We’ve all heard of founder-led sales, but another approach that has risen to prominence is founder-led marketing. Much like founder-led sales, founder-led marketing is a strategy where the founder takes an active and visible role — but in marketing. All founders have a unique story and embody the vision of the company naturally which helps companies build credibility and appear to be more authentic.
Now, founder-led marketing can happen through a variety of channels; social media, podcasts, webinars, etc. However, we’re going to talk about the why behind founder-led marketing. Why are an increasing number of startups or companies opting for founder-led marketing, and why should you too?
We broke down founder-led marketing so you don’t have to. This breakdown comprises 7 key elements that make founder-led marketing very effective.
Table of Contents
Personal Branding
Fame might not be the end goal but personal brands aren’t just about becoming famous. It is well-known that investors invest in the person more than they do in the idea. Consumers today, are doing the same.
A personal brand helps you position yourself as an industry expert. Take Adam Robinson, Founder and CEO of Retention.com and RB2B. Over the years, Adam has done amazingly well with his brand, so much so, that you know Adam before you know his company. Similarly, leaders who have positioned themselves as industry experts have all attracted new investors, and prospects and closed more deals in a short period. True growth.
For startup founders, social media is a great place to start, especially LinkedIn. You can create quality content, both text and video formats to open up new opportunities, push out your message and vision and create true brand awareness for your company.
Authentic Storytelling
Founder-led marketing paves the way for authentic storytelling. Now granted that most founders only want to promote their company at all times. That is also the most destructive way to go about it. People get it, you have a great product but they want to hear stories and answers to questions like, ‘How did you make your first hire?’, ‘What’s working in your outbound strategy?’ and ‘Why do you have so many bad reviews on G2?’
Storytelling helps amass a following instead of people looking at your stale promotional content. They want to learn from your stories. As the founder, you have the best view of sharing these stories and being authentic.
This authentic storytelling helps set you apart from all your competitors, mostly because no two founders wear the same shoes or walk the same road.
Direct Engagement
With founder-led marketing, you are getting in front of your prospects and customers and engaging with them. This opens up the two-way communication between you and the audience you serve. Essentially, now you are learning what your customers and prospects need directly, how are they using your product and how can you improve it.
Simultaneously, you are also fostering a loyal community.
You can take a more proactive approach and automate email campaigns to reach out to your customers, set up meetings, and strengthen this direct engagement.
Thought Leadership
It is rare to be the only company trying to do what you are doing. Amazon competed with eBay, Google competed with Yahoo, and Apple competed with Microsoft, but what stood the more successful companies apart was positioning themselves as thought leaders. This did not make the other companies unsuccessful though.
Thought leadership is when you position yourself as a subject matter expert, where no one knows your niche better than you. It quickly translates to your product, and establishes you as a credible company.
Starting early with thought leadership tactics is critical, mostly because you do not have the leverage of using an entire marketing playbook in the early stages.
Transparency and Trust
Another thing startups accomplish with founder-led marketing is transparency and trust. When prospects and investors see and hear from the founder directly, they can easily establish trust. For instance, if you are currently working on a feature that is in high demand in the market, lead the effort of telling your customers and prospects. This only shows what’s a high priority for you and your company.
Trying to dodge difficult questions only works for so long.
Through founder-led marketing, you can position yourself as trustworthy. If you say it, it is going to get done. This will also excite your audience for anything coming up and prevent them from relying on hearsay.
Leveraging Professional Network
Often, your marketing team might not have the network to build out partnerships, co-sponsor events or run cross-promotional webinars with other founders and companies. Founder-led marketing allows you to build a network faster and open up opportunities to collaborate with others. Moreover, this network can be used to help sales teams close deals faster that have stalled.
With that said, your professional network can also help gain more traction with invitations to podcasts, webinars, and media coverage that will move your brand to newer markets.
Community Building
More than ever, we see companies building their communities. For instance, Gong has Visioneers, a community for revenue leaders. Simultaneously, with founder-led marketing, you are creating a community of loyal followers that includes prospects and customers. Your community can be your followers on LinkedIn or YouTube and even TikTok if you are in B2C. Essentially, a community helps you engage with the audience you serve. You listen to everything they need, like, and dislike, assisting you to not only pivot your product accordingly but also respond to negativity with a positive attitude.
Over time, when your community is self-serve, your customers are likely doing the engagement and selling for you.
Conclusion
We understand that founder-led marketing isn’t the make or break of marketing. Some founders do not prefer to have that attention or have enough time to pursue the strategy. However, there are several ways to go about it. For instance, LinkedIn is a great place to start with text-based content. Believe it or not, text-based content on LinkedIn can still get you the audience you need to build a loyal community. Founder-led marketing is becoming a new norm along with founder-led sales.
Simultaneously, along with time, founders are unsure of what to talk about on platforms like LinkedIn. In our experience, we’ve consulted founders with creating a personal brand and optimize their founder-led marketing strategy. Schedule a free strategy call here.