branding

Creating Audiology Content

March 3, 2017 By William Smith

On today’s Reach, Dan Parscale speaks with Shareefah Hoover, one of Audigy’s copywriters and content producers, about writing content for an audiology specific audience and some of its challenges.

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DANIEL PARSCALE: Content generation is an important part of every brand’s marketing experience, but sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start and how to do it properly. Today, Shareefah is going to walk us through copywriting in informal and useful tones in a technical and medical world.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Hi. I’m Shareefah Hoover, copywriter with Audigy.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Good morning, Shareefah. How are you today?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Good morning, Daniel. I’m doing fabulously. Really good to be here. Thank you.

DANIEL PARSCALE: I know. It’s a beautiful day finally for the first time in several months, I would say.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Sunshine.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Mm-hmm. All right. So we’ve got a very interesting conversation today. Why don’t you tell us what we’re going to be talking about?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: We’re going to be talking about writing about sensitive and technical matters in an informative tone, keeping your audience riveted and interested.

DANIEL PARSCALE: That’s a tough thing to do. And it’s part of every written piece that we produce, whether it’s for the web, for print, or anywhere else. But we have to produce a lot of content for that. So this is a really consistent challenge that copywriters, like yourself, must deal with all the time.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: It’s a consistent challenge. It’s an exciting challenge, because everyone wants to be captured in a way that gets their attention and holds their attention. If we don’t accomplish that, they move on. We all know that, because we’re audiences as well. We’re consumers as well. And we have a lot that’s tugging at our time and tugging at our attention.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So let’s put ourselves firstly in the consumer’s shoes. In general, how would you describe, what is it that people actually want from an informative piece?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: They want information that’s going to help them, or that’s going to excite them, that’s going to intrigue them, that’s going to help them help someone else. The same things that we’re looking for when we’re watching a show, when we’re reading a book, when we’re watching a documentary, when we’re listening to someone on the radio.

When we’re trying to get home or trying to get to work, we’re in drive time. And we’re listening to shows that are running during the commuting hour. Those same themes of what inspires us, moves us, interests us, saddens us, angers us, excites us, makes us want to shop, listen, learn, do what we need to do that allows us to thrive.

DANIEL PARSCALE: The first thing that comes to my mind, when you put it in that way, is my personal commute. And I tend to listen to NPR on most days. And I think about how all of those things are present, whether it’s in the tones and inflections of the DJ, who happens to be speaking, or the newscaster, or just the content that they’re talking about.

It’s unusual sometimes, and it’s also something that’s relevant, and it’s usually of the now as well. So it’s always, it’s personal, in a certain sense.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Isn’t that the truth? And sometimes what we don’t necessarily appreciate, when it comes to what we’re listening to during drive time, whether it’s NPR or whatever else we’re listening to, that someone wrote just about everything that you’re hearing. And they thought about that.

They thought about those ways that are going to move you in terms of storytelling, in terms of transitions from one story to the next. Thinking about putting the listener in that moment and doing their best to reach some or all of the senses– the taste, touch, smell, feeling in terms of emotion, or just listening– all of those things, and being able to do that with words.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Let’s look at the different kinds of people who are consuming the materials that we’re talking about. And specifically, when we’re talking about audiology and medical practices in general, we’re looking at, I would say, two general categories. We’re talking about professionals, and we’re talking about laypeople. Can you talk a little bit about– well, first of all do, you agree with that? And secondly, if you do, what are the differences, if any, in the way that content should be produced for them?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: I agree with what you’re saying. We’re talking to businesses, and we’re talking to consumers. We’re talking to medical professionals, audiologists. We’re talking to ENT professionals. We’re talking to business owners. We’re talking to front office staff. And we’re also talking to patients.

We’re talking to folks who have expert knowledge. We’re talking to people who have a lay understanding of the information at hand. And for both audiences, there are some requirements that are similar, and there are some requirements– in terms of effective communication– there are some requirements that are different. But in the end, we’re still looking to grab attention, hold that attention, come across as knowledgeable, credible, and someone, an organization to whom you want to learn from, and you want to hear more from.

DANIEL PARSCALE: You mentioned that there are a couple of differences between the two audiences and the content that we generate for them. Could I put you on the spot to list a couple of those, even if they’re just high level differences?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Let’s take research. Let’s say we are doing a story or discussing the latest and greatest about smoking and hearing loss. That same information may be aimed at a professional medical audience, and that content may be aimed at separately to a consumer audience.

For that professional audience, we may be getting more into the weeds of medical terminology, the background on some specific science or research and what it means for that practice, in terms of how they’re approaching their patients, or what they may be looking for in terms of prevention, and how audiologists can help that ENT professional, and looking out for certain connections between smoking and, say, hearing loss.

For the consumer, it may be about prevention and really focused more on how they can take better care of their health, if you are smoking, for example. And did you know there are connections between smoking and hearing loss? This is another opportunity for you to look at all the points of your health care and of your overall wellness so that you can be as healthy as possible.

Here are some specific preventive tips. Those preventive tips are not necessarily going to be the tips that are shared with a physician or an audiologist. This is more consumer-oriented. But in the end, we’re still talking with both audiences about connections between smoking and hearing loss.

DANIEL PARSCALE: What goes into your research before you write a piece? Let’s continue with the example you’re using about smoking, for instance. How much time would you dedicate to finding out the different angles for the lay person and the professional?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: You want to start with what the medical journals are saying. What’s the research that’s out there? What are scientists saying? What are they finding? What’s the latest research?

Resources, such as American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Oregon Health and Science University Medical School Library, even the American Heart Association. I mean, there are good, credible organizations, academic, research-oriented, scientific organizations that are focused on research– the latest and the greatest– and looking at various topics that make a difference for communities. Not esoteric, but focused on what’s affecting local communities across the country.

What are they seeing? What are they finding out? Topics of interest. So you start there. And at the same time, however, you’re also looking at, how are local, and national, and worldwide media digesting the information?

It’s always interesting, when you look at medical journals and the topics that are covered and the way they’re presented, the way the issues are written about. And then to see media digest that information for a consumer audience, you can definitely appreciate the difference in terms of the terminology that’s used. Taking that same information, and using plain English.

Taking out the most salient points, because any research is going to really get into the methodology. And it’s going to talk about the demographics and the various findings and statistics that come out of it. But when you, say, look at how a media outlet has digested this information, they’re going to really take what to their audience is going to be most important, the biggest statistic that affects perhaps their community. And you can see that difference. And you can see the power of distilling information to capture attention.

And we’re doing the same thing. For example, when we are summarizing medical information, insight, science, research, for physician outreach, for example, working with physicians to build a referral relationship, we’re providing summaries of this salient information and using more medical terminology. Still trying to be light on the medical jargon, because you want it to be readable.

No matter who’s reading it– a lay person or professional– you still want it to flow. You still want it to be succinct and clear. So you can not get too far in the weeds of the medical jargon. If folks want that, they can look at the original research.

But when you are summarizing it, you’re still understanding that you only have so much of that person’s time. So you want to make it readable, succinct, and appropriate. But when you then take that, and you make it available for a lay audience, you’re getting even more salient, I would say, in terms of the big statistic that makes the most– that gets the most attention for the consumer audience and what it means for them.

What does this mean for me? For any news, it’s the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and the so what. Why does this matter?

DANIEL PARSCALE: That sounds like an incredible amount of work, even before you’ve gotten to talking about writing, I mean, the actual copy itself. Just in general, because I’m curious, how long does it take you to actually prepare for that? I mean, we provide this as a service, because it’s so time-consuming. I’m just curious how much time it takes you.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: It takes a robust amount of time, or it can take a robust amount of time, depending on the topic. I mean, we’re talking about medical issues. We’re talking about scientific research that can really get into the weeds.

And so the first thing that you’re doing is you’re making sure you’re getting a handle on this scientific research. What does this mean? The writers may not be medical experts. But they can still, because of their talent and their expertise, take that information, and make it digestible for a lay audience, and provide a salient summary for a professional audience, an expert audience.

So it takes time to look over the information. Make sure you understand what the research is about, what the main points are, because you’re also distilling that information. Like, OK, I’ve read this anywhere from– it could be a two-page scientific report. It could be 16, 20 pages. And, in the end, you’re turning that into a one-page summary, or a blog post, or a headline, or a news release.

You’re turning it into other digestible types of media. So you’ve got to take the time to understand what you’re talking about, because you need to be that credible resource, as well, as you’re digesting that information on behalf of someone else– the person who’s going to read your summary.

Then you’re pulling out those key points. You’re thinking about your various audiences. Am I talking to a lay audience about this? Am I talking to a medical audience?

Also, not only are you looking at that research, but you may be looking at related information that you can tie into it because, again, you’re looking to be a resource. You’re looking to tie in potentially other relevant, salient information that, say, you could turn into additional tips. Putting it into context. And sometimes, to put it into context, you may need additional information.

Let’s go back to the example of smoking and hearing loss. That research might be about the exact effect that smoking may or may not have on hearing loss. And that’s important information. But that study might not talk about how smoking affects people generally, or how hearing loss affects people generally, or what the statistics are regarding hearing loss prevalence across the country or around the world.

So you’re still digging for that other information that allows you to put this research into context for the audience, and that takes time as well. You may want or need to get it vetted by an expert. We have on staff audiologists who can vet our information to make sure that the terminology that we’re using is correct, that it is clear, and that it makes sense for the audience that we’re aiming for. It’s a wonderful in-house service that we have.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Can we talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you run into when you’re trying to find a way to explain these things? And let me give you an example of something like this, or just a for instance, I guess. Because new information is coming out all the time, some of it can sometimes seem contradictory, or it can seem as though there’s two sides of the coin that are both weighted. Or even they’re just reporting, here’s something that we don’t know if it’s true yet. But we’re thinking about it. How do you present that kind of information authoritatively without being misleading?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: First and foremost, I make sure that I am working with credible resources. Just as we need to be a credible resource, and we work hard to be a credible resource and credible source of information, we research, find, and look to credible resources and sources of information.

