“We are the Spotify of Fintech”

My face when I hear that sentence

I don’t really drink coffee, but in recent weeks have found myself ordering lattes with various tech founders in London to see if I can help them with their marketing goals. After a while you can’t fail to be impressed by their vision, ability to execute, passion and willingness to learn.

An unhelpful trend

When we talk more about marketing some founders think the brand will grow up with the company. Which means looking and sounding young in the early days before you age. The job brief is often about building a brand identity, guidelines and awareness. Founders are smart and they recognise that jumping both feet into marketing in the early days, although fun was probably a mistake. Without mastering your story that new logo or Facebook ad probably didn’t move the needle or strike an emotional chord with the end user.

When I ask them to tell me about how they see the brand I get statements like “we are the Netflix, Uber or Spotify of Fintech insurance”. It’s a shorthand that doesn’t work and seriously underplays the idea that startup branding should always begin with a story. Their story, not quick comparisons to brands which are a million miles away in terms of equity built. I’m not sure where this trend for comparison statements came from but it’s everywhere.

Don’t sell yourself short

Human beings are natural storytellers, and we’re wired to listen to stories that establish an emotional connection in our minds. I’ve read numerous studies that prove reading a story activates the same parts of your brain that would come to life if you were experiencing the events for yourself. So, my advice is stop selling yourself short. Work on telling your startup story and journey with a strong marketing leader at the beginning stages before it gets harder. Think about where your company came from, and what caused you to create the products or service you’re offering. The deeper you dig into your background, the easy it will be for customers to identify with the company’s motivations, values, and purpose.

Finally make room for BXp

Then move onto my end-game strategy to build brand experience (BXp). This is the real payoff from that foundation tactic discussed above. Today, brands are actually collections of experiences. We’re not in an era where people remember logos or ads. Get the story right, your story, then create the memory structure in the mind of the user for a BXp with a carefully structured program of activity that crafts the sensations, feelings, thoughts, and actions evoked by your brand.

Get this sequence right and you can accelerate market share while commanding a price premium. I realise I’ve only really hinted at how to build BXp but the first stage is about teasing out the story. That’s the thing I wanted to land for every tech founder / CEO reading this post. The rest we can figure out over a latte.