What is your Brand Personality? Choosing a Brand Archetype

When it comes to choosing your brand archetype, it's important to consider your company's values, goals, and target audience. You want to choose an archetype that not only embodies your brand but also resonates with your audience. Once you have chosen your archetype, focus on aligning your messaging, branding, and marketing efforts with the characteristics of your chosen archetype to create a cohesive and compelling brand identity.

Here are the details of the 12 archetypes to consider.

ARCHETYPES ROOTED IN MIND & SOUL

The Innocent

Simple, pure, optimistic, and honest

Represents simplicity, purity, trust and optimism. They value honesty and transparency, and their messaging is often direct and straightforward. Their goal is to experience paradise.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Coca-Cola, Dove, Aveeno, The Honest Company

BRAND VOICE: Honest, Optimistic, Simplified

The Explorer

Adventurous, independent, and seeks new experiences

Represents adventure and independence. They value new experiences and discovery, and their messaging is often focused on pushing boundaries and exploring the unknown.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: The North Face, Jeep

BRAND VOICE: Guiding, Fearless, Daring

The Sage

Wise, knowledgeable, and analytical.

Represents wisdom and knowledge. They value analysis and critical thinking, and their messaging is often thoughtful and insightful.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Google, The Economist, BBC

BRAND VOICE: Knowledgeable, trustworthy, assured

ARCHETYPES ROOTED IN LEGACY

The Hero

Courageous, determined, and inspiring

Represents courage and determination. They value strength and perseverance, and their messaging is often focused on overcoming challenges and achieving success. They never quit.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Nike, FedEx, Adidas, Gatorade

BRAND VOICE: Honest, Brave, Grit

The Rebel

Bad-ass, unconventional, and challenges authority

Represents rebellion and nonconformity. They value freedom and individuality, and their messaging is often provocative and challenging.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Harley Davidson, Vice, Vans, Virgin

BRAND VOICE: Rebellious, Risk-taking, Disruptive

The Magician

Visionary, transformative, and spiritual

Represents transformation and spirituality. They value vision and imagination, and their messaging is often focused on the power of the mind and the ability to create change.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Disney, Dyson, Tesla

BRAND VOICE: Mystical, Informed, Encouraging

ARCHETYPES ROOTED IN CONNECTION

The Everyperson

Genuine, honest, and trustworthy

Represents genuineness and authenticity. They value honesty and simplicity, and their messaging is often relatable and down-to-earth.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Ikea, Target, McDonalds

BRAND VOICE: Authentic, Friendly, Simple

The Lover

Passionate, romantic, and sensual

Represents passion and sensuality. They value emotional connection and intimacy, and their messaging is often romantic and seductive.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Victoria’s Secret, Chanel, Baileys

BRAND VOICE: Sensual, Intimate, Soothing

The Jester

Playful, humorous, and irreverent

Represents playfulness and humor. They value fun and lightheartedness, and their messaging is often entertaining and irreverent.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Dollar Shave Club, Skittles, Old Spice

BRAND VOICE: Playful, Fun, Happy

ARCHETYPES ROOTED IN STRUCTURE

The Creator

Imaginative, innovative, and artistic

Represents imagination and innovation. They value creativity and self-expression, and their messaging is often focused on the power of ideas and the ability to bring them to life.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Apple, Lego, Adobe

BRAND VOICE: Inspirational, authentic, provocative

The Ruler

Powerful, influential, and confident

Represents power and authority. They value control and influence, and their messaging is often focused on leadership and dominance.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: Rolex, Mercedes Benz, American Express

BRAND VOICE: Commanding, Articulate, Respected

The Caregiver

Compassionate, nurturing, and helpful

Represents compassion and support. They value empathy and nurturing, and their messaging is often focused on helping others and making a difference.

EXAMPLE BRANDS: UNICEF, Johnson & Johnson, Habitat for Humanity, Toms

BRAND VOICE: Caring, Reassuring, Positive

Fill in the blanks:

My audience feels/wants: Often brands will focus too much on who they are vs. what their customer wants. Here we want you to keep your brand in mind, but really think about your customer. What do they feel or want?

Which archetypes represent the desire you want to evoke + how I will deliver that to them: Look through the archetypes and find one that stands out. Can’t pick just one? You can select up to three but only if needed!

Prioritize your archetypes: If you have chosen more than one, you will need to prioritize. It’s impossible to communicate all in one - that’s what you might refer to as a “multiple personality” and as you can imagine, it would be confusing when the message hits the customer. We recommend 80/20 or 70/20/10 splits.

Create your brand personality: Based on what you have chosen begin to create a personality. In some cases, if you have chosen just one, the archetype can be your personality. If you are combining, you’ll want to modify your description to encompass all. Below are some examples.

Marketing Budgets for Startups

Planning a marketing budget for founders can be a daunting task. Usually it starts with just figuring out where to begin. We’ve broken down the important considerations to make it easy for startups like yours. 

