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Tag: Messaging

Early Warning Signs You Need a Brand Refresh

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Brand Presentation Counts

Presentation is everything. It’s the way a gourmet meal looks on the plate, what you wear for a job interview, or the tidiness and odor of your hotel room when you open the door.

The same rings true with a corporate brand.

Your brand is who you are. When your brand presentation is clear, people understand who you are and what you stand for in the world. On the other hand, when your presentation doesn’t make a great first impression, you must prepare to deal with the fallout.

This is why when we work with clients, we often need to stress that how you present your brand externally is different from what you say internally. Externally, you speak to shareholders, partners, and customers.

We believe external messages must address these four questions:

  •      Who are you?
  •      Why do you matter?
  •      What do you do?
  •      How do you do what you do?

You communicate these same ideas to your internal audiences — your employees, foremost, and, secondarily, your board of directors. But you have to tailor them for each audience. Not only does the way you communicate your brand connect your stakeholders to your strategic goals and objectives, it also affects your ability to be a sought-after employer and great place to work. You’ll attract and retain great people when you socialize and operationalize corporate strategy in a way that employees can understand and relate back to why it matters to them.

So how do you get to a place where you can communicate simply, strongly, and boldly?

You create the right message for the right audience and the right message for the right time.

Recognizing The Need for a Refresh

First, ask yourself, “Can we easily articulate who we are and why we matter?” More specifically:

  •      Is our story simple?
  •      Is it externally focused? Internally focused?
  •      Is it easy for people to know everything we offer?

Or try some more tactical, capital investment questions:

  •      When is the last time we invested in a brand campaign?
  •      How is our lead gen?
  •      Are we investing in content?

Maybe the easiest question to answer is this one:

  • “Can everyone in the company, even outside of the sales organization, give the pitch with confidence? Can they do it in 10 slides? Would it be consistent overall?”

Time for Change

If you don’t like the answer to these questions, you need to change how you present your brand.

It’s time to bring someone from the outside in to freshen up your story and your presentation so you can to start the new year in full alignment.

We’re here to help.

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

Positioning Strategy for High-Growth Tech Companies

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

High-Tech Companies Have Banished the Word Brand Strategy

I’m not sure when it happened. I only know it has. Brand strategy is no longer something the tech world is asking for. Well, let me be clear, they are still asking for it, they just aren’t using the term brand strategy. Positioning strategy is the new brand strategy, at least for high-growth companies where time is of the essence.

I’ve felt the shift first hand. As a co-founder of an agency, I’m the person who takes the incoming calls from prospects looking for an agency. It used to be that I would patiently listen for the words “brand strategy” to qualify a prospect. But over the past three years, I’ve heard that term less and less. Instead, prospects are using other terms to describe their most pressing business problems. It just took me a while to really understand what was happening and why.

The Factors I See at Play in a Desire for Positioning Strategy

1. Agile has become a way of doing business. Marketers need things fast. They want quick wins as they look to test new ideas in the market, prove that they work, and implement them quickly and successfully.

2. Competition in technology has never been as fierce as it is now. The rate of disruption and innovation that is happening is amazing. But with that comes the difficulty of keeping pace. It comes down to differentiating, getting to market first, and, if you make it, staying ahead.

3. Data drives everything. If you can’t prove a project has a strong ROI, it won’t happen. Iterating and testing strategy and ideas has never been more important. There is no harder role than being a CMO right now. And any CMO or marketer in today’s world needs to prove a strong ROI in the work they are doing, especially when outsourcing to an agency.

4. Valuation is critical to any high-growth company. Being in the wrong category can derail even the best tech company from achieving their vision of a successful exit. This is top priority for almost any high-growth business, whether it’s a startup or a publicly-traded technology company.

5. Positioning has never been so top of mind for leadership teams. It is where the rubber hits the road. Every successful brand needs to be strongly positioned in the market to thrive.

6. Strategy is no longer enough to shift a business or brand. Marketers are looking for strategy AND the assets needed to implement in market ASAP. They just don’t have the team or the time to figure it out internally. They need both strategy and activation.

These are the factors that have shifted the landscape of what leadership teams and marketers are looking for to help their business thrive, to help their brand be more meaningful, to hire and retain top talent, and to realize their purpose and vision.

What are high-growth businesses looking for today?

High-growth businesses are looking for ways to make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time. It’s about strategies  to help scale their business. Quick wins that can prove ROI for larger investment. And strategies gain better valuations. They are looking for the magic bullet.

I believe that in B2B and high-tech, brand strategy has now become the following things:

  • Defining the right category – developing a new one or moving to a different one
  • Positioning Strategy to ensure you are perceived in the right space, associated with the right competitors, envisioned by your target audience in the right ways
  • Creating a narrative to align your corporate strategy, vision, and why you matter to all of your stakeholders, internal and external
  • Messaging that resonates, that blends the rational and emotional in ways that differentiate and support both marketing and sales teams as they drive revenue and build brand
  • Websites that deliver the value proposition, convert leads, articulate the story, differentiate, and help any prospective buyer or employee see why you matter

Positioning Strategy

So, while marketers are not asking for brand strategy in the way they used to, they are still asking for it. In many ways it’s easier because they are asking for it in ways that address their most pressing business issues. Demanding it in sprints, delivered in ways that are actionable. They need strategy and the tools to launch that strategy in market, but it is still brand strategy.

