Startup CMOs reveal their marketing challenges

Tech startups have different needs from larger legacy companies (or other small businesses): often lightweight, often B2B, often growth rather than profit-focused – and as a result, their marketing needs are quite particular.

Why it matters

Startup can be an unhelpful term, but if taken to mean young technology companies, then there are some similarities. Often, founders are subject-matter experts rather than business experts, and rely on the advice and guidance of investors, a method that has been slightly rocked by this week’s Silicon Valley Bank story.

Learning from peers is likely to be increasingly key in a new era of tech in a high-interest rate environment.

What’s going on

Europe-focused tech site Sifted has a fascinating piece on the problems that startup CMOs encounter. Here are a handful of the most interesting:

Multi-dimensional communication

For certain startups, like the ad-funded green search engine Ecosia, its CMO Hannah Wickes faces the issue of multi-sided communications on a non-profit’s lean budget – that is, bringing on board users, also paying advertisers, and (in other cases) investors.

Unlike many other startups, Ecosia is profit-making and profit-conscious and, in terms of media, seeks to mix cost-effective digital channels along with trust-building media like traditional news sites or well-regarded podcasts.

Who owns growth?

Sarah Kiefer, CMO at Pitch, a software platform for collaborating on presentation decks, notes the difficulty of where to assign growth responsibilities.

“Our role is often representing our customer base and our audience’s needs to the product team. The product team is in the nitty gritty: what should we build?” Kiefer tells Sifted.

Big picture, small picture

A view on closing near-term deals is vital, but so is a view on a brand’s longer term; in a similar sense, with often very small teams, startup marketers are uncommonly close to the operational action while also needing to be across the top-level vision.

Hiring is critical to this, says chief brand officer Iona Carter, who works for neighbourhood food-sharing app Olio. But so is keeping in contact with others in the industry and exploring what rivals in a similar position are doing. “We’re starting to see different kinds of splicing of roles that used to be marketing,” Carter says.

Sourced from Sifted, FT