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Author: Sara Gaviser Leslie

Move On: The Magic Quadrant Should Not Guide Your Brand

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

If you’re a startup CEO/Founder/Marketer, you might have read that headline and thought, “What do you mean I shouldn’t care about the Magic Quadrant? I’ll take a Vendor Briefing call on vacation if I have to!”

Sure, tech companies strive for a mention in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant—or better yet—placement in the top right corner as a “Leader”. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant will tell you who’s product sits on the cutting edge of the technology, identify the ankle biters, show who’s falling behind, and identify the leaders in a category. That recognition matters as you develop your product.

But, the Magic Quadrant should not guide your brand.

We get it. Placement in the Magic Quadrant means PR, recognition, and—hopefully—bragging rights. But if you focus building your brand on winning the Magic Quadrant, you will miss many opportunities to develop a truly unique and compelling brand.

Here’s the thing. Gartner rates companies on their “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision”. These are product and company measurements. As we’ve written about before, product marketing is not brand marketing. Product marketing focuses on features and benefits, speeds and feeds, and even ROI.

Branding, on the other hand, describes how your company makes a name for itself. It starts with positioning. This is the phase where you carve out your space in the market. Great positioning communicates the one thing you want people to know about your brand and explains how you are truly differentiated, relevant, and singular in nature. Brand marketing, done right, gives people something to believe in. And when done properly, is tightly connected to your product.

By its nature, brand positioning can’t happen in a vacuum. That’s why when we develop a company’s brand strategy, we consider players in their competitive set. But when we compare all competitors, we don’t just do so in terms of technology, we compare it at a brand level.

We look at each company’s implied positioning, category, brand messaging, and voice/personality. We decipher what the brand says it does, how it does it, and when we can—why it matters. Of course, we don’t get an inside look at their brand platform. We can, however, get a sense of how they want to be understood by the market.

Once we’ve audited all competitors, including companies that play in adjacent markets, we map them. Not surprisingly, we see most companies’ brand positioning gravitates towards product benefits. For instance, we recently worked with a startup introducing AI for network management—one that advanced an older, on-prem solution. A majority of their competitors focus on product functionality. They claim to ”prevent outages” and “increase visibility”, several explain how they “facilitate integration” and help ”manage digital transformation” and “movement to the cloud”. A few spoke about how they bring “innovation” and “category reinvention” and others mentioned NetOps “empowerment”. But none of them expressed themselves at a brand level.

We, however, had visions beyond functional benefits. And the area where we hoped to own, we confirmed, was white space in the market. This is where the company will focus its positioning. Not only will they appeal to their customers’ emotions but they will also stake a claim as the first company that connects their brand to real business outcomes.

So the next time you’re thinking about brand recognition, let the Magic Quadrant be an input to your work, not the end game. Looking at your competitors’ brands, not functionality will allow you to find white space in the market. From there, you’ll develop a compelling, ownable brand that stands the test of time, regardless of what features you add in the future.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Entering Your Growth Stage: Position Your Brand, Not Your Product

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

You just closed your Series A and you’re ready to share your story with the world. You built revolutionary technology that will be better, faster, cheaper—or all three—than anything else in the market. Now you need to hire top talent, build brand awareness, and equip your sales team to drive revenue. You know how innovative your technology is and you’re ready to create a new category.

With customers in beta and limited clear competitors, you’re likely tempted to focus solely on your product and how much better your product is than anything else on the market. But a strong product vision, budding features, and benefits aren’t enough to cut through the competitive space, lure top talent, and enable something more important to build. Leading solely with your product—even the most disruptive—is a mistake. We’ve seen this approach fail, time and again.

You’ve got to give people something bigger to believe in.

If you want to connect with your customers, partners, and prospective employees, you need to differentiate yourself with a well-developed brand. Lead with this brand and then punctuate with your product.

Positioning Beyond the Product

Positioning, the first step in branding, is about the space you carve out in the market. Great positioning communicates the one thing you want people to know about your brand and explains how you are truly differentiated, relevant, and singular in nature.

When we meet with founders, however, they often are focused only on the product. Product positioning is not the same as brand positioning. Product marketing focuses on features and benefits, speeds and feeds, and even ROI.

That is not enough to compete today.

Bringing the Outside In

Your brand positioning is an articulation of you as a company and your product: who you are, what you do, how do you do it better and different, why you matter, and—importantly—why anyone should care.

If you try to articulate your brand positioning by just looking at your product and direct competitors, your brand will fall short. You need to bring the outside in. The most important outsider to focus on first? Your prospective customer.

Yes, you’ve spent time with your customers. You’ve probably talked about the competitor offerings they’ve bought or considered. But do you have empathy for them? Many prospects say they’re interested in a “better” solution but when it comes down to purchasing, are they ready? Do you understand what it takes to displace a legacy solution? What does your buyer need to know and feel to have the confidence to do a rip and replace? To earn this confidence, you need a brand that stands for something meaningful and different.

