The SaaS Brand Strategy Show

On this week's episode of the SaaS Brand Strategy Show, Ryan, Mike, and Dustin delve into HubSpot's recent acquisition of Clearbit. A move that is part of what's been a significant shift in HubSpot's strategy over recent years, from a focus on inbound marketing to a broader customer management approach. We explore how Clearbit's data enrichment tools can impact customer's CRM and marketing strategies, enhancing lead generation and customer insights—and how this purchase does and doesn't position Hubspot against Salesforce. Join us as we analyze HubSpot's potential motivations behind the Clearbit acquisition and its impact on the SaaS marketing landscape. We discuss the fine balance between being specific enough to be compelling and generic enough to encompass a wide range of services in your messaging and positioning. And, how does HubSpot's evolving narrative align with the principles of effective category design, and what does it mean for their future, and the future of SaaS marketing? Tune in this week for an insightful conversation on SaaS marketing, on The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: ⁠⁠⁠hi@drmg.co⁠⁠⁠ Learn more at: ⁠⁠⁠drmg.co

On this episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy show, we kick off a critical analysis of the world’s first “AI pin” introduced this month by Humane. Not just the pin itself, but the launch, and the combined praise and ire it’s drawn within the tech community. We’ll be discussing features, design, and the philosophy that drove its creation—but even more so whether or not that philosophy is showing up prominently enough in the messaging and positioning of the product for it to matter and make waves. Join us as we unpack Humane.ai’s product launch strategy, and wonder aloud if the focus on its technical prowess has overshadowed the company’s ability to merchandise the human problem its supposedly there to solve. We discuss whether the balance of innovation and human-centric design, and the messaging of it as a whole, is enough to make what Humane.ai is doing meaningful. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a marketing professional, a SaaS founder looking at what to do or what not to do in your own messaging and positioning, or just someone curious about the future of wearable technology, we offer our perspectives on the evolving landscape of AI, its potential impact on our lives, and the crucial nature of telling and selling a story when launching new categories of products and technology into the market. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: ⁠⁠hi@drmg.co⁠⁠ Learn more at: ⁠⁠drmg.co

In this episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, Eddie Yoon, a renowned author, B2C and B2B marketing consultant, and category design expert, joins us to share his experience in consumer psychology and growth strategies. He highlights the importance of category creation for companies of all sizes, and why knowing your customer (and who your Super Consumers are) is key to selling and telling the right story. Eddie has authored a variety of marketing books, and aided innovative companies like Keurig and iRobot and his wisdom is both wide and deep. With a shared ethos for how we approach marketing, and maybe even the world, this week's episode offers valuable perspectives on consumer behavior and business success in the context of analytics and category design. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: ⁠hi@drmg.co⁠ Learn more at: ⁠drmg.co

On this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy show, we dive deep into the captivating story of Klaviyo's decade-long journey to transform the ecommerce landscape—culminating in what's expected to be a massive IPO next week. Today's episode unveils the intertwined relationship between Klaviyo and Shopify, shedding light on why Klaviyo has managed to stand out as the dominant platform for ecommerce email marketing. We explore the resonating power of customer advocacy, the brand's unique value proposition (or lack thereof), and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead with its anticipated IPO. We devil's advocate our own position on the importance of differentiation, and look at why Klaviyo has had a simplistic and undifferentiated message for years, and yet continued to skyrocket in growth. Industry experts are keenly watching Klaviyo's moves and what it signals for the future of ecommerce marketing. Whether you're in the ecommerce or digital marketing space, this episode gives insights into their growth, messaging, positioning, market conditions, and more. You won't want to miss it. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

