Brand Marketing for B2B SaaS Startups

BOOTCAMP
BRAND MARKETING
DIRK SCHART

GERMAN ACCELERATOR MARKETING BOOTCAMP
DIRK SCHART
▸ CMO & President @ REFLEKT Inc.,
Sunnyvale/CA
▸ Mentor @ GA Silicon Valley
▸ Former Head of SaaS Products @
Hyperloop
▸ Product Manager Augmented Windows
▸ Author of two books about Augmented
Reality Marketing
▸ Heavy Metal Guitarist ;)

KEVIN INDIG & DIRK SCHART
WHAT THE BOOTCAMP IS ABOUT
▸ Understand the importance of positioning and branding (and
the differences between the U.S. and Europe)
▸ Learn from best practice with the “Learn & Share” mindset of
the Silicon Valley
▸ Get simple frameworks and guides to get started

DIRK SCHART
CHALLENGE OF A STARTUP FOUNDER
▸ As a startup founder/team you must:
▸ Look for product market ﬁt
▸ Build a team
▸ Get investment dollars
▸ Win customers
▸ Make it scalable

INTRO ROUND
▸ Your name
▸ Your company
▸ What problem are you solving and how
▸ Your biggest challenge so far in your startup time
▸ Who is running your Marketing?
▸ What is your expectation?

BRAND AS DEMAND ACCELERATOR
BRAND DEMAND
GEN/GTM
Difﬁcult to
measure
Somehow
to measure
Easy to
measure
Accelerator

BRANDING MATRIX
BRAND PROMISE
What do we promise,
what are the values
that our brand stands
for?
POSITIONING
What our position in
the market, who are
our customers, ands
who stakeholders?
MISSION & VISION
What is our
inspiration? What are
we workin on?
TONE OF VOICE
How do we express
our brand, what
“language” do we
speak?
CULTURE
What are our values,
how do we as a
company/team
behave?
VISUALS
How do we visually
present ourselves,
what color stands for
us?
MESSAGES
What are our key
headlines, and what
core message do we
send?
VALUE PROPOSITIONS
What are our key
offerings, what makes
our product/service
unique?
RECOGNITION
How do we want to be
seen by our external
and internal
audiences?
MESSAGING MATRIX
MARKET ENGINEERING
COMPETITOR’S
ANALYSIS
STORYTELLING

BRAND PROMISE
What do we promise,
what are the values
for?
POSITIONING
the market, who are
our customers, ands
who stakeholders?
MISSION & VISION
What is our
we workin on?
TONE OF VOICE
How do we express
our brand, what
speak?
CULTURE
how do we as a
company/team
behave?
VISUALS
How do we visually
present ourselves,
us?
MESSAGES
What are our key
headlines, and what
core message do we
send?
VALUE PROPOSITIONS
What are our key
our product/service
unique?
RECOGNITION
and internal
audiences?
MESSAGING MATRIX
MARKET ENGINEERING
COMPETITOR’S
ANALYSIS
STORYTELLING
BRANDING MATRIX

DIRK SCHART
1. Use Market Engineering to understand the market—not only
TAM/SAM/SOM bubbles
2. Describe your Positioning by identifying your Ideal Customer
Proﬁle and by understanding your buyer’s behavior
3. Check if your mission and vision ﬁt to the positioning and
target audience
‣ Read
‣ Tools: Messaging Matrix, Market Segmentation frameworks
POSITIONING
https://www.dirkschart.com/here-is-how-you-define-beachhead-market-with-frameworks

▸ WHAT (our company is)
▸ WHY (compelling reason to buy)
▸ HOW (technology, product, category)
▸ FOR (target customer)
▸ THAT (value, problem solving)
▸ UNLIKE (primary competitor)
POSITIONING STATEMENT

MESSAGING MATRIX: FRAMEWORK FOR
YOUR BRANDING

▸ WHAT REFLEKT is a technology company that
▸ WHY simpliﬁes industrial operations
▸ HOW by transforming existing data into a meaningful format
▸ FOR for on-site and ﬁeld-service technicians of in the manufacturing sector
▸ THAT are facing the problem of talent shortage and outdated documentation
▸ UNLIKE
▸ X, who offers a closed ecosystem and doesn’t allow a modular integration
RE’FLEKT

▸ WHAT Snap is a camera company
▸ WHY improving the way people live and communicate
▸ HOW by reinventing the camera
▸ FOR anyone who wants to express themselves and have fun together
▸ THAT and wants to share moments in a special way
▸ UNLIKE
▸ Instagram, who’s not providing geo-location context
▸ Others who don’t offer additional features like Spectacles
SNAP

▸ 5 MINUTES FOR:
▸ Your Positioning Statement (or searching the existing one)
▸ 5 MINUTES FOR:
▸ Quick intro of your statement and the biggest challenge
EXERCISE: YOUR TURN

WHAT CREATES A BRAND?
Emotions
Logo
Name
Culture Product
Messaging
Story Personality
Credibility

TEXT
HOW DO STARTUPS BENEFIT FROM
BRAND BUILDING
▸ Building Trust and Credibility
▸ Customers trust brands
▸ People want to work for great brands (startups)
▸ If you are in a new market customers buy from known players
▸ Startups are small and enterprises/customers doubt that you can
deliver
▸ Brand can give you weight (Bosch opened us doors and gave us
credibility)

Marc Benioﬀ: A Brand is Not Just a
Logo - It's Your Most Important Asset
Read the excerpt from Behind the Cloud

a16z Podcast: Brand Building Ideas… and
People

CATEGORY: EVEN MORE
THAN A BRAND
▸ Category design is a new discipline
focused on creating and monetizing
new markets. It's based on the idea
that the company that designs a
space is best positioned to dominate
it.
▸ Category design is about
conditioning a market to see a
problem and want to solve it with the
new mode.