WHERE TO START

When thinking about your marketing budget, you will feel overwhelmed with all the considerations, not knowing what things cost or even how much you should be spending. But before you even get to that point, there are four important questions every founder should ask themselves.

1. What is your marketing goal?

Do you have a marketing goal? At fivefoottwo, we don’t do anything without a goal. So before you start to think about what money you are spending, think about what you want to accomplish. And be specific - use SMART goals. 

We have a funnel exercise that we recommend using when you are initially thinking about how much you need to spend against the goals you have. The funnel varies depending on your goals but also your type of business. Here’s an example of a B2B Startup funnel, making an assumption on some industry conversion rates. 

If your revenue goal is $1M and you need to get 100 customers to meet that goal, then you want to think about a marketing budget that allows you to reach 12,000 people to start. When you build out your marketing plan, you will identify where and how to reach those customers and in turn have a better idea of how much to spend.

QUICK VIEW: Here’s an example of how your goals affect your budget:

• If your marketing goal is brand awareness, your budget needs to focus on PR, partnerships

• If your marketing goal is drive new sales/customers, you should have already accomplished some level of marketing awareness or require both tactics for awareness as well as growth

2. Are you generating revenue? Have you raised capital?

Next, let’s talk about how much money you have. You need to spend money to make money - we get it. But if you have no money to spend, well, then you should not be spending money. We see many founders reach into their own pockets to pay for marketing and that can be risky for two reasons; one, you may not get that money back and two, you are likely looking at how much you can spend on a short term basis which does not work for marketing.

We recommend thinking about a budget that spans 6-12 months for marketing. It’s going to take that much time to reach your goals, so you should have the budget to pay for that over time. If you are not generating revenue to support those efforts, you might consider holding on spend until you can do so.

• We recommend starting with 10-20% of your total revenue ONLY IF your product is ready - more to come on that point.

• However, if you have no money, you have no money. Bootstrapping is not fun, but this is where we suggest joining an accelerator or doing some fundraising. 

3. Is your product ready to go to market?

This might be the most important question. Yes, marketers and the product teams will always be fighting over budget - but the reality is that at this stage of your business, you should be investing in the product. It’s incredibly difficult to market a product that does not work and worse - you will eventually lose customers from an incomplete user experience. 

First figure out what money is needed to make your product awesome. When you can budget properly for that, then extract what is left to build out your marketing budget. 

4. What is driving your decision to spend money on marketing?

And our final question is a bit personal. Yes - you have a great idea, product or service. When it comes to spending money, make sure you are not making decisions based on your ego or what you think you need. Listen to your advisors, and keep your marketing dollars focused in the right places - when you need it. We’ve seen founders lose focus and get stuck on spending an entire marketing budget of $50k designing a new brand or website when their current brand or site does the job just fine for the time being. That money would have been better spent growing an audience while finalizing the product. 

BUILDING YOUR BUDGET

Now that you know if and when you should be spending money on marketing, let’s talk about what that budget will look like and what you must keep in mind.

This is a fairly complex example of a first year budget. There are three key components: 

1. It’s a full-year budget. As we noted earlier, your marketing budget needs to extend over time to be effective. Figure out what this looks like for you, but in this example, we make sure we have enough budget to build our brand and assets before going to market.

2. It is sectioned out by areas of spend. This will help you adjust based on your total monthly budget, allowing you to think about each area holistically.

3. It feeds into an estimated cost per lead (CPL) or customer acquisition cost (CAC) - see next example.

Using the funnel exercise mentioned earlier, we can take our goal and see how our budget is affected by that goal. We recommend in your first year to consider your CPL/CAC when you are effectively in-market, not while you are building assets to ensure you are looking at a direct effect of the marketing spend. You may also want to consider a 50% view if you have a strong sales organization also generating leads. 

Get the sample budget HERE. 

TIPS & TRICKS

TIP 1: MANAGE YOUR MARKETING ROI

Simply creating an ROI for the spend vs. sales is not going to tell you much about the success of your marketing at this stage. If no one knows who you are, then why are they just up and buying your product? You have work to do, so think about measuring the effort of your marketing foundation. Listen to the Wondery Secret Sauce podcast!

Consider creating success metrics for each stage of the marketing funnel. 

TIP 2: MASTER YOUR TACTICS

1. You need to know what stage of the marketing funnel you are in so that you are focused on the tactics that drive towards those goals. But you do not need to do ALL of them. Prioritize and be selective then master it. 

2. Do you already know what channels work for you? Did you know that if you try them all at once you may never know (this goes slightly against the reality of a media mix, but you have to start somewhere).

Some examples of how you might do this:

• Brand building - this requires a lot of a founders time. Do you have time for this? Can you work with what you have for now? Can you do a modified version of your brand or website that is enough to communicate who you are and focus more on building your messaging?

