#08_advice-questions
Thread
Hi folks, along similar lines to Varun's question, I was wondering if pursuing awards for your startup is a good way to establish trust and/or marketing. I'm sure most if not all of these "awards" are paid, but wondering if there's even value in pursuing this. I'm thinking we're small enough where someone comes and sees a "America's Fastest Growing Inc 5000" or some such thing if it holds value in a potential customer's eye. If yes, any pointers to such awards in the Marketing Tech world?
Hi Shyam great question! I look at this from a lens of a company/consumer purchasing a B2B product but it certainly depends who your ICP is.
For my first company Roamli, when we looked at internal tools like Asana, Zendesk, Loom, etc. most of these companies were large enough where their name carried enough reputation on the value of their product. But I've personally never made a purchasing decision based on any award I've seen given to a software company (that's just me personally).
I'd happily use any tool I needed even if it had only 1 review on the app store or was in the MVP stage pre-launch. As long as it's secure and legitimate I don't need any additional awards or tech publications highlighting it.
That being said I don't think the awards hurt in any way as they likely have additional side benefits like SEO but just depends how much time you need to spend "applying" or how much they cost to enter and what that opportunity cost is.
To me the value is all in the product itself. The demo/sales call will hopefully demonstrate everything the customer needs to see to make a purchasing decision regardless of the number of reviews out there but if the award helps bring in more leads to join those calls, that's probably the main driver.
Thanks @Brian Lee, yeah our customers are not from the online world for the most part, yeah I'm with you, I don't look at it myself. Yeah I figure this is yet another marketing tool, but not sure how predominantly it's used to be honest and for folks who've used it if its worked.
For sure - I think it always just depends on the industry and who your customers are! But I definitely don’t see it hurting in any way. Just some awards that are probably more valuable than others.