Feel like your brand is standing on shaky ground? You'll want to tune in for this. Katie King, Director of Strategy at Wier/Stewart, comes on the show to talk about brand stability.
You'll learn:
New business or established? Not a problem!
Check out this example of a rebrand for Augusta Office Solutions
Questions?
Get in touch with Katie and the W/S team
Feel like your brand is standing on shaky ground? You'll want to tune in for this. Katie King, Director of Strategy at Wier/Stewart, comes on the show to talk about brand stability.
You'll learn:
New business or established? Not a problem!
Check out this example of a rebrand for Augusta Office Solutions
Questions?
Get in touch with Katie and the W/S team
[00:00:06.650] - Jackie Rogers
Hey, I'm Jackie Rogers, and this is the weird, smart podcast. This is a show about how one marketing agency blends crazy ideas with clever strategies to give businesses a truly unique edge from local businesses to startups and beyond. You'll get a firsthand glimpse at how the where Stuart team approaches branding, marketing strategy and more. Let's get after it. I'm super pumped about today's episode because I have Katie King on the show with this, Katie is the director of strategy and research here at where Stewart and honestly, she's a smart and weird smart.
[00:00:49.900] - Jackie Rogers
Katie, thanks for joining me today.
[00:00:51.610] - Katie King
Thanks for having me.
[00:00:52.420] - Jackie Rogers
You're welcome. So today's episode, we're talking about brand stability, and this is something I feel like people don't really think about, maybe like bigger companies do, because you have to forecast for so far.
[00:01:05.350] - Jackie Rogers
But I think it's something that's really important to talk about. So that way you can start planning out short term and long term goals. And I'm going to start asking questions.
[00:01:14.320] - Katie King
Sounds good. So my first question for you, super easy, Katie. How does one know if a brand is stable or not?
[00:01:23.110] - Speaker 3
So it's pretty easy. I think since the brand is basically the foundation of a business. You have to ask yourself maybe if the business is healthy and are you making sales, are you achieving your goals? What are people saying about your business through word of mouth? What are your online reviews looking like? You have to wonder, is it positive? Is it negative or maybe even worse than that? Or are they saying nothing at all?
[00:01:44.060] - Katie King
So if your brand is not stable, you might be getting a whole lot of negativity or again, nothing, because if they're not talking about you, they're probably talking about a competitor and you're not really part of the conversation at all, which is is dangerous in business because you're not not being top of mind, is not being part of the transactions that are going on with customers.
[00:02:07.210] - Jackie Rogers
So and I guess that that goes beyond social media to there are other ways that you can see how people are talking about you. Are there some kind of I don't know, are there tools or other places that other people should be looking to find how their customers are talking about them?
[00:02:24.160] - Katie King
Yeah, they said social and online reviews. I mean, you've probably got someone who's answering the phone still. Right, like your customer service support.
[00:02:30.820] - Katie King
They get it every day, the emails that you're getting from customers and then understanding if people are happy with the products or services that you're offering, that sort of thing. So a lot of the traditional paths are important. Word of mouth is important to just understanding. Your internal culture is part of understanding brand stability to right. Because your brand is so important to your employees and how they're interacting. That is always something that gets transmitted out to your end customer, too.
[00:03:05.320] - Katie King
So understanding that environment and any touchpoint really that you have with a customer kind of rating, whether that's positive, negative or neutral.
[00:03:14.290] - Katie King
Hmm.
[00:03:14.980] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah, that's my advice. Help. So it. Right. My next question for you and I kind of already touched on this when we're talking about brand stability, we're really talking about how brands can achieve short term gains, like engaging with their audience and fun and exciting ways on social media. And we're also talking about achieving long term objectives. Can you talk to us a bit about what are some ways the short term gains can actually benefit brands in the long run?
[00:03:45.160] - Speaker 3
Yeah. So one of the short term gains that you talked about is like social media trends hopping on board with that. Another way companies might work with short term gains is highlighting their philanthropic or social justice efforts. Or, you know, sometimes it's more direct, like promoting a deal for a first time customer, that sort of thing, just things to get attention and to get people in the door. And so that's something that can either support or detract from long term success in the way that, you know, is the social trend really something that is relevant to your audience?
