Early-stage branding: driving go-to-market impact

You've just opened an email about the business impact of branding. You're likely interested in the details of brand building, which is why we started this newsletter.

This is OFF Brand – a newsletter by Koto, a team of brand specialists and optimists made up of designers, strategists, writers and art directors based in five major cities around the world.

In this newsletter we lift the lid on all things brand – from naming to nomenclature, identity to UI, pantones to pixels, and strategy to guidelines.

Our objective is to be your trusted voice on all things brand and to earn that trust we draw not only on our own experiences, but on those of our peers, clients, experts and beyond. You can expect practical tips, actionable insights, useful frameworks and inspirational examples.

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Now, let’s discuss branding…

What you’ll learn about branding for early-stage

• What truly defines a brand?

• What you're up against without knowing it

• The impact of a strong brand on your GTM strategy

• Why branding matters for B2B too

• Investing in your brand across growth stages

• Crafting a brand that connects with your GTM persona

• Principles to build your first brand, in the right way

• Examples of brands that really shine

• Wrapping up with strategic advice

What truly defines a brand?

There are hundreds of definitions of what a 'brand' actually is. One of our favourite sports is collecting them, but one that rises to the top is this one from Seth Godin.

”A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another”
– Seth Godin

Alternatively, you might prefer Koto's historical from a little know guy called Jeff Bezos, which focuses on reputation:

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room”
– Jeff Bezos

Finally well known commentator and Professor, Mark Ritson says “Without meaning brands don't exist. They are just commodities”, which seems pretty strong to us.

The conclusion being a brand goes beyond just a name, logo, or tagline. It's the narrative threading through your customers' experiences, linking your products, services, marketing, digital touchpoints, team, company culture, and even your investors. It's the story of who you are to them and the impact you make on their lives.

A brand clearly states why your business matters. In a world full of choices, it answers the key question: why should people choose you?

We believe it's never too early to focus on branding. Why should your first investors, design partners, clients, and employees choose you? Your brand might hold the answer.

As NYU professor Scott Galloway explained at Cannes Lions, a brand’s core function is to “infuse emotion into a product to gain an unfair advantage and margin.”

There's debate in the startup world about whether a brand can serve as a competitive edge. Can a company's advantage really come from its brand?

In short, yes, we believe so. While there may be stronger factors, brand matters. Many iconic companies thrive due to their strong brands, which grow over time. The strongest brands enjoy broad recognition, fuelling cash flows and further brand growth. Early on, a strong brand can help overcome product shortcomings.

A fun way to test how strong a brand is for big businesses is to play this simple game: Match a category with the brand that pops into your head first. 

Take a look: 

Soda? = Coca-Cola
Sneakers? = Nike
Fast Food? = McDonald’s
Computers? = Apple 

Pretty easy, right? Now, let's get more specific:

CRM? = Salesforce
Collaboration? = Notion
Payments? = Stripe
Email marketing? = Mailchimp

When you're starting out, reaching category leadership might feel like a distant dream. Your main focus is on getting your product-market fit right and keeping your cash flow in check. But here's the thing: if you dream big, simply having a great product won't cut it. Category leadership—the pinnacle of success in your industry—is achieved through a combination of factors: having an outstanding product, tackling a significant problem, gaining widespread recognition within your niche, and boasting the best reputation around. Take our word for it, we’ve seen 300+ startups up close in our nine years of business.

While the importance of branding from the earliest days may seem clear to some, there's often confusion among C-level executives, revenue teams, and marketing professionals about its role and when to leverage it.

So, hopefully, this newsletter provides a chance to clear things up. We'll delve into the reasoning behind it all and aim to make sense of it, with the goal of convincing even the most sceptical later on.

Let’s go back to the tactical bits: If a brand is more than just a logo, what does it encompass, exactly?

Ideally, your brand connects with a bigger reason: why does your business exist? To really make the most of it, your brand strategy and business plan should work together and support each other. (Hint: We've shared some ideas on brand consistency, so take a look)

Now, let's debunk some common Brand myths and expand our understanding beyond what branding isn't.