• PR - consider what you really have to say and take it to small markets and test it out before spending a ton of money on a national plan

• Social - you don’t need to be in every channel when you start. Pick 1-2 and master them. Find what works and then duplicate 

TIP 3: DON’T BUILD A BAD BUDGET

• Does not allow you to look at categories for flexibility on how you will spend

• Does not spread across time to give you the best opportunity of how to spend your money

• Has over or under-inflated ideas of costs

AND REMEMBER TO CHECK IN MONTHLY!

PR For Startups: The Myths and What You Need to Know

PR is an essential part of any marketing strategy. Most often, when founders consider PR, it’s grounded in the notion that you have a product/service/idea that you believe the press should write about. When a marketer thinks about PR, it’s about added reach to deliver on goals. Why is this important? Because the first thing you should always be thinking about is goals and what’s needed to achieve them.  And when it comes to PR - this is a critical channel to reaching the goals of early stage startups.

PRO TIP: Don’t know where to get started with goals? Check out the Goals and KPIs section of this blog post. 

We see this lack of alignment contributing to what we consider to be “myths” that many founders have about PR. We’re often approached by founders who want to implement PR strategies desperately, but refuse to hire an agency because of stories they have heard from other founders. The reality is, it is their personal experiences that lead them to tell those stories. By identifying these myths, we will help you make the right decisions when it comes to PR.

MYTH #1: PR AGENCIES ARE VERY EXPENSIVE AND DON’T DELIVER

Yes - PR agencies can be expensive, that in fact is true. But let’s break that down a bit. First, it’s important to remember that you are paying for the experience of the individuals you have access to at these agencies. PR is not something you learn overnight - it’s years of building relationships as well as learning from hits and misses. Second, most agencies are designed to handle more than just pitching a single story. Their role goes beyond getting your name in Techcrunch for example, it includes securing thought leadership opportunities such as speaking engagements, negotiating influencer partnerships, efforts towards maintaining a positive public image, and much more. You’re probably thinking, “but I don’t need all of that!” and that might be true. Keep reading and we’ll share all the options you should be considering to reach your specific goals. 

If hiring a PR agency is a non-negotiable for you, there are a few things to think about before overspending (as many founders have done before you, hence the myth). This brings us back to our goals - if you’ve established your goals and can proactively discuss them with the agencies you are considering, they can give you their recommended strategy and associated costs.

WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND:

1. The right agency will not only recognize the stage your company is in and the budget you have but will be honest in what is truly accomplishable from a PR perspective. 

2. When choosing an agency, think about the relationships they have and the team that will be dedicated to you. You want a proven record of securing press opportunities within the RIGHT publications and a team that will work hard for you. 

The bottom line here is that there are agencies that are built for early stage startups. Some have “30 day packages'' that cost around $3000-$4000 and are designed to promote that big news story you have. Others build out more long term agreements that are low-cost initially and grow as your business does. If an agency says they start at $10k/month - walk away. They don’t understand your business at this stage and you will be that founder sharing the story of how agencies are too expensive and don’t deliver. Speaking of delivery… let’s jump into the next myth.

MYTH #2: A SIMPLE PRESS RELEASE IS ALL I NEED

If only it were so easy! And listen, sometimes it is. But journalists today receive 500-1000 emails a day (A DAY!) with pitches and the likelihood that they are going to write a story from a mass release is pretty slim. 

Press coverage does not happen overnight. This actually applies to ALL marketing. Unless you’ve got a friend who can connect you directly to Oprah or a product that would put Tesla to shame, then you need to think about this as a minimum 6 month engagement. We’ll share some options for how to implement this at the end of the blog. 

And listen - it’s not to say you would not get coverage by pushing out a press release. We will take this approach if we just need to have something published for the sake of building press coverage from at a later date or to help with SEO. Keep in mind that coverage will be a list of random outlets that actively pick up news from the wire - it’s not going to be the homepage of Forbes. You can work with companies like Cision or Business Wire spending anywhere from $500 - $1500 to do this. 

MYTH #3: SIMPLY LAUNCHING  MY PRODUCT SHOULD GET ME ALL THE PRESS I NEED

Look, we agree that your product or service is brilliant. You’ve spent your life savings, every waking hour and every ounce of energy to bring it to market. But the truth is - without a compelling story, you won’t get any traction with journalists. We see founders complaining about their agency not being able to sell in the launch of their service to their coveted publication. The hard reality is the story was just not good enough. But have no fear, we suggest identifying the following three things to get you on the right track:

1. What is your angle? So you’ve developed a new app that makes people happy, but how is it different from everything else that exists? NOTE: don’t answer that question, let your customers/prospects answer that question. If they don’t have a compelling answer - you are not quite ready on that front. You might choose to focus on you, as a founder - what is different about you from anyone else that the media should listen to? Again, run this by someone who does not quite know you to get the true litmus test.