TEXT
BRAND PROMISE & RECOGNITION
1. Describe the brand promise by defining the character
2. Define the tone of voice by understanding your target
audience’s language
3. Define the brand recognition compared to the market
▸ Tools: Brand Landscape, Messaging Matrix

BRAND PROMISE
15 minutes or less can save you
15% or more on car insurance.
This brand promise has become the
basis of Geico’s entire marketing
strategy, leading them to the top of the
auto-insurance industry.
TIP: Check radio ads!

CUSTOMER
TEXT
“StartupHero helped me to boost
my sales within weeks. The team
is very experienced and
understands our needs.”

INVESTOR
TEXT
“The founder is an excellent
leader with a strong vision. The
team has shown how to achieve
goals and deliver as projected.”

JOURNALIST
TEXT
“StartupHero has a great
product and is a relevant source
for our research. When it comes
to AI sales tools, my ﬁrst call is
to Marc from StartupHero.”

WHAT’S BRAND
MESSAGING?
▸ We want our audience to ﬁnd us
▸ We want to be recognized as…
▸ We want to be the trusted partner
▸ We want to appear in media
▸ We want people talking about us
▸ We want Google to ﬁnd us
▸ We want to create a category

BRAND MESSAGING: EXAMPLES

BRAND MESSAGING:
EXAMPLES
More than just a car insurance.

WHY WE LOVE
(BRAND) STORIES
▸ Emotions
▸ Our brain can store them
▸ Be a part of it
▸ Keep in mind: Your are not the
Hero—your customer is

STORYTELLING FRAMEWORK
Setup, Situation, Solution

MY EXPERIENCES WITH STORYTELLING
1. What do WE offer
2. What do WE want to tell
3. Tell facts and details
1. What’s in for the CUSTOMER
2. Why does it matter?
3. Tell a story

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: MORE THAN
JUST A MESSAGE
How to get the message out without millions of budgets for
campaigns and ads?
‣ Thought leadership represents an insight-driven,
quality-focused approach to content around the problem
you’re solving
‣ Thought leadership content is a great way to educate a
targeted audience in your ﬁeld, provide valuable insights, and
in turn establish you as a great resource for information.

EXAMPLES: HUBSPOT

EXAMPLES: AUTODESK

EXAMPLES: DRIFT

MARKETING IN GERMANY VS. USA
▸ Create a plan
▸ Talk about tech
▸ Thinking in details
▸ Talking about features
▸ Market is “smaller”
▸ Competition is moderate
▸ Looking for cost cutting
▸ Just do it, learn, improve
▸ Talk about the value of tech
▸ Big picture
▸ Show in a story
▸ Market is very big
▸ Competition is higher
▸ Going after growth and
differentiators
https://www.dirkschart.com/5-reasons-why-silicon-valleys-learn-share-mindset-makes-a-difference

WHY STORIES IN THE US ARE DIFFERENT

KEEP IT SIMPLE ;)
Feed me with details Show me the value

TEXT
HOW TO BECOME A THOUGHT LEADER
▸ LinkedIn
▸ Twitter
▸ Quora
▸ HARO
▸ Expert for media
▸ Contributor

TEXT
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEDIA &
ANALYSTS

TEXT
BRANDING MATRIX
BRAND PROMISE
What do we promise,
what are the values
for?
POSITIONING
the market, who are
our customers, ands
who stakeholders?
MISSION & VISION
What is our
we workin on?
TONE OF VOICE
How do we express
our brand, what
speak?
CULTURE
how do we as a
company/team
behave?
VISUALS
How do we visually
present ourselves,
us?
MESSAGES
What are our key
headlines, and what
core message do we
send?
VALUE PROPOSITIONS
What are our key
our product/service
unique?
RECOGNITION
and internal
audiences?
MESSAGING MATRIX
MARKET ENGINEERING
COMPETITOR’S
ANALYSIS
STORYTELLING

TEXT
A FEW “RECOMMENDATIONS”
▸ Don’t spend ads money before you know your market and customer
▸ Connect your brand to value:
▸ For customers: how much much money do they leave on the table
▸ For media: build a meta topic and don’t sell them your product
▸ For analysts: why they must have your startup on the landscape
▸ For your team: why they act as ambassadors for your brand
▸ Name-dropping is allowed
▸ Show, don’t tell only

GET IN TOUCH!
TEXT
@DirkSchart
www.dirkschart.com
dirk.schart@re-ﬂekt.com

Brand Marketing for B2B SaaS Startups

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Brand Marketing for B2B SaaS Startups

Similar to Brand Marketing for B2B SaaS Startups (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Brand Marketing for B2B SaaS Startups