1260: Missed Branding Opportunities: How to Avoid Them Across Digital Channels w/ Ross Kimbarovsky

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:08.910 Welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Logan lyles with sweet fish media. 2 00:00:09.230 --> 00:00:13.669 Today I'm joined by Ross Kimberofski. He's the founder and CEO over at 3 00:00:13.750 --> 00:00:16.629 crowd spring. Ross, welcome to the show. How's it going today, 4 00:00:16.629 --> 00:00:19.589 sir? Thanks so much, Logan. Happy to be here and talking with 5 00:00:19.670 --> 00:00:24.460 your audience. Absolutely we're going to be talking about some forgotten branding examples and 6 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:30.300 how you can increase your brain consistency across channels and avoid some of the pitfalls 7 00:00:30.339 --> 00:00:34.619 that you see a lot of brands and agencies unfortunately falling into these days. 8 00:00:34.619 --> 00:00:37.409 Before we jump straight into that, give us a little bit of context why 9 00:00:37.490 --> 00:00:40.649 you're the guy sharing on this today, a little bit about your background and 10 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:43.490 what you in the crowd spring team are up to these days. Ross, 11 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:47.170 sure. So. I started my career as a lawyer for thirteen years and 12 00:00:47.689 --> 00:00:51.799 then, by happen chance, as many entrepreneurs do, ran into a problem 13 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:59.880 with design. was frustrated with how design was purchased by companies and started working 14 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:04.109 on what ultimately became crowd spring. Crowd spring helps entrepreneurs, businesses, agencies 15 00:01:04.150 --> 00:01:10.349 and nonprofits with design and naming for every stage of their business. We believe 16 00:01:10.469 --> 00:01:15.109 that design doesn't have to cost thousands or tons of thousands of dollars or projects 17 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:19.299 started several hundred dollars, and so, ultimately we wanted to find a way 18 00:01:19.420 --> 00:01:23.099 for small business as, agencies nonprofits to buy design in a new format rather 19 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:27.980 than hire a designer. They can explain their requirements and designers compete for the 20 00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:33.290 work by doing the actual work as opposed to bidding on the project. I 21 00:01:33.450 --> 00:01:36.810 love it so Ross tell us a little bit about you know, you talked 22 00:01:36.849 --> 00:01:41.689 about the frustration in dealing with the way that design is purchased, those sorts 23 00:01:41.689 --> 00:01:44.530 of things. On the flip side, you know, there's a lot to 24 00:01:44.650 --> 00:01:49.280 be benefited on the business side when it comes to design consistency. Before we 25 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:53.079 get into some of the how some of the areas to avoid, can you 26 00:01:53.159 --> 00:01:57.680 talk to us a little bit about why you guys are so passionate about enabling 27 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.109 brand consistency, because of the business results that it drives. But we ultimately, 28 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:06.549 we've been in business for over a decade and and we've helped tons of 29 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:12.110 thousands of marketers, entrepreneurs and businesses, and one thing that we ultimately see, 30 00:02:12.150 --> 00:02:15.020 and I think smart marketers know this, fundamentally, good design is good 31 00:02:15.099 --> 00:02:20.020 business. First of all, it makes a great first impression. So if 32 00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:24.139 you think about a logo, statistic show that it takes about ten seconds to 33 00:02:24.219 --> 00:02:29.259 form an impression of a logo. That's part of your brand identity. And 34 00:02:29.419 --> 00:02:35.050 so if if you start a conversation with a customer when they first see your 35 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:38.009 logo and it's not a particularly good one, they're not going to have a 36 00:02:38.090 --> 00:02:43.169 particularly good reaction to anything else. And so those impressions matter and marketers know 37 00:02:43.330 --> 00:02:46.000 this, which is why they're careful to make sure that when they first meet 38 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:50.840 a new brand, for example, or even an existing brand in a different 39 00:02:51.199 --> 00:02:55.240 contact, those impressions are strong and while executed. The other the other thing 40 00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:00.389 is good design helps you stand out. So we have a really competitive world 41 00:03:00.469 --> 00:03:07.710 today and of course the global pandemic makes things really complicated because it changes the 42 00:03:07.789 --> 00:03:12.789 nature of the conversation that businesses could have. So large brands can easily adapt 43 00:03:13.020 --> 00:03:19.219 because most of their campaigns are brand building campaigns and because most are socially conscious, 44 00:03:19.379 --> 00:03:23.300 they can shift. Smaller brands, smaller companies, have a really tough 45 00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:28.330 time because most of them don't have the budgets for brand building campaigns. They're 46 00:03:28.370 --> 00:03:31.009 trying to generate leads, and so part of the challenge for them is to 47 00:03:31.050 --> 00:03:37.289 stand out where other people are doing something very differently. And then, finally, 48 00:03:37.330 --> 00:03:42.479 we get to consistency. Good design promotes consistency, and consistency is really 49 00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:46.240 important, especially when you're looking for new branding opportunities. You're looking for ways 50 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:51.439 to do things that you haven't traditionally done before, which, by definition, 51 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:55.229 almost every company has to do these days because the market is changed so significantly. 52 00:03:55.870 --> 00:04:01.710 If your brand isn't consistent, it creates confusion. So generally, people 53 00:04:01.870 --> 00:04:06.590 need to interact with your brand about five to seven times before they have an 54 00:04:06.629 --> 00:04:10.780 impression of your brand. So this is historically, whether it was print or 55 00:04:10.900 --> 00:04:16.180 television, single add rarely results in a conversion or purchasing decision. The thing 56 00:04:16.259 --> 00:04:21.500 is, if the five to seven interactions are all different in the sense that 57 00:04:21.620 --> 00:04:28.410 they see different colors, different brand identities, different fonds, different voice, 58 00:04:28.889 --> 00:04:31.810 people going to be confused, they won't realize they're looking and interacting with the 59 00:04:31.930 --> 00:04:38.410 same brand and they're not going to create this relationship with your brand that you're 60 00:04:38.410 --> 00:04:41.040 looking to create. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One of 61 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:44.160 the things that you and I were talking about a little bit offline. Ross 62 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:46.759 has. As you know, a lot of companies right now are shifting more 63 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:54.589 into new digital channels, whether that's podcasting or different, different social channels that 64 00:04:54.629 --> 00:04:58.389 they haven't been active on before, but they're shifting event budget into other digital 65 00:04:58.470 --> 00:05:01.149 channels. There Cann be a lack of consistency and that you know that that 66 00:05:01.509 --> 00:05:04.430 lines up with, you know, what we typically see. A lot of 67 00:05:04.589 --> 00:05:09.579 what we do with new customers when we're helping them launch a new podcast is 68 00:05:09.740 --> 00:05:13.060 to work on that brand identity as much as we're doing kind of the nuts 69 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:16.060 and bolts of setting up a new podcast in starting to record things, the 70 00:05:16.339 --> 00:05:19.860 intros and Outros, the show logo, the episode graphics, those sorts of 71 00:05:19.939 --> 00:05:24.449 things. So it definitely what you're saying falls in line with with what we 72 00:05:24.529 --> 00:05:29.290 see and how we try to enable that consistency for our customers in the channels 73 00:05:29.329 --> 00:05:31.410 that we do help with. Let's talk a little bit about you know, 74 00:05:31.529 --> 00:05:35.160 what you call forgotten branding opportunities. W Do you what do you mean by 75 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:39.160 that, and where do you see some folks getting it wrong and and how 76 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:43.279 can they improve there? So a lot of people know they need a base 77 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.399 or visual identities, like a logo. They need a name, their their 78 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:49.870 