2. Is your story timely? Look, the pandemic and political scene has clearly taken over all media this past year. Getting a story that wasn’t current event focused in the hands of a journalist was (and still is) pretty unlikely. However, typical strategies might include how your story connects to things going on in the world at that particular time. This spans from the pandemic to national smile day and will need to play well with our next point.

3. Does the journalist care? Do your research - before blindly pitching your story, make sure the journalist actually writes about these topics. Customize your pitch and ideas so that it benefits the writer more than anyone. Remember, they have THEIR job to do, not yours. 

Now that you have the facts, you can think about PR strategically. Again, starting with your goals. Hopefully you are thinking about this at least six months out from the date you want to hit those goals. At fivefoottwo marketing, we examine the goals of our clients and offer up three options to help you get started with PR.

1. The FFT Grassroots Strategy: Costs starting at $2k

   • We work directly with you and your team to give you all the tools to start building your relationships with targets and initiate a team-focused approach to obtaining contributed content opportunities.

2. Working with a strategist: Costs $3-4k/month

   • In addition to the above grassroots strategy, you can work with an experienced, dedicated strategist to perform all the ongoing outreach generating 5x the opportunity.

3. Working with an agency $5 - $7k/month

   • After clearly outlining your goals for the next 6-12 months, we partner with one of our industry-specific, startup-focused PR agencies to manage them towards achieving your objectives.

Let us know where we can help you gain the reach you need through PR.

Marketing Hacks for Startups: Content Calendar (Simplified!)

The secret to getting started with your content calendar is to keep things simple. It’s easy to jump into the deep end with content marketing and get overwhelmed with all your brilliant ideas. What we’ve learned is that if founders stay focused and keep things streamlined, they can get up and running quickly.

We’re going to make it really easy for you but in order to set this up right, you must commit three hours of your time. Your resulting highly effective plan and calendar will set you up for content marketing success!

STEP ONE: Set Your Goals

Before you get started creating your calendar, first decide how you’ll measure success. After all, what’s the point of producing content if you don’t have a goal you’re working towards? Choose measurable goals, like revenue, total new customers or sales, or increased percentage of page views. Keep these goals specific so you can get a realistic sense of whether or not your content is helping you in the ways that you want it to.

PRO TIP:

Goals are not “publish to instagram 3X a day” or “create more content for facebook”. These are TACTICS that help you achieve your goals!

STEP TWO: Identify Your Audience

Next, you need to think about your target audience. We never miss a chance to remind you how important knowing your audience is (and even if you think you do, you should still read our blog post to be 100% sure!). 

When creating content, you need to understand who you’re communicating to in order to do it effectively—pushing out content just for the sake of doing it won’t help your business. Map out the details of what you know about your target audience: what they like, what they’re looking for, and how they communicate and engage with content. This will help inform the rest of your plan and ensure you’re creating relevant content. 

STEP THREE: Choose Your Content Pillars

Before you get started making content, choose four or five high-level themes. These are the pillars that you’ll use when planning and creating your content. Each of these pillars should be closely related to your brand and be something your target audience is interested in. For example, you could choose products or inspirational quotes or founder spotlights—any of these ideas can serve as a content pillar as long as they’re relevant and related to your business.

Some examples of content pillar groups: 

• Motivational quotes, Customer Testimonials, Product Features, Team

• Product Highlights, Holiday, Competitive, Educational, Inspirational

• Customer Highlight, Fun, Promotion, Training, Events

STEP FOUR: Map Out Your Channels

The key to this hack is minimizing your effort to guarantee performance. When crafting your plan, be sure to focus only on the channels you can execute well instead of trying to do everything. Where are the best places to engage your audience? Where does your audience engage the most? Then make a choice: choose up to three channels where you can distribute your content to reach your target customers. By being focused, you will be sure to knock it out of the park and prevent scrambling which always leaves you with nothing in the end.

STEP FIVE: Pick Your Content Types

Objectively evaluate your resources and decide which content types make the most sense for you. If you’re a good writer, for example, you could choose to focus on blog content. Or if you have a relationship with someone skilled in photography or videography, instead focus on photo and video content. Think critically about how you can create the most high-quality content with what you have readily available, and then choose the channels that make the most sense. 

Again, you want to be focused here to produce the best possible quality. If you are spread too thin not only will it not get done, it will not be good. 

STEP SIX: Determine Your Publishing Schedule 

When you’re first getting your content going, you should organize a schedule you can stick to. This all depends on your resources.

1. Just me, doing it all on my own: Then your publishing schedule is simply when you can commit an hour each day to doing it. Don’t overcomplicate it! If you can only commit to three days a week, then only do that. Block the time in your calendar and commit to those days/times.

2. You have an individual who is dedicated to managing your social: Same as above, but hopefully they can commit to daily publishing.

