What makes people remember a brand (Dave's Newsletter)

5 Lessons on Standing Out in B2B (That Matter More in the Age of AI)

We talk a lot about tools and tactics in this newsletter. The micro stuff. But the 80/20 of marketing has always been the same: can you get people to pay attention to you?

That's even more true now. AI can generate all of the marketing assets you need at scale. Ads, emails, landing pages, copy, all on-demand. Which means standing out matters more than ever. Seth Godin wrote Purple Cow 23 years ago and that idea has been one of the guiding principles I keep coming back to when thinking about business and marketing. It was true then. It's true now. It'll be true 23 years from now regardless of what tools we're all using.

I had Louis Grenier on the podcast recently and he's one of those people who makes you remember why you got into marketing, just like my friend Harry Dry who was the top-rated speaker at Drive this year. Louis was an early marketer at Hotjar, wrote a book called Stand The F*ck Out, and now consults with companies on positioning and brand strategy. Here are five lessons from the conversation worth keeping.

1. Stop trying to sell the whole product. Find a wedge with the one feature people want.

Louis's biggest frustration is marketers so in love with their product that they forget to meet people where they are. At Hotjar, the product did way more than heat maps. But heat maps were what people already wanted. So they built content around heat maps, ranked for dozens of related terms, and funneled users into the broader product from there.

We did the same thing at Drift. The vision was bigger than a chatbot, but we led with live chat for sales teams because that's what buyers understood. Lead with what people already care about. Once you're inside, you earn the right to show them everything else.

2. Your brand looks like everyone else's brand and that's the problem

Differentiation is saying "we're the only product that does X." It positions you as the best choice. Distinctiveness is being noticed and remembered regardless of the product. You need both, and most B2B companies only think about the first one.

Louis's advice: invest in one or two brand assets that are "meaning-free," with zero connection to your category. PostHog redesigned their website to look like Windows 98 and uses a hedgehog mascot. Gong had Bruno the Bulldog, a real dog they auditioned eight candidates for. What does a hedgehog have to do with product analytics? Nothing. That's the point. No competitor will copy it, which means it sticks.

PostHog Web Design & Gong's Bruno Mascot

3. Your point of view should be a bat signal, not a LinkedIn fight.

A lot of "have a strong POV" advice really means: be controversial, stir things up. Louis pushed back on that. A real point of view isn't about being contrarian for clicks. It's about signaling to the right people that you're there for them.

Think of it like a bat signal. It's not for everyone. It's for the people who need it. At Exit Five, we don't go around saying most marketing advice is garbage. Our through-line is simpler: B2B marketers deserve practical help from people who actually do this work. Not flashy, but consistent. And consistency is what builds trust.

4. Pain points don't close deals. Trigger events do.

People can sit with a pain point for years without doing anything; especially in B2B with long buying cycles and complex processes. What actually moves someone to purchase is a trigger event that creates urgency.

Louis shared an example from a SaaS company selling to manufacturers. The pain is "we're overwhelmed and can't manage operations." Every factory has that problem. But the trigger that gets them to buy? They acquire a new facility or move to a new site. That's when pressure builds enough to act. Once you understand the difference, you stop just hammering the pain in your messaging and start creating content around the moments that precede a purchase. That's also one of the strongest cases for investing in brand early.

5. The risk isn't repeating yourself. The risk is saying too many things and nobody remembers any of them.

Most marketers are terrified of repeating themselves. Louis thinks that's backwards. The companies that build the strongest brands find one core message and express it a thousand different ways across every format and channel.

This is how you go from "I've heard of that company" to "I know exactly what they stand for." The risk isn't saying it too many times. The risk is saying too many different things and nobody remembers any of them.

If you want the full episode, here's the link.

— Dave

P.S. Have you shipped something creative to stand out? A weird brand asset, a scrappy campaign, a format nobody else was running? Hit reply and tell me what you're doing that lines up with something Louis said here.

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