[00:04:17.890] - Speaker 3
If it's just something that's kind of gimmicky, it's not going to actually impact the way they feel about your brand. Same thing with some of the entropic activities or anything that might be socially driven. It's one of those things.
[00:04:34.270] - Speaker 3
Where is it meaning to your full, to your audience and is it genuine to your brand? If it is, then yes, you might get a short term gain and then also long term gain. Otherwise it might turn into a detractor for not looking authentic. It might be something that your audience doesn't care about. Some of those things might get them to actually look away from you instead of building that support that you were hoping for to making sure that first and foremost, all all of these activities need to be relevant to your audience, relevant to your brand's personality, and then in line with your long term mission if you want it to be a long term success.
[00:05:12.040] - Speaker 3
You know, another thing is offering an incentive for new customers. So great. Like if you can get them in the door with a twenty percent off discount or first service free, whatever the case may be, you have to get that long term success by, like, really backing that and making sure that you're giving them the quality of products and services that they expect so they don't leave. So, yes, like got them in the door short term.
[00:05:36.460] - Speaker 3
Great. But you have to continue to service that at the level that they expect to to maintain that relationship.
[00:05:42.220] - Katie King
Because if anybody if they feel like it's a bait and switch, once they sign up, they'll they'll pretty much drop you immediately.
[00:05:48.070] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah, and people are. Now, with how they research businesses that they want to shop with, you know, even back to the customer, reviews like future customers are looking at those and they're looking at deals that are giving out. Yeah, there's different ways to do it. And I guess it doesn't even matter if it's like a small mom and pop shop or if you're talking about a big corporation. All of these principles matter the same. And it doesn't even matter if you have a large audience.
[00:06:16.020] - Jackie Rogers
I really liked what you were saying about doing meaningful like content and meaningful deals for the audience, like even if you have an audience of social media strategist over here. So I think in social media terms, like if you even have just an audience of maybe five hundred people, if they are real people and you learn exactly the messages they want to hear from you, you'll learn the deals that they do appreciate. If you learn more about the services that you provide to them that they value, then that just grows organically that way.
[00:06:49.530] - Jackie Rogers
And that's really what you want to build up.
[00:06:51.690] - Katie King
Like there are things that you can do in marketing that help you reach a wider audience, but you really have to be solid in what the messaging and offers and everything that matter to your audience are trailing off of it. Now, I totally agree. I think the key point of that is learning. It's a learning process. And a lot of people don't realize that, like, you are not your customer. And so you can come forward with the mission and the brand and the services and products.
[00:07:16.740] - Katie King
But there's so much that you learn from your audience in terms of what they need and what they want. And that exchange is really what builds that long term value and builds up the core audience that matters the most. So I think you're right.
[00:07:28.620] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah. Yeah. And I think something that can be done, you know, again, small business, large business, whatever the case may be, when you're learning what your audience wants, just plain ask them. Yeah, that's true.
[00:07:40.590] - Jackie Rogers
You can just ask people because people are people and they like to build relationships with other people. Yeah, it's very simple that way.
[00:07:47.940] - Katie King
Cool. All right. So my next question for you and I tailed off a little bit off script, but thank you for indulging me was a good question. And so diving deeper when we're talking about long term objectives, we're really aiming to achieve it goals in the future, maybe like three years or more from now.
[00:08:07.650] - Jackie Rogers
How can brand stability help ensure these goals are achieved?
[00:08:11.980] - Speaker 3
So inbreeding marketing, I always like to use the analogy of no one gets married on the first day, right?
[00:08:18.550] - Katie King
So if you're looking to build a loyal audience for your business, you have to prove that your marriage material like every day, not just get your hair done, close ties, get to it.
[00:08:28.970] - Speaker 3
Right. I mean, you have to show up as part of this relationship. You can't just have, you know, be great on the first date and then expect a customer to just stick around forever. Right. Like that first experience is good, but that long term stability is what keeps them coming back. So being trustworthy, being consistent, being proactive and then being responsive whenever they have needs, all of that over time ensures that your brand is stable and just basically inspires a stable, growing customer base.