3. You have budget to invest in a tool: This is your best option for success because the tools out there make it easy to schedule in advance and basically set it and forget it. We do not recommend any of the free tools available as you will be wasting your time on software that does not perform. Tools we love because they are inexpensive and easy to use are Buffer and Planable. If you are only using Instagram, consider Planoly. 

STEP SEVEN: Create your Content Calendar

Once you’ve picked your content pillars, chosen your channels, and mapped out your publishing scheduling, you’ll need to put it all together in a centralized calendar. You can use something as simple as a spreadsheet, or find a free or paid tool online (our favorite free tool right now is Asana) to help you visualize all of your upcoming content. Map out your ideas for the next month on a high level. Don’t work about the details, that you will do in your weekly planning. 

The most important part is that you create a system that works for you. That is the hack - keep it simple, and let it work for YOU!

Once you have this set up, your regular content planning will require minimal time. 

MONTHLY: Schedule an hour each month where you input your ideas into your calendar. Again, just high-level, in sync with your pillars.

WEEKLY: Schedule an hour each week to go in and check in on the upcoming content schedule so you always have a sense of what’s in your pipeline. 

CREATE & PUBLISH CONTENT: From there, it’s just about creating the content and getting things posted on a daily or weekly basis to engage your audience and work towards your goals.

To learn more about creating a content calendar or for more start-up marketing hacks,

check out our free webinar. 

Marketing Hacks for Startups: Social Growth Without a Budget

When you’re first starting up, social media can seem like a daunting task because it takes a lot of time, resources, and above all else, is a big line item in your budget. But that’s not always true. By taking just one hour per day for 21 days, you can improve your follower count, up engagement, and effectively reach your target audience without wasting your most precious resources: time and money.

STEP 1: Pick Your Platforms and Content Types

It’s important to pick the social media platforms that will work the hardest for you. To make a difference in just three weeks, you’ll need to keep things simplified and focused, so try to choose no more than three platforms. If you think your target audience is most active on Instagram and Facebook, for example, focus your time and efforts on those two platforms to see the biggest return on your time investment. 

When it comes to content types it’s simple: what do you have the resources to create well? If you are terrible at producing video - don’t even think about it. If you’re a great writer, start there. Be reasonable and save the ambitious goals for your product/service. 

Need more help? Read more about choosing your platforms and content at The Digital Marketing Institute. 

STEP 2: Engage With Your Audience

Knowing your audience is a crucial step for every business. You should have a detailed idea of who your target customer is, what’s important to them, and how to best communicate with them effectively. If you know all of these things, it’ll make it easier to engage directly with them through your social media channels.

PRO TIP: Forgot about the importance of knowing your audience? Go back to basics here. 

First, start by following members of your target audience from your accounts. Your ultimate goal is to have them follow you back so you can not only up your follower count, but hopefully engage with potential leads. Along with following members of your audience, it’s also important to follow brands that attract similar audiences—like your competitors. Even though it might be counterintuitive, engaging with your competitors will help you increase your reach through their audience, which in turn can help expand your own. 

Be sure to also follow accounts whose content resonates and reflects your brand values and style. That way, if they share a post you love, you’ll be able to easily reshare it if you think it’s something that will hit home with your target audience. FYI - this is what we call “Curated Content”. 

Step 4: Partner with Liked-Minded Brands

Partnerships with other brands are an easy way to expand your reach, free of charge. You can partner with other companies in a lot of different ways. You could author posts for each other’s blogs, co-create content, share a photo and tag your partner brand, or create a promotion or giveaway—the options are endless. Just be sure you’re teaming up with another brand that has a similar target audience as your own so the content you create is something they’ll want to engage with.

Another way to create a more behind-the-scenes partnership is to create an engagement pod. Create a group or chat with a group of brands, and share with the group when you post on your platform. By getting engagement quickly from members of your pod, it will help expand your post’s reach and encourage engagement from the rest of your audience. 

Remember: Engagement is Key! 

Though social media can seem intimidating, it all really comes down to one thing: consistency. You shouldn’t gauge your success based on your number of followers, but instead on the level of engagement from your audience. 

STEP 5: Utilize the Algorithm Hacks

Here are some recent algorithm hacks that can help you on different platforms:

• LinkedIn: Relevance is key. Be sure to use good hashtags, tag other people or companies, and ask open-ended questions to spur conversation.

• Instagram: Frequency is important to Instagram’s algorithm. Be sure to post at least three times per week, and try to boost your comments and likes with an engagement pod. 

• Twitter: Timing is key on Twitter. Share rich media and engage with other accounts to try and increase the retweets and likes on your own content. 

• Facebook: Engaging content matters on Facebook. Try using the Facebook Live Video functionality to share videos longer than three minutes or create a group for more discussion and conversation. 