When you’re looking to professional audiology associations, when you’re looking to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when you are looking to credible resources, such as the American Medical Association and other well known, credible organizations and agencies that you know that can count on– because they, too, have a lot riding on their credibility and their ability to deliver the most accurate and timely information– you know that you’re in good hands. So that’s something that I, as a writer, pay close attention to.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Do you find that there are any components of a well-written piece that necessarily must be there? Or conversely, let’s look at it from someone who’s not a professional such as yourself. Let’s look at it from their angle. Are there any things that are tossed into writing that you think ought not be used?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: I liken it to a good meal. And–

DANIEL PARSCALE: All beef, no gristle, right?

DANIEL PARSCALE: I mean, maybe it might not be so bad to have a tiny bit of fat because fat adds flavor. And when I say fat, I mean, say for example, let’s say you’re writing a story, and you’re looking at the layout of the story.

And for me as a writer, what’s most important is I need to know the main point of the story. What’s the main point? What’s the focus? What’s the impact on the audience that I’m speaking to?

But it doesn’t mean that I have to lead with that. Sometimes I will. If I really want to take a hard news approach, and my summary lead is getting right to it, right to the point, great. But sometimes I might start with a little bit of flavor.

Maybe I start with a question. Well, we all know that a question is not necessarily going to be the main point of the story, but it’s getting you there. It’s drawing your eye in. It’s getting your attention.

So that’s what I mean by maybe a little bit of the tasty fat. It’s kind of the soft lead in to a story that grabs your attention, and then we get you with the meat.

DANIEL PARSCALE: I imagine that’s really helpful, especially if you’re talking to potential patients. For instance, if you’re talking about, again, smoking comorbidity issues, it’s probably easier to lead in with something more gentle than, smoking is probably going to kill you, or something like that.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Right. You don’t want to lead with, are you still smoking? No. No, that’s not how you want to lead. You want to lead in such a way that’s inspiring, that’s helpful, that’s drawing someone in without being judgmental.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So let’s take a look at some of the content that you’ve written about. We’ve used this, the smoking example, a lot. Can Is it possible to summarize what kind of content is popular?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Comorbidities is pretty popular. Talking about the presence of two chronic diseases or conditions. That’s topical. It gets people’s attention because you’re often talking about diseases and conditions that everyone can relate to, either personally or by way of someone in their family.

For example, when it comes to comorbidities, we may talk about not only smoking and hearing loss. But what about conditions like diabetes, tinnitus, heart disease? So many conditions that have been associated over the years, and with growing research have been associated over the years, with hearing loss.

So these are popular topics and popular inroads to speaking to consumers and also reaching out to physicians and other professionals in the community to build relationships. Everyone can relate to these diseases and conditions.

What do they mean for a hearing loss? Is there a relationship? Why is there a relationship? Wow. I never even knew that.

So then, from the consumer standpoint, the person may be wondering, what does that mean for me? Does that mean that I need to make sure that if I’m doing practicing– if I have this behavior or this condition, that I should also be asking for a hearing check or making sure that I’ve got that on my calendar every year?

Or if I am a physician, should I be thinking about that when I have patients who have diabetes, or who are smoking, or who have heart disease or other conditions that have been associated with hearing loss? Do I need to be talking with them about getting a hearing check or talking with them about symptoms of hearing loss?

DANIEL PARSCALE: So part of the popularity of these pieces is their ubiquity among most people or the familiarity that they have with them to something that’s happening in their lives or with their patients’ lives.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Exactly. It goes back to thinking about the big picture of storytelling when you’re thinking about timeliness. Is this something that’s happening now? Is this something that relates to us now? And impact. How does this affect me? And also proximity. Does it affect the people that I know, that I care about in my community? And relevance. I mean, it kind of hits all of those points.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Well, let’s talk about how we can translate that relevancy, too, because it’s something you’ve talked about a couple of times but we haven’t really gone into yet, is you’re taking this information and these perspectives and translating them between, as you said, blog posts, white papers, all kinds of different mediums.

Sometimes they’re in print. They’re long, or they’re short. You know what I mean?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Yes.

DANIEL PARSCALE: So what are the challenges that go into taking large concepts and applying them in so many different forms and styles?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: The challenge, and the excitement, and the fun is to make them work for various media. You are writing a piece for a web page. And that’s going to be quite different from a Facebook post.

DANIEL PARSCALE: In what ways?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: When you’re writing for various media, Daniel, you’re thinking about your audience. You’re thinking about the audience and the medium at hand. I mean, there are so many requirements for that audience. Is this a lay audience? Is this a relaxed audience? Is this a very formal audience?

So you’re also thinking about, what is the audience looking for from this? Are they looking for guidance? Are they looking for reinforcement of what they already know? Are they looking to be inspired? Is this a piece that’s about a sense of actuation? We need you to do something, and we need you to do it now.

So there’s that piece of the audience and what we’re looking to accomplish with that audience. But then there’s also the excitement, and the requirements, and the limitations, and the opportunities of the medium. Every medium that you’re working with, whether it’s a blog, the web page, the Facebook post, Twitter, a letter, anything, different requirements, different opportunities, different limitations.

So for the example between, say, the web page and the Facebook post, one of the limitations, one of the differences would be, say, word count. Another is the expectations– the audience expectations on that medium. On Facebook, it’s a little bit more casual. You can’t be too casual, or I suppose you can be, depending on your brand.

And that’s another consideration. What is your brand? Is your brand casual? Does your brand let its hair down a little bit on Facebook? Is that the expectation of your audience?

So you’re taking that same content. And for your web page, you’ve got to think about, is this an educational page? This is strictly a set of tips on this topic. Let’s go for it. And then we’ve got a call to action.

All right, so we’re going to take that same page or that same content. Now we’re looking at Facebook. A, we don’t have as much room. You only have so many characters that you can work with, or and so many characters that you want to work– only so many characters that you want to work with on Facebook. You don’t want to bombard folks with information. So you’re thinking about how I take that great informative information on my web page and make it appropriate for my Facebook audience.

Beyond word count, and beyond the limitations or the opportunities of that specific medium, you’re also looking at the intention of the audience that you’re targeting and how they got to that information that they’re reading, what their expectations are. For example, when you’re looking at the difference between, say, your web page and, let’s say, a social media post, there’s a good chance that if they’re on your web page, that they got there because they did a keyword search on Google.

So they’re looking for hearing aids, or tinnitus, or hearing test, or hearing exam, or hearing loss, but whatever it is that, say, got them to your web page. But if they’re looking at some information that’s, say, on a Facebook post– it’s your Facebook post– it’s likely that information was pushed to them by way of, say, it may be a Facebook ad, or it came up through their feed. And so what you’re looking to do at that point is you’re looking to provide a teaser that draws them in to your web page, your website, your blog.

You need to pull them in to get that information that you want to share with them. So you’re writing for a different medium. It’s a way to repurpose that content. And for that, say, that social media post, it might be a quick question or a statistic that’s real attention grabbing. They’ll want to learn more about this.

Did you know? And then you’re giving this salient statistic that someone could not ignore. And then you pull them in. Want to learn more? Or to learn more– and send them to your website. Having a quick call to action that guarantees they’re going to get some more information, that is targeted to them, that is of interest to them, and that will mean something important to them.

DANIEL PARSCALE: I really like that angle. You mentioned search engines, and that intentionality is one of my biggest focuses when I’m thinking about that for SEO. But I think that the same applies offline as well.

So, for instance, let’s say, something that comes to my mind is you’re promoting an event of some sort. And you are doing that on your website and, let’s say, with a direct mail piece, too, just for fun. Well, if it’s on your website, as you said, someone’s gotten to your website, either due to their previous familiarity with your brand, or they’ve gone looking for you in some way. So you know that they have some interest in your services. And that’s going to provide an opportunity for one tone, knowing that they are interested.

But if you’re using a direct mail approach, that’s maybe a little bit more shotgun method, there’s less reliability that you know what their mindset or their need is. And so you have to present the information usably to them but with a different tone. And I think that’s– it falls in line with what you’ve been saying.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: And when you’re, say, using a mailer, I mean, that also opens up other opportunities. Is it a postcard mailer that’s, as you mentioned, say, like a shotgun approach? Or is it, say, a targeted closed envelope mailer, that’s going to, say, specific folks on your database, patients that you have a direct relationship with? There are other considerations where you want to get them to an event.

Say, if it’s a postcard, one of the considerations is that you’ve got to be succinct. You want to grab their attention. You don’t have a lot of real estate to do it on. You’ve got a postcard that’s front and back. Some of that is reserved for your return address, for the mailing address, the postage. So you’ve got to make a lot with very little space, which is exciting. It really forces you to be clear, to be succinct, to be impactful, to grab attention.

There are also some other considerations. For example, you want to make sure that you are complying with HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which deals with, among other things, medical records, patient privacy. So one of the things that you want to make sure that you’re doing if, say, you’re using a postcard, is that you’re not identifying the person as a patient. You want to respect their privacy.

So you’re being creative, and you’re getting their attention. You’re giving them information. You’re sharing information that’s important, but you want to do it in a way that respects their privacy and, at the same time, moves them to take action.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Besides HIPAA, there are occasionally other restrictions that might have to be taken into consideration. For instance, there are regulations about not misidentifying your credentials, is a common one. Or sometimes, even some of the wording that you can use is regionally specific. And I’m thinking things like use of the word “free” in regards to services versus “complimentary” or something like that. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you have to do as a copywriter to maintain those regulations and rules?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: I can talk a little bit about that. There are federal regulations concerning the use of the word “free” or referring to free tests or free evaluations. Providers can offer free tests or free evaluations to– because of Medicare and Medicaid restrictions. So the purpose of that is to avoid influencing someone’s choice of Medicare or Medicaid provider based on whether or not billable services are being offered for free.