Don’t limit your discovery work to how your brand compares to entrenched competitors. Empathy means understanding all of the demands on a customers’ time and wallet; it’s about a wide-angle view. The people in your target buyer audience have a long list of priorities for the year. Cloud migration, data replication, security—these corporate initiatives all vie for their attention and budget. Your brand needs to not only reflect the reality of your direct competitors but these other players too.

Additionally, take the time to look outside of your category. Learn from other technologies that have succeeded in similar situations—displaced legacy technologies, created net-new infrastructure, used AI or ML to solve the toughest of challenges. Data analytics, cloud migration, and modern data infrastructure plays are changing the technology landscape. You can learn a lot by extending your competitive evaluation beyond your expected primary competitive set.

Finally, tap your investors as a resource. If you‘ve made it to the launch date, your investors are a great external resource you can tap. They’ve seen many companies in your space—including direct competitors and adjacent players. Test your positioning and messaging with them and use them as you build your brand.

Pay Attention to Voice

What you say is important, but how you say it matters just as much—if not even more critical. Voice is an extension of your brand; when your voice matches the kind of brand you are building, magic happens. Take Snowflake, for instance. Snowflake came onto the scene with a product they marketed as a ”cloud data warehouse”. While this product name was new, the category “data warehouse” was not. Snowflake made a splash with cheeky messaging and a differentiated but predictable brand voice. They put up billboard messages like “Love at first petabyte”, “Mi Data Es Su Data”, “The Data Sharehouse Has Arrived” and “Ghost Your On-prem”. This voice strengthens the brand and creates more connections between the company and its audiences.

Make an Emotional Connection

Even if you are selling deep tech, you can’t ignore emotions. Customers don’t connect with features; they connect with an emotion that a product drives. Think about how a netops engineer will feel when they learn that your security product can stop 99% of all phishing scams. Will they experience relief? Will they feel powerful? Drill down to that idea and make sure your brand and your messaging reflect that emotion.

Give Them Something to Believe In

We’ve worked with many Series A companies that go to market with a solid brand but without a fully realized product. The company leads with an initial use case but, longer-term, they have much larger ambitions. Even so, their brand works for today and for the future.

Your brand can—and should—be aspirational. It should enable early adopters to buy into what you offer right now and communicate what customers will receive from you over time. A future-facing brand will also help attract talent; candidates want to work for a company with technology that has the potential for impact. And, an overarching brand can ignite a tribe of people who share your beliefs and will follow your brand as you grow and expand your offering.

Branding is not the time to be introspective. When you look outside, you develop empathy for your customers, understand their emotions, and take a wide view of your industry. An outside-in perspective helps you build a brand that can cut through the clutter, grab attention, and differentiate with meaning.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Investing in Brand: It’s Never Too Early

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Many of our clients call us after they’ve got a working product or once they embark on a sales effort in earnest. They see branding as an expensive and time-consuming exercise that they’d rather postpone.

In almost every case, we wish they’d reached out sooner.

Branding is not a one-time exercise; your brand is a muscle that you strengthen over time. Most high-growth tech companies go through several brand iterations over their life cycle. Knowing that, we believe it’s never too early to invest in your brand.

In fact, when you invest in branding early in the life of your company, you’ll tap the benefits of a strong brand—market recognition, customer loyalty, and sales growth—even earlier.

Raise Your Next Round of Funding

When you fundraise, especially for an early-stage company, you need a compelling story. It’s more important than your logo and a critical part of your PR. Seriously, how can you ask for millions of dollars when you can’t explain it effectively? This is why when we create a brand, we often include a narrative that an organization can rally around internally and use as the basis of its pitch.

Unite Leadership and Employees

A brand development project has an added benefit of internal consensus building. When clients tell us they want a brand strategy, we often discover that executives’ goals are not consistent. Again, it’s a part of the process. Some people will have to give up their sacred cows; others will finally be able to share a revolutionary idea. In the end, teams gain alignment.

Get the Attention of Gartner

What could be better than a mention in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant? Many of the high-growth tech companies we meet are disrupting existing categories or even building new ones. When you show a new and better way of doing things, a strong brand makes you credible and attracts analysts’ attention.

Plus, when you launch or relaunch with a killer brand in a new category, you give newcomers a standard to emulate and make it easier for these competitors to enter.

Learn More About Your Market

In addition to internal interviews, we reach out to your prospects and, if appropriate, customers. We hear their thoughts about the market and also pressure-test your initial brand positioning and messaging. This forces you, via our work, to “get out of the building” and test your hypotheses right away.