📍 Myth 01: Branding is only for big companies. vs. Truth 01: Branding matters for all businesses, from startups to established companies, and should be prioritized early on.

📍 Myth 02: Your brand is just a name and logo. vs. Truth 02: Your brand encompasses every interaction customers have with your business, not just its visual elements.

📍 Myth 03: Branding consists of fixed assets. vs. Truth 03: Your brand is adaptable and evolves with your business, reflecting changes in the market and customer preferences. 

📍 Myth 04: The value of brand can't be measured. vs. Truth 04: A strong brand directly impacts your bottom line, driving customer loyalty, higher prices, and revenue growth.

What you're up against without knowing it

Starting a new business, finding your niche, attracting customers, and growing or diversifying can pose unique challenges. Let’s be honest, brand is not really the top of that ever growing to do list. It may be though something that a lot of teams know they need to tackle at some point. Is that point now?

Consider these factors carefully as you shape your brand to ensure it's working as hard as possible for your business.

👻 Threat 01: Overemphasis on Tech and Product Features

It's easy to get caught up in marketing product features when launching. However, in today's crowded market, consumers aren't just looking for features; they're searching for solutions to their problems. 

Simply promoting features without a compelling brand narrative that underscores your value proposition, backed by a deep understanding of your customer's pain points, may relegate your offerings to the category of "nice-to-have." This approach runs the risk of potential clients forgetting about your brand within minutes of browsing your website, because you haven’t built any emotional footprint, nor have answered to the problem that keeps them awake at night.

If a potential customer is looking at a few options how will they remember who said what?

👻 Threat 02: Building defensibility solely through product

Similarly, some might say that the key to ensuring a startup's defensibility is solely through unique tech and product features that differentiate it from competitors. Why bother crafting a compelling brand story or enhancing product marketing with inspirational elements? Simply focus on what you do best, and customers will naturally gravitate toward you, right?

However, here's the catch: we live in a copycat world. Constant product evolution is often seen as the key to staying ahead, but in a world full of imitators, that might not keep you safe for long.

Below are examples of features or categories that competitors have replicated. This might be a hard truth to hear, but sadly no business is immune to imitation.

• 💬 Voice Assistants: Siri (2011) led the way for others like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana.

• 🚙 Ride-sharing: Uber (2009) kicked off the industry, closely followed by Lyft and Ola.

• 🍿 Online streaming: Netflix (2007) sparked competition from rivals such as Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max.

• ☝️ Infinite scroll: Starting in 2006, this concept quickly spread to platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr.

• 💨 Swiping right: Tinder's swipe feature influenced various dating apps, e-commerce platforms, and gaming interfaces.

• 📲 Stories: Snapchat introduced 'Stories' in 2013, inspiring similar features on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok. These trends cut across industries and emerge at every growth stage.

Ultimately, how people see your brand and what they like about it greatly affects how loyal they are. Just think, if your competitors copied what makes your products unique, how would you keep your current customers or attract new ones? Why would someone choose UberEats over Deliveroo or GrubHub? What sets Uber apart from Lyft? This should never get down to price, or you are in a race to the bottom.

So in a world where everything can be copied, having a strong brand is one of the answers to carving out a lasting competitive edge.

👻 Threat 03: People have a systemic attention problem

Whether you're in B2B or B2C, it's important to recognize that most potential customers aren't actively seeking your products right now, especially if you're a new player without a track record or established trust.

In this scenario, grabbing attention becomes tough. To make a lasting impression, you need to work harder to engage your audience and leave memorable marks. These small seeds planted in their minds might bloom when the time is right. How can you brand build a mnemonic? 

This leads to a big challenge for marketers who rely solely on feature-led narratives and ads to grow their customer base.

Research by Karen Nelson-Field on attention reveals a surprising fact: 85% of 130,000 digital ad views didn't capture the necessary 2.5 seconds of active attention to imprint brand memories and boost mental availability.