Strap in, SaaS fans. On this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy show, we're taking a ride into the heart of Front’s category strategy around their Customer Operations Platform. We love finding interesting and well-executed category strategy in the wild, and Front has made waves with their's raising over $200 million in their pursuit of this category, and the narrative surrounding it. Today, we dive headfirst into their website, dissect their product video, and give you our no-holds-barred take on what we think works and what could use a little polish. We're all about celebrating what we think of as the good stuff that aligns with our process and perspective, while also pointing out the things that we think would benefit from a tweak. If you're looking to stand out in the SaaS crowd too, tune in to see what we think of their marketing strategy and the of their category approach, plus hear our thoughts on how they could level up even further. You'll walk away with a ton of inspiration, and maybe even a few ideas on how to shake up your own game too. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

In this episode, we dive deep into Databricks' recent acquisition of MosaicML, a staggering $1.3 billion transaction that aims to democratize AI and bring its services to, well... everyone? We'll explore their before and after messaging, the key elements of category strategy in play, and the role of AI in shaping today's software messaging landscape. We also delve into the challenges of positioning AI in an industry that's rapidly expanding and evolving, and worries over reverse differentiation. Join us as we discuss the potential fracturing of AI models and what this could mean for the future of AI in B2B SaaS as the potential looms for it to be incorporated into tech stacks worldwide. We speculate on Databricks' future strategies, including the buzz around a possible public offering to compete against OpenAI in the future. With plenty playing out in the AI space, join this squad of seasoned tech veterans, who are also curious about AI's explosive growth, and what it means for all of us. Get all that and more on this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

When evolution occurs, previously accepted nomenclature can become obsolete. So it is with "Remote Work," that charming idea of a distributed office, freed from the constraints of traditional office bureaucracy and politics. But remote from what? With the majority of business meeting invites including a Zoom, or Hangout, or Teams link isn't everyone 'remote', even those in a traditional office space? More importantly, does the term create an us-versus-them dynamic that pits on-prem vs off- against each other? Ep. 41 of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show tackles the disconnect created by the headless "Remote Work" category. With special guest mischief maker Paul Jones from Bridgio, the DRMG team digs into the threats and opportunities inherent to pre-COVID terminology.

This is the first discussion about what we have termed "Headless categories", category names that have just appeared and been adopted without any really heavy strategic thought behind them. On this episode we discuss the "Fractional Leadership" category. Fractional CMOs, Fraction CIOs, etc... Is Fractional the correct category name or is there a more appropriate term to capture the comprehensive value provided by top-shelf, um, fractional leaders. (it even feels wrong to say it). Bridgio CEO Paul Jones brought us the headless idea and joins us to discuss the fractional conundrum. He is well-qualified, as Bridgio is a strategic referral network for start-up brands stocked with, um, fractional talent. (You can get a sense of the direction this conversation takes.) Thanks to Paul for the excellent topic and interesting insights. -DRMG

Mark Pollard runs Sweathead, a community to "help people build lives around their strategy instincts." He and his team do this through workshops/Masterclasses, training, the Sweathead podcast and newsletter, and the 17,000 member Sweathead Facebook community. He’s also run strategy teams at Big Spaceship, Edelman, and Leo Burnett. He was on the Account Planning Group (APG) committee in Australia 12 years ago. He’s spoken at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, AIGA How Design, Google Firestarters, and more. He is author of Strategy is Your Words. He also once published Australasia’s first full-color hip hop magazine “Stealth”. Today, Mark joins the DRMG team to discuss what we've termed B2B's Cake Conundrum, how conservative product-only culture of many start-ups prohibits the type of creative thinking and actions required to achieve escape velocity and grow into the next stage. As Mark says, "It takes creative people to grow companies, conservative people to run companies.” How to find the balance between the two? You can find Mark on Instagram.