Honest feedback is priceless. Because we are not the ones building the product, external stakeholders feel more comfortable about sharing their positive and negative reactions. And, by testing your brand with the market pre-launch, you gain reassurance that your messaging will stick.

Better Return on Your Marketing Dollars

Speaking of marketing, that function is rarely an early investment at startups. But, eventually, you’re going to focus on this effort. How great would it be if your first marketing hire received a one-pager with your brand architecture when they arrived at the company?

Brand positioning and messaging are also the foundation on which you build your brand’s look and feel—everything from your logo to your website. When your website doesn’t reflect your brand, your market will have little impact or longevity.

A strong brand will boost the effectiveness of your public relations. Every time a company communicates publicly before they’ve developed their brand, they end up continually recreating their story. Build the brand first and you’ll have a better ability to sustain a consistent message in the market.

Helps You Attract Talent

It’s a sellers’ market for talent; great employees can pick where they want to go. A strong brand raises your profile and intrigues your prospects. And your recruiters will thank you for making their job easier.

Is it ever too early to focus on your brand? Should you wait until you have a product? Perhaps, but we’ve had clients that, in the process of brand development, actually realize they need to adjust their focus and pivot to a slightly different product or service. The process of creating their brand makes their company stronger. If you think you’re too small to have a brand strategy, it’s time to reconsider.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

How to Get the Most Out of Strategic Messaging

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Traditional Messaging Isn’t Working

For as long as people have communicated, we’ve had messaging. Many of the most well-known messengers are religious figures — the usual suspects like Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus. In business, messaging has always been part of some corporate function like marketing, communications, or investor relations. Messaging is not going away. What’s changed is the way we communicate. We and other agencies have for years delivered messaging in a one-page, multilevel framework. While still useful, these one-page grids are no longer valuable tools on their own.

So we’re evolving.

Our clients are willing to take more risks than ever before. They want their messaging to sound conversational and reflect their brand’s personality. It must appeal to very short attention spans. And the messaging we provide must be useful from day one.

Make it Useful

If the client puts our messaging in a drawer at the end of a project, we’ve failed.

Strategic messaging is the scaffolding for all future communications. What we deliver to clients starts with a positioning statement, a one-sentence description of the part of the market a company owns, and often a value proposition. These ideas are foundational and never shared externally. The rest of what we deliver the clients put in action right away.

We write 10-, 50-, and 100-word versions of a company’s strategic message. Often, we also incorporate this content into a narrative that can run anywhere from 1-2 pages (think of that as a story of your business and why you matter.) In some cases, we add a manifesto that acts as a declaration or proclamation which energizes your employees and customers. More messages, more formats, more impact.

Go Beyond Strategy Alone

Corporate messaging isn’t as clean as it used to be. Today, product and brand lines blur, which means messaging isn’t just about your brand/company’s value proposition. This kind of messaging can’t come from the strategy or the communications department alone. Instead, it combines ideas from marketing, product development, and the executives’ vision. Even so, strategic messaging doesn’t read like a product brochure. Rather, it describes both why a company does what they do and how they do it.

Core Messages Drive Unification

Remember that messaging hierarchy we mentioned? It keeps messaging consistent and consistency drives relevance, awareness, and action. When you always return to that multileveled framework, you go to market with a consistent story. No matter the touchpoint, your audiences hear the same thing.

Often we come into a company to develop brand-level messaging when corporate messaging is already complete. We adhere to the existing core messages so that what we create doesn’t live in a vacuum but, instead, part of a greater narrative.

Audience Very-Specific Messaging

Your customers and your employees don’t have the same role in helping you achieve your strategy, so why talk to them in the same way? Once we’ve crafted general messaging, we also develop content tailored to specific audiences. But that’s just a starting point. Increasingly, we are pushing our clients to think about who they don’t want to attract. This can be tough because no one wants to limit their ambitions. However, we’ve seen that the more companies narrow their target, the more successful they are in attracting the people they really want. Once they connect with customers where product-market fit is strongest, they can expand.

Focus on Business Outcomes

Strategic messaging is worthless if it doesn’t help you drive revenue, increase profits, or become a bigger player in your industry. That’s why we don’t take our clients’ strategy as a given. We’ve found that the process of crafting strategic messaging is as important as the final deliverable. We make sure we build alignment around the strategy before ever move on with messaging.

We always focus first on a company’s business goals. We bring in sales and product management, not just marketing, into the discussion. Sales helps us understand the customer pain points while product management gives us an understanding of the direction of the product line.

Simple, Clear Language

It’s not just important what we write but how we say it. We use simple, clear language so that everyone can understand and share it. This means words that audiences will remember and connect with easily. We leverage the voice of the brand to write messaging that brings to life how your brand wants to make people feel. With strategic messaging in place, your brand is ready to live, talk, and engage with the people who matter most to your business.

