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Influencer marketing has become a monster practice for brands to hit various KPIs. As far as platforms to leverage, YouTube is arguably the most compelling and powerful for getting a company’s message out to the world. YouTube is not only the most popular video site on the internet, but it has transcended broadcasting to become […]
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Influencers have never been “one size fits all.” It’s not just a matter of different audiences, either. Sure, brands need influencers with audiences that align with their own target consumers, but brands also need influencers who share their values, their image, and to some extent their voice. This cuts both ways. Brands don’t want their […]
Hello everyone, welcome to the show today. Joining me is Lucy render Kaplan from arcane marketing and PR, and we’re going to discuss one of my favorite topics, how to use social media. During this lockdown to increase business or, like, I tend to do to avoid mistakes that can kill off businesses you gotta be real careful out there folks. So, Lucy, welcome to the show.
Lucy Rendler Kaplan 00:48
Mark, thank you so much for
Mark Fidelman 00:50
having me. My pleasure and, you know, I know a lot about you but everyone listening does not Can you tell them about yourself in 100 words or less.
Lucy Rendler Kaplan 01:01
Sure, I, I have been in marketing and PR and social media for the last
01:08
2000 a wireless.
Mark Fidelman 01:10
Don’t be much dreadful. So you’re still in high school.
01:14
I mean, I was, I was advanced for my age, right. Okay.
01:21
Couple years ahead, you know,
01:23
and so yeah since then I have just loved delving into how we can use digital marketing and PR, or is that.
Mark Fidelman 01:34
Okay, wonderful so I’m gonna jump right in. Because there’s a lot to cover here, especially when it comes to social media, and everyone thought they knew the rules but the rules have now changed. You actually wrote an article in December called the six key social media trends to watch in 2020. Well, if you could revise those six key social media trends, would you at this point.
02:00
Find that article again. I, I think I would revise them. But I think more than revise what the trends are I think the way that we go about working in social media now has changed more than the general think ideas or trends have changed.
Mark Fidelman 02:21
Yeah, so the trends are still there just how you work within them. Because, yeah because chatbots none of these things that you talk about are dead in factor, they’re growing influencers all that, that you mentioned is the six trends are still relevant and I still, I still agree with you 100% ar I’d like to jump into maybe for a little while but these trends are still here. And today, as I said, I really want to talk about how we strategically use social media during this lockdown if you’re listening to this in the future. It is April 28 2020. And so, if you don’t know what the heck we’re talking about because you know if this is a year from now, we are currently in a shutdown Lucy’s in Chicago, I’m in Southern California and we both don’t know when this thing’s going to end so we’re just assuming it’s not going to end for the foreseeable future, and we’re, you know going to instruct you on our opinions on how to use social media. So my first question for you, Lucy then or is, what are you telling your clients about their social media usage during this lockdown.
03:30
meaning that I’m telling them is that it’s okay to still be using social media. I think when this all first started, people were really scared at coming off as inauthentic or as not caring, or trying to find a way to make the COVID friend relevant to their business in social and it doesn’t need to be, you know, and it’s, it’s nothing to be afraid of. And I think people will be happy to see that you can pretty much keep up the same way that you’ve been working I think your focus and your content. And the way you’re reaching people is what mainly is changing. Okay. And
04:17
is there a tact.
Mark Fidelman 04:19
That you advise them to take. And I know it’s probably relevant it’s contextual to their situation but how is there a certain voice that you’re telling them to use or subjects to avoid what is it what is the kind of a specific do’s and don’ts that you’re giving them,
04:36
empathy, always lead with empathy. I think the main thing that I want my clients and everyone else to realize right now is we do so much in audience personas, and learning about our, our audience and learning about, we want to be reaching and who we are reaching and every different thing about them, to the point where no comfortably we can tell you what they do and eat, promote their day. However, right now, every focus have changed, like everyone’s concern and immediate needs are different. And I think that’s the first thing that people have to get over is just thinking they know what people are looking for.
Mark Fidelman 05:22
And, you know, if I look at specific channels like let’s take Tick tock, for example, I mean, I haven’t actually used Tick Tock for the last two years I’ve been using it more and more now just to see. You know how people are coping with the situation are they still happy are they using tik tok in different ways, and it looks like to me that they’re everyone’s just getting more creative, and so they’ll come up with a song or a dance, and they’ll, you know, 50,000 copies of that from, from everybody that’s on tik tok that wants to do their own variation of it so it seems like we’re still in these communities I’ll be digitally. And, you know, people are just using it to kind of still connect with other people through an expression of dance or song or what have you. Is there an opportunity for brands to join in on that or is it something that should be just left alone and. Have it. Have people just use that, just to stay stoked shows this social cheese.
06:29
And so, I am so old that I was on it when it was still musically. And I have not jumped into Tic Tac since this started. But I have been writing some articles about how brands can use it and but really loving is how it really brings, who is behind the brand upfront, in a way that I feel like brands have been nervous to do before or a little unsure, or it seemed to plan and for some reason tik tok kind of removes the barrier of nerves for people. So I love, I love how teachers are doing it. Exactly their students. I love it for influencer marketing.
Mark Fidelman 07:24
Okay. And what. What are you telling people about influencer marketing and tick tock
07:30
is the best thing about that is
07:33
right now they’re not going to do all their, let’s say their quote their fashion influencers, they’re not going to try on at Target to show the new line. But they can do challenges with their audience of putting together outfits that you already have in your closet, which I feel like is a really big issue with women or something that fashion influencers, often do rarely and it’s one of the, one of the tactics that we recommend to grab a lot of viewers. They do it on.
Mark Fidelman 08:07
They do it on. I think they’re called halls they do it on YouTube a lot, but I haven’t seen it on tik tok I think that’s a great idea but I mean, are people just trying on pajamas. No, they can still getting dressed.
08:22
You know they’re showing like oh to tie that your loads were so like the new. Then, wow, um, you know, people. I feel like when you’re doing something at a tech talk, and there’s a product in there, it’s a lot less obtrusive than an ad. And so, if someone’s, if your favorite influencers doing it tick tock, and they just happen to have been I’m talking too much I’m thirsty and grab a drink. That’s so relevant right now.
Mark Fidelman 08:53
Do you think. On a side note, and I don’t go down these rabbit holes too much but on a side note, do you think the fashion industry is going to be paused for a year. So everything that we’re planning on releasing this year is going to be pushed next year because, who cares about fashion. Right now, I mean, you’re in at home with three people.
09:12
right, here’s something that I have been studying this like crazy lately, which is so funny because I am like the least fashionable person like I’m like the anti fashion blogger. But there’s a site of like to know it and it’s part of reward style. And I would say that what they’re doing. During this time where everyone’s at home. And the way they’ve pivoted it, they haven’t even really pivoted, they have just exploded, and it’s all fashion and it’s all still getting people to buy, but they’ve partnered with. They’ve made they’ve made certain days so they’ve partnered with 30 different brands for one day, and then call them ltk day, and all those brands are going to offer massive discounts, only to people on that platform. So you have all these influencers, that now are uploading items that are on sale for that day, and showing ways to update them or how can we use them. While working at home, depending on what they are, or new. Some of the fashion influencers are doing dress up Fridays. So, on Fridays, they all get together and put on their fancy outfits Vicki we’re going to go out on a Friday night like. And they all hang out and take pictures and post pictures, just to kind of bring a little more normalcy into lives.
Mark Fidelman 10:39
Yeah, that’s so interesting so the site’s called like to know it.
10:42
Yeah. All right, what they’re doing, what they’ve done and built in such a short time is just, it’s astonishing.
Mark Fidelman 10:51
Well, I’m going to do a deal. I do a lot of these reviews on LinkedIn. So if you follow me on LinkedIn, I put these videos out about innovative things that businesses are doing during COVID. In order to maintain or increase the revenue. And this sounds like a use case I should I should check out so they’re using influencers to bring in branded products or, you know, obviously apparel, and they give away massive discounts just to keep the cash flow coming in, is that what the site’s doing,
11:20
but you never know when that’s coming like sometimes they’ll tell you like, oh, July, 4 is the stupid date, July, 28 is going to be ltk day, and that day, you know, check in, and you’ll have certain codes, only available through the app to use for 24 hours or for 10 hours, but sometimes like the other day, and ltk day just popped up and all sudden, they were like, 70% off at Nordstrom, more 50% off at IKEA, you know, things like that. This woman amber that started as I was just coming off. And they’ve just and they’ve had to adapt, adjust to like there’s always a huge conference for the bloggers for the top earning influencer bloggers and they do this incredible trip. Every summer so that trip was supposed to be the ltk top sellers Tripp associates and a week or two ago, I have want to say it was like an article or something, and they’d had to cancel it. And so it. You know that’s a huge part of working with brands and they, it’s like last year at the events. STEVE MADDEN did a shoe with some of the influencers. They sold frozen in time.
Mark Fidelman 12:37
So what are they doing on social media that’s really moving the needle for them. Since our you know we’re talking about how do you use social media. And I know I took a kind of a sidetrack here but I thought was very interesting to see another business model that’s that’s thriving. During this time, especially with fashion which I mean, talk about one of the brands have got to be impacted the most or brands, the industries that are impacted the most. So, what if you’ve studied them what what are they doing on social media that you think is is right.
