Build Your Brand: Proven Tips to Win the Marketing Game

That was awesome. So good. Oh my goodness. I'm going to have a seat. I'm going to grab these questions.

Sure. Here's mine.

Yeah, that's perfect. Oh my goodness. So wasn't Jennifer amazing? Let's give her a hand. That was so good. I was back stage taking notes. So awesome. And so I want to just ask you some questions and you know, because in running my own ad agency years ago and doing our own marketing for our companies and working with so many business owners on their marketing, it's probably the most complicated part of business. I would say it is because it's changing all of the time and you have to get into people's minds in a way and figure out their love language. I mean, there's a lot of psychology.

Yes.

To marketing. And I do feel like it's overwhelming to business. Tell me if that's the case. Well, first of all, they gave you lots of love in the chat.

Thank you so much. It's been so fun.

And you definitely want to be following Jennifer on social media. Definitely do her brand archetype thing. That looks so incredible. But what do you feel? But there's so much change that's happening. What do you feel that is changing the most on the marketing front? And what do you feel like staying the same? Because there's those certain pillars that stay the same no matter what medium that you use. But where do you see us going in the marketing world?

I love this question. I love this question. So as I said, I think that if you're going to focus on anything marketing wise, the thing that you really want to strategically always focus on is your messaging. You know, out of all the things, because new social media platforms are going to continue to come and go. I mean, we don't even know if TikTok and Snapchat will stick around, but we think Facebook probably will. Even if all of us hate it now, we, it's almost like become a way of life just like Apple or Disney are. So I would say that don't chase the trends, chase your messaging. Get super curious about your audience consistently use your marketing not just for sales. It's important to, as I said, marketing is a lubricant for sales. But what's even more important is using marketing to understand why people want you, why people want your product and service. Because as you continue to stay curious about your customer, you will evolve and adapt and you actually become recession pandemic, future proof. All the things because people trust you, you've built a trusted relationship with your audience and Even if you have to pivot or create another business. Now you have an army of humans who really are for you and want to see you win. And they'll they become because you care about your message. You've anointed them messengers and now they're helping to carry that. And so I think in today's times, with technology being so easy, the problem is it's so tempting to just rely on technology and social media platforms to carry our message. And. And if we as founders are better at being the top messenger, then you can't lose.

Yeah. You know what? That is honestly, some of the best advice I've heard in a long time. Really hone your messaging. Because I do think that a lot of times we think, oh, it is the medium.

Right.

But if you get on the medium and you don't have the right messaging, then no one's going to hear you anyway.

Yes.

So if you get your messaging down you, and we talk about this a lot in Pinnacle too, then it almost doesn't matter. I mean, you want to be on a platform that your customers are, but it's really more that they're going to get that you get them.

Yes. Because if your message meets the medium, so the message is clear and the medium is where they are, then it's very hard to lose. But a lot of times we also, what I call, abandon or cheat on our customers by going to all these different mediums because we, we haven't deepened ourselves around that message and therefore it should work on any medium that comes up.

So, yeah, that actually takes pressure off, doesn't it, to feel like I just need to get this messaging down instead of so much being everywhere. And so. But where do you see that business owners are struggling the most? What do you see are the biggest mistakes so that they can try to avoid more of them.

So, again, I think trying to become great at every social media network out there is the fastest path to draining time and energy, also money. But I say pick the two that matter the most and commit. Right. Some of the biggest breakout personalities, brands, even brick and mortar businesses that I've seen and studied and also worked with, they chose a medium, became so good at it. If the medium dies. Like, for example, I don't know if you guys, you know, it's not that long ago, but I'm aging myself a bit. Like Periscope from Twitter or, you know, some of those other things that people use. Those people, because their message was so good, they moved from Periscope to Facebook Live very easily. Even Though the medium was similar, but hosted by a different company. So don't. You can try things, because trying things is also part of the mix. But just decide where your customers are and get really good at that. I think that if you do that, then the medium will work for your message.