So there are some instances you’ve got to be careful of that. Is this a provider that is providing care to people who are using Medicare or Medicaid? Now, if the member or the provider does not bill Medicare, it’s OK to, say, offer free tests and evaluations. But you’ve got to be clear on where that provider stands and what services that they’re offering.

Another thing is advertising something as new. If it’s been on the market for longer than a year, per HIPAA, we can’t advertise that service or product as being new. So those– just things like that, that are important to be– provisions like that, that are important to be aware of, and keeping that in mind when writing, when doing business to consumer communications.

DANIEL PARSCALE: I want to ask one last question for you. I think this is going to be on the minds of most of the people who are ready to write their own content as in addition to the stuff that we’re providing. Where do you come up with your ideas? I know that this is a big one even for us internally.

And seeing all the work that you do, I wonder, how in the world did you ever come up with these ideas, knowing that they’re relevant? I mean, there’s just so much work for this. What would you recommend to someone who wants to write their own content but doesn’t know where to begin?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: The opportunities are endless. Just hearing from your patients for starters. What questions are they asking? What concerns do they have?

There’s that saying that, any one question that you have, you’re representing at least, what, 1,000 other people who have that same question. So you can bet, if one person is asking, lots of other folks want to know the same thing. Lots of consumers, lots of prospects, lots of people, who may not even know about your practice, who want to know the same thing, who would appreciate that educational, helpful information. So starting there is valuable, starting with your patients.

Also looking at news stories. There’s a service from Google, for example, called Google Alerts. And you can set up keywords that you want to hear about, read about every day. You can stay on top of current events, what’s happening locally, regionally, around the world.

And I say around the world because there are smoking, hearing loss, many health conditions, diseases, many are prevalent around the world. There is research that is done not only locally, and regionally, and nationally, but on issues that are affecting people globally. And even when they’re globally, there are ways to localize the information. So staying on top of those current events is so important. And Google Alerts is one way to do that.

Also, most of the time, most practitioners are going to be affiliated with certain professional organizations that are going to have a salient, updated information on their websites, in their newsletters. Sign up for electronic newsletters. Most organizations provide free e-newsletters. All you have to do is provide your name, your company, and your email address. Boom. You’re getting updates every day, or weekly, or however often you’d like to get that information.

And also networking with fellow practitioners. Building those relationships with other practitioners in your field and folks who are not in your field but who are in other disciplines. Because, again, when it comes to comorbidities, for example, that association between hearing loss and other diseases and conditions, those other diseases and conditions, they may not be diseases and conditions that you treat. Yet, when you are networking with other folks who do provide that care, you’re able to connect the dots and see that, wow, this is a topic of interest. These associations, these conditions that are associated that give me and give my colleagues an opportunity to add another issue to the list of preventive care.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Well with that, I think we should take a second to step back and review everything that we’ve learned today. So this is the part where I ask you to tell me your top three takeaways. What is the most important information that you would like people to remember from this conversation?

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: Information is almost always repurposable for various needs and audiences. If that information was worth putting together and sharing, then it’s worth repurposing.

The second thing that I would advise is to keep in mind who your audience is. Is it a professional audience? Is it a lay audience, consumer? Think about that when it comes to the information that you’re sharing in terms of the tone, the storytelling style. Are you getting right to the point?

My third point would be to be true to your brand. Regardless of what you’re communicating, or to whom you’re communicating, or in what medium you’re communicating, being true to your brand. Knowing who you are, what your mission is, what you stand for, and what’s unique about you that your audiences can always rely on.

DANIEL PARSCALE: Well, thank you, Shareefah, for your time and for helping us to really break down a very complex and time-consuming task. I appreciate everything that you’ve taught us today.

SHAREEFAH HOOVER: It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Daniel.

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DANIEL PARSCALE: Thank you for listening to Reach. As always, make sure to subscribe to our show via iTunes or Google Play, access full transcripts for every show by visiting attainable.fm/reach, or just say hello by dropping me a line at dan@attainable.fm. We’d also appreciate your feedback on Reach by leaving us a review on iTunes or Google Play. Did you learn something new today? If so, let us know by leaving a review. It’s quick and easy, and it helps us to improve.

Refresh or Rebrand?

February 27, 2017 By William Smith

On today’s Reach, Dan Parscale speaks with Arian Durst and Cory Jespersen from the Audigy Creative Team on brands. Learn more about the steps and timing for doing a refresh or a total rebrand for your practice.

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DAN PARSCALE: Welcome to Reach, a podcast for audiologists, ENTs, and other hearing care professionals who want to reach more patients and maximize their marketing potential. My name is Dan, and each week I’ll bring you interviews from industry experts who are specialized in marketing to the hearing care industry. Reach is a production of the Attainable Podcast Network. Visit attainable.fm for more information or to access a transcript of each show.

Today on Reach, we have two members of our design team to talk about refreshing your brand. What’s important to designing a brand that really matches your patients needs? Listen through for the answer.

CORY JESPERSEN: My name is Corey Jespersen, and I’m a senior corporate designer for Audigy.

ARIAN DURST: And I’m Arian Durst. I’m a senior graphic designer for Audigy.

DAN PARSCALE: Cory and Arian, how are you guys doing today?

CORY JESPERSEN: Very good.

ARIAN DURST: Very good.

CORY JESPERSEN: It’s very good to be here.

DAN PARSCALE: Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is our first recording on Reach for the new year, 2017. And because it’s a new year and it makes me think about a fresh start, I thought that this might be a good time to talk about refreshing your brand. And this also happens to coincide with some of the work that both of you are doing with rest of the design team on a refresh of the Audigy brand.

CORY JESPERSEN: Yeah, and actually, it’s been quite an exciting project, and there’s actually two different avenues that companies in general can go down. You can do a rebrand or a brand refresh. And with a refresh, ideally your marketing is staying the same. Your vision, your core values are the same, and the real challenge is really updating your creative assets.

And that can include– maybe your logo is a timeless logo, and it looks good. It doesn’t feel dated, but maybe your website and some of your business collateral might be kind of dated. So in those instances that’s where a refresh could be ideal. And, like, trying to kind of give your creative a face lift.

And on the other side of that, you have a rebrand, where a rebrand is really all about changing your brand. And that could be because of market conditions. Maybe the product that you’re selling doesn’t really fit that brand anymore. So in those instances, it not only affects your creative assets when you do that, but it’s a complete overhaul of your brand.

For example, when I worked at PetSmart, when I first started there, it was called Pets Mart, the emphasis being on Mart. It was all about Kmart, Walmart. That was the trend at the time, and Walmart has really taken a bite out of our market share.

So one of the things that we had to do was shift from being price focused to value focused, and the way that we did that was we designed the logo so that the “pet’ was in red and the “smart” was in blue. So we shifted to smart, smart solutions, advanced nutrition foods for your pets. So that was a way for us to really differentiate ourselves from the competition. So for our members, for example, depending on their market and the competition that they have, they may need to see an emphasis on shifting their marketing strategy and their creative strategies to focus on something that’s going to differentiate them from their competition.

Well, that helps me to segue into one of our first questions, which is, how does a brand know that it’s time for a rebrand or a refresh? It sounds like in the case of PetSmart, you guys had to deal with outside market influence. So what are some of the other reasons that somebody might be aware that they need to refresh themselves or rebrand entirely?

ARIAN DURST: The sort of thing that would determine that it is if your business is starting to kind of sag. That might be time to look into why that is and figure out if maybe branding is an element that could help turn that around. Changes in the market can influence that sort of thing, as well. Sometimes you need to rebrand or refresh your brand to kind of differentiate yourself from other competitors that might have, that you might need to differentiate better than you’ve got at the moment.

DAN PARSCALE: If I have an audiology practice and I’m looking at the PetSmart example, what kinds of similarities can I take to my practice to see if I’m in need of a similar solution? Would I start by looking at my logo and comparing it to my competitors, or would I look at deprecating sales over a certain period of time? What would be the kinds of things that I would look at?

ARIAN DURST: You want to look at what differentiates your business from your competitors. And then once you identify those assets, you want to figure out if your brand is representing that visually, as well. Whether visually or just in tone of messaging, that sort of thing, it’s important to make sure that there is a clear distinguishing factor between you and your competitors. Otherwise, what’s to bring patients your way versus the guy down the street, especially if that guy happens to be closer to you? You want to give them a reason that they should go to your place, and it should be clear through your branding what that is.

DAN PARSCALE: And some of the elements that we’ve talked about already, and I think the first thing that comes to mind is a logo. What are some of the other elements that might be touched on, that would be a visual component of this? That someone who is being advertised to would recognize as a shift if they were paying attention?

CORY JESPERSEN: I think one of the things that we look at as designers is we kind of have this creative philosophy. And there’s an amazing creative director by the name of Stanley Hainsworth, and he’s the creative director for Nike, Starbucks, and Legos International, just to name a few. So this guy is really good, and he really breaks it down really simple, where he says that your brand is a story. Good brands have really good stories. And the creative team, the creative department, what we do as graphic designers is we’re the storytellers.

And we tell that story not only visually, but also it’s really critical for us as designers to tell that story consistently. So one of the things that we have to do as creatives is to develop a system that our members can use so that when they’re doing their creative, they’re consistent with their story, with their message. One of the tools that we use– and it’s kind of more of a high-level, overarching element– is that we create a style guide. And a style guide really is a document that holds all of the creative assets, and it really speaks to not only the vision for the company from a marketing perspective, but it also has our creative philosophy. So we’re talking about tone. How do we want to deliver that creative from a tone perspective, not only visually but through a copy as well?