13:11
The whole is the same thing is, it’s just it’s just harnessing the power of influencer marketing, you know, they have their influencers, that are on the platform that have more followers, but most of the celebrities on social media. And these people are you know they they just fashion influencers that are on the site will do something on their Instagram as like, here’s a look at this great new shirt that I just picked up at target for, look at this awesome mixing bowl that three measures for you digitally. But you don’t get any other information unless you then find that blogger in the legs no and so it’s so smart of sending them from directly from Instagram so you’re not shopping on Instagram. Instagram is grabbing that money and those affiliates you know you’re losing your affiliate sales they’re, they’re then sending you to an outside site where you can buy directly through like to know it. And then each influencer has the revenue track.
Mark Fidelman 14:14
Yeah, okay. So, I mean, If they just on Instagram cuz fashion is very big on Instagram, I have my issues with Instagram and tik tok it’ll talk about in a second but is it is it just on Instagram.
14:29
No, I mean they can they can put their link anywhere. Okay, that you can only purchase it there late with their discount code through like to know an app.
Mark Fidelman 14:38
So it’s just, they’re just putting in their bio on there saying, click on the link in my bio, which is adding friction to the process right.
14:45
Well, no, I mean they mostly all have the swipe up app,
Mark Fidelman 14:48
and also on the stories.
14:51
They’re gonna get a lot in stories
14:54
in the feed they’ll usually do like a curated a picture, you know, of a new blog post or anything else that will then help them.
Mark Fidelman 15:06
I just have a problem with Instagram I know for some people and some businesses, they’ve been successful with it just because of the friction, to be able to click rate it like on YouTube, you know, you should be able to put it right into the video now it’s still in show notes they haven’t taken that away. But with uh with Instagram it’s there’s just friction that I don’t like. But I understand. Yeah, but I understand it, it’s successful and I think it’s the same with Tick tock, it’s like, tick tock is kind of there’s just a lot of friction there so I kind of discourage brands from investing too heavily in it, unless they’re working with influencers. Yeah. Yeah, so. Okay, so let’s move back to social media lessons, if you don’t mind. And do you, do you feel like you know these companies that are really struggling right now the non essentials as we call them. Is it okay for them to sell on social media, right now. Okay, so you don’t see any backlash with, you know, people putting out, non essential things that have nothing to do with COVID
16:09
famous fashion, you know, do we have to be buying ballgowns right now. Probably not we’re not going anywhere. But it’s all in the house, it’s all in your approach. I think it’s all you know non essential items are still essential. Here’s an example. So. Oddly, because I’m really bad at it, I’m a huge crafter as like a stress reliever. Bro, like all my little Dollar Tree crap. There is nothing that’s essential there’s no reason I should ever have to leave my house to go do it yet. The idea of some of the things that people are going and getting that are not essential.
16:50
How do we know that that’s not something that
16:54
they need daily for their mental health, or that something that I might consider non essential is absolutely essential to you.
Mark Fidelman 17:04
Hmm, yeah.
17:06
And I think that it’s just the approach in how you sell that makes a difference.
Mark Fidelman 17:12
Yeah, it seems like they’ve got to relate it to your situation like the pain point is, you’re sitting at home you’re bored. And if I were a fashion brand maybe I’d say, you know, why not order. These comfortable clothes because it’ll help you, you know something funny it’ll help you with. I you know I don’t know I’m thinking off the cuff here but,
17:38
You know something new. There you go,
Mark Fidelman 17:39
but frazzled at home at night. Yeah, was sexy prints, or something.
17:44
Yeah, yeah, or you know, you seem nice for kids, for their dinner let’s make let’s make. Let’s make lunch, and we’re not having lunch at school, let’s make lunch more fun since we’re not with our friends. So let’s get costumes and dress up every day to lunch for a week and do a
Mark Fidelman 18:01
tick tock
18:05
Monday, you know and maybe like Safari is Tuesday or nurse day Wednesday, you know we just get costume. That’s not essential but huge and huge for kids for memories. I think that that’s the biggest thing about this time is like the families. What they’re doing know how it’s going to stay with these children for the rest of their lives.
Mark Fidelman 18:29
Yeah, I mean this is a point in time and you bring up a good point is, we’re all going to remember where we were and what we were doing, I mean maybe not the entire time but we’re going to
18:37
look like. Social media is your scrapbook but that’s true.
18:43
That’s why it’s even more important.
18:46
Like, what’s going to be a legacy
18:49
as like even more important to really pay attention and not you know not try to capitalize on a trend.
Mark Fidelman 18:57
Yeah, I mean it’s it’s very well said and I really liked your ideas around fashion brands on putting those things on social media, though. Like, I like your dress up days for kids, or I like your date night examples. How would you, how would you use social media to kind of promote that.
19:19
So it depends where
Mark Fidelman 19:22
you are, you’re North strums, and you’re trying to reach, you’re trying to sell whatever you can already printed Tory which is vast. And since nobody is going into your stores it’s piling, it’s not, it’s not piling up because you’re not making any reorders but there’s a lot of inventory. And you’re shifting it to online, because that’s all you got. So, yeah, so what would you do on social media.
19:44
So I think I would change. I think I would for fashion I think our seasons are kind of out the window right now. So, where they might be doing back to school now. I would do something further down, so I would, I would start looking at like, October, November, and focusing on what do people need fashion wise for that time, every major retailer does make massive sales for winter clothing. Now, so as even a better time to incorporate your winter sales. With your campaign.
Mark Fidelman 20:23
Yeah. So how would you release that so if I’m Nordstrom, do you go on Instagram Do you go on Twitter, do you go on,
20:30
I would probably start working with influencers yeah them back putting out new, what’s the new holiday look what’s the new Thanksgiving. Yeah, we’re gonna wear for Thanksgiving. Who’s coming out with, you know, be honest constantly coming out with a palette for each season. So let’s start doing. Let’s start showing those colors. Now let’s start getting pre orders in even drum up more online demand and people coming back to your site, find out okay i pre ordered when’s it going to be released.
Mark Fidelman 21:05
So you would outsource the creativity to the influencers because they know their audience and they know how to connect with them way better than Nordstrom ever could so cut to your thinking.
21:15
I think for fast and I would always lead with PR and influencers. Yeah.
Mark Fidelman 21:19
What about a small company that can’t afford the big influencers, what do you do then.
21:23
Okay, well I will
21:27
not a big. I come from, I come from. I’m old school, I come from Red Bull, who taught me influencer marketing Oh
Mark Fidelman 21:35
yeah, there’s the best.
21:37
There’s you’ll never pay. So, I feel like when you’re a small brand. I always want to make a relationship mutually beneficial. So small brands or big brand there’s always going to be something that your brand has or has access to that. Someone wants. So I tried to use that as leverage for influencer marketing for smaller brands. I had a coconut water company for a while we were a small brand at the time. And we were working with Olympic level Olympian right after an Olympic year where they won gold medals. So, I couldn’t afford. I couldn’t afford to have them to pay them to hold my coconut water, but I could work with someone I know that does outdoor advertising and I could put this Olympian on the Billboard. He wouldn’t have been able to do that for free, just stated that
Mark Fidelman 22:33
she had something to offer a value beyond product because a lot of these.
22:40
I think that that’s the point of influencer marketing is always finding people that have differing values, and when you have those same values, you’re able to offer, things like that, because you all kind of operate in the same world during the same lesson
Mark Fidelman 22:56
for me it’s really tough to kind of do that research initially and then to make the connection to the influencers there’s a whole process I go through I mean obviously I’ve been an influencer marketing for last seven or eight years. But for brands or, especially smaller companies that don’t have the resources, it’s a lot of work it ultimately will pay off tremendously but you got to spend that time in order to learn more about them, and to get involved in their world and connect with them on social media and over time kind of nurture them into working with you, especially if you’re not paying them, which is the best time, you’re not paying them that’s the best type of influencer because they’re more committed to it.
23:35
But I think that that’s why that you find someone like me you know or someone with a boutique little agency that is solely focused on doing that for you.
Mark Fidelman 23:42
And how do you do that by the way once you lay it out for for everyone.
23:48
How do I find my influencers yeah
Mark Fidelman 23:50
let’s say I’m, I’ve got a, an almond water company. And I want to connect with influencers I want to hire you because I consider you an expert. And I want you to help me promote this new almond water brand. How would you do that.
24:08
Well, I actually did that for an album water brand,
Mark Fidelman 24:11
I was making that up I swear I’ve never heard of almond water.
24:18
So that’s the thing. That’s why the agency or the freelancer, that you choose, you need to really bet. You come to me and you say I’ve got an island water, and in half a second, I’ve got four names for you. Just because I’ve done this, and I have people that I’ve worked with for so many years in different ways that I always have a roster. That’s, that’s readily available for people.
Mark Fidelman 24:47
Okay and then. But what if it’s outside the industry.
24:53
We don’t just work in one industry.
Mark Fidelman 24:55
Yeah, I mean, what if it were all man hamburgers, you know, and it’s totally. I know I’m throwing a lot at you right now,
25:04
but it’s the same thing. I’ve been in CPG.
25:09
Okay, you know, so, so you want to talk to ATG I’ve got that shows I can put you in I’ve got, TV shows, I can get your own water in. I’ve got product placement that I can do ASAP.
Mark Fidelman 25:20
So the. So the advantages to work with you is that you’ve already got the contacts the
25:25
people, you know, not ideal me in like the general. You know, I think that there are a lot of creative agencies, like me, that are small, where you’re going to get the attention that you really want without having to pay to get that attention.
