Why Building a Brand is the Single Best Investment You Can Make (and How to Do it Without Hiring a Six-figure Agency)

@davegerhardt | VP of Marketing | Drift.com
Dave Gerhardt
VP of Marketing @ Drift
@davegerhardt
dg@drift.com

Why Building A Brand Is The Single Best
Investment You Can Make If You’re Serious
About Growing Your Business In 2018
(And How To Do It Without Hiring A Six-Figure
Agency Or A Team Of “Creatives”)

PS. I have to fly through this, SO if you want to
grab these slides for later:
drift.com/#dgslides

This is an RXBar.
I love RXBars.

This is what an RXBar looked like in 2014.

$600,000
.07%

"We would pitch it by saying it's like eating
three egg whites, two dates, six almonds.”

That’s when they struck gold.

"We would pitch it by saying it's like eating
three egg whites, two dates, six almonds.”

GENIUS.
We know it’s good for you.
So here’s exactly what’s in it.
You decide. No BS.

2017: $130,000,000

2017: $600,000,000

This is what 1000x in 3 years looks like btw:

This is an example of the single best
strategy you can deploy today:
being real & authentic.

Here’s why.

We are all suffering from
the same thing.

Information overload.

Just take marketing technology...

2011
100 Products

2012
350 Products

April 2018
6,829 Products

Who do I trust?
What do I actually need!?

On Top Of That: Explosion Of Channels

Explosion Of Marketing Channels

Every company has a blog.
Every company is on social.
Every company is on video.
Every company has a podcast.

“You know what: I wish I had more
content from brands!

We now live in a world
of INFINITE supply in
marketing.

So as marketers, the playbook for
acquiring customers has to change
in order to compete.

Traditional marketing channels work well
when there is LIMITED supply available.

One of 7,000

(Even if you aren’t in MarTech, I bet you still
have 10-20-200+ competitors today).

We knew PPC wouldn’t be magic.

We knew SEO wouldn’t be magic.

And every company has a blog.
Every company is on social.
Every company is on video.
Every company has a podcast.

In this world,
customers have
ALL the power
because they have
all of the CHOICE.

Think about how YOU buy for your business

By the time you get here, you’ve done all of
your research.

You and I don’t get sold to anymore. We buy.

“There’s a new B2B buyer out there—
one who does not expect, and in
many cases does not want, to deal
with a salesperson until it is time to
close the deal. More than three-
quarters of all B2B purchasers today,
including both small businesses and
enterprise customers, have only limited
interaction with salespeople.”
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2017/marketing-sales-how-digital-leaders-transforming-b2b.aspx

In a world with
INFINITE supply, you
only have
one choice to
compete:
build a brand.

Unless you are in a market with ZERO
competition, you can’t be running the same
marketing playbook from 2009.

Brand has to be what drives demand today.

But what IS a brand? Sounds like fluff.

“A brand is a company’s most important asset. A
company can’t “own” it’s facts. If the company’s facts
(speed, price, quality) are superior to the competition,
any good competitor will duplicate them or improve on
them.”

Good news
(and why I wanted to give this talk )
Today, you DO NOT need million dollar
budgets, agencies, or “creatives” to build a
brand.

The best branding strategy today is to be
real, authentic, and human.

You and I want to deal with REAL people.

The best marketers
have done this for decades.

Create a “damaging admission” & address your flaws openly.

This instantly ENHANCES your credibility.

“Our branding efforts are simple: tell people who we are. We don’t have to create a
fictional character like the Marlboro Man or a fake responsible caring campaign like
Chevron’s “we agree” advertising. Writing fiction is so much more difficult than
nonfiction.”
Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard

This is why Snapchat and Instagram took off.
It’s a real life live broadcast.

Let me give a few other examples…

People watched 355 BILLION hours last year.

628,000 people watched Drake play a video game live.

They don’t use models in their marketing.
They always use REAL people — different
races, body types, etc.

This is their homepage. This is real.

But these are all consumer examples, right?

Yes. And that’s because THIS is what the
future of B2B marketing will look like.

Every sales rep & marketer in this world is
going to tell you their thing is faster, better,
easier to use (doesn’t matter if it’s true).

I believe the only way to compete (and stand
out) is to be REAL.
Here’s what this can look like in B2B.

300,000 video views in 48 hours
#1 all-time traffic day to Drift.com
$0 spent on promotion
100 people with iPhones

Building a brand used to require an agency
or a team of creatives.

Today you need to make the shift to be real,
authentic, and human.
This is what will help you cut through the noise
and create demand as a marketer.

Brand can be your moat & #1 source of leads

Remember: non-fiction is easier than fiction.
You have all of the tools you need.

What is one change you can make with your
current marketing strategy today to match this?

THANK YOU.
Dave Gerhardt
VP of Marketing @ Drift
@davegerhardt
dg@drift.com

Why Building a Brand is the Single Best Investment You Can Make (and How to Do it Without Hiring a Six-figure Agency)

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Mehr von Drift

Mehr von Drift (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Why Building a Brand is the Single Best Investment You Can Make (and How to Do it Without Hiring a Six-figure Agency)