And the other thing, too, is we want to focus on a look. Do we want our practice to be warm? Do we want it to be collaborative? Do we want to be authentic?

So one of the things that we do is once we build those design philosophies, then we can start working down through some of the other creative pieces. So if we’re looking at photography, we might look at photography that really, that’s shot in a very warm way. Maybe it’s collaboration. So those are some of the key things that we look at kind of from a high-level. Strategically getting that foundation developed before we start really diving into even the logo and other design elements.

DAN PARSCALE: Let’s take a look at the Audigy refresh. Given some of the components that you were just talking about, how does that correspond with some of the elements that we’ve already seen with, for instance, Audigy’s new logo? How does it help to tell the story about where we are now versus where we were when our original logo was started?

ARIAN DURST: With this refresh, we wanted to kind of focus on how our business is about relationships and connections between people. It’s not just about technology. It’s not just about providers. It’s about this teamwork between us and our audiologists and the patients and the technology. All these things come together to create this package of what our brand, you know, is trying to deliver.

So we created an icon made up of three sound waves that, of course, represent the hearing component of our business but also the three symbolizes several other things. It represents the three major pillars of our brand, which are Audigy, Audigy Medical, and Audigy University. It also represents the relationship between us, our providers, and their patients.

For the typography, you know, I explored a number of different options, but nothing quite felt like what I was going for. And so one of the unique things about our old logo is the kind of rounded arch on the A, and there wasn’t really anything that really captured that very well. And so ultimately we just decided to go with a completely custom typeface, and I spent some time kind of cultivating that and making it exactly what we wanted it to be, which is the beauty of that.

DAN PARSCALE: How long did it take to build that, by the way?

ARIAN DURST: Oh my gosh. It was a labor of love over the course, spread out over the course of several months.

DAN PARSCALE: That’s a long time.

ARIAN DURST: Yeah. It required a lot of research and learning on the fly. But ultimately I’m really thrilled with how it came out, and it’s really great that we have something that’s unique to our brand. No one else is going to have the same typography in their stuff, so–

DAN PARSCALE: So that’s an important differentiator, too. You’re not just modernizing or updating the existing logo. You’re also working to set yourself apart from your competitors.

ARIAN DURST: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, it gives us something that no one else in our market is going to have, so that’s nice. And then as far as the colors go, of course, purple has been a staple of our brand for a long time. And so that was something we definitely wanted to retain, because it’s unique in our market, and there’s brand equity in that we didn’t want to throw away. And so we did modify the tone a little bit–

DAN PARSCALE: What about for the other brands? Are they– how are they different from the main Audigy logo?

ARIAN DURST: So the other brands, the icon is the same. We wanted that to carry over, but we differentiated those ones through use of color. Audigy Medical uses kind of a teal, a little bit of a slightly lighter gray than the very dark gray that Audigy has.

That, sort of, represented we felt like the medical sort of environment. We felt a little more clinical without feeling like cold. And so, you know, I noticed that a lot of ENTs, for instance, were using blues a lot, and so I didn’t want to use the same sort of thing so it could allow ours to stand out a little bit more.

And then for Audigy University, we went with, kind of, vibrant orange. We wanted something that would kind of speak to younger folks a little better. So there’s a vibrancy to that. There’s a liveliness to the orange. Also, the orange and the purple and the teal kind of complement each other really nicely, so they coexist really well as a brand family, which was important.

DAN PARSCALE: When Audigy refreshed our logo, we were thinking about how this would affect our members, our clients. If a small business or a practice owner is interested in a refresh doing pretty much the same thing, they’re going to be thinking about their patients, who are their clients. What goes into that thought process, or what should go into that thought process? Should they just think about, what do I as the business owner think is pretty, or do they need to ask every client that they’ve ever had what they think represents their brand? Or what’s reasonable and expected in that process?

CORY JESPERSEN: Again, in my past experience working in retail, one of the things that we tried to do was actually incorporate the consumer into shaping and molding our culture and our brand. So one of the things that we always tried to do was to reach out to the consumer and get their feedback as far as what they felt the brand should be, and there is a lot of complex ways of doing it. There’s sensory brand positioning, where you’re trying to pull, again, like a mood and a tone from them based on sensory, visuals and things like that. And it can get pretty complex, but even focus groups are good and just asking your patients just straight up questions on how they would like to see the brand evolve and what works for them.

DAN PARSCALE: So what would you do if you are a practice owner, though? I mean, I imagine that a lot of our practice owners don’t have the time or resources to put together a focus group, for instance. So is the game a little bit different? Are there slighter rules?

ARIAN DURST: When you’re a smaller business and you just don’t have the resources to be talking to a lot of individual patients about this sort of stuff, even just like taking into account who your target audience is is the biggest thing, really. It’s just making sure that you understand who you’re marketing your brand at. Like, of course you want your brand to represent you and your practice, and it’s important that it does that.

But ultimately, the most important thing is that it’s something that speaks to the people that you’re trying to attract to your business, as well. It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to focus on, oh, I love this color, or I want my brand or my logo to look pretty. But it can be really cool looking and if it doesn’t resonate with your target audience, it’s useless.

DAN PARSCALE: Well, how do you know if it’s going to resonate?

ARIAN DURST: You just need to know your audience, know what fuels them, what’s kind of driving their decisions to go to a certain practice. And you know, like Corey said, the best way to do that is to talk to them. So certainly, if that’s an option, do that as much as you can.

DAN PARSCALE: So let’s say that I find out that– I’m a practice owner for this example. And I talk to all of my patients, and I find out that they really appreciate that we are a warm and friendly place to get their hearing care needs. And I tell that to you guys, my design team at Audigy. What do you take from that?

ARIAN DURST: I mean, that’s useful information for sure. The more information that we can get, the better. The more complete picture we have of the kind of person that they want coming into their practice, the better. And you know, there’s sometimes a difference between the kinds of patients that a practice wants to attract versus the ones that they are attracting. Of course, you don’t want to alienate your existing base, but sometimes there might be a different market that’s untapped that you’re wanting to look at. And that’s something that’s important to take into account, as well.

CORY JESPERSEN: One of the challenges we have is getting that research up front. And since we are designers, and we live in a very subjective world, the more strategy that we have and the more information we have, so that when we design a piece, we can look at that piece and say, does this piece meet the objective? And as long as it meets the objective, then most of the feedback that we get at that point is really just subjective feedback and small tweaks. So that is one of the things that is critical for us as designers is to not just wing it but actually have that information up front from the patients in order to create a logo that’s going to resonate well with them.

DAN PARSCALE: What are the most important pieces of information that you need in order to carry through a development strategy for a refresh?

ARIAN DURST: We need to know what sort of core message that a brand wants to project into their marketplace. That’s a strong piece, right there. Ideally, a really clear snapshot of the kind of patients or customers that they are wanting to attract.

It’s also really helpful for us to know any key information about competitors. We don’t want to accidentally design something that’s going to look just like their competition. Yeah, I mean, I would say those are kind of the core pieces that they want. Also, just kind of any key emotions or feelings that they want the logo to convey.

DAN PARSCALE: Real identity pieces, then.

ARIAN DURST: Right. Things that really speak to what the practice is, what it’s about.

DAN PARSCALE: And would those be things like emotions, or would they– how would those be represented?

ARIAN DURST: They can be emotions. They can be values. You know, they can– if you want to represent that you’re technical experts in your field or that you’re caring, listening providers or that you provide an elite level of service. Those are all sorts of values or emotions that are good to know that you want communicated. And we can try to do what we do to translate that into some sort of visual representation.

DAN PARSCALE: OK. Well, guys we’re getting to the point where we’re going to start wrapping things up, and as we do with every show, we try and remind our listeners what their top three takeaways are. So what are the most important things from our discussion today that you want people to be left with?

CORY JESPERSEN: Number one, it’s critical to know whether you’re going to be doing a brand refresh or a rebrand. And again, you can determine that on whether your market is changing or whether you just simply need to refresh your creative assets.

ARIAN DURST: Number two, it’s really critical to just understand your market, your target audience, and remember that that’s who you’re speaking to. That that’s the most important part of your messaging is how you communicate to them.

CORY JESPERSEN: And number three, know your story. A brand is a story, and not only is it important to have a good story, but it’s also important to have the creative to be able to tell that story. So you’ve got to have a good storyteller, and you have to be consistent with that story.

DAN PARSCALE: Great. Thank you for your examples from the Audigy refresh, as well as some of the other outside the box examples that we went over today. I definitely learned a lot, and I’m really excited to see this completed, too.

ARIAN DURST: Yeah, us too. Thanks for having us.

CORY JESPERSEN: Yeah, thanks for having us. Thank you.

A Consistent Brand, Everywhere

April 26, 2016 By William Smith

Jake Dold on Reach podcast

On today’s show we talk with Jake Dold from Stratus Dental Group on the importance of maintaining brand consistency everywhere your customers can find you, both online and offline.

Listen to the Episode Below

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Read the transcript:

Jake, how are you doing today?

I’m doing great. Excited to be here with you today.

Cool, thanks. So we are planning to talk about what we’ve decided. We were looking at calling it just brand consistency. Now I guess we’re going to call it cross channel brand consistency, which sounds pretty technical and cool, I think.

But there’s a lot of different ways we could tackle this, right? We’re going to be talking about the different mediums in which you represent your brand, how your brand might vary or should vary or should not vary across those different mediums. But let’s just start with step one, and talk about why– if you had to give it to sentence speech on– that’s not much of a speech, but you had to tell me in two sentences why brand consistency is important, how would you kind of sum up why that’s something even worth talking about?