Mark Fidelman 25:45
Yeah. Okay. And then once you find them and identify them and you, you’ve got a relationship with them. How do you work with them in order to move the needle on social media for that. Let’s stick with the almond water example.
25:59
Okay, so for nomen water right like let’s say right now, we’re all stuck at home. What would I be doing so I would take the almond water and I would ask people to show me how they’re using it in their daily lives. So I would use a ton of UGC. I would send products to editors that I know that work in the fitness area, and also are interested in like New Age beverages and replacement things so you know you’re drinking like an almond milk, because you don’t want regular milk so is your, why are you not drinking a regular water, why are you going towards something like a normal water. So I’ll do that research and then try to find which of my influencers and media cover that. And then I’ll start getting product in people’s hands, because I want to get product out there I want pictures I want mentions. And so we’ll start with that with UGC.
Mark Fidelman 26:58
Okay, and, and, and in the time of the quarantine lockdown right now is there anything that you’re advising these influencers to do differently, or is it
27:08
sample Timo in the same in the same kind of vein.
Mark Fidelman 27:12
Yeah, I mean it’s look like, like if they’re going to promote that almond water today, would you would you have them do anything different.
27:21
Like a. It happened, I don’t want you going for a run, and grabbing your almond water. I want. I don’t want it to be like what you would always normally do, you know, thinking in the beginning, you’re in the in the cupholder of your shopping cart while you’re walking through a store, while that looks great and that’s the natural way to do it. That’s not what I want to promote right now, you know, so maybe it’s thinking, maybe it’s sticking in almond water in the back of someone’s seen while they’re doing while they’re in a mask handing out meals to the homeless or delivering for the elderly, or they’re thinking one in each. They’re finding a, they’re finding some restaurants that is cooking meals to donate to seniors, or people out of work. And we’re going to donate a water for each one of those. Yeah. I want the influencers doing things like that.
Mark Fidelman 28:17
Okay, so you don’t apply it to the times right now and maybe inside the house. Based on what attracts people to almond water which I, I, loosely I just made that up but I didn’t realize it was a thing I guess everything is a thing. I should have said something. Wow, I should have said something like, avocado water or something but there’s probably that out there. Yeah, there will be now.
28:43
There’s two ways to look at it, I think, I think it’s, it’s, it’s hard to incorporate these products into your daily life, and it’s aspirational marketing as well. So am I only gonna show my home and water inside someone’s house. No, I also want them to know that you know I want it I want a picture of it at the top of a mountain. I want someone doing a really hard hike and high fiving and doing that and taking a drink as like a reward, you know, because someday. You aren’t going to bring it with you there.
Mark Fidelman 29:12
Yeah. Right. I mean that brings up another question before we get we wrap things up is. I mean, it seems to me that it’s important to kind of acknowledge the situation we’re in today. Right. But, you know, because a lot of these videos, especially if you’re doing YouTube videos with influencers or Tick Tock videos or, you know, any kind of content that lives on the internet. It seems like it’d be completely out of context, if someone were looking at it six months or a year from now. And so, how much of the lockdown do you incorporate into that content today with the thinking that this could all be an afterthought. I know it’ll never be an afterthought, but people are going to want to get back to living. But what’s the balancing act there between talking about it today. And then, or not talking about it at all, because in the future these things won’t make sense to people.
30:06
I think that right now is our reality right now is the reality that we’re living in we don’t know when it’s gonna end like we really don’t. and I also don’t want to be the brand that’s going to come across as pushing it to end too soon. So I’m focused solely on the, on how can I, how can I help your life today with my product.
Mark Fidelman 30:28
I mean it’s well said. I think you know just thinking it through. If I were working with influencers I’d say record two videos, and we’ll pay you a little extra, or if you’re not paying them, you know, we’ll give you a little extra, whatever it is. And I’d say look, you record one for today. But let’s think about a year, and let’s record one for then, and that way we can highlight you today and then we can highlight you when this is all passed and. And since you’re doing a video anyway. You don’t want to do too. I think that might be the, the approach that I would take
31:01
that definitely an interesting way to do it that’s definitely another another tactic.
Mark Fidelman 31:05
Although you know we’re gonna shoot a scene where I guess you could still run today at least where I’m at. I don’t know about Chicago but, yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re just not around a lot of people, hopefully, unless you’re in Orange County, which just opened up beaches. Yeah, don’t run with somebody exactly because then that could be that could be the situation anyway.
31:25
Like there’s a there’s a group here that I’m in about the Chicago service industry and someone posted the other day that they asked if there were any if anyone knew of any run club. And they just like that was just not reading the room.
Mark Fidelman 31:43
Right. Hello, and that’s probably true social media I mean it’s a good example for social media. Read the virtual room and and your and your potential customers what, what would they think, what are they thinking you they should know if you’re a business you should know what they’re thinking.
31:58
Right. Exactly.
Mark Fidelman 32:01
Okay, so the wonderful discussion, glad we dove in on a couple of examples I think that’s really helpful for people listening, let’s get to like two questions I asked everybody. The first one being. What is the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend today.
32:22
I’m all about this new otter.
Mark Fidelman 32:25
So for those of you that don’t know, otter transcribes our voices in real time. And both Lucy and I can see it. And for some people it’s distracting, but Lucy promised me, she doesn’t get distracted. And it’s going on our screen right now so otter.ai I’ve mentioned that a few times on the show because I’m just blown away by the accuracy of it. And no I’m not being paid by them. Okay so
32:53
everyone’s always looking for transcription, and so many jobs now are opening up for transcribers, and it’s such a great. It’s so great because I haven’t seen something get as accurate.
Mark Fidelman 33:04
Yeah. And you’ll notice, if you’re looking at the screen, it’ll go back and self correct because it’s doing in real time but it’s also, I mean it’s so fast, it’ll go back and check to make sure that the voice matches the text, it’s amazing. Okay, second question. Oh, go ahead.
33:20
I’m a big tech person like I do not schedule media. You know, pretty much any actor that I would use would be for reporting. Yeah, I’m Sarah and I use social media very natively and I just I love the results from it.
Mark Fidelman 33:36
Yep. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, I mean it’s tough to be successful in social media so my hat’s off to you. There’s just so it’s so noisy. Okay. and then who is the most influential person, or the person that’s influencing you the most in marketing today.
33:57
Oh my gosh I have so many I have hundred. I mean I just there I work in such a time of women. Starting business. So unapologetically. And, and then to, you know, I feel like people are people are going for it in a way that when I started my agency like we just weren’t like, and maybe it’s my age, and maybe it’s that people my age, were just like, oh, it just wasn’t a thing, you know go start your own company, but now I feel like that is encouraged from. So early on. And it’s so great and people are doing so much you know and I think when it comes to social media for me, It’s not just people in social media that I look up to, you know, I look to authors and how they talk. I look to people who are writing reporters and look at how they talk because I feel like you can learn so much about how people want to be talked to, by looking at different industries and how they talk to people and and looking at how I’m looking to buy a million different industries. And what do I like and who’s doing it well.
Mark Fidelman 35:14
Is there anyone in particular that stands out. I’m not gonna hold your feet to the fire here but anybody that
35:21
Molly john that.
35:25
I love the way she writes, I love the way she talks.
35:30
I love the way she approaches social media
35:34
in a very refreshing way of. I’ve got really important things to say, but I also, it’s important that I walk my dog, and you’ve got to see what they’re wearing today. And for some reason it just all work. And I find a lot of inspiration in the way that she gives hope. While talking about things that really have so
Mark Fidelman 35:59
what channels Is she on.
36:01
I follow her mainly on Facebook and Twitter,
Mark Fidelman 36:04
Facebook and Twitter. Okay, wonderful
36:06
evolves though I mean she’s also on Instagram.
36:10
I follow her.
Mark Fidelman 36:12
Okay. All right, so we’ll put out. We will put her a handle in the show notes that was Molly john.
36:23
Yeah, okay. Yeah. And of course, like Madeline sorry, a really good friend of mine, and I will always learn from her.
Mark Fidelman 36:31
Nice. Okay, wonderful both will be in the show notes
36:36
for Chad on Thursdays is great for brand.
Mark Fidelman 36:40
What’s your chat cool, what’s it about.
36:47
It’s a great chat, Twitter, noon on me see if I can find more. Well, why is twit I’m sorry it’s the hashtag is Twitter smarter
Mark Fidelman 36:59
Twitter smarter. Okay, so it must be about Twitter.
37:03
Yeah, but it’s not about Twitter like it’s about it’s about content marketing, and it’s about talking to people and how to reach people and and behind the scenes, things that maybe you don’t know about social is great every week she’s got a new person as her guest and it’s a different topic, and it’s the conversation that goes on within the group, or just.