By committing to dedicate the time—even it’s only an hour a day—busy founders can find success on social. Hack the algorithms, reach your audience, and communicate clearly what your brand is all about.

Want more marketing tips?

Check out our webinar about the best free marketing hacks for start-ups. 

A Startup's Quick Guide To Hiring Marketing

Let’s face it - you have this brilliant idea/product/service and you are ready to bring it to the world! You realize you need someone to help you spread the word and immediately think marketing. But rushing to hire a CMO is a mistake no matter how great your idea, product or service may be. We get it - we’ve been there, and been that marketing hire. But it’s important to take a step back and understand when and how you should think about your first marketing role.

Founders we have worked with sit in one of two courts: 

• Court 1: They have a strong understanding of marketing

• Court 2: They know nothing at all 

What remains the same between both sides is the anxiety around all the areas of marketing and what to focus on first. We do know one thing for sure - founders have a lot to do and trying to run a full scale marketing program should not be one of them.

When to hire

First, consider your budget. Yes, there are many things your marketer will do that will not require budget, but to do things right - money is always needed. If you do not have a marketing budget line assigned yet, or that budget is less than $100,000 for the year - you should hold.

Second, what stage are you in with your product/service? If you are still in development and not ready to bring your product/service to market, there are probably a few things you need to do before you “launch” and you may not need a full time marketing role yet. 

Things you will need locked down before you launch include an established audience analysis and a brand (visual ID, positioning and communication architecture). Hiring a marketing person for these items can be premature. We’ll talk specifically about the roles you should consider as your first hire, but in general your marketing hire would need to bring in a specialized agency for this work so you should consider finding an agency and overseeing that yourself.

Third, do you have organized sales and product teams? Your marketing hire will rely greatly on both teams to do their job well. The last thing you want is your new marketing person spending all their time doing sales or lost without an established product to market.

The different types of marketing hires to consider

OK, you’ve got a marketing budget, a brand and your sales and product teams are in place. Now who do you hire? We’ve identified three options we see work best for startups, depending on the stage of their business. However it’s important to point out that you want a “jack of all trades” at a startup. Just like you, you need a partner on the team who will “roll up their sleeves” and do things outside of their comfort zone. Some of the items not in the job description you can rely on them for include: event marketing, PR/comms outreach, copywriting and owned media marketing. The right candidate will thrive in this environment - again, we know because we were those marketing hires once upon a time!

Product Marketing: Whether you are b2b or b2c, you have a product and/or service that requires the four P’s of marketing. To some degree, you move in order of those P’s - so a product marketer can bring the skills to determine product positioning, messaging and pricing. Additionally, this person will be proficient in creating content for the growth of your brand and business.

What to expect from your product marketing director:

• Work closely with product development

• Market research, consumer and product insights

• Pricing and packaging strategies

• Product documentation

• Sales collateral

• Content marketing

Read more about Product Marketing Manager Skills 

Growth Marketing: If your product is ready to go to market, then you are ready for a growth marketer. Honing into those two other P’s, Promotion and Place, this marketer is going to focus on growing and scaling your business. 

What to expect from your growth marketing director:

• Work closely with CEO and Sales team

• Data-driven consumer acquisition

• Customer engagement and retention

Read more about the Growth Marketing Role.

What level to hire: This usually comes down to budget, but you should aim to hire a director who has the potential to become your CMO in two years (and sometimes sooner). In NYC a director level marketing role ranges from $125 - $180k/year, so keep that in mind. Regardless of level and which role you choose, the individual should be able to cross over into all areas of marketing and have a passion for getting into every tactical approach to support your business.

PRO TIP: Hire someone you trust. Regardless of who you hire, there should be a high-level of trust between CEO/Founder and marketing. The more the marketer knows what’s going on, the more they can do. The more you trust them to do the job well, the less you worry about the small details that get you where you need to go.

Tools for hiring

We believe you can find the right person to be your first marketing hire when you follow some basic guidelines. 

1. Start building relationships early - and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  Remember that pro-tip about trust? We mean it. Start your search before you are fully ready and get to know the type of individuals you would want on your team. And make sure you are actively engaging in more than one relationship in case one does not work out.

2. Let marketing hire marketing. We marketers who want to work at startups have had our share of interviews that turn us off from the company. Why? Because founders are using the wrong interview tools and asking the wrong questions. What’s worse, without the right interview, you will not hire the right skills. Benji Hyam proposes this: Would you trust a marketer to hire a developer? An accountant to hire a product person? Read more

   REMEMBER: There are great recruiters dedicated to marketing and worth the cost to get the right people - use them.

3. Know what to look for when hiring! We love Lisa Schneider’s breakdown of 7 things to look for when hiring marketing: Initiative, Creativity, Numeracy, Legal Grounding, Testing Chops, Social Media Savvy, Curiosity Read more

4. Give your candidate a project A good candidate for your team will be excited to show off their work. Here’s some ideas:

• Write a blog post (we recommend giving them a topic/outline)

• Create a one-sheet project brief 

• Initiate a website requirements doc

• Outline a digital marketing plan based on your google analytics (you would need to give them a report or access to GA, but it would be worth it)

NOTE: It would be worth having the candidate sign a quick NDA before doing any work.