Emotive Brand is always keen to keep pace with the needs of business. Positioning and messaging is something we take seriously. If you need help crafting your strategic messaging, give us a shout. If you have different opinions on what is required to develop strategic messaging, leave us a comment. We’d love to hear your thoughts as well.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Mission, Vision, and Values: But First, Executive Alignment

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Start with Executive Alignment

Vision, mission, and values give a company direction. They describe what a company stands for and what it doesn’t. Solid mission, vision, and values statements give guidelines for a brand’s behavior, help distinguish a company from its peers, and serve as a foundation for the brand’s ultimate personality. Without them, a company is rudderless.

So, when’s the right time to write these statements? Some companies don’t launch before they have a mission, vision, and values. Others develop them when time allows. With COVID-19 changing so many things from the way we show up to what gives us meaning in our work, now is a perfect time to embark on this exercise.

Though timing varies, the most important element in creating your mission, vision, and values is executive alignment. I promise it will be the hardest part of the process, but if you miss it you’ll end up with meaningless fluff. Start with alignment and the wording of the mission and vision almost takes care of itself.

Here are the steps to get you there:

1. Get your executive team on board

Include your executive team from day one. Yes, another project that takes time away from your “real work”. We get it. Mission/vision work doesn’t feel as urgent as launching a new product on time or making this quarter’s sales goal. But the longer you delay, the longer you have to wait for the impact. And if executives don’t take ownership of the project, they won’t have respect for the work that comes out of it.

2. Put it all out in the open: one-on-one interviews

Once you’ve got your executives’ attention, gather feedback from each exec individually. When we work with clients on mission/vision projects, we start by interviewing the key internal players. (If you are doing this project on your own, someone on your team, preferably a neutral player, could handle this step.) Big picture, you want to know where they think the company should go in the future and how it will get there. Again, 2020 has likely thrown a wrench in what you had previously planned for the business.

You also want to gather opinions on the current business and service offerings, market and competition, trends and regulations affecting the market in the short and long term, and current and future target customers.

3. Tackle the big issues and hot topics: executive alignment

Coming out of the interviews, you’ll have a list of statements that cover the kind of future that people in the organization desire for the company, how comfortable they are with change, and where they want to focus first.

For example, in a recent engagement, these were a few of the statements we generated for our client:

  • “We need to change the status quo.”
  • “Our vision should be internally vs. externally focused.”
  • “We’re more comfortable as an ingredient brand than an innovator.”

4. Expect disagreement

If you are like most companies, people won’t always be in agreement. So rather than be frustrated by this, see it as your opportunity to find alignment.

Bring everyone together into one room—even virtually. Remember, people own what they build. Put each statement on a poster with an “agree/disagree” scale and ask individuals to use a post-it to show how they relate to the statement. When everyone is done, it’s time to discuss. (Pro tip: Google Jamboards combined with Zoom are a great way to do this virtually.)

Second, pull out from the interviews the “hot topics”, the issues that are holding the company back. If the team doesn’t address these issues, they’ll destroy the company.

We recently worked with a disability insurer. Their hot topics included things like the following:

  •  “Startups have already moved into term life and car insurance and erased the middleman. How will we prevent this from happening to us?”
  • “We’re in the midst of digitizing the underwriting process. How does this project and that one overlap?”

 5. Follow the Critical Path

Get everything out in the open before you start building a vision and mission. It can be painful and frustrating to hash out these topics but it’s an essential step in the process. You learn where people sit on every important issue and you figure out the hurdles you need to jump over to get to the mission and vision development stage. Only then can you decide together where the company is headed.

Speaking of the critical path, don’t focus on marketing before you have set your vision and mission. People get excited when they hear about a new strategy. They want to get started. We recently worked with a company that lacked a strong, energizing strategy. The marketing department recognized this more than any other part of the organization. They realized that the company was moving in a new direction and was so eager to communicate a new mission and vision that they put something in place before the executive team reached alignment on the mission and vision.

When we talked to the executive team about the mission and vision work we planned to do for the company, though, many felt uncomfortable with the marketing work communicating the new strategy. Misalignment all around.

Alignment Drives Business

Put in the hard work to get everyone around the table aligned on the path you’ll take. Focusing on alignment will pay off in the end. It will save you time, frustration, and energy, and allow you to better focus on what really matters—what will drive your business and brand into the future, with everyone on board.
If you need help building alignment, please reach out.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California

Strengthen Your Health Care Brand During Your Digital Transformation

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Room for Digital Transformation for Health Care Brands

You’ve probably had a friend tell you about her amazing physician. But did you ever hear anyone brag about their health insurer? Unlikely.

Overall, individuals are pretty happy about the quality of care. What they complain about is customer service. According to the Advisory Board, the top patient complaints include: communication (53%), long wait times (35%), medical practice staff (12%), and billing (2%).

