How to build a brand on a shoestring budget as a b2b startup founder
In my previous article, I talked about marketing on a shoestring budget.
Today, I want to help you establish brand foundations.
This is something I took from my own experience as a brand strategist.
Do you need a professional brand strategy? Yes.
Can you start without one? Yes.
But before I show you how to start building a brand, let's cover some basics.
⭐ Why do you even build a brand?
📍 Americans are exposed to 10.000 ads per day, on average.
📍 At least 50% of those ads receive no clicks (google "ad blindness" for stats).
📍 Statista published a report stating that there are 25.000 SaaS solutions on the market as we speak.
Plunking down shovels of money into advertising without defining what do you want to say, to whom, and why is like playing Russian roulette. It's all fun and adrenaline but you're not surviving that thing.
You need something to differentiate yourself. You need a story. You need an emotion to tie your product to. You need a narrative - a story people tell themselves about you.
We strive to understand the world around us. We put stuff into mental buckets.
And you better influence the type of bucket your company goes into.
⭐ And that's why you use brand strategy
What we say, to whom, and why. What type of buckets we want to fill in with our story?
It sounds simple but it takes a helluva effort to define these things for any type of company - research, data, creativity, lucidity, bravery, commitment, business expertise...
Yet, I believe you can do many things on your own before you get the budget for a brand strategist.
⭐ So here it is, a DIY brand strategy foundations guide without any strings attached
I want you to think in terms of 3 pillars / WHO, WHAT, HOW.
Every pillar represents a foundation of your brand and your online communication.
⭐ The first pillar is WHO.
This pillar should have the answer to the question - Who buys our product and why?
Many people write down "business owners, 35-45" and stop there. Nope.
Ditch those customer personas and get your hands dirty.
It's time to find out what happens in people's lives BEFORE and AFTER they purchase your product.
How to discover that? Here's a trick from my bag that I use for early-stage startups.
📍 Get yourself a dozen of $50 Amazon cards.
📍 Pitch your network of past customers and offer these cards for 15-min interviews.
📍 Pitch your personal networks.
📍 Get those people to talk and sort their problems into buckets.
Discover their BEFORE and AFTER.
"John, how were you solving THIS before you met us? How did your regular (business) day look like?"
"Ok, now that you've been working with us for some time, have you spotted any changes in your routine?"
"In the future, is there something you'd like to see being different?"
And that's how you define your target audience. That's your WHO.
⭐ The next pillar is WHAT.
Now that we have our WHO, it's time to enmesh it into our WHAT. This step is all about defining what we do.
We solve problem X FOR PEOPLE WHO + problems discovered during interviews + and help them avoid + changes they experienced.
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That's your value proposition. If you're not sure whether your offer is good enough, read it loudly and ask yourself WHO CARES.
If it's good, you'll have the answer.
⭐ The third pillar is HOW
This step is all about defining the exact SOP for providing your WHO with WHAT.
How we make sure we'll keep the promise.
How we're going to communicate that.
How we're keeping customers happy.
You need the first two steps to be truly granular about your HOW.
📍 You know their problems.
📍 You know their transformations.
📍 Their routines.
I can't give you a template solution for keeping your business promises and increasing retention rates... But here's a solution for communication that's applicable to many business.
Hopefully, to yours as well.
⭐ Using WHO, WHAT, HOW to communicate your brand and start building it for real
Let's imagine you're using Linkedin, Twitter and YouTube to reach your customers.
I want you to:
📍 Use the BEFORE-AFTER to create a 3-month calendar of posts for social media.
Template > This is your challenge #1, #2, #3... > This is how you used to solve it #1, #2, #3 > This is why it wasn't effective > We recognized that > This is how we solve it.
Variations > This is what many people like you get wrong about this problem. This is WHY we have started doing this in the first place - our personal story. This is how our employees see our mission.
📍 Use your transcripts from your interviews and create 12 monster blog posts (4 a month) where you describe transformations.
How to.
10 ways to.
From A to B in PERIOD OF TIME.
Pro tip > Offer options that are completely free. Give them a way to do what they want. That builds trust and credibility, and contrast between you as a paid solution and free solutions out there. And it weeds out price buyers.
📍 Record podcasts and videos
Invite partners, influencers, guests... Or just make recordings from your bedroom where you talk about bootstrapping. Or chasing down investments and VCs.
I'm playing with an idea that videos and podcasts should be all about thought leadership at the beginning.
Why? Well, videos are getting quite popular. The stats speak in favor of motivational content.
So why not motivate people in your 'casts? Talk about your story. What made you do this in the first place?
You're already talking about your offer on other channels. This is the place to connect with people.
📍 Conferences, business cards, TikToks, company booths, virtual coffees with random people on Linkedin, virtual demos.
ANYTHING that puts you in front of people.
⭐ Do I have a brand now, Dan?
Do this for at least 3 to 6 months. You won't be as strong as Nike but... You'll have audience and relationships.
And that's a brand foundation.
Your audience.
Your relationships.
Your supporters.
Stuff people talk about your product.
When people think of brands - they usually imagine big TV ads and billboards.
Yes, that's great...
But when you're starting out, you need a "small-scale brand".
You need connections. Communication. First testimonials and reviews.
Without those, there aren't many chances you'll get to the big boys/girls league.
⭐ This is a simplified version of brand building activities
But it's a starting point because many founders stop dead in their tracks when it comes to promoting their business and creating some sort of a name for themselves (a simple term for a "b2b brand").
If you found this helpful, please give it a like or a comment.
If not, please, share that with me as well so I could make these 101s better.
Cheers.