[00:08:56.080] - Speaker 3
So marriage material is kind of kind of the key. I really like that analogy.
[00:09:01.870] - Speaker 3
I use it all the time, especially even with paid ads. So that's probably where I use it the most, is because some people might say, OK, well, we put an ad out there, why didn't everybody just come flocking? It's also part of building a relationship. The first time you see something you're not going to immediately say, OK, like unless it's an impulse buy. Some of us have that with online shopping.
[00:09:21.550] - Speaker 3
That might be a thing. But generally speaking, people have to understand what your offering has to be the right time for them to purchase. It's building a long term relationship instead of just a one off.
[00:09:33.340] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah, that's a really good point with paid ads because, you know, with paid ads, you're targeting specific events on your website or something like that. Right. So you can target like subscription or the talk to us or like your product page, your service page or whatever. But just because you target people who may have clicked on it doesn't mean that they're going to buy from you right away. You have to continue to show value and continue to show them that you want to build a solid relationship with them.
[00:10:00.940] - Katie King
Back to that relationship selling stuff.
[00:10:02.840] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah.
[00:10:03.340] - Speaker 3
And catch them when they're ready. I mean, a lot of people are out on their phone, so maybe they see it whenever they're at a red light. I hope they're not driving and and checking things out. Right.
[00:10:11.350] - Jackie Rogers
But please don't shop and drive.
[00:10:12.790] - Speaker 3
No, don't shop and drive PSA every. But, you know, maybe you're not thinking about it like you're not in a moment where you can actually spend the time to convert into making sure that you do catch them at a time when they're ready for your business. You know, staying in front of them, having that conversation is really important. And like I said, that happens a lot with paid ads. So we get so convergent focused, which obviously that's really making the sale or getting the new customer.
[00:10:37.930] - Speaker 3
That's what we're all here for. But you can't do that without awareness and you can't do that without consideration. So building that prospect funnel, you know, paid and paid, all of it kind of flows in together. That's just super important. You can use it to get straight to the altar there, right? Yeah. It's like a holistic marketing system that you have to build out for between you, between your customers and everything that goes on in the customer journey.
[00:11:03.430] - Speaker 3
All has to work together. Yeah. And that's like if you can build that out. Well, I think that's when you have a solid brand strategy and brand like that builds up your stability. Absolutely. I wish everybody could see me talking with my hands right now. It's happening a lot right now.
[00:11:19.060] - Speaker 3
She's building this world with little ecosystem.
[00:11:22.780] - Jackie Rogers
All right. So in your opinion, your professional opinion as a director of marketing and strategy, what's the best way to build customer loyalty?
[00:11:33.070] - Speaker 3
I say don't make them feel sold to. So especially with as much information that customers have just through online searches or talking to friends, word of mouth, that sort of thing. Customers just have so much more knowledge and power than they ever have before. And so they always have another choice. So you really just can't just put it in front of them and force yourself onto them as a as a business to to make a sell.
[00:12:00.910] - Katie King
They have to make that decision. And so brands have to consistently validate why their offering is the best choice among all of the other choices that are out there.
[00:12:10.510] - Katie King
If there's a mistake, you have to make it right. You can't just have bad customer service and expect no one to know that. And then probably if there's a chance to add value or personalization on different touch points, a lot of touch points right now with customers or digital.
[00:12:27.190] - Katie King
They don't have to be only that. So so an example might be if you've got an online store adding a handwritten note to the packages that go out like that makes a personal touch point out of something that otherwise would have been purely digital, just making sure that every way you interact with a customer is kind of the best that you can make it impersonal. And you can. And kind of again, just being that marriage material, making sure it's a positive experience, I like that theory.
[00:12:54.970] - Katie King
When you're building it out, it's very it's an empathetic process you go through. Um, you just reminded me of this college paper that I wrote on trans theoretical models.
[00:13:05.710] - Katie King
Well, then so like I told you, you know this. I went to grad school and I got a master of science and health care. Indications, that's my background, but the way that I learned to communicate with people is based off of where they're at in their health journey, which is very similar to the customer journey. But it's very much like how ready are they to make a change? Are they aware that they need to make a change?
