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by double0jimb0 3387 days ago
Meh. You provide a great strategy for keeping professional branding people and agencies in business, but not for growing the product company's sales. You are just confusing people.

$100k invested into improving the product offering to better solve problems for the customer WILL "accelerate your marketing".
2 comments
jacquesm 3387 days ago
God forbid other talented professionals charge rates compared to the value they bring to the table. Just imagine!

Better marketing beats better products most of the time so it's hardly wasted money and in fact may be a better way to spend some of your start-ups $ than to spend it just on development.

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double0jimb0 3387 days ago
Stop the presses! My apologies, I thought we were talking about product companies actually making money, not "talented professionals getting paid their 'value'".

The original comment was about "branding", not marketing, as you appear to have misread.

And don't worry, I understand completely well how many talented professionals actually make money. You are illustrating the point nicely.

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jacquesm 3387 days ago
Branding (and Brand Management) is an important part of a marketing strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_management

And will - when applied properly - definitely help promote the company's sales (contrary to your original comment).

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futhey 3387 days ago
Just to clarify, I'm not talking about "lol client has $3m in funding, charge them at least $75,000".

When you pay $75k to a reputable agency for a branding package, you're paying their hourly rate * a number of hours dedicated to your project, and it's not unreasonable to spend 500 hours working on a branding project for a startup that can afford it. Realistically that's 3 people working on this as their "main project" for 2 months (comparable to short branding projects I've completed, with a small internal team, at companies from 50-100 people).

Just keep in mind, there are going to be dozens of concepts that are attempted (to a reasonable extent) along the way, and never make the cut. You're not paying them to have exactly one brilliant idea, complete all the supporting work / documentation, and then "turn it in". :)

(Note: I just picked a random number somewhere in the middle of what agencies seem to be charging. You could just as easily find one talented freelancer working part-time for a month for $10k - $15k & end up with a very polished result)

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