Software is Eating...Your Brand?
11 years after Marc Andreessen famously observed that “software is eating the world,” software has disrupted more than just business models; it’s transformed how brands attract & retain customers.
Whereas software was a major differentiating + disruptive factor for traditional businesses over the last decade, it has now leveled the playing field. If software is no longer a competitive moat, what is?
The short answer: Brand Identity.
In the coming decade, businesses must differentiate on the 3 C’s: character, content, & community. This is particularly relevant to the content marketing strategy of consumer businesses (B2C, D2C).
Brand Marketing for the 2020's
Software & digital services have, to a large extent, become commodified. A person with next to no technical knowledge can spin up a website (Squarespace, Wix), an eComm store (Shopify), or an entire online persona (TikTok, Instagram). The tools to perform things like video editing, podcasting, or drop shipping are ubiquitous and easier than ever to use.
And it is precisely because these digital services are so accessible that they have become commodified. The playing field has been leveled to the point where creating a nice UI or some slick content for your business is now table stakes.?
How do businesses differentiate, then?
There are two main answers to this:
The “adopt and adapt” outcome is already in motion. It is, in large part, a continuation of the trend that Andreessen identified in 2011. Technological advances will continue apace and be integrated into everyday life, requiring businesses to integrate new tech to stay competitive.
As businesses adapt along the axis of improved tech, they will also have to adapt along the human axis of character, content, and community. Here is how the 3 C’s create the modern competitive moat:
Character: Your Brand Identity & Values
In the past, it was enough to post a mission statement somewhere on your website and vaguely gesture towards it once a quarter. Quarterly cheers of “We’re mission driven!” and “We’re changing the world!” would inevitably fade as business as usual resumed.
This doesn’t cut it anymore. Forbes reports that 68% of Gen Z consumers seek products & brands that align with their personality, values, and beliefs. What they buy is largely determined by a brand's values and personality.
There are plenty of businesses that pay lip service to this marketing strategy, but success lies in execution. It’s not enough to hire a savvy social manager, donate 1% of profits to a random charity, and call it a day.?
This is the equivalent of listing a smattering of interests on a dating profile in order to appear more interesting; discerning potential partners will see through it in a heartbeat.
A well thought out strategy will surface the spirit of the business, and showcase it across your key touch points and throughout the customer journey.
Here are some examples:
ConvertKit [archive] : A Mission-Driven & Founder-Led Brand
Email marketing software has been massively commodified, so standing out in this market is tough. ConvertKit uses a mission-driven narrative to position their business as the email marketing platform for creators. Their CEO, Nathan Barry , consistently writes about how creators can earn a living online, and ConvertKit’s brand is focused around creating more opportunity for this new class of digital entrepreneurs.
Liquid Death : As Close to a Pure Marketing Play as it Gets
There aren’t many products that are more commodified than water, which makes Liquid Death's brand all the more impressive. Liquid Death has built a $100M brand with their outrageous content marketing strategy that encourages consumers to “Murder Your Thirst.” This shows that building the character of your business ≠ a sappy narrative or "save the world" mission statement. Having a ton of fun and letting your personality shine through at every touchpoint goes a long way.
What does this mean for your marketing strategy?
Dig into the unique personality and values behind your business, and identify opportunities to showcase this throughout the customer journey. This is a long-term approach to building brand equity with your customers, which requires a different mindset than a traditional demand marketing strategy.?
Content: How You Tell Your Brand's Story
If character is the what & why behind your business, content is the how; how you tell that story and get in front of your target audience. Because digital distribution has become so commodified (everyone can post to social, blogs, etc), how you showcase your business has become the differentiating factor.
This requires companies that traditionally wouldn’t have a media angle to think more like media companies. What is your digital content strategy? What kind of content does your target audience enjoy, and where do they consume it?
Here are a few strategies that work well:
领英推荐
Founder-led Content Marketing
It's easier to connect with another human than with a corporate Twitter account. Business founders who are active on Twitter, TikTok, podcasts, or publish a personal blog serve as de facto content marketing for their brand.
