I always find myself lucky to see various startups at different stages grow. From helping with initial launches to working with marketing teams on monthly campaigns, each day is very different, but all have one thing in common: We are living and breathing drumbeat marketing.
What does drumbeat marketing beat look like across several companies? It adds up across the board for our startups. Our weekly virtual water cooler and Monday emails are full of the latest moves from our advisory services clients, and we celebrate these wins as a team. We’re fortunate to have a steady stream to highlight each week!
Here’s what a steady drumbeat looks like across our portfolio of startups:
Funding and M&A
Being a hybrid investment firm, we highlight our investments as well as those of our portfolio companies and startups. We’ve helped to secure Crunchbase coverage for VETRO’s $12 million Series B, VentureBeat articles for Auditoria, and Datanomix to announce their Series A and a TechCrunch exclusive on Metadata’s oversubscribed Series A. We recently worked with the founder of portfolio company CloudTruth to announce both its seed funding and its acquisition of Tuono to solve cloud configuration issues as well as Jenkins creator, Kohsuke Kawaguchi and co-founder Harpreet Singh as they announced a $9.5M Series A for Launchable, tackling the next frontier of DevOps.
We’ve also seen mergers and acquisitions, such as Kompany39 relaunching as TorchPro and acquiring Morning Blitz, and Forcivity merging with Jolt Consulting.
Launches and Monthly Moments
What’s a startup without a launch? We’ve helped Blustream pivot and relaunch as an after-sale engagement company. Recently, MindRhythm launched and enrolled the first patient in a prehospital trial on stroke triage.
It’s not just company launches. We love searching for ways to showcase startup messaging and momentum, such as IPinfo’s launching its customers’ favorite product, Host.io, and Datazoom creating and launching the industry’s first streaming video datatecture. Bedrock Systems announced the launch of the first commercial foundation for formally secured computing, using whitepapers, manifestos, and blog posts to demonstrate the expertise at the company.
Engaging in a New Type of Media
Launches and funding news are cornerstones of drumbeat marketing, but they can’t be the be-all end-all. There needs to be a new approach using new mediums to reach out and connect directly with audiences.
We’re seeing this approach with our startups, whether it’s Metadata’s Category Creators podcast or WEVO’s webinar with Forrester Research featuring Mastercard. These and other efforts are examples of how we can tell a company’s story through multiple mediums. When a founder has a story to tell, there’s no better place than a podcast. Take a listen to Glasnostic featured on SaaS-Story in the Making
Earned Media: Gaining Third-Party Validation
Earned media coverage can help validate early-stage companies and give them credibility. We’re proud to have Mentor Spaces featured in Forbes and on Good Morning America — a perfect example of storytelling at the right time and moment. Finmark CEO Rami Essaid’s thought leadership and advice for startups have been featured in The Next Web and TechCrunch.
Local business publications matter to the community that a startup lives and participates in. We loved seeing both Serenity Engage and BigFoot Capital featured in Denver Business Journal. At the same time, MediTelecare had a feature article in Hartford Business Journal.
Trade press also plays a crucial role. Datanomix has been featured in top publication Modern Machine Shop five times this year, leading directly to leads for the company.
Celebrating Achievements
It’s so important to publicize and celebrate your awards and other recognition. Forcivity, Metadata, and Canvs ranked among the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. for 2020 by Inc. magazine. Wabbi was selected as a Finalist for the RSA Conference 2021 Innovation Sandbox Contest and awarded a U.S. Air Force SBIR Phase I contract. Finmark was named the Fintech Product of the Year in the Product Hunt Golden Kitty Awards, Defendify was named Best Product in SMB Cybersecurity in the 2021 Global InfoSec Awards, and BedRock Systems won multiple Global InfoSec Awards at RSA. Shoobx recently announced a partnership with Fidelity with a full launch of the news across all platforms to make the most impact!
The highlights above only scratch the surface of the daily activities for our clients. The drumbeat marketing strategy is resonating within the market, with all different types of startups. We act as an extension of their team and focus on one thing: helping them grow.
See how our startup advisory services team can help you with drumbeat marketing.
