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To brand or not to brand….that is the question
Apr 18, 2024
I’ve been having some pretty Groundhog Day-level conversations around branding. It typically goes something like this:
Me: “Do you have any branding?”
Them: “Yeah. I have this thing my cousin made for me.”
Me: “Oh great. Do you have an understanding of customer drivers, positioning, messaging, etc.”
Them: “See, this is the problem with marketing. All you want to do is rebrand. It's a complete waste of time. I need to focus on driving growth.”
Me: “Good luck doing that without a well-articulated brand.”
The people I discuss these conversations with give me two pieces of advice that typically go something like this: 1) Educate people on why the brand is important, or 2) Don’t work with companies that don’t value brand. This last piece of advice would eliminate most of my target market. So, Door #1 it is, but only by default. Brand is a key part of marketing strategy, and too many people these days see no value in having one of those.
How can you grow without an understanding of your customers? We can run all kinds of tactics, but if the customer doesn’t care, doesn’t understand what you do, or has no idea how your widget helps them achieve their goals, you might as well pack up now. Keep shoving that money into the void of diminishing returns of LinkedIn and Google ads; that’s your call. However, if you want to build a category-killing business, you can’t skip the foundational work – like, helloooo, branding – required for scale.
Before you email me with your “whaddabouts,” yes: this is hard for start-ups that are self-funded or just starting. Yes, it’s hard when your investors demand multipliers of growth in short timelines. And yes once more, it can be difficult to take a beat to think through branding while you’re trying to push your product out. However, you gotta eat your vegetables. I promise that on the back end of a successful brand exercise, you’re going to get the returns you’re looking for – and save a hell of a lot of time and money achieving them.
Brand is your connective tissue–or, should I say, fascia, for all you biohackers. If you don’t brand, you’re kicking your business in the knees (note, I wanted to say something else). It’s never going to grow up to be the next Whatevercompanyyouwanttobe because:
Without an overarching narrative, it’s more difficult to pitch to clients and customers.
People who can’t articulate what your business does will not refer or recommend you.
You rely on speeds and feeds to sell, not on showcasing true customer value.
All your marketing is done in your internal echo chamber and so you probably haven’t figured out how to speak the customer’s language.
Employees don’t understand, or feel loyal to, your vision or mission, so you can’t recruit the right talent.
Your advertising doesn’t have a consistent story so its returns are diminishing.
It’s impossible to generate organic word-of-mouth growth.
TL;DR: not doing the hard brand work now means it’s harder to stand out. Don’t fool yourself: any initial growth you think you got without branding is just covering for the slowdown you’re going to see eventually when customers churn, sales cycles lengthen, and operating costs rise. But good luck with that if that’s how you want to run your biz into the ground.
I’ve been having some pretty Groundhog Day-level conversations around branding. It typically goes something like this:
Me: “Do you have any branding?”
Them: “Yeah. I have this thing my cousin made for me.”
Me: “Oh great. Do you have an understanding of customer drivers, positioning, messaging, etc.”
Them: “See, this is the problem with marketing. All you want to do is rebrand. It's a complete waste of time. I need to focus on driving growth.”
Me: “Good luck doing that without a well-articulated brand.”
The people I discuss these conversations with give me two pieces of advice that typically go something like this: 1) Educate people on why the brand is important, or 2) Don’t work with companies that don’t value brand. This last piece of advice would eliminate most of my target market. So, Door #1 it is, but only by default. Brand is a key part of marketing strategy, and too many people these days see no value in having one of those.
How can you grow without an understanding of your customers? We can run all kinds of tactics, but if the customer doesn’t care, doesn’t understand what you do, or has no idea how your widget helps them achieve their goals, you might as well pack up now. Keep shoving that money into the void of diminishing returns of LinkedIn and Google ads; that’s your call. However, if you want to build a category-killing business, you can’t skip the foundational work – like, helloooo, branding – required for scale.
Before you email me with your “whaddabouts,” yes: this is hard for start-ups that are self-funded or just starting. Yes, it’s hard when your investors demand multipliers of growth in short timelines. And yes once more, it can be difficult to take a beat to think through branding while you’re trying to push your product out. However, you gotta eat your vegetables. I promise that on the back end of a successful brand exercise, you’re going to get the returns you’re looking for – and save a hell of a lot of time and money achieving them.
Brand is your connective tissue–or, should I say, fascia, for all you biohackers. If you don’t brand, you’re kicking your business in the knees (note, I wanted to say something else). It’s never going to grow up to be the next Whatevercompanyyouwanttobe because:
Without an overarching narrative, it’s more difficult to pitch to clients and customers.
People who can’t articulate what your business does will not refer or recommend you.
You rely on speeds and feeds to sell, not on showcasing true customer value.
All your marketing is done in your internal echo chamber and so you probably haven’t figured out how to speak the customer’s language.
Employees don’t understand, or feel loyal to, your vision or mission, so you can’t recruit the right talent.
Your advertising doesn’t have a consistent story so its returns are diminishing.
It’s impossible to generate organic word-of-mouth growth.
TL;DR: not doing the hard brand work now means it’s harder to stand out. Don’t fool yourself: any initial growth you think you got without branding is just covering for the slowdown you’re going to see eventually when customers churn, sales cycles lengthen, and operating costs rise. But good luck with that if that’s how you want to run your biz into the ground.
