Figure’s brand building with Blockchain — Brad Simmons // Figure

Are you an early-stage company preparing to go to market, or a brand already in the marketplace but struggling to find the right marketing mix, balancing performance marketing and brand building, finding a CPA model that works, and more? Listen to Brad Simmons, Former CMO of Figure, discussing brand building, blended marketing, and marketing mistakes to avoid.
About the speaker

Brad Simmons

Figure

 - Figure

Brad Simmons is Former CMO at Figure

Show Notes

  • 01:34
    Cool brands that have emerged through Y Combinator and why it matters
    It continues to churn out great companies like Stripe, OpenSea, Airbnb, Instacart, and Reddit year after year.
  • 03:17
    The brand building tactics for Figure on its way to becoming a unicorn
    They built that awareness and consideration and repeatedly got the Figure brand in front of the right audience through direct response and digital media follow-ups.
  • 05:44
    Rule of thumb for considering CPA models
    Go for the broadest CPA model because if you consistently live in a have-to-do world with your marketing, you lose creativity and innovation.
  • 08:54
    How to get predictable metrics on the marketing side.
    Getting predictable is having consistency, knowing what levers to push for growth, and how that will impact other channels.
  • 12:02
    Getting the right mix for marketing spend
    Its not about looking at channel-to-channel performance but considering the whole pie and asking if youre hitting your target cost per acquisition. And if you are, then your mixe is right, and you can start scaling up.
  • 16:10
    Why direct mail is highly rated for the finance category
    It offers specific targeting and pre-screening.
  • 18:31
    Linear vs. targeted Tv?
    Targeted TV is underrated even though it is more expensive.

Quotes

  • "One of the important things is we were very diligent about our cost per acquisition and how some of the different tactics that we use to build a brand, as I call it, brand response, right, it's been building a brand via direct response, as like, one element." - Brad Simmons

  • "We found over time that we were able to build that awareness and consideration and get the Figure brand in front of the right audience over and over, through direct response and digital media follow-ups." - Brad Simmons

  • "You're sending millions of direct mail pieces out, and there are people that will convert when they get it the first time. And then some people will convert when they get it. The 15th time, it's all-around timing, but to be consistently in front of them when it's time for them to need your product. They know where to go." - Brad Simmons

  • "Coming from the marketing and talking with finance. You know, marketing always wants the widest or broad CPA target. Because the more you can spend, the more you can do. And I break it into categories: there are want-to-dos and have-to-dos. If you consistently live in a have-to-do world with your marketing, you lose creativity and innovation." - Brad Simmons

  • "Combine all the channels because they work together. So demand creation, awareness, and consideration building, I look at that as the top tier, there's demand capture, which is the middle tier, and then there's recapture on the bottom. And the different channels fit into those different buckets. And they all work together." - Brad Simmons

  • "All these channels work together like you can't just turn things on and off like marketing is a flywheel. And when you stop that, you can't just turn it back on. It has to, then again, build and get momentum and keep scaling and growing." - Brad Simmons

  • "Between all the channels, direct mail, television partnerships, and affiliates, there's 30 to 40% overlap in people that we've sent a mail that comes in through some other channel. And if you looked at it on a last-ditch basis, you'd be cheating yourself." - Brad Simmons

  • "Are you trying to find the right marketing mix? If you look at it, one by one basis or channel-by-channel basis, then you're not going to be accurate. What's important to understand is we are hitting the target cost per acquisition for the business. And if you are, you know, you have the right mix." - Brad Simmons

  • "One of the exciting things about connected TV is that the cost of doing ads these days is a fraction of what it used to be. And so, the, smaller companies can now do television from a connected perspective and make it work for them. They don't have to spend half a million dollars on an ad and half a million dollars on spend creating an ad for like 5000 and get it in front of your audience and test it, so there's a lot more flexibility now, I think, for that channel than there used to be." - Brad Simmons

  • "Not having the fundamentals of a brand, to the foundational core, like a mission, vision, and values, you know, companies that haven't even like considered that yet, you know, they're out in the marketplace. But, how do you explain to a customer why they should do business with you and what you stand for as an organization?" - Brad Simmons

About the speaker

Brad Simmons

Figure

 - Figure

Brad Simmons is Former CMO at Figure

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