An Introduction to Upstream Marketing

CONTENT MARKETING. INFLUENCER MARKETING. SEARCH marketing. Social media marketing. Inbound marketing. Outbound marketing. Re-marketing marketing.

These are all proven ways to promote your business, though they are downstream in nature. They’re mainly tactical tools, delivered digitally, and designed to sell products already developed. While downstream marketing is necessary, it’s not sufficient.

Winning marketers relentlessly focus on expanding their playing field using a strategic approach to identify and fulfill unmet customer needs. Creating and capturing new market spaces and building strong brands is the domain of upstream marketing and the focus of this blog.

We developed this blog and accompanying book using upstream marketing and the three combined principles of insight, identity, and innovation.

We captured insight from hundreds of client executives and industry experts, including a deep dive on seven companies profiled in this book: Amazon, Apple, Google, Nike, Southwest, Starbucks, and The Walt Disney Company.

The book’s identity—the Upstream Marketing title and cover design—was created to appeal to a distinct target audience: you.

Innovation concepts, including a minimum viable product, were used to create the book you’re now holding in your hands or reading on a screen.

The same principles used to create this book are employed by EquiBrand Consulting every day to help grow strong brands and businesses for our clients.

EquiBrand, a strategic marketing consultancy, was founded over twenty years ago. The company name comes from two words—equity and brand. Equi ties to the economic and analytical side of marketing, making cash registers ring. Brand relates to identity and innovation, creating something out of nothing.

To support our client work, our team conducts extensive research to identify and further develop best management practices. It’s a continuous loop where we discover and apply these methods to client situations, then feed the learning back into our frameworks to transform businesses.

Everything we’ve learned about upstream marketing is summarized and explained here for the first time.

We hope Upstream Marketing provides you with the inspiration and tools to execute it within your organization.

We’re always interested in feedback that helps us review and refine our approach. So, let's stay connected!