63 - Dave Gerhardt (Drift): Importance of Building Brand
Oct 27, 2021
auto_awesome
Dave Gerhardt, Chief Brand Officer at Drift, discusses the importance of building a non-fiction brand and being authentic. They explore building a personal brand on social media in B2B marketing, balancing short-term and long-term marketing strategies, and the significance of focusing on marketing goals and strategy. They highlight the value of creating a story for your company, investing in oneself, and building a B2B marketing community.
Building a strong brand requires authenticity and sharing real-time content through various channels.
To stand out on social media, it's important to focus on a specific niche and provide valuable content.
Building a brand involves cultivating a positive reputation through strategic activities like podcasts and thought leadership series.
Deep dives
Building a Non-Fiction Brand: The Power of Authenticity
The key to building a strong brand is to be authentic and non-fiction. By being true to yourself and your company, you can establish a genuine reputation that resonates with your target audience. This involves sharing what you're doing in real-time through social media, podcasts, and other content channels. Building credibility and expertise in your niche is essential, and it requires consistent effort and valuable content to attract like-minded individuals.
The Importance of Focusing on a Niche
To stand out in the crowded social media landscape, it's crucial to focus on a specific niche. By honing in on a particular industry or topic, you can build a dedicated audience that is genuinely interested in what you have to offer. This requires creating content that speaks directly to your target audience's needs, challenges, and interests. By providing value and establishing yourself as an expert in your niche, you can build a loyal following and gain the trust and credibility needed to succeed.
The Role of Reputation in Brand Building
Building a strong brand is not just about logos and website design. It is about cultivating a positive reputation. Reputation evolves over time and requires a strategic approach. It involves leveraging the strengths and unique qualities of your company to build trust, credibility, and authority within your industry. By investing in reputation-building activities like creating a podcast, writing a book, or launching a thought leadership series, you can establish your brand as a leader and draw in a dedicated audience.
The Power of Building an Owned Audience
Renting an audience on social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn is not enough. To truly build a brand, it is crucial to focus on owned audiences, such as email lists and communities. By offering valuable content and consistently delivering insights and information, you can earn the attention and loyalty of your audience. This requires avoiding purely promotional content and instead focusing on providing genuine value to your followers.
Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Marketing Efforts
While short-term marketing plays are necessary to meet immediate goals and revenue targets, it is equally important to focus on long-term brand building. One effective strategy is to create a recurring brand anchor, such as a podcast or a book, that continually contributes to reputation building. By setting goals and measuring the impact of these long-term efforts, marketers can strike a balance between short-term results and the long-term growth of the brand.
Dave Gerhardt is the Chief Brand Officer at Drift and founder of DGMG (davegerhardt.com) where he helps B2B SaaS companies with marketing. Previously he was the CMO at Privy (acquired by Attentive).
