholders.”
Gwen Lafage, Sinch
Using the power of your brand
- Design impact the perceptions of people who you aspire to work with, investors, future talent and other stakeholders. As you scale so do expectations and calibre of clients you want to work with.
- Consumers are incredibly savvy and brand-aware, and B2B is certainly no exception to that. You’re selling a solution, and quite often the stakes can be high so the brand and your communications must be considered.
- Empower people in the company to be brand ambassadors. Think of brand guidelines, templates, and all the tools to empower the team to stay on brand.
- Connect with different influencers and industry analysts and media in the space. Building partnerships and adding value to the audience you’re going after.
Send me insight like this once a month to my inbox.