Impact of attention time on mental availability (MA). Source: Amplified Intelligence

This highlights how crucial it is to create an engaging brand story and build emotional bonds with your audience. By harnessing the strength of brand storytelling, you can overcome the challenges posed by the attention-memory barrier.

👻 Threat 04: Overly focus on demand capture over demand generation

Lots of startup founders don't realize how crucial it is to build their brand from the get-go. Once they have a product ready for market, they jump into acquisition and performance marketing. Leads start coming in, some turn into customers, and things seem to be going well. But what happens next?

You hit a snag: the demand you were relying on starts to drop. The cost to get new customers keeps going up, and it feels like your potential clients are slipping away. Why? Because you haven't been feeding the engine that keeps interest alive by educating, raising awareness, and inspiring people about your brand and what it stands for. In other words, you've neglected to generate demand.

But, with limited resources, investing in a brand that's hard to measure might seem scary. That's understandable. 

Our advice? Don't wait until you've tapped out your potential market and your customer acquisition costs shoot up because you lack emotional or cultural connections. But we would say that right? We’re Brand Consultants by trade.

But we passionately believe if you leave it too late it can be fatal. Start early, right from the beginning.

Remember that branding isn't just about flashy ads or big budgets. It's about sharing your essence, your purpose, and why your customers should care. People love stories and believe it or not they want to hear yours.

The impact of a strong brand on your GTM strategy

At Koto, we firmly believe that thriving companies are built on three pillars: Product, Growth, and Brand, creating a powerful flywheel effect.

In essence, your Product serves as your value source, while your Brand amplifies it. 

Building a strong brand boosts growth, pushing your business ahead and opening up various opportunities as you grow.

Let's deep-dive:

1. Business Strategy, Positioning & Perception

Crafting a solid brand sets the tone for your company's purpose and where your products stand, forming deeper connections with stakeholders beyond just features. It builds trust and a positive reputation in competitive markets, paving the way for growth both vertically and horizontally. Moreover, it empowers you to shape pricing strategies and sway the perceived value of your solution, instilling trust in your company overall.

Ocean Tomo LLC

2. Commercial Impact & Sales Velocity

A strong brand significantly boosts conversion rates for your BDR/Sales team when reaching out to potential clients. It minimizes the need for extensive education and product explanation, allowing sales reps to focus on closing deals faster and shortening sales cycles. Plus, it reduces sensitivity to pricing, making negotiations smoother.

The Meaningfully Different Framework, Millward Brown

3. Performance Marketing & Demand Generation

A strong brand enhances the effectiveness of performance marketing ads, increasing click-through rates and conversion rates. It drives more traffic, leads, and branded searches, seamlessly aligning with brand, content marketing, SEO, and social media strategies. Additionally, it lays the groundwork for future demand, crafting a compelling story for potential buyers who may not be ready to buy yet.

The Long and the Short of it: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies, Les Binet & Peter Field

4. Product Marketing, Product Launches, and Geographical Expansion

A solid brand is essential for effectively marketing current and upcoming products. It facilitates upselling and cross-selling to your clients, optimizing the efficiency of all product marketing and launch efforts. Furthermore, strong brands support and amplify go-to-market strategies in new markets and industries, fueling growth and enhancing sales impact from the start.

And finally:

5. Employer Branding, Press & Investor Relations

A robust brand not only attracts but also retains top talent, contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. It attracts media attention, increasing the chances of press coverage and exposure. Additionally, it positions your company as a leader in the industry, attracting potential investors and fostering strategic partnerships.

Raise your hand if you still think investing in your brand is useless? Hopefully not.

Why branding matters for B2B too

There’s a common misconception that branding isn’t that important for B2B businesses. Why invest in branding when product and marketing are enough, right?

We see clear limitations to this way of thinking. Here's why:

Firstly, selling to businesses doesn't mean dealing only with logical buyers. Your target audience consists of people, influenced by emotions as much as facts. Consumers don’t walk into a purchase mode at work and switch off their personal approach, regardless of how much they have to convince their boss at a later moment.