Mark Fidelman 37:28
Okay, wonderful, both will be in the show notes. And I want to leave everyone with the key takeaway for Lucy. She wants you to read her latest arc article on four she owns it. I would recommend also taking a look at the six key social media trends to watch in 2020. But after you read that article. Listen to this podcast again to see how to apply some of what’s happening today in the quarantine and to those social media trends. So, with that Lucy. Appreciate you being on the show. It’s my pleasure. We’re gonna have you back in a couple of weeks to talk about PR during a lockdown so if you’re listening to this in the future. You like what Lucy had to say today, we will more than likely, two weeks from now have another episode on how you do this with PR. And finally, if you enjoyed our podcast please write a review for us in the apple podcasts and Google Play app stores and Lucy. I suspect. You know, if you know social media are any indication as to, you know what’s happening here in, in the quarantine that you know people are rising to the occasion people are, you know, connecting, they’re doing everything that they can to stay relevant and, and I think after listening to this podcast they’re gonna have a lot more to think about and a lot more to do so I really appreciate again having you on the show, and I’ll talk to you in a couple weeks.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the digital brand building podcast. today. I’m very excited to learn about something new, something I don’t know. And that is implementing what they’re calling humanistic marketing practices. And joining me today is Justin Foster and Emily Sikorsky. And today, I have never done this before. But we’re going to talk to two people. And we’re going to try and keep it moving. And we’re going to try and keep it light and, and fun. And as always, I promise you, you’re going to learn something. So with that, Justin, will you go first and introduce your self and give us your background, please?
Justin Foster 05:31
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us on. So my name is Justin Foster, as you said, and I am the co founder of Bruton River. My background is actually if I go back to the beginning as in sales, I’m one of the few branding guys that I know that came out of corporate sales. And at times, back in the day when I was starting a couple of agencies and whatnot made me feel insecure and now I’m proud of it. That’s a good place to come from and have been self employed since 2003. And like I said, I’ve owned a couple of agencies then was the co founder of tech startup that went to acquisition and then met Emily six and a half years ago and found a lot of simpatico with life philosophy. The way branding should work. This word term we say being human, in just life and in business, and in 2015 launched route and River.
Mark Fidelman 06:34
Okay, Emily. Yeah,
Emily 06:37
right. So I grew up in the southwest. And I began my career as a journalist, and it’s been eight and a half years as a journalist and publisher here and so really diving into language storytelling, and how other people shape their own narratives. And I’ve always been been an avid reader and obviously a writer. So I was really intrigued by that, and then made a move into PR and worked in PR for a couple of years and learned a little bit more about business strategy. And as well as sort of brought the agency that I worked for up to date with social media, spent a lot of time early on working in blogging and building communities. And then I went out on my own began my own company and started doing social strategy, some ghost writing a little bit of everything. I had quite a toolbox by that point of abilities and and then finally began doing brand strategy for human behavioral research company, global company, and eventually became the the vice president of the brand, brand and marketing there. And that’s where Justin and I, that’s when Justin and I paths crossed. And yeah, as Justin mentioned, when we we met six and a half years ago, there was this split between us is alchemy of understanding how people work, and how they express themselves. And this great injustice and so many businesses that these entrepreneurs are leaders have all this passion, they sacrificed so much for their businesses and for their brands. But they are missing in many cases, the ability to articulate the soul of their brand, what drives them their motivation. And in the process of trying to do that they make it so complicated, just not being maybe well versed at language or not well versed at taking that deep and intrinsic dive inside of themselves to figure out what it really is that drives them. And we felt that that was our gift to be able to bring that simplicity, clarity and articulation to clients. And so remember has been sort of an adventure ever since. We’ve worked with over 200 clients and we’re really passionate about inspiring leaders to go inward to uncover and articulate the soul of the world.
Mark Fidelman 09:00
I know how important it is. But I also know how difficult that is, it’s almost like you’re doing a deep dive, when I liken it to is you’re doing a deep dive on yourself. And it’s really hard to do that without the help of an expert. And I think that’s where you come in. But I’m sure people are still wondering what it is that you’re talking about. So when we talk about humanistic marketing practices, and going deep within to figure out you know, what your brand is and what it represents, what do you mean by that?
Emily 09:31
Great question. Yeah, so it can be It sounds very esoteric, but it’s where this blend of being spiritual and very practical. So what this means is doing that deep dive work to understand what are your core beliefs, what are the deepest things inside of what we term your soil of soul. So those are the things again, that drive you your passions, your disappointments, your hurt, your pain, your dreams, your hopes, we dig into that soil and we help our clients articulate or our clients who go through our course. We help them uncover what those core beliefs are. From there, they also work on their mission. And we don’t mean mission statements, we hate them. We think they’re boring. In most cases, they’re long run on sentences that don’t tell people anything. We define mission as the thing you’re here to do that only you can do. And when you have that mission clear in your mind, it usually has a direct line of sight into the business you’re already working in. But it connects something inside of people so that they have this clarity and their confidence is built. Then we move on and we get into message and messages really not what other people want to hear, which is commonly been how it’s perceived. It’s like finding the right thing to say so everyone loves me. In our practice, it’s about saying what your heart wants to say to the world. And we do this with the way that we encourage people to find it is to sort of remove yourself from that approval mechanism that we all have built in As humans, and think about and get real with what really needs to be said, and this is more important today than ever, to have a message that stands out, you’ve really got to come from within be be human to yourself, and then that authenticity, that genuine feeling conveys to the audience and that’s what breaks through all the noise that exists.
Mark Fidelman 11:25
Okay, and, Justin, do you have anything to add to that?
Justin Foster 11:28
Yeah, just from, you know, the term humanistic marketing is for us was born out of the fact that, well, if you have an intrinsic brand, if you do all the things that Emily just mentioned, to get to this place, well, then how does that change how you show up in the world? So well kinda like to look at inhumane marketing practices first. So one of those is the use of Fudd or fear, uncertainty and doubt, manipulating people’s fears. You know, most most of the most Marketing, persuasive marketing tactics that have been used over the last, you know, five or six decades were created by Sigmund Freud’s nephew, who was able to say, hey, if you do these things, you’re going to trigger a psychological response. We view that to be manipulative. Another inhumane thing is to pretend to be something that you’re not. And then certainly there’s the in him, you know, being inhumane to your your culture to your people, to your, your community, your clients. So the idea of humanistic marketing is that it’s it just starts with humans connecting with humans. So we often say this, and this goes back to my sales background is that companies don’t buy anything people do. And certainly, that companies have people that represent the interests of the company, but it ultimately boils down to a human that you’re in relationship with, in in a way that produces the desired behavior. Or the elements that we’re talking about. And this dives into our, our mutual background, Emily more than me, but a mutual background in human human behavior. And then just the other two or three, just so that you know what they are, Mark is, is this idea that transparency is a behavior, it’s an action. It’s not the last thing you do. It’s the first thing you do, which changes the rules of PR and significantly, mastering storytelling. Being a master storyteller as a brand is humanistic marketing. Because we are wired for story. It’s one of the oldest parts of being a human is the wiring for story. And then finally, just being the courage to own your uniqueness. Our one of our mantras is show the world who you truly are. And that truth is still the best brand strategy. If you can go Be who you truly are, and you’re not. You’re not overly performative. You’re not a construct something magical happens around trust and the spirit and science of branding.
Mark Fidelman 14:07
So what let me ask you something, though that has been kind of on the forefront, especially now, given that we’re in a coven situation and obviously, you know, racism is at the top of the agenda for most politicians and a lot of corporations. What do you recommend companies do in terms of messaging or branding or taking a political stand in this environment in future environments?
Emily 14:38
Yeah, great question. And we recommend that they look to their their beliefs, their standards, first. And what we suggest is that they take those values, beliefs, however, they’ve turned them which in most cases, businesses sort of set them to the side and then operate, but you take them out, you look at them, you look at the way that you’re operating. Already, and then you layer on the current realities, racial injustice of a global pandemic. And you see where your beliefs are being lived out very well very clearly. And then tell stories around that speak to that. Share about that. Again, just to mention that transparency is an action. And so the market wants to hear your audience wants to hear where you stand. So if you are not taking if you’re not telling them then they are wondering, and they’re losing confidence in you as a brand, quite To be blunt. But you don’t want to make a statement that is not based in reality. So that’s what we would suggest.
Mark Fidelman 15:41
Aren’t you aren’t companies worried? That if they do take a stand that they might be canceled?
Justin Foster 15:48
Well, there’s that element but I think there’s a couple of things to it is one is if there’s there’s a lot to be said for sincerity. So Nike is you know, it’s a great example of the sincerity of intention. Like this is something that they’ve talked about for years. So it’s not, it’s not, it’s not new. The second thing is, is if you are, if your, your your brand, your reputation as a brand is around doing the right thing of integrity of doing things that are in the public interest, then you’re good. What what, to your point what will get you is virtue signaling, if it’s a little bit like and this is hyperbole here but a little bit like turning Memorial Day, which is supposed to honor the people that have died for the country, into a mattress sale or a truck sale, that disingenuousness or that, again, that performative nature of that that’s what will get you. It that’s what will get you. The other element of cancel is you can’t really be canceled. For taking a stand around something that is a, let’s call it a universal truth. You’re not going to get canceled for taking a stand against racism, for example, you’re going to have people like Dick’s Sporting Goods did which when they pulled guns out of their stores, you’re going to you’re going to have a bunch of clients, or a bunch of customers that don’t shop with you anymore. But that’s different. And my final thought related to this particular topic, which is one of the favorite things right now that we love to talk about is social pressure is market pressure. Those didn’t used to be the same thing. But now they are and if there’s social pressure in a particular area brand, it behooves a brand to listen to that because the marketplace is telling them what they what they they’re telling them what is important to them.
Mark Fidelman 17:49
So you can have social pressure from a very left wing or right wing group that represents point oh 1% of the population. How do you know as a person And to distinguish the signal through the noise.
Emily 18:05
I think it goes back to, you know, you obviously have to evaluate where that social pressure is coming from. But you also have to evaluate what you truly stand for. I wouldn’t advocate you know, making a statement just to make a statement that’s insincere. And we’ll be critics criticized harshly. But you don’t have to respond to pressure that is not in alignment with who you are as a company.
