Kamal Bhandal, global VP of brand and consumer experience at teeth-straightening company Invisalign, has advice for ad tech and mar tech vendors when pitching their wares to brands.
First, don’t underestimate the technical expertise of your target audience.
“Assume the person on the other side of the table knows about technology and isn’t a novice to the tech world,” says Bhandal on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Bhandal, for example, whose responsibilities include everything from consumer product and app development to media strategy, planning and execution, was deeply involved with Invisalign bringing its data operations in-house around four years ago. And before joining Invisalign in 2013, Bhandal focused on enterprise data center management software at Intel and Sun Microsystems.
She also suggests you personalize your pitch to a brand’s specific needs. Sounds obvious, but you might be surprised how often this doesn’t happen.
“Do [your] homework on the brand and really understand what core problems [it’s] looking to solve and how your tech fits into that equation,” Bhandal says.
Lastly, it’s OK to brag a little. Marketers don’t just want a sales spiel; they want real, practical examples of how technology functions – or doesn’t.
“Bring your successes to the forefront and talk about how brands are using your technology to solve similar problems,” Bhandal says. “And then be really clear about what your limitations are. The best way to kill a pitch is not to talk about your limitations … only then to have the brand sign up for it and find out later that there are limitations you should have called out early on.”
Also in this episode: Invisalign’s social-centric Super Bowl strategy, marketing to doctors vs. marketing to consumers, experimenting with the metaverse (remember the metaverse?), why first-party data is valuable but “[not] the perfect savior” and how one becomes the proud caregiver for a pet alpaca.
For more articles featuring Kamal Bhandal, click here.
