The best rebrands share one common trait: They disrupt:
- 10% of companies grow by more than 50%
- Only 2% of companies double their growth every year
- 99.9% are not profitable or growing
- With what I talk about here, you don’t have to be one of them anymore
And when it comes to technology branding, it’s more vital than ever to do it right so you don’t blend into the glut of “techno-speak promises” that pour out of Silicon Valley.
Tech companies are brilliant with technology. And that’s the problem.
They need more than a bunch of nerds and brilliant engineers to create the best rebrands.
They need people who speak, think, and feel like real people in the everyday world.
The #1 Branding Secret for Silicon Valley Isn’t Found in Silicon Valley
That’s why when Stu Sjouwerman (based in Clearwater, Florida) needed a new brand for his new company, we met over lunch and he told me his plan (he also shared with me his name he’d been using which I immediately laid the abysmal brand name to rest promising to never tell another soul what that name was).
What happened instead became the beginning of a juggernaut: since then, it’s had its own IPO (after an 8 year run as a private company reaching the one-billion valuation mark within that period).
Shortly before those milestones, Stu and I had lunch. Here’s what he had to say.
Want to learn more about the KnowBe4 rebrand and see how they went from zero to billion-dollar unicorn in 8 years? Read about it here.
The Best Technology Won’t Change Minds. The Best Narratives Will.
That was the problem with this amazing technology company that helps big-ticket companies attract more customers.
Dale Underwood, a successful VAR, realized his company would soon become as irrelevant and extinct as a prop in a Jurassic Park museum if he didn’t change something.
Finding no solution to capture a prospect’s identity and contact information, he decided to create a software tool that would
- Meet the customer’s need for self-service pricing, and
- Satisfy the company’s need to secure qualified, interested leads early in the sales process without publishing prices online.
Several years and half a million lines of code later, his service was born.
The first version was for a single client. The results were almost overwhelming, not duplicated anywhere.
When Dale came to me, he was using “echo quote” and “Lead Lifter” for the service which didn’t resonate with his target market: the sales departments and marketing divisions of companies (which were normally fighting one another like temperamental siblings).
And this is where Dale’s product came into play:
What if there was a surefire, proven method of getting those qualified and interested prospects to provide their contact information early on in their purchasing process so that the Sales team can engage with them and provide help and value that results in a close?
That would get Sales and Marketing working together and winning, and send sales and revenues out the roof. Everyone would be happy.
So the first order of business was getting the brand name, identity, and language right (this version of the new rebrand is what customers would see on the sites of companies using the service):
We then created a video, animation, and the perfect story to unveil the problem that VaueFirst would solve for big companies, their sales departments, and their marketing divisions:
Now you see the importance of the right narrative that takes the viewer on a journey of discovery, NOT more features.
Use that and your brand will rise above the noise. Especially in technology where only the best rebrands survive to ones and zeroes into millions.
Intelligent Moves: Making an EdTech Brand Smarter
When you’re talking with some of the most innovative tech companies in the world, you need to be at the top of your game.
For clarity, the edtech industry encompasses “any technology that enhances education or learning.” For instance:
- Classroom management tools that teachers would use including apps, platforms, and devices.
- Another example includes technologies that teach students and teachers languages.
- There are also technologies that allow students to explore other parts of the world and any other form of experiential learning (the list goes on).
For EdTech Digest, their growth had been steady and consistent, and now was the time to really take (and convey) a more prominent position as a leading online publication and awards program for this industry.
This is what we tackled when we addressed the rebrand for EdTech Digest. (To see the full rebrand, click here.)
A Salesforce-enabled Solution: A Force to be Reckoned With
A brand is a considerable investment for any company, and one question every CEO wonders is why branding matters.
This was true for a brilliant technology company based in Australia: a company known for its ability to use technology to simplify the complex.
When owner, Mikel Lindsaar, saw what small to medium-size companies had available to solve their eCommerce and sales options, he came up with a breakthrough solution that Salesforce doesn’t offer.
This shows how we elevated his brand and its presentation in the world. (Want the full story? Click here.)
From tech startups ready for hyper-growth to legacy companies that have become dinosaurs due to competition, brands that are ready to rise above the noise now have a path and a roadmap.