Mark Fidelman 18:30
Well, let’s, let’s take a specific example. Right, so Uncle Ben’s rice and Aunt Jemima syrup. They both now removed that character, and these were based on positive characters. And so was that the result of social pressure? Is that a result of their beliefs or was that a big big mistake?
Emily 18:55
No, I think that was a update along probably a long overdue update. With the with the progress of the world,
Mark Fidelman 19:06
my mother was a very successful the first black female millionaire, very successful entrepreneur. Right? It was not meant as anything but a compliment to her.
Justin Foster 19:15
Yeah, right. So my take on this mark is leadership leaders are going to make mistakes, because we’ve never been here before, just like a bunch of mistakes have been made with COVID. And the COVID response. It’s making the mistake is part of how you learn. And so you know, if we were advising angioma, we would have said, you know, tell your story, we wouldn’t have said swap it out. So I would say that there’s an element and again, this goes back to your, your root, you kind of your root belief, and then your behavior as a leader is if you are reactive, you’re going to be chasing and you know, social pressure you’re going to be you’re going to constantly be reacting to it. As opposed to doing like Marc Benioff and Salesforce has done where he just comes out and says, This is what we believe in, or Dan price with gravity payments, who has become an advocate for, you know, an advocate for dealing with income disparity between, you know, executives and employees, it was those guys, they are, they are not responding to something and then trying to figure out a way to placate an audience, they are just living what they believe. If you’re a leader that hasn’t done that work, you’re going to make some mistakes, you’re gonna make you’re gonna make some mistakes. And I think that’s all part of the process. The other example here is what’s happening with the Washington NFL team. Yeah, you know that. Yeah. And and that’s a that’s a another situation where market pressure in social pressure is the same thing because FedEx and Nike basically told us not You need to take care of this. Now that is not out of character for Nike or FedEx to take stands like that they have done that their entire brand existence. It’s just more obvious now when it’s something that is extra sensitive.
Mark Fidelman 21:18
But I I’m not gonna belabor this because I think you guys know a very good job of of answering this because I know this is on everyone’s mind cuz I hear it all the time. But is it current market pressure? Is it because of a very heightened sense of racism at this point, because of, you know, what’s transpired? Or do you think it’s a long term decision? That is the right one?
Justin Foster 21:45
Which one
Mark Fidelman 21:46
spot just the Redskins changing URL?
Justin Foster 21:48
Yeah, I think it’s, I mean, it goes back to something that Doug Williams said years ago about it, you know, Super Bowl winning quarterback that played for them. He said, it’s, it’s a matter of decency.
Emily 21:58
And, yeah, this isn’t a new issue this is
Justin Foster 22:00
Yeah, this has been going on for a long time, there just wasn’t enough pressure because there wasn’t enough. The social pressure was not enough to get Snyder to do anything about it. When FedEx his partner has caught, you know, one of the majority or minority owners, Fred Smith in the Washington team, you know, they when they started talking about like, Hey, we’re not gonna we’re not gonna be behind this anymore. And I think I’m gonna just gonna play off Mark something that Emily said a minute ago. We have to leave room for evolution. No one, for example, you go back 30 years ago, how many companies had a had a benefits available to same sex relationships? Didn’t it just wasn’t a thing or how many you know, you go back and so there has to be room. And this was what we talked about. In between the two. The two extremes that you mentioned is that there is that if you’re living your brand, according to your values, there is no left wing or right wing. There’s just The right thing to do based off of what you believe in. And so what we teach our clients to do is most of the time just transcend the ideological discussions, because most of them are sort of binary and temporary and kind of useless. You have to know who you are and what you believe in. And then you can advance from there. That’s the starting point.
Mark Fidelman 23:21
It just seems like chick fil a right. They had those values for the longest time and and now they seem to be transforming themselves based on social and market pressure. And yeah, it’s interesting to see how that that all works out. I mean, they’re going against their values in original values to placate the marketplace. I don’t even know if it’s a market. Yeah, I think it’s more social, because they were very successful. They would not sound like their business dipped, but it appears to me that they’re bowing to social pressure. I’m just wondering if that’s the way it’s
Justin Foster 23:55
fair. I mean, I don’t know those guys, but I think they’re evolving too. Current realities. There’s, you know, there’s certain realities that it’s similar to NASCAR getting rid of the Confederate battle flag. I mean, that’s a It’s a race. That’s a reality that, that that is a symbol, very symbol of hatred to a large portion of the American population. I think I think too, and this is a, you know, fascinating thing about this, this nuance here, like, where do we go? And I think it starts with what we would ask any leader, especially if you’re like the CEO, or you’re the face of the brand. That is the second question is, how is our company going to respond? The first question is, what do you believe? Do you believe in if you get that part mark, the rest of it is mostly courage and execution? Yep.
Mark Fidelman 24:50
Okay, um, I think we belabor this enough, but I can tell you, it’s on everyone’s mind if you’re
Justin Foster 24:54
Yeah, that’s fine. Thank you for bringing it up.
Mark Fidelman 24:57
All right, so let’s move to you’ve defined Well actually, no, let’s start with how do you define your values? What kind of exercise do people go through in order to figure that out, and I know we can’t lay it all out here, or else you wouldn’t be in business out of people start to think about this.
Emily 25:14
So one of the ways that we suggest that people begin to tackle this is, first of all, just in a very practical sense, this isn’t something that’s done in the seams. So setting aside time dedicated time to dig into it is fantastic. Having somebody help you with that process is even better because as you mentioned at the top mark, it’s incredibly difficult to do on your own. But without all that the or with you know, definitely setting aside time maybe not having a facilitator what you want to do is sit down and do a little bit of an inventory around the idea of what have I always known to be true to me, but was not taught to me, right? So we want to go back to the inherent you the person who existed in the world before the world kind of imposed itself upon you. And sort of digging into some of the the ideals and values that you have held. And I, we recommend that you don’t really try to think of them first as values against story. And the stories that we tell ourselves are really a great place to start. So going back in your memory to maybe childhood or maybe young adulthood, what were the things that you railed against as a teenager? Or what were the things that as a child, maybe in grade school that you got in trouble for a lot of times what we believe can it once it is challenged, that becomes a formative memory. And by looking at and talking through journaling through on your own some of those early stands that you took, there cannot be uncovered some of these core beliefs. So that’s one exercise that we would we would suggest and we walk some of our clients through through that beliefs like defiance, which is one of our core beliefs as a company, love may be revealed, whatever it is, For you, but the idea is to get into the story first and let it tell you what you believe.
Justin Foster 27:06
There’s an interesting mark, there’s an interesting thing that happens when we do this work with a team, like an executive team. So when we work with a company that’s, you know, got more than, you know, like, it’s not a small business, a midsize company, we work we do that we do the branding work as far as this type of stuff with the entire executive team, because everyone’s in branding. And one of the things that we do is we have them do that exercise with a few others that Emily mentioned, and what happens as the commonalities start to pop up. So we don’t know there’s that classic sort of facilitator thing, which is, everybody makes a list of all the values they believe in and then they circle the one that’s most important to them. We go the other way, which is go inward first. And find out what you believe and then express it and we’ve done I don’t know, probably close to 100 hundred and 25 like groups. Root sessions, as we call them, and we all add to things always come out of this one is, is that there’s this tug of release of the light, like, Oh, I didn’t know you believe that, or Wow, look at that everyone on the executive team believes in, believes in respect or, or something like that. The other thing that happens is, in some organizations, this has happened all the time. But in some organizations, when we do that work, somebody resigns. There’s a value misalignment or a belief misalignment that they’re like, I can’t I don’t, you know, there’s something off and that’s why that that leader felt like they couldn’t be there. What that does is it strengthens the culture, where you don’t have like mindedness because that’s, you know, groupthink, but you have these things that we call, we call standards, which is just the way we treat each other inside of the organization. So it’s all fascinating to watch it unfold for a group
Mark Fidelman 28:57
Hmm, okay, and At the end of this exercise, how do they begin to implement these changes?
Emily 29:07
Well, that’s where the standards come in. So at the end of the exercise, we have five core beliefs typically. And then we begin to examine the culture and what already exists, and determine these standards, which are usually manifest as short sentences, maybe three to five words, almost mantras, Mark, that really articulate the culture of the company and the way essentially, they’re living out their beliefs. So, for an exam, as an example, one of our core values is defiance. And the standard for us that we hold ourselves to and we expect of our team is to find the flow and forget the formula. We’re not formulaic, we always want to differentiate ourselves, and we always want to find a new way of doing things. So that is how What we hold ourselves to. So an organization will then come away with this set of five standards. And sometimes there are their sayings that are already being used quite a bit within the culture. And again, it’s more of an archeological dig to really uncover what’s already there, the brand that’s already there, and then just match it up with a bit more intentionality. So that they then those standards can be used both internally and externally to the audience to describe the culture and storytelling and recognition for employees or for for customers. So a lot of times these standards also apply to what a company is looking for in its in its partners and when its clients.
