Why branding is important in marketing

Welcome to reservations and hey, this is Whiteboard Wednesday.

My name is Andrew McCauley.

I'm Jeff Harrison. Hey, you know, Andrew, on Monday, we interviewed Malcolm A. Smith from Houston, and he does some really cool stuff, but we talked to him about branding and there were some additional questions that came up. I'm like, okay, great. What are some of the steps I do with branding? I think the first thing we wanted to really do is clarify what branding isn't entirely. I think a lot of times, Andrew, people get tied up in, well, it's my logo, it's the colors of my paper. And it's really more than that, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. It's all about telling your story, really, and keeping that continuity flowing through everything you do. Not just having it on your business card or either sign out the phone or your menus. It's all about everything, including the content you put out, the website, obviously. But everything that's got to do with your business has to have that branding effect with it.

Yeah. And so the easiest way to do this, or I'd say that the best way. It's not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy is to say, wait a second. Let's start with the end in mind. Use this for. Kind of use this in context to help you decide. Is this the right message? Is the wrong message? If you project out and say, hey, if I weren't there and these two guys were talking about my company or my services, whatever it is, what would you want them to say about your company? Right. Well, they might say, in other words, so you're. You're saying, hey, what's the goal? What's the goal? What do you want them to say about your company when you're not there? And start with that in mind and then work backwards.

Yep, right. Absolutely. Yep.

That's it. Keep going. Okay, so the idea is, let's say, for instance. Let's say, for instance, we say, like with our business, we have a paid performance program. Right. So it's no risk for reservations. So, you know, like, Andrew, let's just put you on the spot. What would you want people to say? Let's say they sell our stuff and now they're talking amongst themselves. What would you want them to say about our company that would say, hey, that's the brand we want them to have.

I guess the important message that we want people to know is that we're taking on the risk of the advertising, the marketing, so people know that we are a company that delivers results first, rather than ask for money first and then hopefully the results follow. Okay. So our branding is all around about how we deliver the product first. Just like your restaurant, you deliver the food first and expect people to pay second. Right. So that's what we're doing. We're delivering the food first, basically the results, and then you pay second when you've got that result. So you know, in a restaurant, if someone's unhappy with a meal and they don't want to pay for it, then generally you'll say, okay. And if it's a valid reason, you'll say, fair enough, I'm not going to charge you for it. Same with us. So what I want people to say is, oh, that's the company that gets us results before we even have to stick our hand in our pocket and pay for something that was traditionally in our industry. Such a bout face product.

Yeah. The cool thing I like about this process, Andrew, is the fact that if you notice what Andrew did, he just didn't give you a tagline, he gave you a story. Well, that's what we want to do. Because when somebody tells you a tagline versus a story, what's the effectiveness of the story?

Well, the story, I mean, if you do a tagline, tagline is gone in an instant. Right. And there's nothing, there's no context or, or pre frame around the tagline. As a business owner, you may know what your tagline really means deep down. But on the surface, if someone hears it for a first time and it's just a sentence or a phrase, it may not mean what you want it to mean.

Yeah. The other thing is a story has longevity. In other words, we remember a story. And so if you can create in your brand message that there's a story about you, your business, your product, your service, whatever that is, then when somebody is down the road, maybe they don't buy your product right away or your service, but they remember the story. And then I say, hey, Andrew, you know, I'm thinking about doing some marketing from a restaurant. Do you know anybody who's in that business? And you know, last time I did this, I did billboards, I did radio, whatever it is, and I never really got any results. Do you know anybody who can help me?

Well, that story is going to help you remember that.

Yeah. So then what you'll do is you'll tell me the story. And now you're transferring this. There's a gentleman, his name will come to me in a second, but he just put out a book. It's called.

Talk Titles and it's little things like that, that. Oh, Abear, J. Bear, Jay Bear. He just came out with a book called Talk Titles. And the whole idea. Or Talk Trigger. Excuse me, Talk Triggers. And the idea there is when you're not there, in other words, your company, your business, your presenting is not there. What have you done so they remember you. Well, we want to do that in your branding. So when you tell a story, it has longevity.

Absolutely. I think it's spot on there. And you know, that's. It's not, as you said, it's not, it's not complex. It doesn't have to be complex. It just has to be consistent.

Yeah. Well, now you said something earlier. I want to dive in. It's just a little bit, not take too much time. But also what this works out, Andrew, as of saying, hey, I'm going to put out some content. Wait a second, does this resonate with my brand? So let's say as an example, your, your business has something to do about, you know, speed of service and ease of use. And you put out a video that it shows us a long, complicated process to do what you do. And it's, and sometimes it's a hit or miss. Well, all of a sudden you realize, whoa, wait, wait a minute, that does not match up with my branding. That's a conflict. So that becomes that nice filter.

Yep. It goes back to consistency. Are you consistent with what your brand message is to what you actually do?

Yeah.

And if you can nail that, then your branding is on point.

Yeah. Well, that's really all we want to talk about today is what is branding and how can you create it and where does it resonate throughout your whole process with content? Any other messages you put out your email, maybe down in your, in your email signatures, that, that, that's something that resonates with them. So I challenge you to get out there and say, wait a second, is my branding really achieving this message with us? You know, we have a program called no Risk Reservations. And that's the whole idea is like we know businesses, specifically restaurants that we work with have been beat up from. And I hate to say, okay, I won't say beat up. They have subscribed to the method of pay me up front and let's hope it works. And the only people that are guaranteed results are the people who sold them that bill of goods. And we said, hey, let's flip the switch a little bit. Tell them a little bit about that, Andrew.

Yeah, absolutely. As I said before, we're going to take the risk. We will find the results for you. We'll get the results for you. We'll get people into your restaurant and only when we do that and we've got a database built for you as well, then we ask for money. Not a lot. It's very, very affordable for everybody. If you want to know more, there's a link in this in the show notes here. Click on that and see an example of what we do.

I love that. Hey, until next time, my name is Jeff Harrison.

I'm Andrew Bacoli.

This is reservations and we'll see you tomorrow. On Thursday is.

Are we going Facebook Thursday? I'm going to zip up to Fran San Cisco San Francisco for you people playing at home. That's where we'll be. I'm going to find some restaurants up there and I'm going to look at their Facebook ads and rip them apart.

I love it. I'll see you on the train.