At Made By Giants, we are up close and personal to the cutting edge of how B2B tech companies are forging ahead with new innovations we never dreamt possible.
Every day we see our partners (we don’t work for clients, we work with partners) coming to us with really creative solutions to business challenges you didn’t even know existed. The pace of digital transformation is simply astounding.
But wait a minute, isn’t this blog meant to talk about why your brand is more valuable than your technology? Well, of course it is. Because how many times have you heard from investors, after assessing your pitch, this piercing statement: “So tell us about your brand.”
1. Without a brand, your tech feels small
Most tech companies start with a solution to a problem. That solution is usually a piece of creative technology that starts out as a prototype, eventually building out into a fledgling product. But that creative story needs a reason for being there, a vision for the future, a name, a sales proposition, a visual way of expressing itself, a personality on social media, a way of attracting talent to its purpose, a website and SO MUCH MORE. Well to us that is A LIVING, BREATHING BRAND. Without it, your technology feels small.
2. It helps you secure funding through differentiation
Investors will of course want to be all over your financials and your technology. But trust me, they’ll also be looking very closely at what you stand for, the value of your name, your offer, your positioning, the simplicity of your marketing and just how well you stack up against your competitors. And you don’t have long to get this across. So much so that in 2022 (compared with 2021) investors are now spending less time on pitches overall. Interestingly, in the time they do spend on pitches, brand purpose is what they dwell more on now, according to DropBox DocSend.
You see where I’m going with this? They will be assessing the value of your BRAND. And without a brilliant, impactful brand, where are you?
3. It helps you flex and extend into new verticals
So your technology is in a good place. Buyers are adopting it and you’re getting more traction. That’s great, so now what? Well your engineers have pointed out that your tech could be enhanced for different verticals, but up to now you’ve just focused on one or two types of buyer. Your brand now needs the legs to extend to sub brand categories that speak directly to specific use cases. But unless you have a strong brand in place, one that stands for more than just the technology, then you can’t use your brand to break into new, lucrative audiences.
4. It heavily supports your acquisition strategy and helps close deals
Ok, so now you’re on a growth path, and acquiring complementary companies. But you have all these new and different products, each with different names and selling cycles, and suddenly they are now all in one place – under your masterbrand. If your brand strategy has anticipated this growth, with a the right brand architecture in place to support it, then you are good to grow. But if it hasn’t, then your growth plans will be incredibly hard to articulate by your sales and marketing teams, which jeopardises or even worse, stalls revenues.
Do any of these killer reasons why your brand is more valuable than your technology resonate with you?
Do you need a brand strategy for 2023 to support growth plans? Email onesmallstep@madebygiants.io.