I’ve been having some pretty Groundhog Day-level conversations around branding. It typically goes something like this:
Me: “Do you have any branding?”
Them: “Yeah. I have this thing my cousin made for me.”
Me: “Oh great. Do you have an understanding of customer drivers, positioning, messaging, etc.”
Them: “See, this is the problem with marketing. All you want to do is rebrand. It's a complete waste of time. I need to focus on driving growth.”
Me: “Good luck doing that without a well-articulated brand.”
The people I discuss these conversations with give me two pieces of advice that typically go something like this: 1) Educate people on why the brand is important, or 2) Don’t work with companies that don’t value brand. This last piece of advice would eliminate most of my target market. So, Door #1 it is, but only by default. Brand is a key part of marketing strategy, and too many people these days see no value in having one of those.
How can you grow without an understanding of your customers? We can run all kinds of tactics, but if the customer doesn’t care, doesn’t understand what you do, or has no idea how your widget helps them achieve their goals, you might as well pack up now. Keep shoving that money into the void of diminishing returns of LinkedIn and Google ads; that’s your call. However, if you want to build a category-killing business, you can’t skip the foundational work – like, helloooo, branding – required for scale.
Before you email me with your “whaddabouts,” yes: this is hard for start-ups that are self-funded or just starting. Yes, it’s hard when your investors demand multipliers of growth in short timelines. And yes once more, it can be difficult to take a beat to think through branding while you’re trying to push your product out. However, you gotta eat your vegetables. I promise that on the back end of a successful brand exercise, you’re going to get the returns you’re looking for – and save a hell of a lot of time and money achieving them.
Brand is your connective tissue–or, should I say, fascia, for all you biohackers. If you don’t brand, you’re kicking your business in the knees (note, I wanted to say something else). It’s never going to grow up to be the next Whatevercompanyyouwanttobe because:
Without an overarching narrative, it’s more difficult to pitch to clients and customers.
People who can’t articulate what your business does will not refer or recommend you.
You rely on speeds and feeds to sell, not on showcasing true customer value.
All your marketing is done in your internal echo chamber and so you probably haven’t figured out how to speak the customer’s language.
Employees don’t understand, or feel loyal to, your vision or mission, so you can’t recruit the right talent.
Your advertising doesn’t have a consistent story so its returns are diminishing.
It’s impossible to generate organic word-of-mouth growth.
TL;DR: not doing the hard brand work now means it’s harder to stand out. Don’t fool yourself: any initial growth you think you got without branding is just covering for the slowdown you’re going to see eventually when customers churn, sales cycles lengthen, and operating costs rise. But good luck with that if that’s how you want to run your biz into the ground.
I’ve been having some pretty Groundhog Day-level conversations around branding. It typically goes something like this:
Me: “Do you have any branding?”
Them: “Yeah. I have this thing my cousin made for me.”
Me: “Oh great. Do you have an understanding of customer drivers, positioning, messaging, etc.”
Them: “See, this is the problem with marketing. All you want to do is rebrand. It's a complete waste of time. I need to focus on driving growth.”
Me: “Good luck doing that without a well-articulated brand.”
The people I discuss these conversations with give me two pieces of advice that typically go something like this: 1) Educate people on why the brand is important, or 2) Don’t work with companies that don’t value brand. This last piece of advice would eliminate most of my target market. So, Door #1 it is, but only by default. Brand is a key part of marketing strategy, and too many people these days see no value in having one of those.
How can you grow without an understanding of your customers? We can run all kinds of tactics, but if the customer doesn’t care, doesn’t understand what you do, or has no idea how your widget helps them achieve their goals, you might as well pack up now. Keep shoving that money into the void of diminishing returns of LinkedIn and Google ads; that’s your call. However, if you want to build a category-killing business, you can’t skip the foundational work – like, helloooo, branding – required for scale.
Before you email me with your “whaddabouts,” yes: this is hard for start-ups that are self-funded or just starting. Yes, it’s hard when your investors demand multipliers of growth in short timelines. And yes once more, it can be difficult to take a beat to think through branding while you’re trying to push your product out. However, you gotta eat your vegetables. I promise that on the back end of a successful brand exercise, you’re going to get the returns you’re looking for – and save a hell of a lot of time and money achieving them.
Brand is your connective tissue–or, should I say, fascia, for all you biohackers. If you don’t brand, you’re kicking your business in the knees (note, I wanted to say something else). It’s never going to grow up to be the next Whatevercompanyyouwanttobe because:
Without an overarching narrative, it’s more difficult to pitch to clients and customers.
People who can’t articulate what your business does will not refer or recommend you.
You rely on speeds and feeds to sell, not on showcasing true customer value.
All your marketing is done in your internal echo chamber and so you probably haven’t figured out how to speak the customer’s language.
Employees don’t understand, or feel loyal to, your vision or mission, so you can’t recruit the right talent.
Your advertising doesn’t have a consistent story so its returns are diminishing.
It’s impossible to generate organic word-of-mouth growth.
TL;DR: not doing the hard brand work now means it’s harder to stand out. Don’t fool yourself: any initial growth you think you got without branding is just covering for the slowdown you’re going to see eventually when customers churn, sales cycles lengthen, and operating costs rise. But good luck with that if that’s how you want to run your biz into the ground.