Fortunately, powerful organizations—companies who see shortcomings in today’s system—recognize the room for improvement. The triumvirate of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase say they want to disrupt healthcare and we all eagerly await their solution.

Of course, the existing system operates at a disadvantage to the growing cohort of startups. These companies have no legacy technology baggage and are digital-first. Fitbit, Apple, and Omada Health offer individuals new ways to manage their overall fitness and health. Others focus on corporations and companies—the major healthcare payers – that watch the costs of care for their employees rise exponentially. For example, Collective Health helps self-insured companies manage their healthcare investment and support operations. Another, Lyra, helps companies and their employees connect directly to mental health providers.

Don’t Wait Around for Transformation, Start Strengthening Your Brand Now

Not all health care companies have the luxury of starting with an all digital approach. In fact, the biggest, most important players don’t. It’s why traditional healthcare providers, insurance companies, hospitals, and clinics are all in the midst of a digital transformation. This doesn’t mean, though, that they—or you—should wait until after a this transformation is complete before you start making changes to your brand.

Take the opportunity to strengthen your brand so your customers are still there when you make that transformation a reality. Here’s how.

1. Make the Process Feel Good

A great place to start when looking to build a better process is to think about how you want to make people feel. Maybe your customers now feel frustrated? Unconfident? Even anxious? How can you make them feel optimistic? Even calm and confident?

The midst of a transition is the perfect time to start thinking about this. Focus on building a more frictionless process and making quick changes across the board that make for a more positive experience.

Ask questions like: How can we make it easier for customers to access the information they need? How can we better understand how they can prevent illness? Get in touch with a doctor or nurse when they need? Or even pay a bill more quickly and easily? Can we communicate with less complicated, more human language? Can we better train our people to act with empathy and patience?

It’s these small changes that will help build the frictionless experience people now demand from the brands they pledge loyalty to. And making the experience feel good can sustain your brand and ensure you keep your customers while you’re in the midst of a digital transformation. They’ll be committed to you, and delighted when you do transform.

2. Behave Consistently

It’s great when a health care brand says they “care about their patients”. But when a customer calls and has to go through multitudes of layers just to get a terse answer to their question and can’t even understand the coverage they signed up for months before, the brand loses credibility.

So while you’re in this transition, ask yourself what promises you make your customers. Are you living up to those? How can you better behave at every touchpoint? How can you really act like you care?

People don’t want the health care brands they buy into to be unpredictable. And businesses in the middle of change tend to let all rules go to the wayside. Just because you’re in the middle of digital disruption, doesn’t mean you don’t need guidelines for the present. Behave in line with your core values and make sure your behavior at every touchpoint lives up to what you promise the people you want by your side when you do transform.

3. Employees – Activate Small Wins

As your company invests in cutting-edge technology, dedicates time and resources to innovation, and prepares itself for a digital transformation, it’s integral that employees know and understand what’s important right now.

Leaving employees behind for a future state that is yet to come is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. When you are clear and transparent with employees about what they should be focusing in on and why, they can activate small wins.

It’s easy to think that change comes in one fell swoop. But small, incremental changes can make worlds of difference—especially in struggling industries with low trust, low convenience, and low brand loyalty. Employees are the people who are going to build that trust, leverage that convenience, and help build loyalty. Look to them and communicate with them about what matters.

There’s Always Need for Improvement

Health care is ripe for disruption because people want something more. Whether it’s a frictionless experience, a more empathetic brand, or a clearer and easier way forward, you can start delivering people what they want while you’re in the midst of a digital transformation. Ask yourself what should happen while you wait. What can you do to make improvements today?

Consider how you can better behave, better connect, and better build meaning with the people most important to your business. And dedicate time, energy, and resources to making those changes. Small changes can bring big rewards. By focusing on what you can change now, you’ll be more ready for digital disruption later—with a better process, a better way of communication, a better strategy, and better people behind you.

If you need help creating and implementing strategic change, please reach out.

Other posts you may enjoy on the subject are Digital Health: A Future With Millennials, and Why Digital Health Brands Need a B2B2C Strategy

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Looking for a Better Client-Agency Relationship? Look No Further

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Sara Gaviser Leslie is a brand marketer, creative consultant, and former Emotive Brand employee. After years of thriving on the agency-side of the equation, she recently took an interim position at Course Hero to experience the client-side of things. If you’re looking to improve your client-agency relationship, here are her five tips to make sure every project is a success.

***

The Client-Agency Relationship

Until recently, I’ve never experienced a brand creative project from the client-side. I was always the consultant. But, recently, when I took an interim but full-time role with a client, I was asked to run a creative project. I had expected mine would be the easier assignment; someone else was doing the work, right? What I learned, though, is that the client—and their relationship with the agency team—can improve the outcome of a project but also sabotage its success. I noticed some things that helped drive the success of these projects. Whether you’re working with an agency on a brand strategy, campaign, or video series, I am hoping they’ll help you, too.

