As a start-up or early-stage company, the staggering list of priorities to build and grow your fledgling business can be overwhelming. With limited budgets and staff, leaders must choose initiatives that will have the most impact. They have to balance long- and short-term strategy—building a business that is sustainable in the long run, but profitable now.
In this balancing act, many companies invest heavily in engineering and product development. It makes sense—build a winning product, and you’ll win market share. Right? And when the product is ready, leadership leans on sales and business development talent to drive demand and growth. Many young companies, especially those with B2B and/or technology applications, skip a critical step. It’s a step that, when done correctly, will improve their position in the market and accelerate growth.
Marketing is the cornerstone of every effective commercial strategy.
In our digital age, your buyers aren’t buying from a sales rep with a firm handshake. They are researching your company, products, and digital footprint, often before they will even consider taking a call. They want to vet whether you are qualified to serve their needs, not just with the best products, but with the right business model and a value proposition that resonates. If your brand presence is non-existent or does not resonate with your target audience, you will have a hard time winning their business.
But which aspects of marketing should be prioritized when budgets are limited? There are three key parts of a marketing strategy that have the highest impact for a young company.
#1 - Define Your Brand Story
In his bestselling book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, leadership author Simon Sinek says, “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
Many technology and engineering leaders are surprised to find that their product isn’t selling, even with the most incredible, game-changing specifications that they built. By defining a brand story and brand positioning content, it helps your target audience understand who you are and why you do what you do. Rather than focusing on “speeds and feeds,” the brand story puts your products into context. You’ll want to answer questions like:
Why did we get into this business?
Why did we build this product?
Why are we best suited to deliver this product?
What problems do we solve for our customers?
While visual design and branding are important, the first order of business for a young company is to understand deeply what differentiates them from their competitors and what matters to them (and, by extension, what matters to their customers). Every member of your team should be able to communicate this purpose and tell this story.
#2 - Product Marketing & Sales Enablement
Before you send your sales team into the trenches, they need support. Set them up for success by investing in core product marketing work and sales enablement collateral. A great place to start includes:
Discovering your target audience(s). Understand the profile of your target customers and learn which unique business problems they have that you can solve.
Messaging definition for your products and solutions. Develop use cases that define how you are solving your customers’ challenges. Create key selling points to pitch potential buyers and messaging aligned to each segment of your audience.
Understanding of the competitive landscape. How are your products differentiated from others in the market? Prepare intelligence to help sales in competitive selling environments.
Delivery of key sales enablement collateral, such as pitch decks, sell sheets, and videos. It’s worth investing in high quality messaging and design for these customer-facing assets.
#3 - Design Your Digital Footprint
When you’re a young company, you have a lot to prove. Potential customers will look at your online channels (a.k.a. your “digital footprint”) to vet you first—usually before contacting you or agreeing to a sales call. They are looking to find out who you are, whether your products can help solve their unique problems, and whether you are a credible and stable vendor.
If you’ve completed the earlier steps, you will already have a brand story and product messaging that resonates with your target audience. Now, it’s time to publish that information online. Every company, big and small, should invest in the following digital assets:
A professionally designed, SEO optimized website
Regularly published thought leadership content, such as blogs, webinars, and case studies
Regular posts on the right social media channels, to share your thought leadership content and other company highlights
It’s okay to start small and commit to a content cadence that is achievable—for example, one blog per month and two social media posts per week. It’s more important to be consistent than to have a high volume of content. The content should add value for the reader, such as a business perspective, data model, or new way of thinking about a challenge they are facing. It should never be a sales pitch.
Final Thoughts
While this is by no means an exhaustive list of high-impact marketing activities, it is often the best place for early-stage companies to begin prioritizing their marketing spend. By nailing your messaging, enabling your sales and channel partners, and investing in a quality digital footprint, you lay the foundation for your company’s growth engine. You prevent the wheel-spinning that can occur when a sales team has to develop their own product messaging and pitches, find their own target audiences, and figure out the competitive landscape. In short, you set your commercial team up for success.
One+One Strategic Business Partners has deep experience helping early-stage companies build winning commercial strategies from funding to marketing to business development. If you’re looking for a team of seasoned executives to build or support your marketing strategy, we can help.
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