Brand consistency is important because you want to make sure that your customers know what to expect every time they interact with your business and you. And so, a lot of times, what we find is that there’s this inconsistency, meaning in one medium you have different colors or maybe a different tone of voice that you’re using. And in another medium, say the website, it’s not the same.

And when your customers come to you, they don’t know what, necessarily, that experience is going to be like, especially when there’s differing points on those different platforms. Ultimately, that experience they have with you in your business, interacting with you or your team members, that’s really the embodiment of your brand. And if your other branding practices, or your other branding efforts, don’t exemplify that, then you’re creating this inconsistency, and it really just lacks professionalism.

I really like to talk about experience as a facet of that, because when I say the word brand, I think, like a lot of people, the first thing that pops into my mind in a series of things is always like the visual representation. But as you pointed out, the experience is– I mean the visual representation is a kind of experience. And then the experience also extends into inside of your brick and mortar location, if you have one. For instance, how you’re treated by staff, and so forth like that.

Yeah, absolutely. I think step number one with branding is identifying your logo and your colors your taglines, but that’s just the very base. That’s the foundation. Once you’ve done that, there’s so much more that goes into what a brand is, going all the way down into the culture of your business. So how your employees are interacting in front of and when they’re behind closed doors. That all impacts your brand.

So we’re going to spend most of today’s podcast talking about the reasons and the ways that you can and should keep your brand consistent, but let’s ask a one-off question real quick. Are there any times when you might want to deviate from your brand? Or can we just write that off entirely?

Yeah, I would definitely write that off entirely. One of the things that I think is important for you to understand is that there are times for you to change slightly the way that your brand is presented, but it’s never OK to switch completely who you are. So I want us to think about our brand as being a person. You can even pick yourself just for this example to make it easier.

When I go to present myself in different situations, I’m going to, often, present myself in different ways, but I’m still the same person. And your brand should be the same. If I go in to apply for a job, I’m going to be a bit more professional than I would be at home while I’m entertaining friends or family, but still on that same person. And so it’s OK for you to change the way that you’re communicating, as long as the roots of who you are or what your brand is is still being presented.

That does make perfect sense. I noticed, since you told me to think about myself, I was trying to think about the way as I am different, as you point, out at work, or at home, or if I get pulled over by an officer, I’m suddenly much more polite, or something like that. Whatever it could be, but yeah there’s something that is innate to me, or to my brand you could say, that doesn’t change. But you’re also talking about these times when there are shades of the same brand. So maybe we can use that as our segue into the way that these similar things can be applied slightly differently.

So for instance, let’s say you’re a company and you decided to run a campaign. You’re going to advertise anything at all for this example, but you’ve decided that you’re going to run it in the news print, social media, and then it’s going to have a presence on your website. Could you just talk a little bit about the way that those three elements might look the same, and how they might be shaded differently but still be consistent?

So to answer the question, I want to give an example here. We’ll actually use a shaved ice company. Let’s say they have several shaved ice shacks that they just put up for the summertime all around the city, and they want to promote this. And so we have the newspaper, we have the website, and we have social media.

So for the newspaper, we’re going to really want to make sure that we’re promoting in a way that is applicable for, or appropriate for, this medium. In this case, that’s oftentimes a coupon. And think back to the example I gave about your person being a– you are a brand, and you may present yourself differently in different situations. Well in a newspaper, it’s a little bit more of a formal setting than in social media, for example. And so you might have a little bit more body copy, some more text in the print ad, you’re going to have those coupons, and it’s not going to be as playful.

On the other hand, you go to social media, and instead of putting all this copy in it, you’re going to use a lot more imagery. You’re going to be taking pictures of people enjoying their shaved ice near the shack or near the lake that the shack’s close to, things like that. And so it’ll be a little bit more playful and fun and engaging. And then the website, in this case, would probably be a little bit of a combination of both, where you’re able to see both situations, a little bit playful and you have some ability to read into what is offered there at the shack and things like that.

That makes sense, and I can see that these things working together is going to be able to give a more– a broader but consistent experience. But there’s going to be something visual elements that are going to be the same too. Like you were talking earlier about the logo, and your brand’s style, and colors and all those things that come to represent you visually. They’re going to be present in all of these in the same way, right?

Absolutely. Earlier I said that the logo, and the colors, the tagline, those are all the foundational elements, and there’s a reason for that. They should be found in everything that you do. Now there are some situations where that’s not going to be the case, but those are exceptions to the rule.

For example, you may have an ad in the newspaper that’s so small that you might not be able to include some of those elements, or it might be black and white. But in that case, you’re finding ways to still tie-in elements of your brand so that when someone sees that ad, and then they go on to social media, they’re going to be able to draw that line, draw that connection, immediately and know right off the bat this is the same shack. There should be no chance for confusion between your ice shack and the competitor’s ice shack.

So one of the things you’re talking about is the variances and the limitations of the particular mediums. Something that comes to mind is, I was working on a digital ad recently where the campaign was consistent with the ad and vice versa, but the problem was that the dimensions of this particular digital ad were such that it cut off most of the picture. So you were showing people that were familiar to the campaign, but their heads were all cut off. And I was thinking, well this not only kind of skews the message a little bit, but it also delivers a different experience. So it’s the right idea, but it’s maybe not– it’s not going to perform as well on there, so maybe you want to borrow from other aspects of the same brand figure.

Yes, so an example of this is Jiffy Lube. They have what they call the Jiffy Lube wave, and that’s at the bottom of almost all of their marketing. And you can actually pull in that element. And it’s amazing that, there may be instances where you’re not able to use your logo or something to that effect. And all you have to do is pull in that wave, and all the sudden, there’s instant brand recognition an association.

And so you’re able to leave out certain pieces of what you would typically have in all of your advertising. Another example would be a tagline. Ideally you’d love to have that tagline in all of your advertising, but ultimately, sometimes it’s going to be too small– your space that you have to work with is going to be too small to have that tagline on there, and so you need make sure that you’re able to pull in enough elements from your branding, that foundation, that it’s still recognizable as your brand.

You know, another thing that comes to mind with that too that falls in the same line, is I’m thinking back to say was 2008 or 2009 or so. You remember that iPad, or iPod commercial, that was just like a solid, I think, white background, and they had the silhouettes of people dancing, listening to their iPods. And everything looked the same no matter where you were. Like if it was selling Apple, you had that kind of imagery. And you didn’t even have to– you just had to see that format, that visual format.

That silhouette with headphones coming down from the ears of the people dancing.

Yeah, it wasn’t even a logo, but it was part and parcel of their style, because it was minimal, and there were other elements too that I probably wouldn’t have to think about, honestly, but they were ingrained in me.

Yeah, absolutely. One thing, though, I would caution as we have people listening to this that may be small business owners, Apple was able to do that because they have such a strong brand. So just be careful. If you think that you’re at a place where you can be pulling in those elements and ignoring some of the other pieces that are foundational, you have to be careful.

Those big corporations have a lot of money to be able to support that. Apple ran a lot of TV spots and internet spots and everything to make that image resonate with you and to stick in your mind so that even now, we remember. A lot of times these smaller businesses, they simply don’t have the budget to be able to get to that same point. And so it’s more important for small business owners to remember to pull in as much of their brand foundational elements as possible.

That’s a really good point, too. And if the brand isn’t established with– or if they are established with those foundational aspects, it might almost look more like they’re rebranding dependent on– excuse me, depending on the size of the brand at that time. So that could really run afoul.

One of the things that we had talked about prior to recording that I think is a good counterpoint to this, though, is we were talking about McDonald’s. And this is a– I mean, McDonald’s is always one of those brands that people are talking about. They can do pretty much anything successfully, it seams.

You talked about an example where they kind of misinterpreted their brand, and you had an example of a specific campaign that they ran. Maybe we can talk about that as an example to see just how this problem can affect anyone, and they’re taking a chance with any sort of branding consistency. Do you remember their campaign I’m talking–

Yeah, absolutely. So it was a couple years ago. I was driving to work, and I came across this big billboard that McDonald’s had just put up, and it said, “foodies welcome”. And it had a picture of a hamburger that you knew would never look like that when you bought it from McDonald’s.

And we live in the Portland area, and food is a really big deal around here. And if you call yourself a foodie, which I don’t classify myself as a foodie, but those people that I know the classify themselves as foodies, it’s definitely a very unique subset of people who are very particular about the food they eat. And they would never go to McDonald’s to eat a hamburger thinking that it was a great experience. And so “foodies welcome” really is just missing the mark, in that case. Now if McDonald’s was trying to do it with some sense of sarcasm– I’m not really sure, but I think it wasn’t well received, in that case.

OK so let’s really whittle this down a little bit, because I think we can reverse engineer the issue and have it apply to other people too. So I saw a picture of one of these billboards, I don’t quite remember it from my own experience. But it looked, in the picture at least, consistent with a lot of their other stuff. It’s an enormous hamburger, as you said. I think I remember I was just on a level plane, just facing the side. You’ve got big juicy patties, and I won’t get into describing the hamburger too much, but it looked consistent–

Make me a little bit hungry.

Yeah, it is almost lunch time. But you had this focus on the hamburger, and then it’s just a very simple large block text, and then maybe like a smaller golden arches or something like that. I mean that sounds a lot like the McDonald’s brand, so are you saying that just those two words and the concept that was attached to that was enough to completely deviate from their brand consistency?

Yeah, absolutely. They missed the mark on who their audience was. And you can go online and find tons of examples of businesses who have missed the mark with their brand. And they’ve done it in so many different ways. In this case, it was audience.

One of my big calls to action for businesses is that honesty is the best way. And so sometimes things happen in businesses where they’re ashamed of some action that happened, maybe it’s by an employee or some choice they’ve made, and they’ve missed the mark. And sometimes they’re tempted to go ahead and post something online or something that’s more of an excuse, but not addressing the situation head on with complete honesty. And that’s one big way that someone can definitely miss brand themselves.