It doesn’t matter what terminology is being used it. Whether it’s brand strategy or a small component of it, being a good partner is being able to adjust to the needs of prospects – meeting them where they are at, delivering what will impact their business. When they win, so do we.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco strategy firm.

Need to Scale Fast? CEOs Can’t Just Focus On Engineering Benefits

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Scale Fast to Beat The Competition

Why do so many engineering-led CEOs have a hard time scaling their company? I’d estimate more than 90% of our clients are engineers first and become CEOs later. An engineering background is of great value today – inspired ideas, technical abilities, and intense drive bring great products into the world.

Unfortunately, the problem is that many of these products fail to scale fast, and dreams of  becoming the next unicorn are quickly squashed. Sadly, when this happens, the world doesn’t derive the benefits of the product the team has worked so hard to bring to market.

In today’s fast-paced market, having a strategy to scale fast is a key to staying ahead of the competition. And trust me, there is lots of competition. I’ve seen a lot of situations where suddenly a competitor figures out how to both mimic the technology and to bring it to market in a way that scales fast. The first-at-the-gate CEO is left baffled – wondering what these usurpers did right in order to scale fast and win the market.

It Matters Where Your Promise is Rooted

The difference between failing and succeeding often comes down to the promise that surrounds the product. Traditionally, it was enough to root that promise in the engineering behind the products – focusing on the technical benefits and features. But now, more and more products are scaling fast and taking hold of the market by basing their promises outside the realm of engineering.

Why Promise More Than Good Engineering?

It is no doubt very hard to accept that, in today’s world, the most “obvious” story isn’t always the “right” story to tell. What may be obvious to an engineer leading a company, is rarely as obvious, relevant, and compelling to your audience.

As more and more successful brands are realizing, the best stories don’t revolve around the engineering “outputs” of your efforts but rather the personal, social, and environmental “outcomes” they produce.

Quite simply, the most compelling outcomes are those that touch the core human needs of everyone, and which incorporate whatever positive impact your brand has on the society, people, or even the environment.

Searching for Meaningful Outcomes

To develop an outcome-driven promise that really changes the way people think, feel, and act, you need to see your product through the lens of true and meaningful outcomes.

As such, you need to interrogate your product to uncover how it can make people feel more positive, more connected, accepted, capable, and competent. Accounting for all the positive, human contributions that flow from your product and brand, help shape emotional outcomes that act like magnets – drawing people into your brand, filling them with desire for your product, and ultimately, leading them down the path to purchase.

Outcome-Based Promises Help Products Scale Fast

Outcome-based promises have great power because they resonate deeply on an emotional level that lies well below the surface. By addressing basic human needs and desires, they register internally in very significant ways. While people may not readily talk about these transformative experiences, they nonetheless are influenced by them in ways that lead to new ways of perceiving your brand and acting in its interests.

Suddenly, There’s a New Light Shining on Your Engineering

People drawn to a brand through deep meaning develop an appetite for information that validates and supports their decision to embrace the brand. It’s part of human nature. Because of this, when people are emotionally connected to your brand, they are primed to appreciate your engineering story too.

They may well have turned away if you had started with your engineering-based promise of solely features and benefits, but now, they now stick by you as they recognize your features within the broader context of your meaningful product story.

Develop your brand story on truly meaningful outcomes to engineer success, scale faster, and grow smarter.

Emotive Brand is a startup brand strategy firm.

Creating A Meaningful Workplace: It Doesn’t Happen By Messaging Alone

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Eighth in a series

“The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.” – Saint Augustine

It was earlier noted that people today, including employees and prospective recruits, are looking for more meaning in their lives.

This shift has not only prompted companies to reconsider their business models, product offerings, and workplaces, it has made them re-think the terms on which they engage people.

Messaging alone won’t pull employees in

This is especially true when trying to build a Meaningful Workplace. It becomes far more involved than simply sending a PDF of the master plan to every employee or hanging posters in the cafeteria. Indeed, every aspect of the master plan’s deployment needs to be done in a highly sensitive and respectful way.

It has been said that messaging is dead, meaning that the idea of simply creating and broadcasting a bank of words, no matter how charmingly poetic they may be, simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

Such business transmissions smack of company speak, and worse, of marketing. Eyes glaze over. Defensive shields are erected. Pure messaging attempts fail.

The goal, after all, is a meaningful outcome that seeks to bring the employer and the employee closer together. This is not to say messaging doesn’t play a role in the development of a Meaningful Workplace.

What it does say is that messaging cannot be the primary tool for instilling a sense of ambition, for evoking feelings, and for creating a meaningful culture.

Did you miss the first seven parts of this series? You might want to read:

This series is excerpted from a white paper titled The Meaningful Workplace that was first published at Emotive Brand.