Justin Foster 30:38
And I think that the other thing too, just a little quick win here to point out related to this, like application that you asked about it, Mark is that
30:48
when you
Justin Foster 30:51
are it goes back to our definition of a brand. Our definition of a brand is how other people experience what you believe, and that you could be you personally Your personal brand as a leader or you collectively in the organization, it’s how other people experience what you believe. So when you and we know this, that behaviors are always connected to beliefs, there’s that’s, that’s, you know, science that, that those behaviors that you have as a leader and as the collective behaviors of an organization, they come from somewhere, they don’t just come out of the, you know, atmosphere. And so when you understand these things, then you can really get into how you show up in the world. And that’s for messaging. In particular, though, and when we say messaging, we’re really talking about the language of the brand, or the ontological expression of the brand.
Mark Fidelman 31:41
Okay, and, you know, I kind of liken these things to personal relationships or dating, when somebody has their core values and their beliefs, right. A lot of times it’s not expressed properly or a lot of times, you’ve got to dig it out of people with the brand doesn’t Have that that luxury. So how does the brand then express those values and and what they represent what they believe in to the outside world? Or at least to their customers? So I think that’s what they’re primarily concerned with, or they should be.
Emily 32:13
Definitely, that’s, that’s where storytelling comes in. Well, first of all, I think there’s a, there’s a big kind of Gimme that a lot of brands Miss is just sharing what your values are, you know, take take a month’s worth of content and look at how you can create high value content, whether it’s blog posts, video posts, it’s speaking engagements that really focus on the company’s values and how those beliefs are played out in behaviors. I mean, do that externally with your clients share that in collateral materials. That’s, that’s number one. And then number two would be tell stories around how you lived up to this value. I think a great example of this is Southwest Airlines. They one of their core values. uses love. They of course, they carry that into their external messaging. But they also show that in one of their great examples of this is on their social media feed. During the height of Cova, they they posted a picture of a whole empty airplane except one little tiny head in the back. And the post was about you know, we’re still here to serve, serve you. Even if our plans are mostly empty. In this case, we are taking a healthcare worker to New York to help with the outbreak there. And so they’re demonstrating their love for their customers and how their customers are also giving that love to the world. So there’s so many ways to express this but definitely don’t want to kind of hold those back you want to be forward with your audience on on what your beliefs are.
Justin Foster 33:48
Okay and other is this on social channels is through the press is it across the board? Are things what are the channels, all of them now, each channels gonna have their own application of how that goes through. But we build brand language around conversations because conversations are the crucible that make a brand live or die. You can have a really expensive shiny ad campaign and that the language is off, it doesn’t matter. Or you can have a grassroots campaign with a great language and it works really well. So so when we, when we our starting point is, it kind of depends if they’re b2c or b2b, but let’s take a b2b company. The first people, the first group that we work with on understanding how to use this language is the sales team or the or the or the channel management or whoever is market facing, because they’re the ones that are on the phones on the zooms, you know, someday maybe back in the conference rooms. having those conversations, then there’s certainly a level of integration into websites. So for example, one of the foundational language elements that we have is what’s called a root belief. And that’s the first thing that’s out of your mouth. It’s the first thing that’s on the hero image of your website. It’s in your BIOS on social media. The root belief goes everywhere. And then the second element is then around category and category ownership is a it’s a brand essential in our in our work. Because a category allows you to create a space in consciousness that didn’t exist before, which is an extraordinarily powerful place to be example, Elvis Presley. long dead is still the King of Rock, still the king rock and roll. Well, you ask any musician, anybody who’s the King of Rock, they say Elvis Presley. That’s an example of owning your category. And then the third one, the third thing that starts to get infused is your your differentiators. The the things that you’re that you’re speaking to that to the your audience that are things that make you two truly different. So when you combine, when you look at all the scenarios, we’re okay, we got to get our root belief out there, we got to get our category name out there, and we got to get our differentiators out there, then you get into the sort of omni channel view of what’s the best way to say those things with using the foundational language. And that’s depends on, you know, company to company to company, a lot of it depends on brand voice and the personality of the brand that they that they are.
Mark Fidelman 36:26
Okay, and I guess when you are a company looking at this and looking back at what what you’ve just said, it seems like it’s pretty complicated. Is it extremely hard to go through this process? Or is it easy? Where does it lie in the difficulty spectrum? Because I know a lot of companies don’t do it.
Emily 36:47
Yeah, that’s a good point. A lot of companies don’t I think the perception is it’s very difficult. I think the most difficult thing is deciding to do it and opening up enough to let it be fruitful. But once you’re once you’re involved in it. And then once you can get through some of the deeper dives, it begins to materialize very quickly and become way more solid and tangible and easier. Our our clients, regardless of their size, huge companies, small clients, they tell us afterwards now it’s so much easier to market to know, I always know what to say I have greater confidence, I’m talking about what I do about business about the brand. Once you’ve done that deep work, which tends to be a little bit more challenging, it becomes a lot more viscous to have those conversations when you know the language that you’re using. Is is true, it’s conveying a truth that you hold dear. And it is also differentiated. And that’s what we work towards in these sessions so difficult in the beginning and much easier on the long tail.
Mark Fidelman 37:52
Because like, I could see how individuals that are in the company that are responsible for marketing or social media or even sales if they had a great code of ethics, so to speak, or a code of branding, then they would know how to speak to people and what language to use and the messaging and the storytelling. So instead of inventing it on the fly as to what they heard from their manager, so a very strong point there, and I know Justin, you had something to say, right?
Justin Foster 38:19
Yeah, I was just gonna, I’m just gonna say My apologies for interrupting the, the, the key to this too is the leadership. So what you know, there, it’s going to be hard. It’s heavy lifting, it’s chop wood carry water. It’s a boot camp, it’s already hard. And to quote, Jordan Peterson, life is suffering don’t make it worse. So intrinsic branding is hard. Don’t make it worse. It’s hard work. Here’s what makes it worse. lack of courage is a big one. If If your leadership team is passive, if they are unwilling to be different, unwilling to try new things, it’s, I mean, it’s just, it’s gonna be a struggle, it’s gonna be a struggle to brand this way because you have yet to overcome the insecurity that you’re okay exactly as you are. The second thing that makes it harder for people to for brands to implement is when the entire leadership team has not bought in. So that’s why we don’t just work with the CMO, we work with the entire leadership team to get the brand language, the beliefs, the standards, all the elements of the brand in place first, and everyone has a seat at that table. And if you’ve got this very compartmentalize like, Well, okay, this is a brand thing. So I’m the CFO or the CTO, whatever, I don’t need to be involved. That is going to cause pretty significant friction in the implementation because now it just becomes new language for an ad campaign or something and that’s, that’s unsustainable.
Mark Fidelman 39:53
Yeah, great point. Okay, so we you worked with a lot of companies going through this exercise and making them more human and they’re relating their values to the outside world. What is the payoff?
Emily 40:10
I think the first payoff is that confidence and that consistency that you gain as a brand when everyone is singing from the same song sheet. What happens then is that your brand is consistently differentiated in the market using the same language which then gets them it gets involved in the language of your audience. And so now your brand is taking it. Everyone who touches your brand is beginning to to share that brand in a way that’s super spreadable and ultimately raises the visibility of the brand. So and then on a micro level to having been in the shoes of a CMO or VP of Marketing, when you have to sit down every time for every project and sort of re engineer the messaging or or come up with messaging, it takes a tremendous toll on you. It’s incredibly difficult to execute. And so execution becomes easier, projects flow more smoothly. And ultimately you get differentiation and you get a larger brand position and presence
Justin Foster 41:19
to more to that mark. One is a significantly lower cost per customer acquisition. And a lot of people they think word of mouth is sort of an accident. We think that word of mouth is evidence of a healthy brand. And so if you have to spend money, so the mantra we have for this is pay for retention, not attention. And so CPC or cost per customer per acquisition is a big one. And another one is just and this is come sometimes comes as a surprise as a lower overall marketing budget sometimes, because you think about in a larger company, the marketing budget, how much of that is experimentation. And let’s see what, let’s see what happens or, or your sort of focus, grouping your way to some sort of message. If you know who you are, and you know what to say you got the language, right, and you got the systems in place. It drives a lot of that experience, experimental cost out of marketing. And all of that net then goes back to the bottom line, and also in. And this is true, pretty much every client of ours, in some form has been an increase in leads and sales, which as a former sales guy, that’s the whole point of marketing is leads and sales.
Emily 42:35
And I take one other point here, Mark, two, four times. I think the other benefit that you get if you do this work, particularly now that we’re moving into a very volatile time, things are going to be unpredictable for a while we’re going to be dealing with crisis for quite a while. And so what you get out of it as well is this this solid foundation from which to respond to the changes to the evolutionary Talking about earlier, it gives you the stable base from which to look to and then take action in alignment with the brand so that you don’t have brand fractures down the road when you’re when you’re meeting those challenges.
Mark Fidelman 43:13
Okay, all very good points. It’s been my experience as well. It also infuses the company with this sense of purpose and mission, which I like, you know, because they’re all on the same page. They all know what they represent. And, you know, most people within the organization are bought in or if they’re not, they soon exit. You don’t want people that aren’t bought in anyway. So to wrap things up, I have two final questions. And I ask everybody these questions. The first one is the hottest digital marketing technology that you would recommend people take a look at. And I
Justin Foster 43:50
might, Yeah, mine is sprinkler. I have been impressed with them for a long time as a social media management platform and The things that they’re that they’re doing had some experience with them back in the day in the work they’re doing with like Verizon and how they end up how Verizon was one of the first big big you know, consumer brands to have a like live response to social media posts and sprinkler was instrumental in making that happen.