[00:13:27.130] - Katie King
And how do you get them to take the next right step?
[00:13:30.190] - Katie King
So it's a whole cycle all the way from like, are they aware from it to. Yes, they're ready and they're engaged to they relapse. And then how do you bring them back? It's a whole cycle that you bring people through. So if you can think where your customers are, like in their shopping journey with you and their proud in your products and services that they may need, that might help you build out a storyline that helps you nurture the customer all the way through to the sale.
[00:13:56.410] - Katie King
And then again, the best thing, making them brand advocates so that they continue to come back.
[00:14:02.350] - Katie King
Right. And tell their friends and tell their friends and family.
[00:14:06.460] - Katie King
Cool. Yeah.
[00:14:07.840] - Jackie Rogers
My next question for you. Brands promise is super important to consumers as time change, as time goes on. Excuse me, do you think these brand promises need to evolve to match the audience needs? Or on the other hand, does it make a brand seem flimsy if it updates positioning or promises often?
[00:14:29.350] - Speaker 3
That's a good question. So I'd say if it's done correctly or brand positioning the last, you probably like a good seven to 10 years if you update it every year. That's definitely a sign of instability or at least like lack of direction. But there is the marketing environment and just the economic environment is incredibly dynamic and there's always going to be things shifting around. So if you have major shifts in your target audience, if you're taking on a whole new market or if you're entering a new industry and you've traditionally worked in one space and you're going into an adjacent industry that might warrant some adjustments or kind of repositioning and starting over from kind of looking at your foundation as a brand, I'd say take it on a case by case basis.
[00:15:15.040] - Speaker 3
And sometimes it might be a mild, small adjustment in wording or you may be ready to fully reinvent yourself. I think it just kind of depends on how drastic those changes are.
[00:15:24.670] - Jackie Rogers
So.
[00:15:26.470] - Katie King
With that said, what are some key pillars that businesses should focus on when they're building their brand stability, what will help propel a brand from maybe nothing to longevity?
[00:15:37.960] - Speaker 3
Yeah, so having a purpose is super important and knowing what you're there for and being purpose driven really helps underlie everything that you're doing, being trustworthy and and consistent. So making sure that your brand shows up every day, being able to promise the same things and delivering on that purpose is a big part of, you know, establishing yourself. So you start as nothing. But if you are delivering that message consistently, you start building upon that knowledge base and educating the customers and getting moving folks towards the goal there.
[00:16:14.500] - Speaker 3
I think at the end of the day, a brand represents a promise and customers expect that promise to be fulfilled pretty much no matter what. So if your business can reliably deliver on its promise over time, you'll have customers that get on board for the long haul like that.
[00:16:29.380] - Jackie Rogers
Be truthful in your promises. Yeah.
[00:16:31.680] - Speaker 3
So companies don't always have the best reputation of being trustworthy and being transparent, but pretty much every PR crisis that you ever see in business shows that transparency, honesty, all of that really does matter. It's one of those things that people don't appreciate in any form of deception. There's no there's no place for it with your brand. And so just being honest, being having some integrity, it really does matter as a business and a brand.
[00:17:01.520] - Jackie Rogers
I like that. I think that's probably the most important. Yeah. I want to switch gears a little bit. How important is brand management and creating brand stability? Are they one and the same?
[00:17:13.830] - Speaker 3
So I look at it as brand management is the action that leads to brand stability. And it is so super important that the marketing environment is a minefield. Right. And if you're not purposeful and good luck, brand management is kind of that never ending vigilance to make sure that your products and services, employees, processes, vendors, relationships, marketing, communications, anything else that you touch appropriately reflects your brand values. So it's a lot of work. I mean, you're as a brand management exercise, you've got to touch all of these components.
[00:17:48.060] - Speaker 3
It's not just, you know, marketing sits in this little department by themselves and things that dreams up some marketing campaigns and communicates those out. Right.
