One of the best and most daunting aspects of the technology industry is that it’s always changing. The market is fueled daily by both near-term changes (new products, new companies, acquisitions, etc.) and multi-year waves of change—from mainframes and desktop computing to the Internet, smartphones, social media and AI.
The best technology companies are always innovating and evolving to meet customer needs. Likewise, the best marketers and communicators need to not only keep up with the changes but also create and champion some of their own.
With that in mind, Big Valley is announcing its most significant evolution since our founding in 2014. We’re launching three new consulting practices—Brand Strategy, Marketing Strategy, and Market Intelligence—to help B2B technology leaders drive sustainable growth and strengthen brand reputation while navigating rapidly changing markets.
Each new practice builds on our experience working with leaders and change agents in high-growth markets, including software, AI, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, supply chain, and digital health. Together with our existing practices—Content Marketing, Corporate Communications, and Digital & Social Marketing—this is all about adding depth of expertise to meet the demands of today’s marketers and communicators:
- Leading with strategy, not tactics and tools;
- Learning from intelligence both inside and outside the organization;
- Managing brand, demand and reputation holistically across channels and disciplines; and
- Demonstrating value and impact in business terms.
Our expanded services will help CMOs and their teams stay ahead of the market while taking a balanced approach to support short-term revenue goals and long-term brand and reputation building. Each practice is led by an experienced veteran and specialized consultants with in-house and external experience. Here’s a bit more context on the changes:
- Strategy and positioning have been Big Valley’s foundation since 2014. It’s a passion area at the heart of my 30-plus-year career. We have now diversified and deepened that capability with specialized services to tackle both Brand Strategy (long-term impact with multi-year horizon) and Marketing Strategy (focused on the next 12-18 months).
- Research and analytics have also been core since 2014, but we’ve dramatically revamped our focus and ambition in the past 12 months. Our new Market Intelligence practice helps clients define clear objectives and KPIs upfront and then delivers actionable insight to inform ongoing strategy, decisions and actions. While tech companies tend to know a lot about sales and demand performance, they often under-invest in outside-in intelligence about brands, categories, competition, audiences, channels and conversations.
- In tandem with the new practices, we have invested significant time to diversify our delivery modes to meet evolving client needs—from workshops, audits and projects to long-term campaigns, always-on services and fractional leadership engagements. (We’ve always done a mix of project and retainer work. We’re now much more intentional about the other modes.)
Stepping back to the big picture: We believe brand, demand and reputation are interdependent. They require focused leadership and sustained investment (which they don’t always get) across channels and disciplines (beyond the silos of how a company is organized). We’re powered up and ready to deliver the expertise, insights and frameworks clients need to meet the moment. We also promise to keep evolving with you on our mission to help technology companies grow, win and lead through effective, expert-driven marketing and communications.