And even though they have the colors, and the logo, and everything involved in there, they’re really missing the mark, because they haven’t hit the honesty. Or in the case of McDonald’s, they didn’t do– they didn’t target the right audience. And so it’s important to make sure that you have all the elements of your brand in mind when you put together an advertising piece.

So are these kinds of elements of your brand experience, are they things that can be taught to your staff and employees, or do you have to hire them in?

I’m really glad you asked that question, because what it does is it allows us to talk about a point that I really was hoping to get into, which is culture. Culture is a really important part of your brand. And a lot of times, business owners end up trying to separate the two.

Because for example, they’re very factory driven. They want to make things happen as quickly as possible and as effectively and efficiently as possible at their team level, and so it’s all about, let’s just go, go, go, go, go. And then on the other hand, they have their audience, their patient or patient base– I’m refer back to dentistry, which I’m in all the time– but their customer base, they want to have a little bit more of a lighter mood or approach.

Maybe in the case of the shaved ice shack, they’re trying to be a little bit more playful. But if you’re trying to make sure that your workers and your team are all about being efficient and getting things done as quickly as possible, there’s a misalignment there. And it’s going to be really difficult for your team to represent your brand effectively if they don’t feel that brand in their own lives working with you.

So then, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do you build your brand around the people that you started the company with, or do you try and continue to hire in that same way? Or can it work the opposite way?

Ultimately, it comes down to leadership. You should be the embodiment of your brand as a business leader. So that business owner should come in and say, look this is my brand. I’m going to run the business the same way that I would like to have my brand represented. And then I’m going to hire people in, and train them with that brand. And ideally, there should be a match.

You can’t take someone who’s a complete opposite of your brand and hope to train them to function in the same way that you want your brand represented. But on the other hand, you may have a brand that’s so unique that you can’t find people to work that same way. And so it’s important to find people that have that middle ground, and that are teachable. So I don’t think there is a chicken or egg situation here, it’s a combination. It’s pushing the egg and the chicken together into one.

That’s quite an omelette you’ve got there.

Yeah.

So as the leader of a small business, or any business for that matter, you’ve decided on your leadership style and how that’s going to reflect in your brand. But let’s say that you haven’t really thought too much about your brand in the past, or maybe you’re ready for a rebrand of some sort, or whatever it is, and you just don’t have those pieces laid out just yet. What’s some advice that you could give on how to actually turn those concepts and ideals and practices that you want to represent you into something that might become an advertisement, or campaign, or a repeatable brand element?

So if you’ve been in business for a long time, something that I want you to understand is that it’s OK for you to make the change now. If you’ve found that your branding just isn’t what you want to be, don’t worry. I deal with this all the time as I work with dentists every day. And oftentimes we get a new practice on board with us, and their brand just isn’t working for them.

They’re finding that the number of patients that they’re seeing on a regular basis is pretty low. They’re having a hard time with their reputation. People sometimes don’t even understand that they’re a dental practice. And so we take and we’ll redo their branding.

We may change their name, change their logo, colors, all of that. And we’ve seen an amazing results right off the bat where people, now they’re able to instantly understand that that’s a dental practice and not some just other place of business. They start seeing immediate new patients coming in. And so it’s OK to make the change now, as long as you’re willing to do.

Now stepping away from that and answering your question a little bit more directly is, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people do it is that they pick their brand, how they want that represented, some of those foundational elements, based off of their own personal preferences. If I’m a very wealthy elegant person, I might like my brand to reflect kind of that Rolex style or Jaguar, but maybe the customers that I’m looking to work with, they’re not in that same pay range. And in that case– and by the way, I’m not in that Rolex pay range, if anyone was wondering. But they may be in a much lower pay– a much lower economic environment, and so you will have to adjust to what they need.

And one of the best way is that I’ve found to do that is to actually identify, again, one person. Pick who your audience is by one person. You even give them a name, so let’s get going for example here. You can say my ideal customer, her name’s Morgan, and she’s 32 years old. She’s married. She has two small kids.

She values convenience over the experience that she could have at whatever, maybe it’s the going out for ice cream, she values the convenience of it rather than having that amazing experience. Her own health and the health of her family are one of the most important things to her. She has a household income of $75,000. And you go on and on and on, and really identify exactly who that customer is for you.

Then once you’ve identified that person, you stop and you say, now what would appeal to that person? What would resonate? What branding elements would resonate with Morgan? And all the sudden, you find that you’re in this new place.

All the sudden, you’re looking at it from a completely different set of eyes. Rather than looking for that flashy, or that the class look from Rolex, and you start looking at things that are a little bit more colorful, and vibrant, and fresh, and clean. And so you need to make sure that you’re identifying who that perfect customer is, and what messaging and imagery would resonate most with them, not what appeals to you.

I have to agree with you twice on this. One is that I’ve also– well, more than twice, but two I want to hit on specifically. I’ve also had to deal with sometimes people are– they have a hard time divorcing what they think looks great from what actually works.

And so sometimes their concept of what, for instance, a good looking website is. Really speaks more to them as a customer than the customers that they’re trying to advertise to. And so they make that mistake of advertising to themselves rather than advertising to the people who will actually be potential clients or customers in that way.

So the reason why I brought up that Rolex example several times is because I just recently had an experience with one of our practice owners who, he– we just presented three different directions that we could go, three different creative direction, and one of those had that Rolex appeal to it. And he saw that he said, I love that. I want that.

And then he himself stopped and said, wait a second, that’s me talking. That’s not my audience talking. That’s not my patient base talking. And so we showed on the other two examples, and he found that a third one, which we all agreed was the right direction to go, but ultimately that third one was the one that would really appeal to his audience rather than to him himself.

Well kudos to over that was, because that is exactly what we hope to run into. That’s a great observation to have. One other point I want to agree with you on is that, when you’re talking about mood boards or your target audience, Morgan or whatever you decide to name them, they have their own proclivities, as we’ve already pointed out. So you can find what works well with that demographic, and then make that part of your brand also. That could be part of your visual element, for instance.

So we’re talking about the Rolex appeal, for instance. If we know that’s not going to work, then we can look at, how does that factor into other things? It might be more than just not putting flashy watches on your advertising, for instance.

It could have something to do with the way that your font selections work, and how can you implement that into your logo? Does a color that you use frequently, does that represent excessive wealth, or does it exist express something that’s a little bit closer to Morgan’s taste and living style? And I think that’s exactly the right way to go with this.

I focus, in my role here at Audigy, on what we call conversion rate optimization. And that’s pretty much the same thing. We basically analyze what can or does work, and then we make sure that we use that where it can work. So it makes a lot of sense–

No, you’re completely right on there, right on point with– everything that you have in your branding, to your font, the way that that is presented plays into the messaging, that subliminal messaging, that you’re sending. And that example that I was just saying, the fonts were very important, because there was definitely the Rolex type, very classy fonts, that we’re looking at on the first style that we presented. But on the third one, it was much more of a southern charm feel. And that is what he was really looking for. Think of that fancy lemonade type field of your fonts, and that was what was calling attention to his audience. And we ultimately ended up going that direction.

That’s interesting, because those are two very, very different brand types. And actually, I wouldn’t have guessed so that was the alternative that was presented, so it’s interesting to hear that. So one more thing I want to touch base on, here. Can we talk a little bit about the company’s life cycle and where in that life cycle you’re supposed to be, or you could find the most benefit from really evaluating your brand or fine tuning it?

We see this all the time where, when there’s dire need for new customers, and this typically happens early on in the business’s life, that there’s a much more need for direct response, where you need to get that customer in the doors or calling the business or ordering online immediately. And so your messaging changes a little bit. When you’re a more established business, you’re able to, or you have the luxury, of marketing in a little bit different way.

We can actually use some examples of some of those bigger brands. We used Apple earlier. You can think of Microsoft. There’s so many brands, and what are their calls to action? Can you even think of them? There’s nothing immediately off the top of my mind that I can’t think of that Apple is saying, hey we have this great deal for you, or anything like that.

They’re about branding, about creating this position for their brand in your mind, in the consumer’s mind. And because they’re so, so developed, they don’t have to be focused on bringing in that new customers through direct calls to action. But when you contrast that against a brand new business who has no brand and no customers, the most important thing to them at that point is getting those customers to follow through on the business cycle, getting them to make the purchases or to subscribe to the services or whatever it is that business does. Whatever widget that business creates, they need those customers immediately.

And so your marketing tactics change quite dramatically. Instead, you’re focusing on these direct response– these campaigns that we call direct response. For example, direct mail, so sending out postcards and having offers on there with this call to action, saying come do this, call us now. Those are elements that oftentimes people consider to be universal, that you need to on every marketing piece. But again, going back to those examples of those big brands, oftentimes their calls to action are much more subtle than that, and it’s because of the maturity of that business.

OK, Jake, well, again, this is an episode that we could spent hours working on, but I’m going to let you go soon. Before we do though, I’d like you to help me by wrapping this up into three bullet points that really encapsulate all the things that we talked about today.

Sure, I think number one is understanding what the foundational elements are. So you have your logo, you have your font, you have your colors. Make sure that you’re pulling that consistently to everything that you’re doing.

Number two is your culture, make sure you understand the tie between your culture and your business, your brand. Those are two very important things to be tied together, rather than having them two distinct parts. And number three is think of your audience. Remember who they are. Remember the activity that we went through of Morgan, picking up that one person that embodies your target audience completely, and make your brand appeal or resonate with that person. If you do those three things, I think you’re off to a great start.

Jake, that is some great advice. I’m going to go and do my homework right now too so I can start my brand. Thank you so much for being on Reach. We really appreciate having your expertise

It was great. Thank you.

