Tal Harel, Author at Cognis

Five Ways to Leverage Marketing for Your Next Funding Round

Posted on August 20, 2023October 4, 2025 by Tal Harel

As a startup with limited resources, you possess two strong assets to seek potential investors and secure funding: social media and public relations. And here’s the exciting part – you can wield this power without breaking the bank.

Let’s delve into the five marketing steps that will maximize the potential of these tools to help you secure funding:

Locate Your Buying Personas on Social Media

Begin by immersing yourself in the digital footprints of your potential investor personas: partners, associates, directors – where do they engage? Who do they follow? What hashtags do they use and follow? What resonates with them? This insightful reconnaissance will pave the way for a targeted engagement strategy that aligns with your startup’s narrative.

Forge a Distinct Brand Presence from the Get-Go

Paint a vivid picture showcasing your startup’s essence – as investors want to see it. Tell the story you want investors to hear: your innovation, products, well-laid-out roadmaps, new advancements, successful pilots, and satisfied customers (see here for the ABC of branding for startups).

Highlight collaborations, even if they seem routine (such as AWS and Nvidia Inception). For investors they validate your product’s credentials. Show your leadership’s expertise through speaking engagements such as webinars, panels, and events. Write posts that build on each other and reflect a coherent story.

Ensure you are seen where your investors are looking: are they following a certain opinion leader? Interact with this leader. Are they in specific LinkedIn groups? Join these groups.

Elevate Your Company’s Social Media Ranking – Organically

You can do a lot of organic activity to increase your followers and ensure investors see you. Start by leveraging key Company profiles, mainly the CEO, CTO, and VP of Business Development: use their profiles to amplify your posts, sharing them in their network and in the groups frequented by your investors.

Connect these profiles with your investor personas and others like them, and then invite them to follow your company page. Once they do, the social media algorithms will amplify your exposure to others like them, creating a positive loop and expanding your presence within the investment community.

Harness the Power of Press Releases

Write press releases for noteworthy or even moderately significant developments. As mentioned above, collaborative press releases with partners can enhance your reputation and underscore your unique selling proposition. You may not think much about joining an Nvidia Inception Program, but trust us. This kind of news registers with an investor partner reviewing a company.

Remember, embarking on a WIRED-worthy PR blitz isn’t the goal at this stage so hiring an expensive PR agency isn’t essential.

Instead, you want to utilize social media to amplify your press release, reaching investors who have been on your radar thanks to the groundwork you’ve meticulously laid out (through steps 1 and 2).

Promote Your Press Release on Social Media

Create well-crafted posts about your press release and amplify it with (modest) paid boosts targeting the investment community. Remember, use paid media only once you have laid the groundwork with steps 1 and 2,

Building relationships with reporters and editors can yield good results if you have the bandwidth. From our experience, online publishers seek good content, so if you offer them a compelling story and some great images, you’ll publish your press release. You can then share those stories on social media so your potential investors can see you’re making the news.

The advice we just dolled out is based on our experience helping customers achieve Round A. The actions we took first helped attract attraction on the part of investors, and second – and importantly – helped nudge hesitant investors towards a positive outcome for the startup.

The steps we outlined above don’t require expensive PR companies and spending a fortune on paid advertising. They do however require work. If you lack internal marketing resources or need to beef up your bootstrapped marketing force, contact us to see how we can help you achieve your investment goals.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

A Medical Startup? Tread Carefully with Marketing

Posted on August 13, 2023August 13, 2023 by Tal Harel

One of our newest clients is a pioneering medical equipment startup about to compete with long-time industry players.

Before we came in, they invested in messaging that conveyed a disruptive innovation, dramatically different from anything their customers had seen.

This may not be the best tactic for your startup. Read on to discover why and how to take a different approach to marketing new medical devices.

Addressing an Ultra-Conservative Market

The medical equipment landscape demands a prudent approach. If you were to examine competitors’ messaging and branding closely, you would notice a consistent theme of conservatism.

This sentiment also holds for most target audiences in the medical sector, namely HMOs, hospitals, government agencies, and buying personas within those organizations.

Why? Because when patient health is at stake, flashy packaging and messaging don’t cut it. In fact, they work against you.

Your customers first want assurance that a new product is certified by relevant regulatory bodies such as CE and FDA. Second, it has been proven to work, and third, it passed rigorous testing.

Minimizing the Perceived Risk of Your Product

Yet even with stellar messaging, your customers would still perceive a risk because you’re new in the game. Even if you weren’t,’ they would still perceive you as a risk simply for being a different product.

The key lies in minimizing this apprehension. Align with what they know and trust (i.e., major brands like Siemens and GE). Remember: familiarity breeds confidence.

