A brand is not only the name of your product or service, but also a set of associations and emotions activated in a customers’ brain when he sees your logo. Brand development can involve a whole team of professionals, but it is the brand manager who is responsible for developing a strategy and setting tasks for specialists.
But brand management of a tech company or a tech product is not like promoting shoes. We don’t want to underestimate this noble business, of course, but the difference is drastic. While the shoe business can remain unchanged for a hundred years, technology changes every day.
What does a Tech Brand Manager do and what does it take to become one? What are the best practices of tech brand management? Let’s find out.
WHAT ARE THE SPECIFICS OF TECH BRAND MANAGEMENT?
Operating inside an industry that can change every moment is stressful and demands a lot of predictions. Developing marketing strategies for a tech product or service, the Tech Brand Manager must keep in mind the highest level of competition and pay attention to all the new tech trends and developments on a day-to-day basis at the same time.
WHO IS TECH BRAND MANAGER?
While having impeccable sales and marketing expertise (internet marketing is a must) the Tech Brand Manager (TBM) should have a strong product mindset. He or she is fully involved in the product development strategy, but with the focus on branding and marketing.
Tech Brand Manager is responsible for:
- Communication with stakeholders, Product Manager and Marketing team;
- Conducting research and analysis of the needs of the target audience;
- Regular monitoring of competitors;
- Development of promotion strategy, product positioning;
- Studying the customers' behavior and their attitude towards the brand;
- Planning advertising campaigns;
- Interaction with specialists from different departments, monitoring the implementation of tasks;
WHAT SKILLS SHOULD TECH BRAND MANAGER HAVE?
- Analytic mind
To conduct constant research and understand the reasons behind the decrease or increase of consumer interest in the brand.
- Creative thinking
To develop promotional strategies and maintain agile product positioning in the changing market.
- Curiosity
To feel the customers' mood and to study new tech trends and competitors' innovations.
- Management skills
To connect different specialists and organize the workflow.
- Communication skills
To establish and maintain contact with people, be able to hear them and competently convey thoughts and ideas.
TOP 5 TECH BRAND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
- CHOOSE THE RIGHT COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
Understanding your brand and its audience will help you to talk to the right people where they can hear you.
With that in mind, select your communication channels wisely. If you are in the video games business, you’ll want to be present in Twitch and TikTok. But if you’re offering SEO services, you’ll try to reach out to your millennial audience on YouTube and Facebook.
- LISTEN TO EXPERTS BUT FOLLOW YOUR PATH
Mark Zuckerberg made his social network from zero to hero. He didn’t really follow the internet "laws" of those days but went his way and created a social platform that grew from bunch of the Harward students to 6 million people in just one and half a year. Today, it’s the leading social media with over 2.5 billion users.
In simple words, whatever your tech company is doing, always listen to what experts have to say. But what is more important, have your own vision of your brand and its future dominance in the market.
- USE SOCIAL MEDIA CAREFULLY
Contemporary marketing is all about social media and the internet in general. You should be prepared for whenever something goes off it takes seconds to go viral.
Of course, it should be something scandalous or sensational for the audience to reshare. Some tech companies are trying to pull something like this intentionally, just to increase their brand awareness, but the consequences can be devastating. If you are not Elon Musk, of course.
- SWITCH TO INFLUENCER MARKETING
It is getting bigger and bigger. Recent studies showed that 96% of customers don’t trust classical advertising or suggested expert opinions. Instead, they trust people who use products just like them and review it on social media.
There are influencers with thousands, if not millions of followers, who are ready to do a campaign for your tech brand. Tip: just make sure your product is finalized at its best and the influencer representing it is the right person to do it.
- KEEP UP WITH THE TRENDS
AI, AR and VR, self-driving vehicles, IoT and drones, these are just the top-of-mind trends you can use as inspiration for promoting your tech brand.
Another example is smart homes. There are over 60 million smart homes in the US by today. Is there any way your product or a service can leverage this growing trend?
IN A NUTSHELL
Tech Brand Management is a complex process taking a lot of research, analysis, data entry and insights with all those things happening behind the curtain. Because at the end of the day only what the customer sees and says matters.
It’s a science of its own performed by qualified professionals who can create a team managing all the above-mentioned aspects.