Mark Fidelman 44:27
Okay, and you know for sprinklers got a lot of social tools to kind of measure brand perceptions that right.
Justin Foster 44:36
Yeah, you have you have the there’s sort of a, you know, the big data aspect of what sprinkler is doing. And I think they’ve evolved over the years to where social media management isn’t really there. Like that’s a commodity like that’s table stakes now, and so they’re they’re shifting seems to be in recent years is around analysis of or curation of data and relationships, like essentially, who is paying attention and what are they responding to? That is deeper than just, you know, eyeballs or clicks.
Mark Fidelman 45:11
Okay, love it. My last question is Who is the most influential person in marketing today and one of you would said Christopher Lochhead. And I don’t know of Christopher Can, can you kind of give us a little bit of a background on him?
Justin Foster 45:26
Yeah, that was my nomination. And you might have your might have your own. Of course, Chris is never met the man but I feel like I know him, Chris, is that one of the co authors have played bigger. And I would compare if Seth Godin is sort of the king of innovation in marketing, then Chris is the king of category design. And his book played bigger and his podcasts have been very, very influential on how we look at branding through from from the lens of essentially that next evolution of positioning, which is category design. And so he’s in my catalog. He’s a rock star. And he’s also very direct. You’re talking about a guy, mark that, if you want, you can tell where he stands. He is unapologetically who he is, as a leader, and that’s another thing I admire about him too, is it he? We like people that, that don’t really pay attention to the line between social and business, just be who you are. And that’s another thing I like about him.
Mark Fidelman 46:29
Okay, Emily, anything to add?
Emily 46:32
Um, I would say, you know, right now, I’m geeking out on Simon Sinek latest book, and I the infinite game, and I think what he’s talking about there is just, I mean, it was published before COVID. But it is it’s going to be the thinking that a lot of brands adopt as they move forward to continue to be relevant in the times that we’re facing. And Simon’s been a huge inspiration for us and for me, personally. So I think between he and Seth, those Seth Godin, I think those two are really still producing daily thought provoking and relevant information that helps all of us as marketers, and branders.
Mark Fidelman 47:11
Wonderful. Okay, so we’re gonna wrap things up. First of all, if you like what you heard today, they have a book coming out called rooting up and working, they get that book.
Emily 47:22
You can get it on Amazon. Okay, and yeah.
Mark Fidelman 47:26
Okay. And then you also have a course. And if you want some private brand coaching, where can they reach you?
Emily 47:33
route and river.com is our website, you’ll be able to check out the course there and also our upcoming events and learn a little bit more about how we work.
Mark Fidelman 47:41
Excellent. That’s also going to be in the show notes, everyone. So if you didn’t catch that, then look in the show notes. But with that, Emily and Justin, really appreciate this conversation. Really appreciate you guys being real with some of the more difficult questions that I was asking about today’s environment. So Yeah, we look forward to catching up with you in six months or a year when all this is over and there’s kind of a new playing field.
Emily 48:08
Yeah, good mark. Yeah, we really enjoyed it.
Justin Foster 48:10
It was fun. Yeah, you are there with sincerity that You’re the way that you ask questions is, it’s It was a fun conversation. So thank you for that.
Hello everyone, welcome to the digital brand builder podcast today. Joining me is Jody Krangle, and she’s going to talk about something that I don’t have a lot of knowledge about but I’m very interested in and that is the power of branding, your business with audio and music and voiceovers and why that is authentically and deeply connected with your audience, or customers so Jodi Welcome to the show will you give us maybe 100 words or less background on yourself and experience.
01:53
Thank you for having me here. First of all, and yeah, my background is in music really if you get right down to it, I got into voiceovers in 2007. After doing some volunteer work for the cniv than 9596 I think that was. And the cniv is the Canadian National Institute for the blind so I was reading books onto tape, which really was taped at the time, and learned a lot about it really was intrigued was as interested with the tech as I was with anything else, actually, and it took me a while but I researched it and got into it, and went full time in 2007.
Mark Fidelman 02:33
Wonderful. Okay, so, you know, this might be a little strange for people to hear about audio branding, can you give us kind of a. I don’t know what background of what it is and why it’s important.
Jodi Krangle 02:46
Well, as a voice actor I was really intrigued by people using my voice to brand their companies, and so this is like one tiny little piece of the whole audio branding spectrum, but essentially it’s a really quick, easy shorthands to get right to your clients or customers your audience’s heart really quickly, because, audio, our, our sense of hearing is one of our strongest senses and it really reaches us on a, on a very deep level. And I think, not enough people use that in their brand voice and when I say brand voice I mean more broadly, your entire branding spectrum. Again, not many people use it to the advantage that it could be taken. If you’re more intentional with it I think it can really be used to good effect.
Mark Fidelman 03:37
Okay, and. Is this like, you know, really important that people, you know, start with this as branding or are there other aspects of branding I’m just trying to position it for them like, you know, in terms of branding people start to think about logos and colors and that to me is like not even close to the top of branding where do you position. Audio branding in that list of, okay, you want to rebrand or, or create a brand. Where do you position audio branding in that stack.
04:08
Well first of all, first off I think that if you’re not thinking about the audio portion of the whole branding aspect, you’re missing a huge piece. And if that audio doesn’t match your visual people aren’t going to trust you, and they’re not quite gonna know why it’s almost unconscious, there needs to be a connection between the two. So once you figure out your why. And you know what emotions you want people to feel that’s really how you can, that’s kind of the top thing. Once you know what your company stands for why you do what you do. And you associate that with brand colors and a logo, but you also associate that with how you sound so what what music you use what voiceover you use what sound effects you might use. Are you a casual or a formal company. If you’re casual you might use more contractions in your voiceovers, or you might be more casual music. If you’re more formal you might use classical music you might, you know, not use contractions in your vertising. There’s different feelings to different types of companies and what they do.
Mark Fidelman 05:20
Okay, so before we jump into how to do this. who do you know that’s doing it well. And maybe somebody that’s not doing it well that you’d love to work with to change that.
05:33
Well, the people I think are doing it really well are companies like Intel in particular I use them as an example because they have what’s called an ear con. So they use that duck, duck, duck down you know that that sound that you constantly associate with them, but what they did was they didn’t advertise themselves, they added their little you know quality inside logo sound to every technology company’s advertising to demonstrate that they had quality inside their product. So they were sort of the add on to, but they became associated with that quality, just by that sound. So if you hear that sound now it’s automatically associated with quality and tech. It’s just an automatic Association. Yeah, so, like, think of how you don’t even need to know what language they speak, it doesn’t matter. It’s worldwide. It’s a sound and language is no barrier. So it’s really kind of cool that way, as opposed to, I don’t know like who doesn’t use it, I. It’s hard to say because people who I would think would use it to great effect just aren’t really, as an example,
Mark Fidelman 06:49
is it because they, they don’t know any better. Or is it because they’re just don’t feel like it works, what’s the reasons and excuses you hear.
06:59
I think it’s likely that they’ve never heard of it, and they didn’t know it was the thing. They’re all very conscious of the logos and the colors and the feel of their advertising. Visually, but they’re not quite aware of how much of an impact that sound can make. And that’s, that’s kind of disappointing to me. I know a lot of companies for instance switch their voiceover artists on like a regular basis like everything they do. It’s a different voice actor. and I don’t you know I get why people do that they have different feelings for different types of promotions I understand how that works. But at the same time. Once you get an association with a type of sound. Getting rid of it and changing it multiple times means that consistency isn’t there and you can’t get the associations that you might otherwise get. So I think they’re missing out on an aspect that could be really powerful for them.
Mark Fidelman 07:56
Are you do you kind of go in and look at okay what current sounds Do they have associated with them and then you make recommendations like what if I were united airlines and I came to you and Beethoven, I use a lot of Beethoven, I think, and other classical music in their ads and onboard. Is that a good fit for them and how do you know.
08:19
Well honestly I am not an expert, per se, and this, I’m someone who studies it, just like you know anyone else who has a podcast. I’m interviewing people who do this on a regular basis but I’m not actually implementing it for other people. So, I am learning at the feet of other people who do this for a living. I’ve interviewed Steve teller who is the sonic branding fellow for Pandora. I interview audio engineers and people who do sound design people who teach film in universities and colleges, all sorts of different people who talk about this on a regular basis, but it’s not something that I go into accompany and advice on.
Mark Fidelman 09:01
Okay, got it. So, before we jump into the how, what is it that you do specifically.
09:08
I am a voice actor, so I like i said i’m one small portion of that audio branding spectrum, and I see that little part of what I do, and intrigues me enough to want to see the bigger picture.
Mark Fidelman 09:24
Okay. And so, you still only focus on voice acting you’re not getting into these other aspects.
09:31
Yeah, no. Okay,
Mark Fidelman 09:32
okay, but you do have an opinion on them.
09:34
Yeah. Oh, I definitely. Yeah, and I can totally direct people to other companies who might be able to help them if that’s something that they were interested in. I’m always interested in learning more, I just don’t claim that I’m the expert. Right.
Mark Fidelman 09:49
Right. Well, we’d love to hear your opinion so let’s talk about a company that doesn’t have any audio branding at all. What is the first thing that they should they should do.
10:01
Well, I actually have a kind of PDF I guess which asks, some key questions. It’s, it’s like any marketing. I mean, as a marketer, you ask certain questions to get to the meat of what the client the company. The brand is trying to accomplish, who are their audience, who are they selling their product to creating their service for and what do those people care about where are they. So a lot of your audio branding is going to be sort of predicated on where these people are, and what is important to them. And you need to know your why, and who you’re trying to reach and where they are before you can even start.
