Yes, your brand needs a strong and unique voice. And as we explored last time, when it comes to the MIT vs Stanford startup approach, it’s essential to develop it through effective and engaging communication as early as possible.

The reason? You might get into the situation “no one heard about it, so it didn’t happen.”

But what do you do if you have limited resources and you can’t bid for the big mythical admen like Don Draper?

Oftentimes brands just flop.

Yet that doesn’t have to be the scenario for yours. And you have the whole internet to share your brand’s story and thus the awesomeness of your product, and to do it right early enough.

The man in the middle

As a connecting unit between product development, sales and customers, and prospects’ relations, marketing takes the role of the hated middleman.

But marketing (or its 2.0 version) is what can make your brand grow for real, especially if you build it in the product and stick to it pedantically throughout your development. No wonder growth hacking has turned into a startup mantra.

Instead of investing in expensive advertising that they can’t afford, small brands and startups are looking relentlessly for the magical viral formula that can bring quick and sustainable growth in their specific situation. The process involves a myriad of trials and errors, including endless A/B testing of various communication elements that hold marketing potential, ranging from content and webpage design to email marketing and social media.

Marketing lessons don’t always need to be painful

There are plenty of cases where small brands tried communicating their product effectively… and failed.

The truth is that early stage marketing is a delicate game that requires great sensitivity and agile reactions. Ultimately, you need to strike the perfect balance between under-communicating and overhyping your product.

But what it all comes down to is finding your brand’s most authentic and engaging element and telling it in the form of a story. A genuine narrative is able to not only grab the attention of the right audience: it also makes them stay, listen and take part in it.

This natural attraction field of your company can then be easily employed to pinpoint where the viral potential of your product lies. While many companies realize this, they are afraid they simply can’t afford any of these services. And they might not even try to.

Great admen should not be reserved for big brands

The game has changed since the times of the Mad Men type of advertisers. Luckily, this is good news for small and starting brands.

As the traditional advertising and marketing models are shifting, oldschool stars in the field can’t trust that their fame and name will keep companies coming back if they don’t embrace the new media reality.

It’s not only that. Great advertisers and marketers are not so keen anymore to work in these structures either. Why? Because they recognize the potential in online forms of marketing that surpass the current capabilities of traditional channels.

All these changes show that companies with limited budgets should not be intimidated by big name advertisers anymore. Because there are creative people who can tell their story as well, and they can do it in the best possible way.

We’d love to help you tell your brand’s story

As a part of our mission to battle mediocre advertising in the world, we’d love to help small brands and our fellow startups.

How? Check out Edgar’s . And do get in touch.