[00:17:57.400] - Katie King
So it's all of these touch points matter and it matters internally. It matters externally. And so it is it's a ton of work to help influence these touch points and kind of keep tabs on everything. But it avoids a lot of headaches then it helps your brand stability, of course. And then again, like helps you avoid the PR crisis. Right. So if you're not actively manage your managing your brand for brand stability, then you're just leaving it up to chance.
[00:18:24.780] - Katie King
And that's no good. That typically does not work very well.
[00:18:29.130] - Jackie Rogers
Hmm, that's interesting. Because so when I hear when I hear stability, it makes me think of resiliency, and that's kind of what you were talking about just now.
[00:18:40.540] - Katie King
Something that will ebb and flow with the changes of times or what the company needs or what the audience needs and still be there for a long time to come.
[00:18:48.930] - Katie King
So when we're developing, what do you think when when we're developing brand stability, how far ahead in the future should brands plan?
[00:18:56.060] - Speaker 3
I'd say at least the next five years in mind in terms of actionable planning and the things that you kind of expect to get done and achieve in the next five years. I think it's important to have longer term goals that are a little bit more aspirational and they can be a little bit fluffy. But the next five years are coming a lot more quickly than all of us would would like for them to come. And so also, too, with with five years, you can probably gather enough information from the current environment to kind of predict where you'll need to be at that time, understanding some of the market shifts that might happen, technology advances that might come your way.
[00:19:30.330] - Speaker 3
So I think it's reasonable to be able to make an actionable plan for that time period, but at the same time laying a right. So you've always got to be ready to change course, though, if the environment shifts in ways that you don't predict. So, you know, I have two keynote notes here that I'll kind of spare you the lengthy pandemic speech here. But, you know, things do happen. Life happens. And so having that five year plan is important, understanding that you need a contingency plan that's just part of life and business.
[00:20:01.380] - Jackie Rogers
That's really solid advice. I feel like it's a good reminder many people need it. I needed it, too.
[00:20:08.350] - Speaker 3
I mean, plans are important and you do the best you can with what you've got, though. And if things change, that doesn't totally disrupt the plan, but it might delay the plan or it might require some updates, that kind of thing.
[00:20:19.680] - Jackie Rogers
So, yeah, making those business plans and marketing plans, it may not be the sexiest thing to talk about, but having it will absolutely save you in the long run.
[00:20:29.610] - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's your North Star. You've got to have that.
[00:20:33.150] - Jackie Rogers
Katie, I've got one more question for you today. All right. So for the audience today, can you give us a simple exercise to test our brand stability?
[00:20:42.990] - Speaker 3
Yeah, I'd say right out everything that you're doing to actively reinforce your brand.
[00:20:47.970] - Katie King
So what kind of brand communications are you putting out there? How are you distributing that message? If you're not leading that conversation, then really what's happening there? You're leaving your reputation up to chance and then consider every customer touch point and whether those are positive, negative or neutral experiences from the perspective of the customer. So, you know, if it isn't a positive experience, how can you make it better? So just really kind of being purposeful and thinking about every way that anyone interacts with your brand, writing it down if you have nothing to write.
[00:21:24.180] - Katie King
And that's a sign that your brand needs some help and it needs a little bit of love. Right. Or, you know, some of these customer touch points. So if you identify any that are negative or neutral, those are detractor experiences and making sure that you can address those, turn them into positives any way you can. So, again, like something as simple as a handwritten note or something as complex as changing your process internally to make sure that you can meet those needs.
[00:21:50.580] - Katie King
There's there's small and large things that you can do to just reinforce that your brand can stand behind those promises. Awesome.
[00:21:59.850] - Jackie Rogers
Heidi, this has been such a good conversation today.
[00:22:02.790] - Katie King
Thanks. It's been fun. Glad you came. All right, everyone who's listening today, thanks for listening.
[00:22:08.790] - Jackie Rogers
If you want to get in touch with Katie King and maybe just ask her some of these branding questions, I'm going to go ahead and touch her calendar to the episode.
[00:22:23.400] - Jackie Rogers
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the Weird Smart podcast, make sure to subscribe to our channel for the latest episodes and offerings and follow all that's happening at where. Stuart, see you next time.