Mark Fidelman 10:47
Okay. So you start with a why, and let’s say you figured that out. And you’ve got a good branding message, and you know what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it for. How do you then tie that to voiceover and music and audio cues like Intel’s done
11:05
well your columns are a different thing, uh, you know, it depends on how big your company is and how consistent you can be over time, you know things like the Taco Bell Bell or the NBC logo you know some things that are definitely associated with the brands that created them. And that’s happened over time, McDonald’s is another famous, you know, dah dah dah dah right we all know that, right. So, that kind of thing is, it’s something that happens over time, as, as you use something consistently. And it’s funny but I don’t think these days, a lot of people use things as consistently as they could. I know for instance, MasterCard, just maybe two years ago maybe a little more made a whole soundscape for their brand that they’re translating depending on where people are in the world. So, it’s a series of, I think, three notes basically that changes depending on where you’re hearing it. And depending on what musical instruments they’re using. And what piece they’re using like is is someone doing a transaction on a machine or are they on the computer, or, you know a whole bunch of different things that you said in advertising, but again it’s consistent use and, and they paid millions of dollars for this to be developed for them so you know it you can spend a lot of money on this but at the same time, you don’t necessarily have to. Once you know the why. I think the most important thing is to figure out where your audience is and how you want to reach them. So if they’re all online then maybe you want to make a pre roll ad, like a YouTube ad, maybe you want to make a Facebook ad, Maybe you want to go on Instagram. You know, maybe you just want a brand anthem on your website that you can promote to various people. And in that case, it’s building the video but it’s also building the music behind that video and the voice behind that video and any sound design. So, you can work in those audio elements, depending on what your needs are and who you’re trying to reach.
Mark Fidelman 13:19
Okay. Is it a testing type of thing no are you like me.
13:25
I would imagine you test out things and see what works and what doesn’t.
Mark Fidelman 13:29
Like I work with clients and we do a lot of videos, and you know I’m always looking for Intro music and outro music and if it’s a podcast you know a voiceover artist, and it’s it’s trying sometimes because, you know, there’s literally millions of tracks, you can choose from in terms of music, and you can kind of narrow it down with key words but there’s still hundreds of thousands, it’s really challenging to get something, you know, our clients like it’s usually me just saying here your three choices. That’s it. But I do try to match the music to what I think the personality is it I almost think of it as okay. The brand is a personality you’re sitting in a car. What is the expected music, they’re playing in the car and that’s typically what it comes down to for me in terms of a voiceover artists like you are I struggle with that I don’t know how to relate the two Is there any, you know, shortcuts that you can give us on that.
14:27
Well, again, I think the first question to ask is how formal or informal is your brand. Because the voice and the music as well are probably going to be influenced by that decision. So if you’re very informal you might want a more urban hip kind of voice, you know, if you are a little more of a luxury item or, you know, some travel hospitality stuff, then maybe you want a smoother voice you if you have like a young hip kind of brand you might want a higher voice that is maybe the voice of your demographic, the people you’re selling to. It really depends on what it is you’re selling and, and whether you’re trying to convey the message, as someone who is your clientele, or someone who your clientele might admire.
Mark Fidelman 15:19
Okay and so where would you position yourself if somebody were coming for voiceover artists, where would you kind of position yourself in that regards.
15:30
Well, myself, I have a pretty smooth voice so I would never ever claim to be urban and hip or cool or nature so
Mark Fidelman 15:41
I don’t know if you have kids but they would laugh at that one but go ahead.
15:47
Yeah. So, like Nike would not come to me for a voiceover right Gatorade wouldn’t come to me for a voiceover. But I do do a lot of healthcare I do a lot of financial industry stuff. I’ve done stuff for Dell for high tech companies. You know, these days actually with the whole pandemic going on, people have been coming to me for a lot of the reassuring comforting authoritative but still approachable kinds of reads. Right, so it’s been interesting, I used to do a lot of hospitality and travel industry, because I can convey a certain amount of excitement, as well. Right, but that of course has sort of closed down right now so it’s kind of switching into insurance companies and finance and healthcare and all the things that need that reassuring warm, it’s going to be okay kind of voice.
16:47
Um,
Mark Fidelman 16:47
yeah i mean that makes total sense to me. And, and we put up links to where people can find you if they want to work with you. By the way, how do you know because I you know we’ve got mostly marketers that are listening in. How do you know when you’ve got a good audio branding connection with your customers or audience is there is there a way of measuring it, or is there a way of determining that it’s not working.
17:13
I’m not sure if there’s a way to measure it, unless you’re selling more, you know, accomplishing more with your branding. I think one of the best ways to gauge this though is are people remembering you. So, if you do a commercial and the commercial is really clever but no one remembers who the commercial was for that’s failed advertising. So, you know, you want to make sure that you’re remembered, and the audio, coupled with the visual can really help with that because it makes an emotional connection. Whereas, we’re so inundated with the visual these days, that it’s really hard to be memorable. When all you’re seeing is what you’re seeing
Mark Fidelman 17:58
and branding is so amorphous and it’s really hard to measure branding, I think, product recall company recall are important. And a lot of that’s carried out through surveys, and through other other means. I think the same thing can be done with audio branding where you, you can ask people about the Intel ding for example everyone’s gonna know what that is. There are things that you could probably measure it by and or on the spot, just ask them. Is this a voice that appeals to you or doesn’t appeal to you or is this music that appeals to you or doesn’t appeal to you I think you could do it that way I struggle with how you’d be able to pull out each piece of an advertisement and just say that’s the that’s the reason why it didn’t work or that’s the reason why it worked, it’s all going to work in concert.
18:48
Well, I think what you can do is have some elements in one and take them out in another, and see what happens. So, in one for instance if you made a video for a company you could you could just have the visual, you could add music, then you could add music and a voiceover you know like you could see which one, the audience responded more to. Yeah, and I think that would be an interesting test. Yeah,
Mark Fidelman 19:15
right. So, if anyone’s done that test please reach out to us and let us know. I can be fine. Okay, so we’re gonna wrap things up now, with my our final two questions that we ask everybody and the first one. and I find your answer kind of amusing is, what is the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend, others use.
19:37
I don’t know if this is the hottest but it’s the one I use every single day, and it’s Gmail. It’s as simple as Gmail, I have so many folders in this thing, it’s probably not even funny.
Mark Fidelman 19:52
So if Gmail went out of business, you’d be in trouble. Sounds like
19:56
I honestly guess. Yeah, I would totally be in trouble. Like, I even pay for G Suite, I just, I went, the whole nine yards with it because I just, I use it every day in it, it kind of replaces my CRM, because I’ve tried multiple CRMs and I just haven’t been able to continue keeping them up. But all I have to do is do a simple search in my Gmail and I can find anything I need.
Mark Fidelman 20:19
Yeah,
20:20
and I can schedule things to appear on the day that I need them to appear so I can remember that I need to know something next Monday I need to be reminded of this particular thing, and I can just have that email appear in my, in my inbox. On that day,
Mark Fidelman 20:36
and you know what the snooze feature. Yeah,
20:38
you can do that, I go through reminders there.
Mark Fidelman 20:41
I like to tell tell people that email is a victim of its own success because it works so well and it’s cross platform that you know you got spammers you’ve got all sorts of charlatans that are sending emails out because because it reaches people it works. One of the things I point out with Gmail is I you know there’s ancillary services that you can attach to it at the browser level like revamp and nimble. And that really enhance that Gmail experience and turn it into something that it originally wasn’t designed for. So, Gmail is a big winner, I think, nobody’s ever mentioned that before but I could see why it’s so critical to your success.
21:21
I used to use something called mixed Max, which was a another plugin that you could put into it and again it was a little more of a complicated sort of scheduler type thing. Yeah. I have removed it since because I went from Gmail to G Suite, and I just sort of got rid of everything to sort of start from scratch and and I’ve just not reintegrated it just yet, but I’m finding that the scheduler works just fine as it is.
Mark Fidelman 21:45
Okay, well good. Now, the second question. Who do you feel is the most influential person in marketing today.
21:53
I find, Donald Miller, to be a really interesting influencer because I really love the idea of story brand, I don’t know if you’re familiar with
Mark Fidelman 22:04
it a little bit, maybe you can outline it for everybody.
22:08
Well the the idea of story brand, basically is like to keep it simple stupid type you know type thing. We all have a story to tell, but that story needs to be very simple and it needs to be one one concept at a time, basically I think is mostly what I got from what he was saying, if you make it too complicated people don’t know what to do. Yeah. And, and you need to make your message very focused and very simple. And so telling people on your first page, what your backstory is isn’t necessarily what they’re after they want to know what you can do to solve their problem. And you phrase that in a way that makes you feel like you’re the guide, helping them to be the hero.
Mark Fidelman 23:02
Wonderful. Okay, well, Donald Miller, I’m gonna put some of the links in the description so please be aware of that. So, Jodi we’re going to wrap things up but before we do, where can people find you.
23:18
voiceovers and vocals, calm, or my audio branding podcast is at audio branding podcast.com pretty simple.
Mark Fidelman 23:27
Excellent. You’re probably the smoothest voice we’ve had on this, this podcast so I appreciate that. And I look forward to talking to you in the future.
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