Do Your Homework

In general, for anyone in ANY industry, we’d say that the smart thing to do before crafting even one marketing message would be to gain a deep understanding of your potential customers.

Research and create a brand framework that delves into their personas, challenges, and their criteria for evaluating new offerings. Familiarize yourself with industry terminology, and look at your competitors’ messaging and marketing channels.

Armed with this knowledge, you can then craft your unique selling proposition, positioning, and messaging.

Strike the Right Balance

Of course, you’re allowed to convey that you offer a new, improved solution, but this must be done within the confines of the highly conservative market you’re navigating, especially if it’s as traditional as the medical field.

How can you accomplish this delicate balance? Well, that’s a topic that warrants its own blog post. For more insights, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to guide you on this journey.

Trouble at the booth: why is a brand frame important for startups?

Posted on June 8, 2023July 5, 2023 by Tal Harel

Conferences are back; startups are participating and spending big bucks to gain recognition and try to snag their next customer and investor.

But recently, we found ourselves in trouble at a conference helping a beloved customer. Picture this: a curious visitor approaches our booth and asks, “So, what does your company do? What’s the master plan?” What followed were as many answers as there were people on the ground.

The CEO gave one answer, the VP BD gave another, the engineer yet another – and so on. That day at the booth, we had a cacophony of opinions that ruined some crucial first impressions (which is a real shame when you consider how much the company invested in the event).

Things can go wrong unless the team on the ground synchronizes their messaging and direction (which are synchronized with their collateral and website).

That’s why every startup needs a brand frame. It’s easy to create, doesn’t need to cost a lot, and is vital for your startup.

What is a Brand Frame?

It’s a document that contains the following:

Your target customers according to geography, company type, size, and other distinguishing attributes, as well as your buying personas within the company (including both your champion and those signing the check) and their challenges (very important!)
One-liner and paragraph (i.e., the elevator pitch), unique selling proposition, vision and mission statements, positioning, messaging, and values – all geared towards solving the abovementioned challenges.
It’s advisable to add the road plan and any other Go-to-Market elements you created in order to make this a complete DNA doc for your company, so when a new employee reads it, they know exactly what the company does, the problem it solves, for who, and how to go about it.

Is this for startups?

Yes. A brand frame is even more important for startups than big companies because losing a customer or investor hurts that much more.

Is it simple to create?

Yes. Anyone can generate a brand frame. Start by following the simple instructions we laid out in this post series).

When Should I create a brand frame?

When you hire your second employee. This way, both of you are aligned in presenting the company to the world and are sure to speak the same language (entrepreneurs often think their new hire got the jive, but they’re wrong. Writing a brand frame is the only way to ensure everyone relays the same message).

The brand frame is your building block for all marketing tools and materials – from social media to websites to use cases – guiding the marketing professionals working alongside you, saving them from ambiguity and you from the need to explain it over and over again.

Do you need to change the brand frame?

Yes. Your brand frame is your DNA. If your offering, market segment, business focus, etc., change – so should your brand frame. This way, everything and everyone at the company is aligned with your new direction. In fact, the more often you change course, the more important a brand frame is to your company, helping everyone keep up with new developments.

Changing your brand frame often is a good reason to go it alone or take a consultant – like us – to help you tweak it instead of paying expensive agencies big bucks for a one-time deal and not touching it afterward.

Note that a brand frame should be separate from a branding project (that expensive endeavor to develop your visual language and build your website and marketing templates). The best case scenario is to have your brand frame ready before going into a branding project. The outcome will be much better.

So start building your brand frame today. Get your CEO, VP BD, CTO, and CMO together and bump heads. If you need some free pointers, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Going Forward – A Quick Look at Marketing B2B Trends in 2023

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Tal Harel

As 2023 has already begun, B2B startups are already grappling with a myriad of issues: the economic slump in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising worldwide inflation, ever-faster developing technologies, and AI as a new way of life.

Marketing in 2023 is addressing some of these challenges with changes, such as deploying new technologies (such AI-powered tools for content creation) and shifting marketing work to outsourced contractors to help cut costs.

Some things, however, will stay the same. Mainstay marketing tools remain solid (there is no substitute for a well done brand frame or sales deck).