The road to raising $2.5 million dollars is never smooth—but the views are often pretty legendary. On today's episode, we invite a friend, client, category creator, and founder—Adam Stepanovic—to talk about DashLX's journey to their most recent funding round, and how the role of category creation played a massive part in their ability to obtain clients and tell and sell their story to investors. On this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, we'll discuss with him the history of DashLX, from the inception of the business idea, to the road to their first customers, to our collaborative creation of the Lived Experience (LX) category in tandem with Christopher Lochhead from Play Bigger, Category Pirates, and The Lochhead on Marketing Podcast. Strap in for the ride as we grill Adam on his team's most recent peak, their $2.5 million seed round, and the very beginning of their road to even more legendary greatness. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

Category design is in the news this week, so we're taking on the role of your friendly local reporter. A presentation on the SaaStr YouTube channel from Bill Magnuson, CEO and Cofounder of Braze, recently talked about the importance of category creation to the success of their business. With a matching blog post summarizing the presentation on SaaStr's blog, we wanted to see what we can learn from the piece and from Braze, as well as weigh in on opportunities for improvement, from a category design perspective. So on this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, we take a long hard look at Braze's category journey, and the importance of the first mover advantage they brought to the market. We talk about category design, first mover advantage, skating to where the puck is going, rapid growth trajectories, analyst narratives, and the importance of reinventing yourself. All that and more, this week, on The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

As SaaS brand strategists and category creators, we're frequently exposed to the reasons why companies don't undertake a category strategy in their business. And there isn't just one objection we hear. There are many, and they're frequently connected. But here at DRMG, we're adamant about the value and importance of category design, and we're adamant that most people don't understand that half (or more) of their objections are unfounded. So on this week's episode, we consolidate the commonly held reasons software businesses resist category creation. And we argue the other side of those objections and how to overcome them, one by one. We talk about timing and timeline, analyst relations, search engine optimization, damming the demand, content strategy, and a whole lot more, on this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

The word community is thrown around a lot when it comes to SaaS companies. Sometimes it's mentioned as a trendy growth tool. Sometimes it's used synonymously with social media. Sometimes it's used to refer to a group of developers coding in the same language, or against the same software. So with all these different definitions—which one is the right one? Which definition of community can you observe and implement in your business to capitalize on the best parts of the concept? And to ultimately grow? In this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, we dive into the complexity of community. We'll define it, discuss the best way to resource it, acknowledge the difficulties of building it and maintaining it. And ultimately, we'll talk about where community and category collide, and how to make use of community in a way that's most beneficial to the growth and success of any B2B SaaS business. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

Brand and branding have the same root word, but they're by no means synonyms. And yet the number of times we hear people conflate these two words is sometimes astounding. Today we tackle a pet project and pet peeve of ours, which is the nuanced but crucial difference between these two words. We're so passionate about this topic in fact, that we pressed record in the middle of a debate to capture the essence of our conversation. On this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, you'll hear us illustrate a few different definitions of what a brand is, we'll define branding and what the components of branding actually are, and discuss about how crucially connected these two concepts are, as well as the essential differences between the two. This is no esoteric semantic argument. Words matter, and how these two specific words get used at your company could be the difference between getting a new logo and growing your business. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

As recession fears continue to muddy the waters of progress, your story is more important than ever. Your narrative—what you tell and sell in the market—will be responsible for the interest and investment you get in your next round—or unfortunately for some, the interest and investment you don't get... So on this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, we take a page out of Sequoia Capital's playbook, and break down the actual pitch deck they ask for from companies pitching them, slide by slide. We'll walk you through the narrative they ask for, why they ask for each element, and how you can (and should) illustrate your story and your category to match their roadmap, in as concrete and compelling terms as possible. Plus, an episode about the perfect pitch wouldn't be right without an in-depth discussion of the merits of Kacey Musgraves. You'll get all that and a whole lot more, on this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

It's common to want and need domain expertise, when you're problem-solving. We all look for experts who've solved problems like ours before, to help us solve our own problems. But is there a point where your problem is so niche or specific, that the domain expertise simply doesn't exist? Do we sometimes focus so narrowly, that we end up over-indexing on a single aspect of our problems, that ends up not really solving the problem at all? When your problem is multi-dimensional, it's crucial to create a hierarchy of those dimensions so that you end up solving the most critical problem in your business. Otherwise your focus can ruin your focus... So that's what we dive into on this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. A recent conversation with a prospect spurs the topic this week, as we discuss the concept of domain expertise, over-indexing and under-indexing on certain components of domain expertise, and setting a problem-solving hierarchy that sets your B2B SaaS business up for success in both the short and long term. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

