Brand building, marketing and customer acquisition

Creating brand value

1. Brand is a relationship between product and consumer – so its important to manage that well and understand what creates the connect between the 2
2. This comes with telling a great story – create an immersive experience
3. What values, features, attributes do you want the customer to feel, want, or think about when they hear it so when they see it – they know the “inside” story
4. Make it create a chemical reaction (Disney, Nike, Apple are great examples of that visceral feeling). Its identifiable in its attributes
5. Make the decision on where to spend money easier – trusting that they will derive value from it is not enough. Study those metrics and see what’s working, oil the acquisition channel that works.
6. Is it evergreen in nature – built for tomorrow? not just from a shareholder or brand perspective, but also from a consumer perspective.

Managing your brand

1. Be dynamic, but don’t abandon your core principles
2. Be consistent with your story and do what you say.
3. Find a niche and an underpenetrated market and own it. Create must-have’s defining new sub categories that attract a loyal customer following.
4. Content is everything. Don’t give up on creating all forms of content in 6 months, 1 year of even 5 years. It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B. Content is key.
5. Anticipate what consumers need: Give them what they want before they want it – takes instinct and courage. Comes with collecting data about it.
6. Managing industry disruption means having your foot in the present, and also in the future – how are consumption patterns changing with times and where do you see it going  in 5 years, but also as Bezoz put it “ what doesn’t change in 10 years”

Marketing your brand

1. Good stories make great brands
2. Organic growth comes from authenticity, great product and being different
3. The first or the best product doesn’t necessarily win the market, the product that everyone uses the most usually wins
4. Product innovation isn’t enough, it needs to have advantaged distribution.
5. The customer journey is everything – it’s all about the touch points.
6. Paid marketing works until it doesn’t.

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Finally, leaving you with some tenets for success we’re seeing in entrepreneurs who’ve built great brands.

Tenets for Success

1. Remain curious – learn, new experience, visit places, meet new people because it helps with innovating. Curiosity is the root of innovation
2. Authenticity – Be real
3. Integrity – Set high standards for yourself and people around you. When you hire someone look for – brains, energy and integrity.
4. Perfectionism – Don’t accept mediocrity if there’s an option to make something better even if it takes more time, energy and money and friction with people.
5. Be Fair – Give people a 2^nd chance for honest mistakes
6. Be optimistic and don’t take yourself too seriously
7. Take some time out for creativity and creative thinking. Everyday. You’ll get better at it the more you do it.
8. Expectations - Have the ability to manage failure knowing that success isn’t a given.
9. Be Bold - Make bold moves. Be provocative. Respect, but also take risks – don’t follow the status quo. Be new + different. Fail more and don’t withdraw after that – chalk it up to learning and creative driven pursuit which takes guts, patience and resilience. But do your homework – study the market so you make an informed decision, not an impulse one.