How they perceive your company, brand, and overall business matters. It's not just about the product or price; various factors shape their decisions. How do they see your reliability as a business partner? How would they appear endorsing your company as a solution to their problem? How would they look discussing you with their colleagues? 

Trust is crucial. Without trust, impressions lack impact, clicks are scarce, trials are skipped, and marketing initiatives stagnate. Building trust involves delivering value upfront, communicating your company's core purpose, and addressing the issue it tackles from an emotional angle, initiating a chain reaction: Value → Trust → Opportunities → Credibility → Influence. These factors deeply impact decisions. Once again, it's not always about features; there's more to consider.

Secondly, not fully understanding how buyers make decisions could harm you more than you think. Have you ever thought about how businesses decide to buy? Hopefully you have, but just in case studies show that, on average, a business buyer interacts with a brand 36 times before making a purchase decision. Plus, 80% of B2B buyers already have a list of potential vendors in mind before they even start researching, and 90% end up choosing one from that list. 

This shows why it's crucial to be remembered right from the start. If you're not, you could miss out. On the flip side, making a strong impression early on gives you a big advantage, and your brand can help with that.

Lastly, assuming that all businesses in your target market are ready to buy your solution is a mistake. The 95-5 rule in B2B marketing shows that only 5% of potential buyers are actively seeking a purchase. This means that to effectively reach your target market, you must focus on marketing to the remaining 95% who are not currently in buying mode. The most effective way to reach these prospects is through brand building, content marketing, thought leadership, and other non-intrusive methods. 

By doing so, your brand becomes associated with relevant buying situations, increasing the likelihood of being top-of-mind when they are ready to buy. Adhering to this rule helps capture future cash flows and contributes to the overall success of your business.

The 95-5 Rule, The B2B Institute, Linkedin

Take Porsche or Aston Martin, for example. They aren’t just targeting immediate buyers; they are cultivating a long-lasting presence in consumers' minds well before they enter the purchasing phase or can afford one of their exquisite cars. If you're a proud owner of a 911, chances are Porsche has been marketing to you since you were playing with miniature cars.

Now, turning our attention to B2B branding, it's critical to see its role as the fuel for demand generation, while performance marketing and sales acts on demand capture.

Exploring the B2B marketing's awareness framework and the traditional funnel model provides insight into how branding integrates into the overall commercial strategy. In this framework, there are people who don't know about the problem you're addressing or don't have a solution in mind just yet. We call them "Out of Market." This is where demand generation and branding come into play. Their goal is to make these people aware of the problem they might have, or if they know about it, to introduce them to potential solutions - i.e. you.

Once people become "in Market"—meaning they know about their problem and available solutions, including yours—demand capture kicks in. This involves Sales, Product Marketing, Paid Ads, and other bottom-of-funnel strategies, offering your company, solution, and product as viable options for solving their problem.

If you neglect your brand and strategic narrative, you'll lose out on increasing demand and reaching more potential buyers. Focusing solely on the bottom of the funnel might convert those ready to purchase, but it could also limit your growth (remember that ceiling we discussed?). This occurs when you exhaust potential clients who aren't aware of the problem or actively seeking a solution.

Breaking it down, you could say that different types of B2B businesses play different roles in branding, like in Product-led SaaS versus an Enterprise-led approach.

And you'd be spot on.

We've gathered some insight on how branding’s role varies for different SaaS audiences, covering everything from Consumer to SME to Enterprise:

Still there? Great, we’re about halfway.

Investing in your brand across growth stages

We've discussed many aspects of branding, including its core, its potential impact on your business, the challenges you might face without realizing it, its importance in your market strategy, and the universal need for branding in both B2C and B2B settings.

However, you might still be wondering: When should I start investing in branding, and what should this investment involve? 

In short, when, how much, and to what extent? 