At fivefoottwo, we make it our mission to transition early stage startups from an outsourced team to an internal marketing team. Our company is founded on the premise that companies are spending too much money on marketing hires before they are fully prepared to stand up a marketing program. Our philosophy is to build you a strong, well rounded marketing foundation so your future marketing team is set up for success. Take the right steps when it comes to your marketing and you will be headed in the right direction.

To Brand or Not to Brand: Solving the Startup Dilemma

INTRO

We are often witness to the frequent internal debate regarding spending the time and money to design a brand. Many of our clients initially hired a friend or family member to create a quick logo as they got their idea off the ground and are desperate in year two to build a formal brand. While this is one of my favorite parts of being a marketer, it really is important to assess the timing of branding/re-brand. For an early stage startup, it’s pretty likely you have a limited budget and when it comes to marketing you want to spend your budget the most efficient and effective ways.

For startups facing this dilemma, we’ve put together a few questions that can help you determine your re-brand readiness. 

First: where are you in your product development?

Is your product out of beta? As an early stage startup, your first goal is to develop a proof of concept so you can raise the necessary money to bring your ideas to market. But have you had real customers touching your product, telling you what they think and feel about it? As we say all the time, the number one rule of marketing is knowing your audience and your brand depends on this. 

Here’s what we recommend:

Suffice it to say that if you are not out of beta, keeping some simple branding until you are is the best move here. Once your customers are engaged, a lot can change (you learn a lot from your customers when they start using your product!) and considering the expense of branding, it’s best to keep your brand in “beta” as well.

Next: So you are out of beta, you’ve done some audience testing/analysis, but have you established your positioning? 

What are your vision, mission and values? Have you established product names and value props? Are you organized around communicating what your company and product do? 

Here’s what we recommend:

Spend time on brand and product positioning first. Nine out of 10 times we meet with companies and employees that cannot consistently talk about what the company or product does. This process typically takes 4-6 weeks and you can research how to do it online - or you can hire fivefoottwo marketing to knock it out in less time! Here’s the template we strive to complete in our positioning exercises:

Your brand house is the basis for how you communicate your brand message. Start here by creating pillars/values, a vision and mission.

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Establish your positioning architecture as structured here.

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Finally, when your brand house and positioning architecture are complete, you (or a skilled copywriter) should complete your messaging hierarchy.

PRO-TIP: CONCISE AND CONSISTENT ALWAYS WINS!

Consider a logo and temporary visual identity that will give you consistency in all your communications. At this stage, clear communications and consistency throughout your message is most important. And you’ll want to save the creative agency fees for when you can spend what it takes to do it right.

Finally, what is your marketing budget? 

If you are post-series B, you should have the budget. In fact, this is when we 100% recommend you consider building a strong brand for your business. But if you’re still early stage, think about how much budget is needed toward product development first - the most important part of this stage. What is left? If your marketing budget is less than $50k for the year, you will want to hold on any branding efforts outside of positioning.

Here’s what we recommend:

Generally, we recommend if you are looking to spend less than $10k on your brand, you are not ready. A proper creative shop for this part of your business plan will be closer to $15k - $50k. What do you get for that range? Quality and a level of comprehensiveness. You do not just want a logo and fonts, you need a visual ID and an understanding of what your brand means across every medium. Creative shops will do a deep assessment of your company/products, competitors and utilize not only experience and the proper process but they can tap into teams of different creative minds to bring you the best, most applicable ideas.

Other considerations

The timing for when you build your brand might depend on your market - whether you are B2B or B2C and what your marketplace looks like. Competition could require a jumpstart to your visual identity in addition to your positioning. 

• For B2B, it’s important to look at your competitive landscape. If you are entering a highly-competitive space, a strong brand is necessary. You want to stand out and you want to be memorable. At Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce for $850M), we were faced with almost 30 competitors in less than a year. We updated our brand and built a highly-focused creative campaign that combined with our PR efforts had a huge impact.  Many times your positioning alone can accomplish this. Just having a concise, consistent message can go a long way. HOWEVER! Even with our brilliant, refreshed creative, we needed to spend money to get the message out there. Just because you have a message does not mean people will hear it. Earned media, if you can obtain it, will go a long way. But if not, be prepared to spend on paid media. We love to reference this article from Chief Marketer.

• For B2C/D2C, competition is also a strong consideration but it’s more about your audience. Having a brand that appeals to your audience and communicates the emotional response you want from your target is very important. As with all branding however, it only matters if you can remain consistent in how you use your brand. Set rules and abide by them.