Finding Your Ideal Customer

April 6, 2016 By William Smith

Today’s show is brought to you by Misty Stern, Executive VP of Marketing and Operations at Audigy Group. Do you have the focus and discipline to find your ideal customer? Don’t try to be everything to everyone!

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I want to share with you a little bit of one of the thoughts from one of our key influencers, a gentleman by the name of Al Ries He’s a marketing author strategist. He’s worked with some very large companies, such as Ford, Doritos, Proactiv, the list goes on. He’s written over 20 marketing titles, and he actually came out and consulted with Audigy group a couple of years ago, which was an incredible experience for me professionally. He also wears AGX 9 hearing aids now. So does his wife, which is pretty cool. He’s a testimonial of ours. And in one of Al’s books, entitled Focus, Al talks about this concept. And Al repeats this concept throughout the book, over, and over, and over again. It is the primary premise behind his title, Focus. And that is that the attempt to appeal to everybody is the single biggest mistake a business can make. And I started by trying to get to know your feelings a little bit on marketing, and you guys really need to evaluate your target audience. And not your existing target audience, but I want you to consider, before you really go out and invest in marketing, who your ideal patient is.

The concept here that Al discusses is that, really, the Waldorf-Astoria doesn’t have rooms in the basement of their hotel to compete with the Motel 6, so why would you have price points or services within your business to try and compete with somebody, to capture the audience that you really don’t want within your practice. Now, Al also talks about the fact that there are two different spectrums within business. You’re either on the high end or the low end. Both are fine. The only place you don’t want to be is what he calls the “mushy middle.” Nobody wants to go out and buy a mediocre product or service. Nobody wants a mediocre dentist. People either want to go out and say, I have the most affordable guy in town. And you know he’s affordable? He’s affordable because he doesn’t have expensive artwork on the walls, he keeps his staff lean, I like the way he runs his business operationally. Or, they say, I go to the most elite dentist in town. It’s beautiful. You walk into the practice and you feel like you’re in a spa, and they have paraffin wax, and warm towels, and chocolates, and it’s incredible. Both of those are equally acceptable in Al’s mind. And we try and accommodate both sides of that spectrum in everything that we do.

And keep in mind, being affordable is not necessarily synonymous with being cheap. Those two things are very different. So, define who your target audience is, try and stay out of the mushy middle at all costs, and don’t be greedy, trying to say, I’m going to want to appeal to everybody with this direct mail piece, or my website, or my practice brochure. Because if you do, you’ll alienate all. You have to choose who you want to target in marketing to be successful.

Does Your Brand Make You Proud

April 6, 2016 By William Smith

Today’s show is brought to you by Misty Stern, Executive VP of Marketing and Operations at Audigy Group. Does your brand make you proud? How about your employees?

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Does your brand make you proud? If you’re not willing to wear your brand– both literally and figuratively– on your sleeve, you should go back to those points of differentiation and really identify what it is that you want to represent. We go back to that golden circle of the why behind everything we do.

As business owners, this one’s usually pretty easy. We’re usually quite proud of what we’ve built, our knowledge, our experience, our education, all the people we’ve helped over the years. But sometimes, as employees within a business, this part can be a bit more difficult. And this is where it’s important as a business owner or the person in charge of marketing within a practice that we take some time to actually educate and influence the people on our teams to ensure that they are proud of that brand as well and they have clarity on what the core values are.

A Brand Is A Friend

March 23, 2016 By William Smith

Today’s show is brought to you by Misty Stern, Executive VP of Marketing and Operations at Audigy Group. Is your brand a friend to all, and if not why not?

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Think of your best friend. Think of their name. Think of their face. Think of the last time you spoke to them, maybe the last time you saw them. The types of emotions or experiences that typically come to mind are, well, let’s see. We trust this individual, correct? We go to this individual when we’re faced with a hard decision or we have a question and we’re looking for advice or guidance.

We enjoy spending time with this individual, right? Sometimes, we may have a fun relationship with this individual. There’s loyalty, the relationship is a two way street. It’s not just a one way street, and if it is, we probably wouldn’t think of them as our best friend.

So these are the qualities that I actually encourage you to think of as your business. And what your business should strive to provide not only to your teammates, but also to your patients. You should be more than a health care service provider. You should be all of those qualities that a best friend would represent, trust, loyalty, the ability to go to ask the hard questions where you’re able to confide in somebody and you’re not afraid to tell them what you’re feeling or what you’re experiencing.

Those types of qualities are extremely important in a health care relationship, right? We want to make sure that our patients are willing to connect with us on that level because if they don’t, we’re going to be unable to serve them in the best way possible.

Branding

November 24, 2015 By William Smith

jess-lund-ali-house-reach

In this episode, Daniel Parscale brings in the creative big guns to discuss brands. Is a brand just a logo? What do you do to build, foster and promote a brand? What happens if you need to re-brand? Jess Lund and Ali House come to the rescue in this fascinating discussion on brands.

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Read the transcript:

Today on Reach we’re going to be talking about branding. My guests are Jess and Ali, and between the two of them, they have more than 13 years of experience. Together, we’ve worked on branding, creative design, and all kinds of marketing.

Hi. My name is Jess Lund. And I am a design manager. My spirit animal is the koala.

Hi. My name is Ali House. I’m a graphic designer. And my spirit animal is the moose.

OK. So thank you, Jess and Ali, for joining me today. How are you doing?

Doing great, thank you!

Doing great.

Cool, thank you. So we’ve got an expansive conversation to be had today about branding, brands, all that kind of stuff. And I started where I imagine both of you did, too, and everyone else on the planet. And I Googled it, and I came up with the definition that Google supplies for branding, which starts off with, “a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particularly name.” And then it goes on to talk about branded livestock and images and things like that.

So is that where we want to start with this conversation? Is that what a brand is? Is it just a logo? Or what is it? What’s your working definition here?

I’ll step in. To me, I think that’s the general definition. I think when you think in terms of a brand, people tend to go to the mark because that’s one of the most recognizable things. But in terms of the bigger picture of a brand, brand is really, to me, an essence or a persona that a business portrays.

And that goes to the way the in-store atmosphere is. That goes to the way the employees interact with their customers. It comes down, to me, to a feeling or an attitude. It’s like the bigger picture. It’s the soul of that mark, to me.

I totally agree. It’s interesting. I don’t remember ever taking a brand course in college. And so I feel like most of what I’ve learned has been in the industry. We definitely talked about logo marks and the good, the bad, how to go about them, and how to sell them.

But brand– I mean, that’s a whole ‘nother topic. It’s pretty complicated because there are so many layers to it, so many nuances. And when you look online, there’s not a single definition. In fact, you’ll see several different ways of defining a mission statement versus a brand promise.

So in my experience in working with Ali on some branding projects for some of our clients, we had to really define exactly what that meant for us. And you can break it out in, like I said, a variety of ways. But at its core, you can think about what the brand idea is, which is, what is the product? What are you selling the audience? How is it unique from your competition?

There is the mission statement, which you can think of as how you want your audience to perceive your brand and what you do, what you want to embody– what values and attitudes, like Ali said, you want to embody. And then there is the vision. Where do you want to take this brand?

So you can’t think of brand as just here and now and a pretty logo. You have to think about it as this wider experience that happens throughout time. Brands evolve. But I don’t know that people really think about that.

That sounds like a really metaphysical kind of answer, which I love. And it’s interesting because I think that the first thing that comes to mind whenever I think about a brand of any particular company is going to be that visual component. And it sounds like what you both agree on is that while that’s a factor of the brand, it’s more of like a symbol of what the actual brand is. And it’s maybe something bigger than any sum of the part. It’s kind of like an avatar of whatever those things you’re trying to represent are, right?

Yeah. And it’s interesting you bring up that point because if you think about some of the larger successful brands, one in particular being Nike, that’s one–

I’ve heard of them.

That’s good because they’re pretty big.

I mean, people look at that mark. And there is a lot of conversation that happens around that mark. And people say, like, oh, it’s one of the most recognizable marks. And the question is, is it the mark that made Nike so big, or is it everything else behind that mark?

And I think in terms of brand, the mark is just a supporting feature of everything behind that. I mean, your mark could be a circle– literally, a circle. But if you can have all these other things that go behind it with experience and tone of voice– those types of things that people can resonate with– that mark will just elevate everything else behind that brand. And it’s a way for people to attach themselves.

Well, so what can you tell me about the things that you would– Jess, you already touched on this a little bit about what kinds of questions you would ask in order to come up with the brand concept. But what are some of the potential answers there? Like, if I was being asked by you, my creative team, to help me come up with my brand, like, what are some of the things that I should be thinking about in order to really figure out what my brand is before we even get to the part about the logo or how we’re going to represent that visually?

When we start looking at a brand, there are a few approaches that we like to take in exploring what the brand is currently and where the brand wants to be. So some helpful tools are thinking, again, what is your unique positioning within your market? It’s pretty natural for people to want to state what they do in pretty general terms. But there needs to be some real deep investigation into exploration into how your product, your attitude is really different and why your audience should care– how they’re going to connect with that.

So that can be tangible or intangible, too. You used the word attitude. And I think that’s interesting.

Yeah. So that could be your product. But we like to start with, what are some adjectives that describe your brand? Are you caring? Are you sassy? What are you bringing to your persona?

And then how do you speak to what you do? How do you bring that persona to life? And then what’s the walk? How do you back that up with what you do?

Authenticity is incredibly important in brands nowadays, especially because information is at your fingertips. You can find out if your local gas station oil supplier is ruining the world or if the company you love to get coffee from is not paying their taxes like they should at a click of a button. And people don’t like that. Brands create this connection with people and, I would argue, when they’re at their best, communities. And so that authenticity is incredibly important.