At Koto, drawing from our experience working with businesses of all sizes and across various sectors, we have an opinion. What kind of investments should you make across Pre-seed/Seed stage compared to Series A, Series B+, and subsequent growth stages.

Here's the breakdown:

See, there's nothing to worry about, it just needs some love early on. It's about consistently putting effort into your brand from the very beginning and expanding on the foundational elements you've set up in your early stages.

Crafting a brand that connects with your GTM persona

Now that you have all this information, you might wonder: where do I begin to build my brand at an early stage, or refine the one I already have?

There’s different answers to this, but it could well start with creating customer personas and understanding your target audience. This helps you shape a brand that connects effectively with them, one that makes a lasting impression, benefiting both efforts to generate and capture demand.

Truth to be told, many early-stage teams still develop brands that aren't relevant and don't support their go-to-market strategies. It's important to not just focus on looks. When talking about branding, think about brand strategy, product positioning, core messaging, product marketing language, and more. The visual aspects of your brand should complement these elements and match your target audience(s).

The problem is that many founders envision serving multiple groups over three or more years when crafting their brand and strategy. They have grand plans for their product, imagining various scenarios, buyers, and audiences. But when you look at your product's current state objectively, you realize it may only effectively cater to one or two customer profiles due to its current limitations.

So, it's really important not to base your brand strategy, story, messaging, and product marketing on all five customer groups. Instead, focus on connecting effectively with personas one and two, while ensuring your brand has room to adapt and evolve, in line with your go-to-market and the early feedback you get from your customers and clients. Remember, brands, like products, can pivot early on, so grounding your brand too much in today's product might be a bad idea.

Get to know these personas, what they care about, and shape your brand accordingly. If you're not clear on who your target audience is and what they're like, how can you create a brand that truly resonates with them?

The truth is, you can't. If you try to do so without a clear understanding, you're basically guessing—and this guesswork might lead you in the wrong direction if it doesn't match their actual traits.

We're not saying your brand has to perfectly match the expectations of your audience, as that could stifle creativity and uniqueness. But it's important to understand who they are, what they like, and use this knowledge to shape your own identity.

Stand out by fitting in.

Now, you might be thinking, how do I create a persona framework? Well, there are different ways to do this, and although you can find plenty of resources online, we want to share a method that's worked well for us and could help you too.

A good starting point is to divide your customer base into different types of businesses if you're in the B2B space, like small businesses versus big enterprises, or by various customer demographics and interests if you're in B2C. It's important to understand that different types of clients may have different buying groups and personas.

Take, for instance, an IT or Marketing Director (if they fit your persona) at a small business. They could have different motivations, obstacles, and issues compared to their counterparts at larger corporations. Similarly, their response to product features and messaging might not be the same. Therefore, it's vital to ensure that your personas are highly relevant to your diverse client base. Otherwise, the entire exercise becomes overly theoretical and unproductive.

We suggest starting by creating a persona map by leveraging intelligence from your Marketing function first, then expanding it to include Product, Sales, Customer Success, and top management for buy-in and consolidation.

After that, we recommend putting these personas to the test and refining them through customer research, using a mix of numbers and real stories. This back-and-forth process will make them more accurate and suitable for use.

While it's not set in stone, we've found this method incredibly useful in guiding how you position your product, shape your brand strategy, and develop your overall visual and verbal identity. It also plays a vital role in shaping your marketing strategy with a focus on the customer, guiding product development, and aligning marketing and sales strategies, focus, and messaging.

If you're still unsure about what a customer persona is and why it's helpful for shaping your brand and overall go-to-market strategy, we'll explain it below:

A customer persona is a made-up representation of an ideal customer based on market research and data analysis. It means creating a detailed profile of your target audience, including demographics, preferences, needs, and behaviors. Customer personas help businesses understand their customers better and tailor their marketing and product strategies accordingly. By using customer personas, businesses can develop more effective marketing campaigns, create products that better meet customer needs, find new growth opportunities, improve customer experiences, and increase customer retention.

