Want to improve your tech startup marketing efforts? Then it would be best if you had a brand strategy. Before you can begin causing brand awareness, a strategy can help you know what to show, whom to show, and how.
That’s why you need help from the experts. A strategy can help you reach the goals of your tech business while making your brand more memorable.
And with some help, making marketing impactful will no longer be your struggle. Below, we show you by going into detail on improving your brand strategies. Keep reading to learn more.
What Is Branding?
The first step to understanding brand strategy is to know what branding is. So many people think that a brand is just a logo or slogan. But it’s so much more than that.
A brand is a total sum of how customers perceive a company. It’s what they think and feel about your services offered and reputation. And it’s not just what you say about your brand—it’s what customers say, too.
In other words, your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. So, how do you make sure they’re saying the right things?
That’s where brand strategy comes in. A brand strategy is a long-term plan for how you want people to perceive your brand. It encompasses everything from your brand identity to your brand messaging and positioning.
And it’s not just for big companies. Branding is just as crucial for small businesses and startups.
Moreover, brand strategy can be even more critical for early-stage companies because they have less brand recognition. It’s a way to cut through the noise and stand out in a crowded market.
Of course, brand strategy is not a one-time exercise. Instead, it’s an ongoing process that should be revisited and refined as your business grows and changes.
Now that we’ve answered the question, “what is branding,” let’s look at the importance of a brand strategy for your tech startup.
Why Is Brand Strategy Important for Tech Start-Ups?
Brand strategy is critical for early-stage companies because they have less brand recognition. A well-thought-out brand strategy can help you cut through the noise and accelerate in a crowded market where the stakes are high and speed to market is important.
In addition, brand strategy can help with consumer adoption and attracting the right investors. A clearly defined purpose, mission, vision, values, and your competitive advantage will help you focus your efforts to building value, recognition, and it will make you more attractive in raising capital from investors.
Finally, brand strategy can help you build a strong company culture. Having clearly defined brand identity will attract and retain like-minded employees and help you build towards the vision cohesively together.
Brand strategy is essential for tech startups for all of these reasons. Now let’s talk about how you can use brand strategy to make marketing work for you.
Defining Your Brand Purpose for Your Tech Start-Up
The first step in creating a brand strategy for your tech startup is to define your brand purpose. What is the reason your company exists. More importantly why does your company exit beyond making money.
In essence your brand purpose is your mission and why it matters to the world. A brand’s mission is developed first and foremost as a commitment of intent that provides clarity (a north star) for leadership and for employees. A mission’s secondary purpose is to guide the brand messaging. Understanding why you exist and the core principles shaping this commitment will serve as the foundation to your brand messaging framework.
You’re brand purpose will be the cornerstone of creating your brand identity, core messages, brand experience, positioning, value propositions and eventually guide your startup’s marketing strategies. This is the difference between branding and marketing.
Not having these important elements clearly defined, will result in:
- wasted time crafting marketing messages that don’t resonate with consumers
- conflicting communication that leadership can’t seem to agree on
- confusion from consumers in understanding who you are as a brand, what you do, and why you matter
- diminishing your reputation and credibility
- wasted efforts and money on marketing strategies that don’t perform
- missed opportunities
Investing the time and effort to develop a brand strategy no matter what phase of startup you are in, can mean accelerating adoption, return on investment, and brand awareness.
What Are Your Branding Goals?
The next step in developing a brand strategy for your tech startup is to define your brand building goals. What do you measure to track brand performance? How do you know your marketing strategies are in fact working?
As brand builders our brand marketing objectives are:
- brand awareness – measures the growth recognition and recall
- brand adoption – measures the growth of converting your consumers from knowing about your brand to making a purchase
- brand advocacy – measure the growth of advocacy over time such as repeat buy and referrals
Your marketing efforts should be tied back to developing these three brand growing pillars. As a start-up, you will want to focus setting and measure goals within brand awareness and brand adoption.
If you are a B2B SaaS startup, your marketing plan may include targeted social media campaigns related to who you are, your mission, and the problems you can solve for your target audience. In addition to targeted partnership reach outs that focus on key features, benefits, and case studies.
Developing Core Brand Messaging for Your Tech Start-Up
A significant part of brand strategy for your tech startup is to develop core brand messaging. This is the language you use to communicate with your customers. Developing a brand messaging framework will help you be consistent across your marketing channels, from your website to social media posts.
A brand messaging framework is a set of messages that communicate the brand’s meaning and value to its audience, which are used as the foundation of all messaging for communication and marketing.
To help you develop your framework, there are three main categories in which you will need key messages for:
- Internal (Company) Communication
- External (Consumer) Communication
- Competition
Some things to keep in mind when developing your brand messaging:
- Who is your target audience?
- What are their needs and wants?
- What sets your tech startup apart from the competition?
By answering these questions for each of the main categories you’ll be able to develop key brand messaging that will keep you consistent and relevant.
Once you’ve developed your brand messaging, integrate it into all your marketing materials, including your website, social media posts, business cards, email newsletters, and so on.
Incorporating Your Brand Values Into Your Marketing Strategy
Another vital aspect of branding for your tech startup is incorporating your brand values into your marketing strategy. This is the brand’s essence. Communicating your brand values visually and with language can help you connect emotionally with your audience increasing the chances of being memorable.
Some things to keep in mind when incorporating your brand values into your marketing strategy:
- How can you communicate your brand values to set yourself a part from competitors?
- What brand values align with what you know about your audience’s wants, needs, fears and desires, not to mention their personality traits.
- How can you incorporate them consistently in your marketing materials?
By keeping these things in mind, you’ll be able to develop marketing plans that builds trust and deepens your relationship with your target audience.
Measuring the Success of Your Tech Startup Branding Efforts
Measuring marketing strategies against brand performance will help understand where to focus marketing efforts with a holistic lens of the business. Developing goals to drive brand value and equity alongside revenue and profits will ensure your tech startup has a place in the consumer’s heart and mind in the long run.
Examples of some brand awareness metrics you can start to incorporate into your startup are:
- brand mentions
- branded search
- follows
- new links (number of backlinks to your website content)
- referring links (activity of other brands sharing your content)
- newsletter subscribes & open rates
- views
- impressions
You’ll track your progress and see what’s working and what’s not. This tracking will allow you to make necessary adjustments to your brand marketing efforts.
Tech Start Up Marketing Can Be More Effective With a Brand Strategy
Having a clearly defined brand strategy will streamline your marketing goals, measure what matters, and communicate your true value to your target audience.
As a tech startup do you have a marketing strategy? Is it difficult to communicate what you do or who you are as a brand? Can you describe your ideal customer? Do you know what makes what you have to offer unique? Do you have a defined brand strategy?
Contact us to schedule a free consultation to see how implementing a brand strategy will positively impact your business.