So when you’re looking at these things, it’s really helpful to see what’s going on in the marketplace, what your competition is doing, but also what’s going on outside of your market. What are some brands that really resonate with what you’re doing? And it might not be a similar product, but it might be that they have a tone of voice that really resonates with where you want to go. And so looking at what they’re doing right and maybe what you might be able to do better is a great way to start that conversation.

BP Logo Evolution

Since you brought up oil companies right there, that reminds me of a brand that happens to be an oil company, and they failed at exactly what you just talked about. I think it was probably 2009 or something like that when a certain petroleum company rebranded with a– it looked like a flower. You all know which one I am talking about.

And it was obviously an effort to try and green-wash themselves, even though they’re an oil company. And to my mind and my understanding, that kind of backlashed against them. People saw that the headlines were not going to be just washed over by this brand redesign. And because there was that disconnect between what they were and their mark in this case, it didn’t work.

Obviously, they’re still around. But I mean, there was a lot of backlash. And we’re talking about it now, what, five or some odd years after the case.

Right. And that’s why it’s so important to look at if you are doing a refresh, it’s something that can’t just be a logo refresh. It has to be if you’re trying to change perceptions, if you’re trying to improve your credibility, that has to be inside out. So that has to be within the core of your organization and everyone that represents that and what they provide onward out to receive the appropriate perceptions that you’re going for.

I think you see that fail quite a bit. We were talking about Gap earlier. And that was a nice example of trying to create a more contemporary brand that wasn’t an inside-out approach.

GAP Logo Evolution

Maybe we should, for the listeners who might not know what we’re talking about, that we’re talking about their logo redesign. And it went from the one that everybody still knows today– the blue box with– what is it?– just a white serif font.

The serif, yeah

And then it turned into this ugly postmodern ’90s monster– I don’t even know– like this sans-serif font floating in front of its past ideation. Like, I think that lasted five or six days before they pulled it at a huge loss. I’m getting the chills just thinking that logo.

Yeah. Speaking to that particular example, it’s really tricky when it comes to evolving your brand because as Jess spoke, there’s this emotional tie to it. And so for a brand to just overnight, all of a sudden– at least to the general public, overnight, just change its mark, for some people, that’s really scary because it’s like–

Where are they going now?

Right. Exactly. And growing up, I’m sure all of us in this room have our parents or even ourselves have brands that we’re totally attached to, whether it’s through their product or service offerings or just the way they communicate to us. And to all of a sudden see your brand that you’ve been going to for decades, let’s say, to just all of a sudden change their, I guess, aesthetic or their appearance, it’s a shock. And so you have to be careful when it comes to making these evolutions. You really want to do it over small, incremental pieces.

Like Google does with their logo. Like, one pixel a year or something.

I would say that even if you were going to refresh your brand, you’ve got to have in mind, like, the trajectory of how you might change that further down the line, right? So what’s an example of a– we talked about some bad examples. What’s a good example of a brand that has refreshed themselves? And let’s not just talk about the mark here, although I think that’s an important part. But, like, are there any brands that you guys are fans of that have completely changed their user experience and maybe come back from the dead a little bit?

Ooh, come back from the dead– ooh.

And I wouldn’t say necessary this brand came back from the dead. But I would like to think, in terms of a popular major brand, I would say UPS is pretty successful in terms of how they’ve evolved their brand over time. From the mark standpoint, it hasn’t really changed much. The most recognizable mark of that company is their shield. And over time, that shield has just very subtly changed.

But in terms of, I guess, that industry, the– I don’t know what you call that– the delivery industry? I don’t know.

Mail services?

OK. Let’s go with that. Mail services– I mean, with the introduction of the internet and some of those things that definitely upped the game in terms of how you deliver packages and what you can offer, I feel like they’ve done a really good job of being this company that, yes, we can deliver your packages on time. But they’ve started to include logistics and other things that businesses need to be this more well-rounded, I guess, business.

But they’ve stayed true to what their value proposition is, which to me is getting your products to you on time and making sure they arrive in the way that they’re suppose to.

That makes sense. And I’m trying to think in my head, firstly about the logo that they’ve used. And I can’t remember what it used to look like, which I think is actually probably good because we know it’s been updated, and it still looks current. But it’s been continuous in history in some way.

And then like you said, too, like, you’re also keeping consistent their mission, which seems to be to not only provide delivery services but also to deliver peripherals to that that make the experience of having that something delivered to your house better, right?

When you’re talking about rebranding and looking at brands historically, you can always go back to the successes are where they started with a clear defined mission of what they were doing– what they stood for, what their values were– because you always go back to that. When you distill it down, you should be able to use that as a jumping-off point. Throughout time, as you do different marketing campaigns, as you do mark refreshes, you should always be able to go back to that core essence, that soul of your organization.

To piggyback on that, I think somewhere I’ve heard before people say, in one sentence, can you define your brand? And that’s, to Jess’s point, that core statement. That’s the one thing that you should weigh, essentially, all your decisions against for the evolution of that brand.

And when I think, like, for an example, of, like, core mission statements or core statements, I should say, I think about Airbnb is one good example that I can’t think of. And their core statement, in essence, is– and I don’t want this to get confused– but it’s, to be anywhere. And basically what they’re saying is that we’re offering you these really cool places to be in, these really, like, unique places at an affordable price and allow you to be in those places anywhere you want.

We think in terms of hotels and what those things can offer. And you want to go get a hotel room. But it’s so expensive. Or it’s a place that you don’t feel like you can fit in. Well, Airbnb is here to allow you to fit into those places.

That’s a good one. I was thinking how warm that slogan makes me feel right there, right?

So it’s clever, so it’s kind of fun. It definitely makes sense about their global empire or ambitions in that way. I mean, what else does it do that is successful? And actually, another point I want to point into this is it kind of works like a mark or a logo in that way, too, because it’s like, I can totally see that written out anywhere and be like, [SNAPS FINGERS] boom, that’s an Airbnb kind of like concept.

It’s direct.

You want it to be direct. You want it to be easily digestible and memorable.

Yeah. And in that core statement, too, that’s the thing that you basically give to all the people involved in that brand or that business. And it allows them to get in that mindset. When we speak to attitudes about brand, that core statement really sets the tone.

So if you’re Nike and your core statement is to be an athlete, and however that is, if that means with an asterisk to be human, then that allows the people who are going to be working on that brand or even be associated with that brand to really dive into what that means and produce products across the board or marketing across the board that will always be consistent.

Once you’ve figured out your brand, what are you doing with it? I’ve talked a lot about branding advertising, for instance. And there’s other applications, too, like, I mean so many things come to my mind. But let’s just talk through applications of brand once it’s established. What do you do with it?

Your brand can be represented in very physical ways. Your user is going to experience your product and your services in a variety of ways. So it’s really important that your branding is consistent from the time that they step into your store front to when they visit your website to how your employees provide customer service. Everything needs to mirror the mission and the values and the attitude that your brand represents. If you have any disconnect, that’s a point for your consumer to start questioning things.

So, like, the experience that the customer actually has. And that’s what they’re seeing visually, as well as, like, their interactions with the representatives and stuff like that.

Yeah, down to the furniture you have, the signage, the smile on the employee’s face.

Right. The classic one.

So there has to be that continuity in order for your audience to build that confidence and connection with your brand. There are different stages of the consumer cycle. And it usually starts with research. And so from research to advocacy, you need to have consistency for them to be totally bought in. And even at that advocacy stage when they tell their friend, this is awesome, that person needs to see the exact same thing in order for it to not break down.

Same thing in, like, the advertisements that they’re going to be placing or their present set events, which we’ve talked about a little bit, or any of these other things, too. When you’re talking about the consistency, you mean not just the visual but, like, the– again, that overall culture needs to– if they belong there for their brand, they’ve got to be there. And they need to look the part that shows that they belong there.

They need to look it. They need to read it. They need to feel it– smell it.

I mean, Jess brings up a really good point. I think that’s the hardest thing for the small businesses to deal with is that investment into consistency. I mean, yes, you have your investments into these touch points and these physical touch points. But it takes a lot of time and energy to get to that consistency level.

If you’re Small Business A, and you’re thinking, well, gosh, Starbucks is– God, they’re just so great; they do all this stuff. Well, that stuff didn’t happen overnight. Yes, they had some resources to put into that. But it took a lot of time and a lot of thinking and a lot of just emotional and personal investment into really, in a sense, grinding out, like, what that line is– that consistency line is– and then applying it, and applying it, and applying it and not waving from it.

So when a situation arises and somebody says, oh, that’s not your brand. You don’t do that. Somebody goes, well, this is the line that we drew. This is in line with our brand, and we’re going to stick to that.

I think that’s the hardest part for anybody in terms of a brand is that you’re just so tempted to change things and to be as fresh as you can possibly be. But the most reassuring thing for the consumer is that you’re going to be this consistent voice throughout time.

Beautiful. Well put. OK, well, I think we’re about ready to start wrapping this up. So I am going to put the screws on you guys here. And I’m going to ask you for your top three takeaways, the way we like to round out the show. So how would you sum up what we should be remembering from this conversation today on brands?

Brands are not logos.

Number one.

They are experience and emotion.

Yeah, I would say brand is certainly– for me, it’s an attitude, and it’s a way of being. I mean, I go back to my class years, and my professor was saying, think of a brand as a person, and what do you want that person to be? How do you want them to act? And where do you see them going in the world?

Another point I think I would want to emphasize is when sitting down and really focusing in on your vision of your brand, allowing yourself– well, allowing your brand to evolve, so setting up rules that don’t trap you but allow you to evolve with time and how your product might be evolving or even your audience.

Your brand, your business, your propositions are going to change over time. But you need to have that one true core element that remains the same throughout all of that so that you can weigh all those decisions against what that core statement is so that you know you’re making the right decision and you’re not just flying off the handle, so to speak.

Jess and Ali, thank you so much for the discussion today on brands!

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