Here are the characteristics you can focus on when developing your personas:

• Pain points: Specific problems or challenges potential customers face that cause frustration or inconvenience, regardless of your product or service.

• Motivations / expectations: What drives potential customers and what goals they aim to achieve, not limited to your product.

• Potential objections / doubts: Concerns potential customers may have about your product, service, or brand.

• Company offerings aligned with needs (current / future): How well your company's products or services meet the current and future needs of your target audience.

• Unique selling points: What makes your product or service stand out from competitors and appeal to potential customers.

• Perception of Company (current / future): How current and potential customers perceive your company now and how you’d like to be perceived in the future.

• Knowledge needed to feel confident using your company's services: What potential customers need to know to feel comfortable engaging with your product or service.

• Actions that could harm the perception of this persona: Behaviors or decisions that could negatively affect how a particular customer views your company, product, or service.

• Marketing channels to reach this persona: Where your company can connect with its target audience, both online and offline.

• Media / events to reach this persona: Specific media outlets or events your company can use to engage with its target audience.

• Company clients matching this persona: Existing clients or customer segments that align with this target audience.

• Alternative products / services considered by the persona: Other businesses your target audience could consider if they choose not to work with you / buy your products

Now that you've created your main customer personas for your go-to-market strategy, you can start shaping your brand.

Principles to build your first brand, in the right way

Starting off on the right foot with your brand means getting a great name. But we won’t dive into the specifics here.

Let’s assume you already have a good name—something catchy, inspiring, and meaningful for what you’re trying to build. A name that's easy to remember, pronounce, and doesn’t have any unusual associations. Getting a name right seems easy, doesn’t it? Well, believe it or not, it’s not that straightforward. We will do a deep dive into this in a future edition.

At Koto, we believe in brands with substance, ones that understand their audience and embody a positive outlook. That’s why focusing on your brand strategy and narrative comes first, before diving into creative work.

But we won’t heavily dive into this complex topic either, as we’ve covered it in a previous issue. Feel free to explore more here.

Let’s go over the basics:

- A brand strategy is an essential piece of work that gives a direction to your business and elevates it to something more than just a commercial purpose

- It helps establish relevance within your environment, including both macro and micro dynamics, your competitors, and the social and consumer trends that affect you.

- Done well, it becomes a rich playground where you can explore various aspects of your business: customer experience, product development, company culture, and, of course, marketing and branding

- A brand strategy first and foremost connects what a business is to why someone should care

A good brand strategy should be:

• Rooted in truth: Not invented out of thin air - it elevates something that is true about the business

• Differentiated in the category: It captures a sentiment in the category that no one else already knows

• Emotionally rich: It responds to an emotional opportunity with your audience in an inventive, rich way

• Creatively inspiring: A creative jumping off point that could be brought to life in multiple visual and verbal ways

This strategy should be brought to life through a strategic positioning exercise, such as Vision / Mission, or Purpose-led business.

One of the most famous ones, the vision and mission framework, unpacks as follows:

• Vision: The reason why you exist. The ambitious goal that you will always strive to achieve, beyond your wildest dreams.

• Mission: The practical steps and actions your team takes to achieve your vision. It guides decision-making.

This is one of multiple ways to approach this. Be mindful that there are many elements to consider for a fully-fleshed brand strategy, including positioning, brand DNA, reasons to believe, brand manifestation, brand messaging, and product messaging. But these are the basics you should focus on at this stage.

Once your brand strategy is in place then at Koto we are advocates of creating a Brand Idea — a short statement that captures what makes your business special and exciting. This idea should be emotional enough to inspire creative expression through your verbal and visual brand.

The key benefit of this exercise is creating something unique to your business, avoiding the temptation to copy your competitors. We often see this grouping around a successful brand or design trend. Just look at all these Web3 clones or Linear copycats:

Examples of brands that really shine

Let's take a more practical approach and share how we've worked with some early-stage brands to make them stand out: meet De-Extinction, Sock and Kikin.