1. Sharing Is Caring

Almost every project starts with a discovery phase. This is when the client shares all the materials that explain the company’s strategy and current brand. Your agency will likely give you a list of suggested documents. Don’t hold back! It’s your agency’s job to review the material; more really is better. And don’t worry if pieces are in draft form. Just send them along.

2. Make Yourself Uncomfortable—At Least a Little

One of the reasons that you chose the agency you did was because you saw the work they’d completed for other clients. It was clever, interesting, and maybe a bit unexpected, right?

I get that it’s easier to propose something unexpected when you are on the agency-side. I’d caution against clients playing things safe, however. As the marketing/brand representative from your company, your role is to ensure that the agency’s work is on-brand. The agency’s role is to create something different and memorable. Where these two roles converge is where the best creative work happens.

3. Chase Enthusiasm

Following from the point above, when you get to the point of choosing between different campaign options, as long as neither compromises the brand, choose the one that the agency likes best. You want to work on things that excite you, right? Your agency is no different. If they gravitate to a certain concept, take that cue. They’ll be more excited to work on that idea and you’ll get a better product.

4. Educate Them on What You Have Learned

One of the reasons I love consulting is because I love learning about new industries, business models, and technologies. My clients are great teachers. In a recent project, while our agency had original and interesting ideas for new social assets, they had less experience actually implementing these assets on different channels. You may also find that your agency is less skilled in performance marketing, content strategy, sales, or other execution work. Teach them! When you, the client, explain how you will use assets and what methods are most successful, your agency will be better equipped to meet your creative and implementation needs.

5. Lean on Them for Support

A campaign or other creative project is an investment. But it’s not worth pursuing this kind of project if you can’t implement it. If you have to move individuals in-house from one high-priority project to your high-priority campaign, your company loses. Similarly, if you are shorthanded on designers, copywriters, or videographers, make your needs known to your agency. Agency teams include full-time team employees, but most also have connections to freelancers in every possible area. Getting the right implementation team—whether internal or external—ensures that the creative work wasn’t in vain.

Instead of two parties on opposite sides of a negotiation, think about projects with agencies as partnerships filled with lots of possibilities. A growth mindset pushes you forward. What can you do together? What can each side gain? Agencies and clients are better when they work together.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Sales: The Critical Element of a Growth Company’s Brand

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Sales and Brand: A Connection Worthy of Discussion

Sales teams exist to grow revenue and keep customers happy. They’re also brand builders and the face of the brand to many customers.

They hear what customers want and keep a pulse on the market. When it’s easy for sales to share their observations with product development and marketing, their feedback spurs product improvements, brand definition, and growth. The first step in this process, though, is for sales to provide a clear explanation of the problem their product solves.

Recently we caught up with Pier Barattolo, a sales leader with decades of experience in technology companies, to learn how he makes sure the market understands what he’s selling and why they need it. 

Interview with Pier Barattolo, CRO at Density.io

First, can you tell us a bit about your previous roles and your current gig?

My first quota carrying job was in 1996. My current job, Chief Revenue Officer at Density, is my third CRO position. Our sales team is small, handpicked, and focused on building the foundation for high growth and scale. As CRO, I am responsible for partnerships and business development and although I do not directly own marketing, I have a strong voice and influence on all marketing related activities.

When you join a company, you tend to be a founding member of the sales team. Tell us where you start.

Yes, I’m usually one of the first—if not the first—sales person at a company. I work very closely with the founder / CEO to establish product-market fit and put in the processes to scale the business. I start by thinking about the critical messages we need to develop and then what will get prospects to talk to us and, eventually, purchase. I ask myself, “Who should care about us?”

It’s about keeping things really simple. At a previous company, I didn’t take the time to really define our reason for being and this left the sales team to do their own thing and had to figure it out on their own. It did not work out very well for us. Now, I always work to identify and focus on the problem we solve and put it in simple terms so that everyone can articulate and explain it.

Messaging is, obviously, easier when the problem is familiar to people. But it isn’t always. Have you ever worked at a company that was in a new product category?

Category placement is really important. You have to be really clear which category you’re in so others can place you. It’s hard to sell something to a company that doesn’t have any budget allocated to that product/solution. I’ve found that when a category is particularly new, education is really important. This is often a big issue for platform companies.

So how do you create a platform brand?

You can’t depend on the enterprise to understand the power of the platform. It’s the selling company’s job is to educate the enterprise on the platform’s potential, the specific applications and how it solves a specific problem for a specific executive / buyer.  Unless widely adopted, companies do not go out and look for platforms.

At my current company, Density, our technology allows enterprises to measure occupancy by counting people passing through a doorway. We position ourselves as an analytics platform, driven by occupancy data. On its own, that doesn’t mean much to most people! We need to define the platform and also give examples of the things the platform can do and the problems it solves.