Identify your customer's problem. Create a category that solves it. Assign an enemy to the conversation. Then design a creative lightning strike that proves your category is the solution to your customers problem, and will help them defeat that enemy. Easy to say in a few sentences, but significantly harder to do. But when done well, it's a thing of beauty. That's why this week, we're culminating our series of minisodes covering some of our favorite B2B Cannes Lions award-winners year, with Norwegian glassware company Strahl. The customer problem? Glassware in restaurants creates inefficiencies, can be dangerous for customers and employees, has costly overhead, and irritating persistent reordering. Their category that solves it? Virtually unbreakable polycarbonate glassware that looks like glass, but doesn't break like like. The enemy here? Traditional glassware. The creative lightning strike? Ship your product in the mail with zero packaging to prove that if a trip through the mail won't break it, normal usage in a restaurant sure won't either. And make an ad about the whole thing. That's the ride we take, this week on The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. We'll break down the campaign, discuss what works, what doesn't, and why. Plus we'll dive into what B2B SaaS companies can take away from Strahl's formula and implement in their businesses to set themselves apart, create a category, and make a statement. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

When the pandemic hit, and the world went into quarantine, bars and restaurants were saddled with product they couldn't sell. Heineken decided that instead of letting their beer go to waste in bars and restaurants all over the UK, they would buy it back from their customers, and try to do something good with it. From this goal, the "Unwasted Beer" campaign was born. Heineken rescued their beer back and converted the beer that couldn't be consumed into green products like fertilizer, animal feed, biogas, and more. And then they won a Cannes Lions award for it, which brings us today. On this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy show, we release our third of four mini episodes covering the most interesting winners from 2022's first ever B2B Cannes Lions awards. We break down the campaign, discuss what landed and what didn't, and the lessons that B2B software companies can take away from the campaign, and start applying to their business today. Is it green-washing? Good marketing? Does it pay off a promise? Does it matter in a world that quarantines, no more? We tackle it all this week, on The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

How do you tackle account-based marketing (ABM) when you're the largest music streaming platform in the world? If you're Spotify, you make custom music for the CMOs at individual accounts to showcase the power of audio advertising on your platform. And you use it to thank those marketing leaders for their investment. Then, once it's all said and done, you win a 2022 B2B Cannes Lions award in the "Targeting and Engagement" subcategory. On this week's episode of The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, we talk through one of the best and most fun B2B campaigns we've seen in a long time, as musicians and big music fans ourselves. But also one of the best we've seen from the angle of marketers and brand strategy geeks as well. And even if your SaaS business doesn't have perfect pitch, musical chops, or the budget to pull off a campaign like this, there's still plenty to be learned and put into practice in your own business. In this second of our four-part mini-sode series on the inaugural B2B Cannes Lions awards, we talk about all those brand and business strategy lessons, play a mashup of ABM-targeted CMO songs, and cover a whole lot more. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co

Today, on The SaaS Brand Strategy Show, we kick off a new four-part series on what SaaS companies can learn from this year's first-ever B2B Cannes Lions awards. In partnership with LinkedIn Think Tank, the B2B Institute, this year's Creative Lions celebrate creativity in B2B marketing. With all the lessons to be learned from B2B companies (particularly some with B2C marketing chops), we'll be covering four interesting campaigns and winners. We'll discuss how B2B SaaS companies can learn from these award winners, and apply the lessons to their business strategies, marketing, messaging, and positioning. Our first episode in this new series focuses on Dole and their partnership with Ananas Anam to create Piñatex—a new vegan leather textile made from the refuse that comes from harvesting pineapples. As they create a new category and market it, we find a multitude of takeaways for SaaS businesses of all sizes they can learn from and start applying today. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn’t about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It’s about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They’re organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: hi@drmg.co Learn more at: drmg.co