logo. But but most people, I think, don't realize that your brand 79 00:05:49.949 --> 00:05:57.829 identity is everything visual about your brand. So anything your customers and prospects can 80 00:05:57.949 --> 00:06:02.750 see is part of your brand identity. Meaning it's not enough to have a 81 00:06:02.870 --> 00:06:09.620 logo in a name and a website and then start social campaigns or create accounts 82 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:14.379 on social networks that don't connect with your brand identity. So if you have 83 00:06:14.500 --> 00:06:18.170 a twitter account and you have an Avatar, the the brand identity for that 84 00:06:18.170 --> 00:06:23.769 Avatar has to connect to your brand for people to be able to connect the 85 00:06:23.810 --> 00:06:28.730 two together, and ideally the name on that Avatar should connect with your brand 86 00:06:28.810 --> 00:06:30.970 as well, and that carries through. So if you've decided, for example, 87 00:06:31.009 --> 00:06:34.800 as many businesses have, to experiment with video, which is a very 88 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:43.920 dominant platform, especially for beautab sales for certain kinds of products, simply recording 89 00:06:43.959 --> 00:06:46.350 videos as great, but if you don't have any kind of brand identity, 90 00:06:46.350 --> 00:06:50.350 any kind of branding in those videos, these are missed opportunities. So first 91 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:56.670 of all you have youtube landing pages which which will contain, hopefully a header 92 00:06:56.709 --> 00:07:00.470 image and some of that brand identity, but as you mentioned earlier, when 93 00:07:00.470 --> 00:07:04.220 you work with your clients and you're helping them launch new podcasts, intro videos 94 00:07:04.259 --> 00:07:09.779 which you know, and outro which will introduce the brand identity at the beginning 95 00:07:09.779 --> 00:07:13.500 of the video and at the end of the video, hopefully give that additional 96 00:07:13.699 --> 00:07:16.529 small element of connection. And as long as it's consistent with the brand, 97 00:07:17.009 --> 00:07:21.689 it's easy for a prospect or a customer watching a video or listening to a 98 00:07:21.769 --> 00:07:27.449 podcast to know, hey, I'm listening to Logan because his intro tends to 99 00:07:27.529 --> 00:07:31.680 be similar. He always mentions the brand name and and that consistency creates loyalty. 100 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:38.120 It creates credibility because if we've already had touch points with a particular brand 101 00:07:38.199 --> 00:07:42.879 before and we've learned to trust them, when we see them or hear them 102 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:47.029 again, that trust carries through. However, if we don't have that consistency, 103 00:07:47.110 --> 00:07:51.430 if we're seeing totally different colors, a different voice, if the brand 104 00:07:51.589 --> 00:07:56.069 isn't mentioned, we don't get the benefit of any of that trust. So 105 00:07:56.589 --> 00:08:01.660 you're forcing the prospect or customer to re engage with the brand anew every single 106 00:08:01.699 --> 00:08:05.579 time. Man, you summarize it so so well. They're Russ and another 107 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:09.019 thing that it brings to mind. This is more on kind of kind of 108 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:13.889 audio branding. We've actually we're growing our network of podcasts here at sweet fish 109 00:08:15.290 --> 00:08:18.449 and you know, very much to the way that you know people identify the 110 00:08:18.529 --> 00:08:24.449 Geary v signature right visually with with his brand, but you also notice a 111 00:08:24.689 --> 00:08:30.079 across his videos on different platforms. It's got that distinctive audio brand that pop, 112 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:33.960 that pop and people recognize that right and so we've kind of looked at 113 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:37.600 that and said, well, we need to implement that on our suite fish 114 00:08:37.639 --> 00:08:41.830 shows. So I'll add the intro of the five shows we have in our 115 00:08:41.870 --> 00:08:46.470 network in addition to kind of separate from the dozens of shows we produce exclusively 116 00:08:46.629 --> 00:08:52.029 for customers. You will find that consistent audio identity there as well. So 117 00:08:52.870 --> 00:08:56.539 just wanted to throw that out there, because this is applies to visual elements 118 00:08:56.580 --> 00:09:01.259 but audio elements as well. You provided a great