Image Credit: Freshworks
Freshworks became the first major Indian software product company to list on Nasdaq, when it made its debut at a $10 billion valuation earlier this month.
The company has a history of great brand-building and we took a look at some of their more interesting initiatives.
Rip-off or Not
A year after Girish Mathrubootham founded Freshdesk (later rebranded to Freshworks), Mikkel Svane, CEO of competitor Zendesk called them a “A Freaking-RIP-OFF” on Twitter.
In response, Freshdesk created this cheeky website called RipOffOrNot, inviting Zendesk customers to try out their product.
Rebrand to Freshworks
In 2017, Freshworks realised that despite having multiple products, they were still mostly associated with their customer support offering, Freshdesk. They rationalised their brand architecture and created an umbrella brand called Freshworks.
A Simple & Clear Brand Promise
Freshworks’ brand promise is to help businesses find and keep their customers for life. Their most recent campaign articulates this as “Delight made easy – We make it fast and easy for businesses to delight their customers and employees”
#Failsforce
In 2018, Freshworks launched a campaign called #Failsforce against bigger competitor Salesforce. Former CMO, David Thompson says, “This 2 year integrated marketing campaign targeting Salesforce customers, partners, press, and influencers was, perhaps, the most aggressive guerrilla action taken by any upstart competitor against a dominant leader since, well, Salesforce took on Siebel.”
While the annual Salesforce conference was going on, Freshworks floated a blimp over the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco and took to the streets with a marching band that called for the ‘end of bloated legacy software.’
Designing for Browser Girl
Freshworks targets small and medium businesses and has configured their website and product demos to address this audience. Founder Girish Mathrubootham says that design always keeps in mind a user persona that he calls ‘Browser Girl.’
“In 2 minutes, Browser Girl has to like the product and in 20 minutes she has to feel at home with it, otherwise she will close the window and go. When my product team wants to launch a new feature, I don’t sit down and let them explain it to me. I ask them to send me the link to see if it is easy for someone to figure out on their own.”
Girish Mathrubootham, Founder, Freshworks in this interview with YourStory
As part of their commitment to being transparent, the Freshworks site puts all pricing details upfront on the site. If you click a ‘View Detailed Pricing’ link, you get this pop-up.
Deep Content & Ecosystem Strategy
Freshworks creates a very large volume of high-quality content – from blogs to podcasts. They also have a number of initiatives for the ecosystem, from a Freshworks Academy to a Freshworks Community and Freshworks for Startups.
Feeling inspired? Tell us what you think has worked best for Freshworks?