Yeah, yeah, that's powerful. I've also seen a lot of business owners that spend a lot on their brand, but they're not monetizing it. Oh, yes. You know, because you could have an absolutely beautiful website, but it's not converting into sales. Anybody ever have this experience? Or you see someone that has a ton of followers, but they're really not making any money?

Yeah.

So, like, what's the missing link here?

The missing link is the marketing piece of it. Right. Because. Okay, that's why I define branding as the experience, not the visual medium that you build. That's an output. So your, your output is the website or the landing page or your social media profile. But what is the experience you create? So I see so many people sink money into branding websites, and we do that in our company. And so people are like, are you trying to talk us out of working with you? And I'm like, that's not the first step. The first step is knowing who your company is, your offers are, which is the archetype side of it, and then knowing who your audience is. Where are they? So I like to say that archetypes plus audience are two sides of the coin that pays you. If you understand your message and you understand what they want, which is your audience, you develop visual branding to support that. Not, hey, I think I have a good idea. So, you know, I should build a website. And we all know websites don't take a day. They should, but they actually. People will spend a year. How many of you spent like a year? Like, and then it's too late. People don't care. Because here's the thing. That's like the Field of Dreams thing. Right? You know, if you build it, they will come like, there are over a billion websites on the World Wide Web now. And to think that people are just going to stumble upon our zip code on the Internet is, like, not realistic. So we've got to drive traffic. That's that traffic conversation about the OPP and choosing the right organic, paid and partnership traffic to bring people to our online and offline properties, if you will. And so focusing more on that is more important than building a website.

Yeah, I mean, it's like having a website in the Mojave Desert, right? You know, it's beautiful or let's just say a retail store in the Mojave Desert. It could be great. You have beautiful, beautiful merchandise, but nobody knows that you even exist. And I know you gave a lot of tips here, but what are some of your favorite things for visibility in the marketplace right now?

Well, there's a lot and depends on your business. I will say that I think focus on where again your customers are. So some of my favorite things about visibility is frankly, I'm sure you've all heard this, but video is the way to go, you know, and even if you're afraid to be on video, any of you kind of aren't the ones who want to be the center of your brand. Investing in professional vignettes, if you will, of your product or your service is very important. It's so easy to hire now voiceover people and doing like videography around your product or service. I really think it's important for you to do that because people are expecting that now you don't look like a modern business if you don't. And also it's actually more high performing if you pay for traffic. So it kind of feeds two birds with one hand. Right. And so I would say definitely getting on video or getting your product on video is really important. I'd also say that making and creating, we talk about visibility, creating relationships with people who have platforms in a high integrity way. You know, we talked about partnership traffic, right. How do you become affiliated and aligned with other brands that serve the same audience? That's how you're going to up your social network, if you will. And I think it's really, really important.

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. And I definitely like. And I was listening to everything you said about the joint venture. You definitely want to be careful on who you go in with. But that also is a great way to leverage.

It is. I think that's the point is like it's all about being thoughtful. So, you know, as you think about who you want to partner with, just think about how can we be mutually beneficial to each other instead of just assuming it's a yes because we should do partnership traffic. I think that's another mistake is that I want to mention is you hear a new idea to become a better marketer and you think I should do that, even including like paying for ads or having a partner. All I, all I would say is just be more thoughtful in how does this support me and my business and how does this support them and their business? And then make the decision. Don't just assume it's good just because everyone's saying it's good.

Yeah. I mean, we had affiliate partners for this event, in fact, that mailed to us, but there were some that were approached us, and we actually said no because we didn't have our markets. It wouldn't be the right fit. It wouldn't be good for them and their list. They would be going, what?

You know, and that's a perfect example of thoughtfulness and being okay saying no, because it's not aligned and it's not personal. It's more does it make sense for now and the future. So I love partnership marketing when done, thoughtful.

Right? Well, awesome. Let's give Jennifer a hand. Yay. This was so, so, so helpful. All right. Thank you. This is good. I was like, is Jesse coming around the corner? I never know. Like, is he coming? So you are coming?

Look, Jesse's like, yes, he's coming.

All right. Thank you so much. Wasn't it nice that she came here, all flew all the way in. Let's give Jennifer a hand. All right. All right.