example there Ross talking about 119 00:09:01.779 --> 00:09:07.500 forgotten branding opportunities with with your avatars on social media, with your landing page 120 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:11.769 for Youtube. What are some of the others where you see some some misbranding 121 00:09:11.850 --> 00:09:18.289 opportunities where you guys are encouraging and or helping your customers not miss out on 122 00:09:18.409 --> 00:09:24.000 those wells. There are constantly new social networks that are popping up that become 123 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:30.120 popular with certain segments of the audience. So snapchat has been very popular for 124 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:35.840 a long time with with younger kids and has become more popular with with millennials 125 00:09:35.919 --> 00:09:39.350 and Gen Z. Ticktock, it has becoming more and more popular even for 126 00:09:39.509 --> 00:09:45.710 businesses, and so one of the one of the challenges for most businesses is 127 00:09:46.549 --> 00:09:50.269 how do you start experimenting with these new platforms? They don't work for every 128 00:09:50.309 --> 00:09:54.580 business, they don't work for every product, but you really don't know that 129 00:09:54.700 --> 00:10:00.379 until you experiment, because ultimately whether or not at work for some other business 130 00:10:00.419 --> 00:10:03.460 isn't going to impact whether or not it works for you. What a lot 131 00:10:03.500 --> 00:10:11.250 of people forget is that your visual identity and your voice should really carry through 132 00:10:11.289 --> 00:10:16.649 to these platforms. So if you're a bank and you normally talk in a 133 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:22.879 serious tone through your website and through your email communications and all of a sudden, 134 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:26.559 for some reason you end up on tick tock and now you're telling jokes, 135 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:31.039 there's a huge disconnect between your brand identity and your voice and what you're 136 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:35.389 doing on Tick Tock. People won't recognize anything about you if they connect with 137 00:10:35.470 --> 00:10:39.750 you on tick Tock and then visit your website. And so one of the 138 00:10:39.070 --> 00:10:45.590 biggest missed opportunities is marketers and brands not realizing that as they test new channels 139 00:10:45.629 --> 00:10:50.980 or new ways to market, they need to remain consistent. So your example 140 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:58.340 of an audio intro outro in podcast that connects to a specific identity. But 141 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:01.620 voice is another great example. So I don't just mean spoken voice but written 142 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:07.809 voice. If you're creating small snapchat ads or small promotions on any social network, 143 00:11:09.370 --> 00:11:13.529 the voice you use and the way you communicate and the audience you target 144 00:11:13.730 --> 00:11:16.049 should really be consistent with the way you're doing it elsewhere, so that if 145 00:11:16.090 --> 00:11:22.679 a person looked at a snapchat promotion and or saw a facebook story or saw 146 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:26.320 a tick tock story, those might be different in the suns that each of 147 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:31.240 these platforms offers different types of interactions and and and maybe the focus is a 148 00:11:31.240 --> 00:11:35.830 little different, but there's not such a huge disconnect and the voice that you're 149 00:11:35.909 --> 00:11:39.350 using in the way the copy is written. If you've got an engaging, 150 00:11:39.429 --> 00:11:43.230 fun personality, it should be engaging in fun across all of these channels in 151 00:11:43.309 --> 00:11:48.019 a pretty similar way, as opposed to engaging in fun on three channels and 152 00:11:48.139 --> 00:11:54.100 and really dry onto other channels. Hey, everybody logan with sweet fish here. 153 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:58.139 You probably already know that we think you should start a podcast if you 154 00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:03.129 haven't already. But what if you have and you're asking these kinds of questions? 155 00:12:03.610 --> 00:12:07.649 How much has our podcast impacted revenue this year? How is our sales 156 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:11.610 team actually leveraging the PODCAST content? If you can't answer these questions, you're 157 00:12:11.610 --> 00:12:16.559 actually not alone. 