Founder-led marketing is defined as a ‘marketing strategy where the founder takes the lead in creating and executing marketing activities’.
As we are heading into the last quarter of 2024, we can expect founder-led marketing to be immensely important for businesses in the new year – especially start-ups. In this insight, we will cover: the importance of personal branding, the role of the founder in marketing, benefits, and challenges as well as a few founder-led marketing tips to get started!
What is personal branding?
Personal branding is the process of creating and managing an identity, image, and reputation. Personal branding involves being present through social media, content creation, and networking. By positioning yourself as an expert or thought leader and surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals, you can establish your company and brand as credible and trustworthy.
Key benefits of personal branding:
- Differentiation in a competitive market:
Sharing your unique story, skills, and experiences makes you memorable and therefore different from others. - Attracts opportunities:
Not only for your career but also business opportunities - Community engagement:
Personal branding helps you build a dedicated audience that resonates with your values and message. These followers then become your advocates. - Attract more of the clients you want:
Personal branding gives you the ability to shape how others perceive you. By showing your honest self you can portray your personality and in turn, attract potential customers who share your values. - Resilience in changing markets:
A strong personal brand can serve as a safety net in uncertain job markets or career shifts. Even if your company, industry, or job role changes, your personal brand remains an asset that can carry you into new opportunities. - Confidence:
Building a personal brand requires self-awareness and confidence in your expertise and value.
You can read a more in-depth insight into Personal Branding here.
The role of the founder in marketing
It’s in the name! The role of the founder in founder-led marketing is central. They shape how the business communities its missions, values, and services through sales posts but also through a unique vision and personal story. Let’s break down some key roles of the founder in this founder-led marketing strategy:
- Vision Storyteller:
Of course, your business page can communicate your brand story or personal stories that link to your vision. However, putting a name and a face to the story is the most effective way to engage your audience and humanise your brand. The founder is responsible for telling perhaps the brand’s origin story, why the company exists, any problems you’ve had on the way, and how the company will progress on a personal level. I mean who knows more about this than the founder right? - The public face of the brand:
Quite often, the founder becomes the face of the brand. They represent the company in the media, podcasts, and other company ventures, This offers a personal touch to your communication strategy. People know who is behind the communication. - Industry expert:
Establishing yourself as a thought leader or industry expert can increase your reach and reputation on social media or wherever you are publishing your expertise and advice. You can become a key player in the market, which also enhances your brand’s credibility. - Customer advocate:
Founders often interact directly with customers, gaining valuable insights into their needs, challenges, and feedback. This demonstrates you are putting your customers first.
Challenges to avoid in founder-led marketing
While this strategy offers several benefits, it is also important to highlight some challenges that you may also face when implementing founder-led marketing into your strategy. These challenges should be carefully managed and avoided to ensure you are getting the most out of founder-led marketing.
Over-reliance
If the brand relies too much on the founder’s presence, decision-making, and storytelling it could become a bottleneck as the company scales. What we mean by this is, that your founder only has a limited amount of time and energy alongside their other roles within the company. They may not be able to maintain this time and energy as the business grows and it may not be as effective as it was in the beginning! In marketing, the industry is constantly moving, you cannot be static, and you cannot always rely on one marketing strategy. To avoid this make sure you still develop a strong brand identity independent of the founder. Posting from company social media accounts and empowering other team members to also build their personal brand. Your team is the best brand ambassador you can get. Create a structured process for your strategy and your business can grow beyond the founder’s personal involvement.
Inconsistency in messaging
It doesn’t always happen, but in some cases, founders may make marketing decisions or communications that aren’t fully thought out, which can lead to inconsistent messaging which in turn dilutes the brand’s identity. This can happen when the founder is feeling pressure and burnout and perhaps cannot think of something to post! To avoid this make sure you have a clear and documented vision for the brand. Use a content calendar to ensure you are covering key themes, campaigns, and messaging. This will help you avoid posting content with no purpose or alignment with the brand for the sake of posting content!
Risk of burnout
Overloading the founder with numerous tasks on top of their already large list of responsibilities can lead to burnout. This won’t only affect the marketing side of the business but all areas. Early success driven by the founder’s enthusiasm and energy can also be hard to sustain over the long term. To avoid this remember you can still delegate tasks to the marketing team. Set clear boundaries and time management, and automate and streamline the process where you can. This may come with time, but it is possibly the most important consideration when it comes to founder-led marketing.
Potential for mismatched expertise
Founders aren’t always marketers! While founders may know about their product, service, or industry, they may not have a lot of experience in marketing. This can lead to mistakes in messaging or campaign execution. To avoid this ensure your marketing team is supporting your founder where they need.
Founder-led marketing tips
Are you beginning with your founder-led marketing strategy and not sure where to start? Begin with creating a plan and a schedule. Remember this is crucial to avoid burnout and setting unattainable standards. Focus on what journey you would like to take with your audience and how this can link to your overall goals and company vision.
Next, you need to consider where you are going to share your story, vision, and expertise. Through blogs on your website? Social media? Networking events?
Once you have a clear plan that aligns with your goals, you can begin to share your story and expertise. Leverage different types of videos and experiments. It can take time to find what works for you and your audience.
Engaging with customers and audiences through social media platforms such as LinkedIn, and Instagram shows you are active and passionate about solving any problems or providing knowledge that can help your audience. It enhances personalism and encourages your audience to engage more and stay loyal which ultimately increases your reach further.
Consider collaborating with like-minded individuals. By doing this founders can tap into their partner’s audiences, and expose them and their company to new potential customers.
Conclusion
Founder-led marketing is more than just a strategy. Ultimately by putting your founder’s voice at the heart of your brand’s narrative, you can create strong, and more genuine relationships with your audience, building trust, loyalty, and in turn, more organic growth as your audience becomes your brand ambassadors, sharing your expertise or stories that resonate with them! A few examples of some founders we love who have been super successful are Gary Vaynerchuk, Daniel Priestly, and Chris Do. Go and check them out for some more advice. So give founder-led marketing a go if you aren’t already, you won’t regret it!
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