Hello, Branding enthusiast. How are you doing today?
This week, let's discover a new guest in the series ‘‘Marketing Buddy’’ — a great addition to our Brand Revealers. Occasionally, we will invite them to join the letter and share marketing wisdom and strategies. We have to become friends with the craft of Marketing, so let’s bring them in and grow!
👋 Marketing Buddy
Elena Souiller-Fedorenkova is a marketing expert I met during a coworking event designed for marketers. I found myself immersed in the world of these marketing geeks and I learned a lot. We both connected and when I decided to launch this series, I knew she would be on board. I am glad she agreed to join the conversation and share her wisdom with us all!
🇫🇷 Let’s be bilingual! I want to bridge the gap in language as I evolve with this letter. For French guests, we will listen to some of their voices in French and read them in English. Enjoy!
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🇬🇧🇺🇸 Here is the translation for my English readers
Who are you? What is your profession?
My name is Elena Souiller-Fedorenkova. Thank you for inviting me to your newsletter. I am a Chief Marketing Officer in Tech. I held various positions in Product and Marketing throughout my career, and today I am the CMO of KNAVE, a French FinTech implementing pay-per-use solutions for brands and distribution networks.
Elena
Where are you located?
🇫🇷 I am based in Paris, and I travel frequently in France to meet our partners.
Elena
Where can we discover your work? (website, socials…).
My LinkedIn page is the place where I address my network and my audience through regular publications. I may write about marketing topics but also leadership, including female leadership, and various events I attend.
Elena
What is your definition of Marketing? And what is, in your opinion, the main difference between Branding and Marketing?
The marketing teams provide: ✅ an in-depth understanding of market needs, ✅ help choose the company's target customers, ✅ build a value proposition for which customers are willing to pay, ✅ communicate this value in order to build a solid relationship with customers, ✅ and maintain this relationship to encourage repeat purchases and recommendations.
Branding is one of the most important aspects of marketing. The brand should be "embodied" for customers as a person they trust and with whom they want to communicate. Clearly different from other possible interlocutors.
Elena
Seth Godin, the marketing expert, says, "You cannot be seen until you learn to see". What do you think about this superpower of seeing what others do not see and providing a solution to it?
This is the step that startups but also large companies often neglect: listening to the market and customers and accessing real insights to build an unexpected and original value proposition rather than replicate existing solutions.
Elena
Do you have any tips for creative entrepreneurs and Brand Revealers to improve their marketing skills in three steps?
#2 • Learning about growth marketing: how to experiment with a specific objective and measuring with data - lots of resources on Youtube, like the Growth Tribechannel for example or theReforge website.
#3 • Joining marketers' networks in your sector or specialization. Everything changes very quickly, and the collective intelligence of peers allows you to stay informed about trends and avoid mistakes.
Elena
What are the repeated words you hear about your Branding and Marketing from your audience, teams, and people who discover you? (3 to 5 keywords)
•White label (this is how KNAVE operates). • Reassurance • Reliability (because we are a FinTech and people are serious about their money). • Digital customer journey (this is what changes for our clients who traditionally sell and maintain equipment - and now they can rent it through a fully digital solution). • Accompaniment (we are driving digital transformation, a pedagogical approach is needed to make sure distributors and customers understand the offer).
Elena
Do you have any recommendations for mastering marketing, such as books, podcasts, conferences, etc.?
People-communities ❇️ Following the super marketers like Bozoma Saint-Johnwhose personal story is amazing and inspiring. I really admire her attitde and generosity in sharing her journey paved with resilience and bravery.
Elena
Do you remember the moment when your personal brand became a real asset for your career? If so, would you like to tell us more about it?
In my case, it happened in two steps. I spent 14 years in a large company, at Renault, and during these years I did many things to develop my personal brand internally. Renault in France is like the population of a small town, and if we add international teams, it's more than 100,000 employees—plenty of possibilities to build one's visibility and reputation! I always took the opportunity to participate in cross-functional teams, to pilot projects, and to teach in internal training courses; this allowed me to have more visibility with people who were not in my direct professional circle. For example, I took the Chief of Staff position thanks to this approach, and this again exposed me to an even different network at the Executive Committee level.
A whole new stage began when I left Renault to go into Tech and the world of startups/scale-ups. I had to quickly expand my network and develop my reputation as a CMO in Tech. I had a lot of one-to-one meetings, and soon I set myself the objective of developing my personal brand on LinkedIn with regular publications in creator mode.
There are many resources allowing me to understand how LinkedIn works, I apply the learnings, and the important thing for me is to remain authentic, to provide real value by sharing my expertise or my questions, and to act with generosity: giving before asking. My audience on LinkedIn has doubled in the past year, I found one-third of my projects thanks to this network, and I met the founders of KNAVE, my current company, also thanks to LinkedIn.
Elena
For a startup, how can embodied marketing be a decisive asset when dealing with investors? Do you have any examples that stand out to you?
I like the definition of a brand from the book "Lean Branding" by Laura Busche: "A brand is the unique story that consumers recall when they think of you. This story associates your product with their personal stories, a particular personality, what you promise to solve, and your position relative to your competitors. Your brand is represented by your visual symbols and feeds from multiple conversations where you must participate strategically".
→ The brand is a memorable story.
It's always easier to relate to the story of a person than to the story of a logo or a concept. All startup pitches dedicate at least half the time to the personal stories of the founders, the difficulties they faced, and the injustices that were unbearable for them. A startup is quite naturally embodied by its founders. I always remember the keynote speech of Bertrand Piccard, founder of Solar Impulse, at the Women's Forum in Deauville. His unwavering belief that it was possible to decarbonize aviation, even if it would take time, was intensely transmitted to the audience, it was magical. Another more conventional example is Elon Musk, who is a brand by himself.
When brands are scaling, I believe they should reflect on this strong association with a founder. The big question is how to include diverse narratives within this brand story and how to ensure the longevity of the brand’s DNA. They should begin to include the teams more widely in the story being told.
Elena
What is, to date, your greatest leadership lesson, specifically as a woman in the tech industry? Moreover, do leadership and marketing share similar objectives? One leading to the other and vice versa.
Leadership and marketing share many common topics, such as: • the importance of listening, • effective communication, • and the need to measure progress.
I really liked what Marie-Pierre Rixain shared at a recent conference. She said that today the need is no longer to free women's voices but to circulate women's words. Investing time and energy in your network, meeting people who share similar values, and promoting female leadership in Tech contribute to a more fulfilling career and a more inclusive work environment.
👩🚀 Is reality boring?(An innovative and prospective platform which expands the way people connect online by building the future of digital identity).
🔍 Embodied Branding(When a brand expresses congruency and as a result becomes a safe space for its audience aspirations. Such a brand empowers!).
🗂 Yellow Chili Files (A smart library of marketing campaigns curated to help your brand stay alert on trends and achieve growth).
📈 Can we talk about Taylor Swift? (We all know her success in singing, but she is also a business mentor. Here is a bright and spot-on parallel on branding and marketing with Taylor Swift as a lead character).
I hope you enjoyed this new interview. For me, each guest opens up a new set of discoveries and questions. If you enjoy this letter → 💖 put a heart on it and feel free to share it with peers, friends and family! It helps more people discover this space.
