It’s tough to be a startup business. According to the United States Small Business Administration, in 2019 the failure rate of startups was around 90%.  While there are many reasons that startups often don’t make it past year three—money running out, being in the wrong market, bad partnerships—one common reason that often gets overlooked is ineffective marketing and branding. So, how do you effectively market your startup so you don’t fall into this trap? 

Marketing and branding agency Boyden and Youngblutt (B&Y) has a proven track record of creating branding for companies that resonates with consumers and investors alike. 

In their thirty-two years of experience, the team at B&Y has noticed that startups are, rightly, mostly focused on their products. 

“It makes perfectly good sense and is the natural thing to do,” says Jerry Youngblutt, Co-Founder and Principal at B&Y. “However, once you have those things figured out, the founders need to focus on their brand identity and marketing.” 

What should startups look for in their branding? The team at B&Y says that you want your brand to have a look and message that is relevant to your market and that matches the quality of your offering. In other words, even if your company is small, if your product is top-tier, it deserves top-tier branding to give consumers the proper impression and experience when buying your product or using your services. 

“So, as an example, a leading RV manufacturer charging $500,000 for a new, Class A motorhome has to make the purchase of a motorhome an experience,” says Youngblutt. “The same audience is buying high-end automobiles and their expectations are high for the purchase experience. Once your offering quality and marketing/branding quality line up, you’re off to the races and making sale after sale gets easier.” 

As many startups necessarily try to stay lean, sometimes they try to cut out foundational branding work, thinking that it’s not important. But having the right name for your company or product, color palette, positioning line, and elevator speech are all necessary to give startups and their teams the tools to be able to tell their story, repeatably and in a compelling manner, especially when the founder isn’t there to do the talking. 

Once a startup has strong branding in place, it often gives the founders a new sense of confidence to go and talk to new investors, says Youngblutt. 

While investors are looking for the hard business facts—a solid business plan, a good fit for the market, a differentiator, an exit strategy, and so on—the team at B&Y says that investors, just like consumers, are also making an emotional decision. They want to back companies with a good brand story to tell, one that connects with them and that will connect with the market on an emotional level. Because purchases aren’t always logical. 

“While investing should be based on evaluative skills, emotions do come into play. Few investors will admit it, which is why this is something that rarely if ever gets talked about,” says Youngblutt.

In fact, our emotions play a large role in our decision-making. Studies have shown a positive correlation between the amount of sunshine recorded and stock market performance across 26 countries. Conversely, in a separate study, after a country’s soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup, their stock market declined. There is real power in being able to set the right emotional tone for investors. 

“At B&Y, we work hard with our startup clients to balance several key variables to create win-win-win outcomes,” Youngblutt says. “We understand that even funded startups are shorthanded when it comes to the marketing and branding piece of the equation. That the last thing they need is another vendor. They need a partner with a vested interest in their success. Our startup clients have all learned that we want them to succeed as much as they want to succeed. Our hope is that they bring us along for the climb to profitability and we spend many years together.”

Services Boyden & Youngblutt Offer to Startups: 

• Match their branding and marketing quality to their offering
• Develop only the elements they need 
• Craft strategic messaging and content to appeal to their variety of audiences
• Help understanding and adhering to critical branding foundational elements
• Craft their story from an unbiased perspective and a focus on the target audiences
• Define and budget adequately for launch and sustained market presence
• Balance the “fresh-paradigm-shifting brilliance” of their offering with a comforting brand identity that says, “we have thought of everything and are here to stay”

Together, all of these elements help keep a brand on track and consistent. Plus, they provide a script for all team members to use when promoting the business to investors or the market.

If you’re a startup looking to create a strong, solid branding foundation for your new company, you can learn more about B&Y’s branding services on their website: b-y.net.