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All right, let's get back to the show. 164 00:12:50.139 --> 00:12:58.049 Yeah, that is a really important point there about that consistency of voice, 165 00:12:58.210 --> 00:13:01.409 not necessarily just audio voice, as you pointed out, but the voice of 166 00:13:03.129 --> 00:13:07.450 the message in the way that it's coming across. You definitely want to contextualize 167 00:13:07.570 --> 00:13:11.210 for different platforms. Right people are in a different mode on maybe instagram versus 168 00:13:11.250 --> 00:13:16.240 Linkedin, but there should be that consistency, that that is underlying there. 169 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:18.879 You know, a lot of this has been really top of mine for us 170 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:24.399 since we brought on Kelsey Montgomery here on our team as our creative director. 171 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:28.750 And just this term brand identity that you're talking a lot about today, Ross 172 00:13:28.750 --> 00:13:33.110 has has never just been as regular a part of our vocabulary here at sweetfish. 173 00:13:33.149 --> 00:13:35.830 I think we were kind of like most. Okay, we have we 174 00:13:35.950 --> 00:13:43.220 have a logo with that's consistent across places, but the brand identity across every 175 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:50.139 channel, across every piece of branded content that we put out is consistent there, 176 00:13:50.539 --> 00:13:54.139 and so she's been doing a lot of work on the sweetfish brand identity 177 00:13:54.139 --> 00:13:58.610 as well as different shows that we produce for folks that are kind of maybe 178 00:13:58.769 --> 00:14:01.129 where we have been at sweet fish in the past, where they have this 179 00:14:01.250 --> 00:14:05.370 standard elements down but they haven't thought through. Okay, how can I set 180 00:14:05.450 --> 00:14:09.360 myself up for success so that when we start this new channel I know right 181 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:13.639 where, where to go to maybe they don't have a large design team, 182 00:14:15.159 --> 00:14:16.840 which I know is a lot of the folks that that you guys serve? 183 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:22.559 What are some of those as next steps to kind of round out a basic 184 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:26.230 brand identity? Some of the elements that you typically see that they're just skipping 185 00:14:26.350 --> 00:14:30.590 and therefore, when they start a new channel and they're throwing stuff there, 186 00:14:31.029 --> 00:14:33.509 they set themselves up for failure and lack of consistency. What are some of 187 00:14:33.549 --> 00:14:37.620 the other things that should be on their regular checklist there own? So probably 188 00:14:39.340 --> 00:14:43.019 one of the most important things any business or marketer can do for their client 189 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:48.019 is create a style guide. We have, we have done this so so 190 00:14:48.419 --> 00:14:50.980 over the years. We have community of two hundred and Twentyzero designers and namers 191 00:14:52.059 --> 00:14:56.090 and, as I mentioned, we've felt tons of thousands of businesses with logo 192 00:14:56.129 --> 00:14:58.929 design, web design and and oftentimes clients are wondering, you know, I 193 00:15:00.009 --> 00:15:05.009 have this new logo, how do I communicated elsewhere? So what are the 194 00:15:05.090 --> 00:15:09.039 colors? How do I use these colors? And a style guide will be 195 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:13.720 the one source of truth for your visual brand. It'll include things like the 196 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:18.240 font that you use for your logo, so that if you use the same 197 00:15:18.279 --> 00:15:22.789 font and marketing materials, it's easy for you, for your marketing team, 198 00:15:24.309 --> 00:15:28.629 for your outside thunders creating materials for you to say the same font. It'll 199 00:15:28.669 --> 00:15:33.629 include the colors, including colors for print and colors for the web, that 200 00:15:33.629 --> 00:15:37.340 are part of your core brand identity, so that if you're creating marketing materials, 201 00:15:37.419 --> 00:15:45.460 avatars for the web, design advertising for print or elsewhere, you're incorporating 202 00:15:45.500 --> 00:15:50.330 the colors that are part of your visual brand identity. It may include symbols 203 00:15:50.370 --> 00:15:54.809 or or other visual marks that you're using to communicate that brand. In could 204 00:15:54.889 --> 00:16:00.450 include, I mean we're talking about a lot of digital stuff, the sounds 205 00:16:00.610 --> 00:16:03.360 that you talked about earlier, so the particular sound that's associated with your brand 206 00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:07.159 and anything else out their intros and Ountras. But a style guide, which 207 00:16:07.159 --> 00:16:11.960 is a comprehensive guide of all the elements, is the source of truth. 