Bear in mind that all these brands are built around three fundamental principles:

1. De-Extinction 🦖

De-Extinction leads the charge against single-use plastics with its eco-friendly alternatives, spanning tableware to food packaging. We've meticulously crafted their brand, from naming to strategy, and developing their visual and verbal identity. In an industry often perceived as dull, De-Extinction stands out with its rebellious yet playful ethos, actively combating waste. Inspired by resilient dinosaurs, the brand fuels the 'De-Extinction movement,' advocating for planet and ecosystem preservation. Rooted in the 'Leave No Trace' concept, De-Extinction invites stakeholders to reflect on their impact and strive for improvement. Boldly challenging industry norms, it partners dynamically to drive meaningful change in the packaging supply chain, injecting a sense of fun. Our visual language, featuring a playful dinosaur motif, reminds amid waste threats, balancing expressiveness with rebellion, and underscores planetary conservation's importance.

2. Sock 🧦

Sock revolutionizes the crypto landscape with its bold creativity and vibrant approach. While many crypto brands play it safe, Sock stands out by daring to be different. The name "Sock" itself radiates playful charm, evoking the familiar concept of storing money in unconventional ways, like the classic sock drawer. Embracing a character-driven narrative, Sock introduces engaging characters that personify its identity, adding approachability to the platform. In a field where trust is crucial, Sock's witty yet sincere vibe strikes a perfect balance between seriousness and enjoyment, making it highly relatable to users.

3. Kikin ⛺️

Kikin is a beacon of hope for sustainable businesses, providing essential liquidity and support throughout their growth journey. With the motto "Better finance. Better business," Kikin fosters a vibrant community that celebrates sustainability-focused enterprises. Guided by the principle of 'Move Together,' Kikin encourages businesses to unite in driving positive change. Its clear and impactful messaging reflects a strong sense of purpose and unity. Through distinctive logos and illustrations, Kikin embodies its core values, forging a meaningful connection with users. By integrating these elements seamlessly into its product interface, Kikin ensures sustainable businesses have accessible and user-friendly financial management solutions.

Wrapping up with strategic advice

We've tackled a lot of ground. So, if we had to sum it up:

• Start shaping your brand early to turbocharge your GTM. It helps you connect better with your target audience and leaves a lasting impression of what you stand for and how your product benefits them.

• Neglecting the power of branding is like having a stool with a missing leg for a successful company. You might have a fantastic product, so why not boost it with robust growth and branding?

• Branding delivers a strong business impact, though it's not as easily measurable as growth marketing. Consider it as a turbocharger for all your efforts, not just a standalone benefit generator.

• Building a brand takes time to reveal its full potential, unlike paid marketing, which can yield instant results. Investing in your brand alongside paid strategies reduces business ad-dependency by attracting inbound traffic, referrals, and fostering customer loyalty.

• There's no shortcut when it comes to branding; it's about crafting something genuine and unique to you. Take your time with industry analysis. Discover your niche, and develop a strong brand strategy that aligns with your identity and aspirations. This foundation will shape both your visual and verbal identity, ensuring you stand out and remain relevant.

Deep-dive further with more reads

Still hungry? Here are a couple of nice reads and podcasts to delve deeper into the topics we've covered:

• How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know by Byron Sharp

• How B2B tech brands grow by Derek Yueh and the Linkedin B2B Institute

• The power of strategic narrative by Andy Raskin via Lenny's Podcast

• The Four Levels of PMF by FirstRound Capital

Let us know what you think

Hit reply or comment:

• Do you agree with the points made above?

• What resonated the most with you?

• What metrics do you track to report on brand building effectiveness?

• How do you explain the importance of brand to your CEO/CFO?

• Any suggestions for our next newsletter?

We enjoyed writing this newsletter and hope you've learned a thing or two today. Be sure to sign up to receive our next issue in your inbox.

See you in a few weeks for the next edition of OFF Brand. Let’s hope it’s impactful.