So how do you do that? How do develop a value proposition for each customer?

You need to get clear on what you do, how you do it, and begin to develop the proof points as quickly as possible. At Density, we have a device we install above a door that measures people going in and out of a space. The problem we solve really depends on the customer. When we talked to our initial customers, we looked for underlying trends and recurring problems. We identified initial applications that were common and valuable to our target audience and focused on those “use cases”: security tailgating, office space wastage, facilities management, and conference room and cafeteria planning.  We give executives the necessary data to enable them to make better decisions.

Let’s talk more about brand. You’re in a very early stage. Do you focus at this point on the brand?

Brand recognition and brand awareness help potential buyers understand who you are as a company. You’ve got to invest when you can. When I join a company, I first focus on the problem we are solving and then how we solve it in a way that is differentiated and valuable to customers.  That might not be the flashy brand stuff people see but it makes a big impact on the sales cycle. The better you define the problem and the solution, the easier it is to sell and the stronger your brand becomes.

Speaking of sales, what’s your approach to scaling the sales team?

I tend to make sure that I have a strong foundation that can withstand high scale—but at the right time. It doesn’t make sense to scale before you have a clear and repeatable product-market fit and go-to-market strategy. Although our technology is applicable to every Fortune 1000 company we’re targeting companies that align best with the use cases we are focusing on today.  Once we see a repeatable process, we will add reps and allow them to apply the recipe many times across many accounts.

How can the sales team impact brand building?

First, arm them with what they need. Content is king. We make sure sales has the content – data sheets, pitch decks, case studies – they need right away. The content doesn’t have to be perfect but they need something. We iterate on and refine this content over time.

Speaking of iterating, our reps are key to our ongoing learning process. They are out there hearing about how customers see our brand, how they use our solutions, and how we can make it better. You have to use every customer interaction to learn. Then you bring that feedback back inside and adjust. And then you go out again.

Any closing thoughts?

I’d just say that when you start to think about how your brand matters to people, it’s overwhelming.  I really try to stay focused. If we can do everything, it’s hard to do anything. Take it step by step and get straight on fundamentals first.

Pier makes it sound easy. But finding product-market fit and defining your value isn’t always simple. If you’re struggling to articulate the problem you solve or develop the use cases that communicate your value proposition, we want to hear from you. Emotive Brand understands the connection between positioning and messaging and sales. Let’s talk about how we can help you make your product more relevant to your customers and drive revenue.

Emotive Brand is a B2B brand strategy and design agency.

Do a Company’s Vision and Mission Statements Have Expiration Dates?

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Vision and Mission

We probably don’t need to convince anyone that having a vision and mission matters. They give you a North Star, help you focus on a goal, and act as a check for your strategic decisions. But how long should a vision and mission stay intact? At what point should you change your mission and vision?

Like many brand strategy decisions, it depends. At Emotive Brand, we believe a company should update their mission when it doesn’t match their strategy. Few would argue with this point, right? What’s more difficult than deciding if you should change your mission, though, is how it should change. When we work with clients, we develop missions that are inspirational, aspirational, and can stand the test of time.

Let’s talk first about the definitions. A mission is a tangible goal that can be used to organize teams around products and services to meet the goal. A vision, in contrast, is a company’s destination and unifying principle.

We like to share NASA’s vision and mission with clients because they both map so well to these definitions:

NASA Vision: “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”

NASA Mission: “Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and bring new knowledge and opportunities back to Earth. Support growth of the Nation’s economy in space and aeronautics, increase understanding of the universe and our place in it, work with industry to improve America’s aerospace technologies, and advance American leadership.”

NASA had another mission previously – one we actually prefer to share for its simplicity: “To pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.” So why the change? The latest mission statement was updated after the 2016 election. The new administration likely wanted to take ownership over the strategy and reflect the Trump Administration’s pro-business stance and an America-first agenda. The vision has evolved, too, but isn’t so far away from what NASA stated as their vision in 2004, “To improve life here, to extend life to there, to find life beyond,” and also similar to what NASA stated in 2014, “We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.”

While a vision – like NASA’s – usually remains stable for a long period of time, missions change more frequently.

How long can a mission last? Three years is likely too short of time, but 20 years may be too long to keep the same mission. Of course, when your mission no longer describes your business, isn’t believable, or doesn’t reflect the current management’s goals, you’re ready for something new. Changing a mission is acceptable and common. And as the NASA example shows, strong organizations change their missions all the time.

Ready to get started?

Here are some tips to make sure you aren’t revisiting your vision and mission exercise too soon:

Make it Aspirational

We recently worked with a company that wanted to move from a product focus to a solution focus. Even though the shift was still very much in progress, the company already knew the direction where they were headed. Changing their mission allowed them to be more aspirational and communicate their new focus both internally and externally.