Branding is really an exciting part of building a business. And it’s long been a favorite part of marketing for us. However now that we work so closely with early stage startups, we’ve realized the exercise of positioning can not only be exciting but it is highly effective. Please let us know if we can help you initiate this process for your brand by sending a note to melissa@fivefoottwomarketing.com 

3 Things Every Startup Should Know (about marketing)

We’re excited to kick-off our first blog post with content that came from our hearts. We have very strong feelings about marketing and in particular for startups, so we threw together our top three things we think you should remember as you kick off your amazing idea.

#1: Know Your Audience (From Melissa)

“What is the one thing you recommend I do with my marketing?” I’ve heard this question from those I mentor, employers and cocktailers. And I always answer the same thing “know your audience!” The fact is, if you don’t do this correctly, then all your other marketing will fail. It sounds pretty basic, but you would be surprised how complex it actually is.

Let’s simplify it with a couple quick tips:

1. Never consider yourself “the audience”.

   Let’s face it, you created the company/product/service, so of course you are the audience, right? Well, not quite. You must remember how close you are to not only your idea, but every detail surrounding it and therefore your perceptions and emotions are skewed.

2. Make informed decisions.

   Even if you are 100% certain you know your audience will like something, test it anyway. And don’t be afraid to hear something that goes against your thinking. It’s your company, you will always make the decision, just be open to seeing all sides if you want to properly reach that audience.

3. Make time to do audience analysis.

   It seems daunting, time consuming, and as if you don’t have the resources to do it right. But when it informs all of your marketing, it’s simply a small piece in an important puzzle.

   • Find what works with the resources and budget you have and do your best repeat this at least every year (depending on your product/service)

   • Keep it simple and remember this market research is “insight” and not “answers”

4. Listen and engage with your audience.

   My favorite way to do this is by developing a customer advisory board to throw ideas at. There are many ways to do this and it should be designed to fit your company’s specific needs.

   Custom build products for clients with budget to do so. Building products/services your customers want should be part of your roadmap (note, this does not mean building everything your customers ask for!)

   Reply to comments on social even if you fear for the worst.

#2: A Powerful Foundation (From Laura)

Don’t underestimate the power of a solid foundation. But Laura, what does this even MEAN?!

1. Your brand image is important but so is the machine that powers it.

   One of the first things you should do is consider what tools and platforms will drive your success.

   • Consider email, social media, CRM, paid advertising and don’t forget analytics!

2. You don’t have to break the bank on tools.

   There are so many free or low cost solutions available to marketers. But remember, try to find solutions that will fit the needs of your business in the short term and the long term. Check out this blog article from Hootsuite for a list of ideas: https://adespresso.com/blog/marketing-tools/

3. Build a library of content that can repurposed across multiple mediums.

   Don’t get bogged down in the “I have to write a white paper to be a credible thought leader” approach. Create content that will engage your audience and use it, use it, use it. Create a month long social media series, use it in nurture emails, have sales put it in their email signatures, and the list goes on.

4. Do your lead management due diligence up front.

   Define your demand waterfall! OMG what the heck is a DEMAND WATERFALL?! The demand waterfall helps you track leads through your marketing and sales funnel and ultimately gives you the ability to measure the ROI of your marketing spend. Check out this two part series from MarketOne for an in depth explanation: https://www.marketone.com/articles/sirius-decisions-demand-waterfall-explained-pt-1. Trust me on this one, your investors will thank you.

5. Keep your eye on the prize.

   Get in the habit of assigning KPIs to every single thing that comes out of marketing. It will become second nature and you’ll quickly be able to evaluate the success (or failure) of your efforts and you can do more (or less) of that particular things. Also, you’ll be able to quickly assess how a campaign as a whole is performing.

#3: Take Chances! (From us both!)

Let’s face it, you didn’t startup because you were afraid, right? No! Entrepreneurs are FEARLESS! It’s a beautiful thing. And you should take that approach with your marketing. We’re not saying to go out and waste your entire budget on a single TV ad, but we are saying you should consider it.

1. No matter what, dedicate at least 10% of your marketing budget to a gut idea, something that excites you or something you’ve never done before (don’t forget to give it a KPI!).

2. Fearless ideas in marketing should be perfectly aligned with any strategies you have with earned media (PR or Influencer) for maximum potential.

3. Don’t be afraid to spend money on marketing. If you’re willing to put budget behind sales people, then you should match that with marketing. Not only will you grow awareness of your brand, but that awareness will support every effort your salespeople make.

4. Plan but also act. Marketers in general need time to properly plan and measure. The challenge is to act on a wild idea that may not be data-driven or supported. Now and then, the right wild idea pays off, so don’t be afraid to act on them.

5. Awareness: we could talk hours on this and how to formulate the right strategy and timing for your brand, but for right now suffice it to say that you need it. Period. So take the time to determine what your strategy will be and make budget for it.