Brands are everywhere - from toilet paper to microchips, everything is branded. Brands help us understand how products work, what makes them unique, and even what they stand for. No software company hoping to make a name for itself would strive to make a decent product - it would strive to make the best product, whether that meant the fastest, easiest, or most secure. And the easiest way for a new company to convey that essence right away is through branding.
Disruptors Must Stand Apart
Personal finance tracking software Mint.com could have taken the route of traditional financial institutions with a dark blue theme featuring Greek columns, suits and ties, and other symbols of permanence and authority. Instead (particularly in light of the financial crisis of 2009), the company took a completely different approach, emphasizing transparency, simplicity, and connectivity to draw people in. These qualities are crucial for SaaS brands, which typically aim to offer ease-of-use, control, and freedom compared to traditional alternatives.
A good logo and some quality design work go a long way in helping you begin to stand out, but a compelling story and personality will elevate you above the competition. Take Dropbox, for example. The humble stick figures that populate the brand's how-to guide and email campaigns align perfectly with its message - utter simplicity, minimalism, and a touch of whimsy. It takes the storytelling concept a step further by presenting its platform tour in the form of a picture book with a similar pencil drawing style.
New Product, Same Story
Branding is essential when expanding your product line. A built-in unified story will help you market new products without having to conceive an entirely different marketing strategy from the ground up. You'll have a built-in audience that understands your brand, knows what to expect from your products, and can recommend them to friends.
When Evernote, the data organization platform, decided to launch Skitch, its annotation app, it had no problem explaining to Evernote users its function and value. The brand has a huge fanbase primed for additional tools to help them do what Evernote does best - organize, inform, and simplify.
Trust
Your first users will look to your brand to identify whether your software feels safe, will be around for the long-term, and promises continued improvements and innovation. Everything from influencer testimonials and how-to videos all the way down to fonts, colors, and imagery can very quickly signal to customers whether your software feels legitimate and might suit their needs.
The first impression that a strong brand provides will improve the value of leads, boost trial sign-ups, and give users something to talk about among their peers. Indeed, we're not all software engineers, so we need to trust that a brand will deliver on its promise when we don't have personal expertise to call on.
Twilio, a cloud-based service for sending and receiving phone calls and text messages via the web, has created a series of signifiers of trust on its website from easy-to-find API documentation to brand testimonials to welcoming photos and messages from employees. The clarity, simplicity, and human touch Twilio expresses in its branding all serve to build trust in a service that one might not otherwise have the technical know-how to understand.
So What About My Brand?
There's no plug-and-play solution for SaaS branding. It can be a long and iterative process toward understanding what story you want to tell and how you're going to tell it. But here a few things to consider when getting started:
- Who is your software for and why?
- How does your software fit into people's lives and solve their problems?
- How will you build trust enough for people to commit to your software for the long-term?
- What are your competitors and how will you make them obsolete?
If you believe you have the best software product in the world, you owe it to yourself to begin building the best brand to go along with it.
This article was a part of the Kick SaaS Marketing Series by Room 214. The Kick SaaS Marketing Series looked at what strategic marketing means for Software as a Service companies—including tips to increase customer CLV, reduce CAC, promote brand awareness, and maximize marketing ROI.