Give Yourself Some Runway

It’s a balancing act to pick a mission that can work for today and tomorrow without cutting off possibilities or narrowing your focus too much. A great mission flexes with the future. For instance, we developed a mission for one of our clients, a new company offering food allergy treatment. While the company eventually may offer its services to adults, today they focus on children. We made sure their mission statement didn’t tie them to a specific audience and kept the door open to a broader market.

Do More than Describe – Create Excitement

Your mission’s goal is as much about describing your company’s reason for being as it is about firing up your employees. Missions that are solely descriptive fall flat. You want to communicate the role you will have – be it the industry leader, the market’s convener, or the company creating the most sophisticated technology. When you put a stake in the ground, you create excitement externally and among your employees.

Keep it Simple

Your mission should always be on the minds of your employees and well-understood by the rest of the world. If it is too long or complicated, it’s hard to remember and support. (Read NASA’s current mission above again if you don’t believe us.) Simplicity isn’t easy. In the process of writing your mission, you’ll likely throw away many, many options but, trust us, it is worth it.

Vision and mission development is hard work. While it is an interesting process and can bring a company together, it requires significant investment. When you create your vision and mission with its utility and longevity in mind, you ensure you don’t repeat the process again too soon. And if you are looking for help, do let us know.

 

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency.

Finally Create Marketing Materials Sales Actually Uses

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Marketing Materials: Is Sales Using Them?

If you’re in marketing, you’ve probably created some awesome campaign assets only to find out that the sales team never used them. Or maybe you planned a customer event with a meaty agenda, but no one in Sales sent invites. You spend tons of time creating marketing materials and executing events and campaigns only to find Sales finds no value in them – and doesn’t share them.

So how do you create marketing materials Sales actually uses? You work with Sales as much as possible.

Know the Sales Strategy

First, you’ve got to bring Sales into the conversation. Ask them their top priorities so you know exactly how to best support them. Is their current focus in a specific industry, company size, or geography? Which products are they trying to emphasize? Decide together what accounts/markets you’ll focus on first. Wide adoption of account based marketing means you may already be coordinating on accounts. But when you understand the overall sales strategy, you can align your overall marketing efforts to what matters most.

Understand the Process

It’s not enough to understand the sales strategy. You need to understand the life of the sales rep. As a marketer, you’ve probably researched customer pain points. You maybe even developed persona maps to get to know specific customer segments. But how well do you understand Sales’ pain points? Put your persona mapping skills to work for them. Understand how they spend their day. Who do they communicate with the most? What material do they spend hours looking for in a response to a prospect’s request?

As you do this, you’ll learn about Sales’ pain points. It might be that they have no trouble getting a first meeting but they need more customer cases to close the sale. Or maybe customers ask for proof of ROI and Sales never has the latest numbers in the collateral they get from Marketing. When you know what your Sales team does to sell products that resolve customers’ pain points, you can help them do it faster, easier, and more frequently.

Make it Easy for Them

If you’ve created a persona map for your sales reps, one thing you probably found is that reps, even inside reps, are on their devices more than ever. Maybe the reason they never passed on your blog was they couldn’t easily share it from their device. Or maybe you aren’t publishing enough on LinkedIn, the place where they spend a lot of time. Make it easy for them to share your material. Take out all the admin steps so they can just focus on selling.

When you make it easy for Sales to use the materials you produce, you further your own goals. You help them adopt the brand voice, recruit them as brand ambassadors, and strengthen the brand.

Be a Service Provider

Ultimately, your work must drive sales. If you work in a vacuum, it won’t be long before you lose your job. Yes, it can be hard to prove your impact. But if Sales isn’t using your material because they don’t find it useful, the problem is yours.

Instead, think of Sales as your customer. This mindset shift can make all the difference.

How do you “sell more of your product” to them? What are they “buying” instead? You might learn that they find the Gartner Magic Quadrant report the most compelling info they can share. Instead of seeing them buying a “competitor’s” product, figure out what they find valuable in the Magic Quadrant report so you can serve their needs better with your in-house material.

Be There in the Last Mile

The last mile – the point where Sales attempts to close the deal – is often where things fall apart. Sales needs Marketing’s support. Again, if you’ve done a persona map for a sales rep, you’ll know that sales cycles can be long and painful. The better you know Sales, customers, and the strategy, the easier it will be for you to be the critical partner you need to be at this point.

Some marketers don’t include Sales in their work because they are afraid of losing control. That’s the wrong approach. The best Marketers partner with Sales and gain control over their work and help Sales do their best. When Sales and Marketing tightly align, good things happen. You get stronger brand awareness, better demand gen, and a shorter sales cycle. Invest in your relationship with Sales and watch your marketing efforts soar.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.