Let’s explore 2023 marketing trends for B2B startups:

Livestream content and short videos are high performers
Social media is THE place to build your brand, publish thought leadership, and connect with all important stakeholders, including potential customers, investors, and partners. In 2023 so far, we’re seeing that livestream content and short videos are a potent way to reach these audiences online.Clearly, a few seconds on livestream feed will capture hundreds more hearts and minds than a single phone call or meeting. However, in many circumstances, it still cannot replace the face-to-face sales meeting.
Customer success stories are essential for doing business.
Now, more than ever, people want to know that they are going into business with a company that has a history of success, and they also want to hear how the other guy dealt with the same problems they are dealing with.In 2022, for example, a customer of ours in the field of corporate productivity found that when they emailed collateral after cold calling, prospects always opened the case study first. Not the brochure, not the sales deck, not the link to the company website. Case studies were found to be the most interesting.
Influencer marketing is trending in 2023
Influencer marketing is not only for global brands. In 2022, a customer of ours – a startup in the field of assist-tech – deployed influencer marketing to increase awareness and downloads of their app to great success.If you want some pointers, read our post on influencer marketing for startups. One thing to take into consideration, is that influencer marketing is a long term endeavor. It takes about six months to bear fruit and requires a lot of determination and a people person to handle it. It’s also industry specific. Make sure your area of business is the kind of space that fosters many influencers who are ready to collaborate with companies. One of our customers caters to people with disabilities and there are a lot of inspiring influencers in this sphere.
Watch the quality AND the quantity!
Quality content is the thread that runs through all other marketing tools and will continue to do so in 2023. This holds true to customer stories, product sheets, and now, more than ever to social media. Social media platforms want you to write. A lot.LinkedIn, for example, changed its guidelines for posts and articles, putting the optimal length for articles at 2,000 words (!).Quality, however, is as important as quantity. Social media platforms want to see content that brings value to your audience. They are gauging this by the number of engagements and by AI analysis.For example, in 2022, we created high-quality posts on LinkedIn for a customer in the medical device field. We published two posts a week about topics that relate to our target audience, each post between 150 to 200 words. The hard work was repaid when only two months later, Linkedin informed us that our posts were included in its Featured Posts weekly newsletter.
Paid advertisements are important, but organic activity is essential for it to succeed
A paid ad offers a hook to bring in new customers and to generate awareness quickly. For example, collaborating with Top Interactive, a digital marketing agency, we generated market awareness for an IPO among potential investors in North America.To get the ball rolling, we first build momentum organically. When creating awareness and interest among potential customers, they’re going to check you out, meaning they’re going to go to your Twitter page and website. You want to make sure that you already built your brand as a thriving company with a strong business case and innovative technology. In short, you first need to build your story, then advertise it.
LinkedIn is in the top 10, but WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok are on the rise.
Use SEJ’s table to help you decide how to plan your social media marketing in 2023, summarized as follows.Top Social Media Platforms Compared by MAU (monthly active users worldwide):

Facebook 2.9 billion
YouTube 2.2. billion
WhatsApp 2 billion
Instagram 2 billion
TikTok 1 billion

However, before you run to create TikTok videos and Facebook reels, check where your audience is. For most B2B companies, TikTok is still not as relevant as LinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to get started with B2B marketing in 2023? Talk to an expert.

Social Media Hacks to Attract Top Talent – Part 2

Posted on November 15, 2022April 17, 2023 by Tal Harel

In the last post, we instructed you on how to start viewing your employees as your customers, and then how to build a strong employer brand identity on social media. Now what?

Rewrite your Website/LinkedIn Job Posts

Your typical job post starts with a description of the company. Usually, it’s a cut-and-paste paragraph along the lines of, “a leader in this and this field is looking for a software engineer…”

Boring…

Then follows a description of what the Company is looking for and its requirements. These too, are cut-and-paste mundane descriptions that are not so friendly.

So, remember how we taught you to look at your employees as your customers? If you want to attract new customers, you don’t write this way, right?

To catch that DevOps engineer who’s got tons of job offers, you need to sell your company to them. To achieve this, we created a unique methodology, and tried and tested it on our customers.

Basically, we write the job description as if we are selling a product. The product is the job and your company and the buyer is your employee. So, this is how it goes:

First, we begin by asking you who you are. We then tell you why you are unique, like, “Are you a car enthusiast? Do you like taking things apart? Then this job is the job for you!” (we actually used this line for a customer).

Second, we tell you why our position would be suitable for you.

Only then do we tell them about the Company and job.

And after that we tell what’s good about working with us: are we an equal opportunity employer? Do we encourage hybrid working? Do we support education? Do we support working moms and dads?

Want to see examples? Press here and here.

Research the right Hashtags

Once you complete writing the job position you need to do thorough research on hashtags that your potential employee uses.

This is a crucial and often overlooked step. Are you looking for a #SalesExectuive, @BusinessAnalyst, with experience at a #HighTech company? Only with these hashtags will the right eyeballs see your expensive job ads.

Now that you have amazing job descriptions, in the next post we’ll share some great hacks for growing followers on social media, so more potential employees will see your company page and job positions.