This strategy is best demonstrated when founders are active, organic members of the communities in which their business operates. Their participation in community discourse doesn't come across as explicit marketing (because often, it isn't). Instead, their contributions to the conversation are seen as additive to the community, which in turn builds affinity with their personal brand.
I almost hesitate to call this a "strategy," because in most cases, founders are simply engaging in the same conversations they would even if they didn't have a product on the market.
Some great examples of this in action:
Levels.io Twitter account: Tweets about digital nomadism & builds in public.
Steph Smith 's Twitter account: Podcast host for Andreessen Horowitz , builds in public, content creator, author.
Anthony Pompliano 's podcast & newsletter: both publications cover crypto, macroeconomics, and next-generation technology.
Podcasts & Blogs
Long-form content created around your particular market demonstrates domain expertise, increases brand affinity, and boosts organic distribution. As opposed to being purely transactional in nature (paid ads & demand marketing), long-form content showcases the depth and personality behind your business.
Some brands that have done this well:
These are examples of brands that are dedicated to building highly loved products within a certain niche, and creating a content marketing strategy that positively contributes to their ecosystem.
User-focused Storytelling
Customers are at the heart of your business, so why not put them at the heart of your content marketing? Creating case studies & success stories around your true fans is a great way to put a human story at the center of your content marketing efforts. By partnering with customers in this way, you can leverage their personal brand + distribution for increased organic reach, while driving home the values and customer-centricity behind your business.
Example: BloomTech features the success stories of their program graduates who have landed life-changing jobs. By telling a great story about their individual journey, it reinforces the BloomTech mission and puts a human story at the center of their marketing. It also solidifies meaningful relationships between the business and its users, creating brand advocates who can help drive future sales.
Content Marketing Takeaways
Unless you absolutely crush direct search or word of mouth marketing, media is the consumer’s window into your brand. Creating quality, brand-driven content and implementing an intelligent distribution strategy should be at the core of any modern marketing efforts.?
Community: From Customers to Stakeholders
A community based marketing strategy revolves around facilitating meaningful business-to-customer and customer-to-customer interactions. This can include workshopping new business ideas directly with your customers, facilitating discussions around your product in Slack or Discord servers, or hosting virtual/in-person events.
It is through these interactions that your business moves from a purely transactional relationship with your customers towards cultivating a community of diehard fans.
Community building is perhaps the best example of putting human qualities at the center of your brand. There is nothing more human than creating a group of aligned individuals who share a common interest or cause. Here are some examples of excellent communities built around a brand or product:
Music.ly
Music.ly started out as an app for creating your own music & comedy videos, before getting acquired and becoming TikTok (heard of it?). The developers built an early community of dedicated users who provided input that helped them achieve product-market fit. By constantly engaging with their community, Music.ly showed their commitment to building a great product for this user group, created human touchpoints for their users, and ultimately achieved product-market fit much faster as a result.?
Canva boasts 850,000+ members across their various design-focused community offerings. They have created avenues for Canva super fans to monetize their passion for the product by offering paid design courses, as well as niche Facebook groups for creators, nonprofits, teachers, and design experts who use Canva. This community strategy allows Canva to leverage their users as another avenue for customer support, inspiration, and product education.
Community Marketing Takeaways
It’s human nature to gravitate towards like minded groups of people who share your interests. Having a clear community strategy is a high leverage opportunity to differentiate your brand and create meaningful interactions with your customers.
Developing a Marketing Strategy: Tying it All Together
For many consumer businesses, opportunities to differentiate purely on the basis of technological ability have been competed away. What’s left when we’re all competing on a level playing field? The human qualities at the center of your brand.
Take some time to ask yourself: What is the unique story behind my business? What kind of content marketing strategies would allow us to tell that story in an authentic way? How can we create meaningful interactions with our community members?
The unique story, values, and community behind your brand are the things that can’t be copied by competitors or competed away by technology. By doubling down on the uniquely human elements of your brand, you set yourself up to stand out in a world that continues to be eaten by software.