208 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:15.440 So if there's ever a question, you know what. What is our official 209 00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:19.750 logo and what are the variations that we can use if there's less space, 210 00:16:19.789 --> 00:16:23.470 because a lot of companies will have a single logo. The problem is if 211 00:16:23.470 --> 00:16:29.429 it's a single horizontal logo but you have to fit a square avatar, it's 212 00:16:29.470 --> 00:16:33.139 either going to be tiny or you're going to be cutting off parts of it, 213 00:16:33.220 --> 00:16:36.860 and so it's often a good idea to create those kinds of variations so 214 00:16:36.980 --> 00:16:40.620 that if you have a smaller space, you've got the ability to fit your 215 00:16:40.700 --> 00:16:44.299 logo, a different variation of it, into small face. So style guide 216 00:16:44.379 --> 00:16:47.929 the single most important thing anybody can do because it means that a new employee, 217 00:16:48.690 --> 00:16:52.809 a new marketer or a new consultant or somebody doing pr for you will 218 00:16:52.850 --> 00:16:57.929 be able to reference the document and say I know exactly what logo, I 219 00:16:59.049 --> 00:17:03.480 know exactly what colors, I know exactly what elements I should be using when 220 00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:07.519 we're talking and writing about the brand. I love it. Great advice there, 221 00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:10.680 rust. You know, we've talked about social media avatars. You've talked 222 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:14.680 about, you know, branding elements for a show on Youtube or the podcast 223 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:18.630 channels. Another couple that just came to mind, just as I've think through 224 00:17:18.750 --> 00:17:22.589 my own life and and as a salesperson here at sweet fish without, you 225 00:17:22.670 --> 00:17:26.789 know, a huge branding and design team. You know the chat on our 226 00:17:26.869 --> 00:17:32.539 site, a sales engagement tool like mix Max, chat, drift or otherwise, 227 00:17:32.579 --> 00:17:37.099 those sorts of tools often have the ability for you to provide some your 228 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:40.740 own branding there very quickly if you just know. You know the Hex code 229 00:17:40.779 --> 00:17:44.140 for your colors on the web. Right. Those sorts of things, as 230 00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:48.970 we round out the conversation today, Ross any others examples of those misbranding opportunities 231 00:17:49.009 --> 00:17:52.650 that folks should have their radars of for as they, you know, go 232 00:17:52.730 --> 00:17:59.079 about the rest of their week here. So anytime you are participating on other 233 00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:03.000 sites, medium is a good exam but if you're creating content on Linkedin or 234 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:10.079 publishing on Linkedin, you should be thinking about opportunities to brand some of what 235 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:17.269 you're doing because ultimately very few companies are in business just to have fun. 236 00:18:17.710 --> 00:18:22.470 Companies generally in business to make money, and so when they take steps to 237 00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:26.779 participate actively on Linkedin or youtube or any any social network or do anything, 238 00:18:27.140 --> 00:18:32.220 they're doing that with the intent to create a bigger audience, to create additional 239 00:18:32.339 --> 00:18:37.500 customers, to find more leads and so so anytime you're engaging on your side, 240 00:18:37.779 --> 00:18:41.849 off your site, online, offline, if you're on television giving an 241 00:18:41.849 --> 00:18:47.769 interview, it's really important to connect your brand to what you're doing, unless 242 00:18:47.769 --> 00:18:49.609 you're doing it personally an outside of the brand, because at the end of 243 00:18:49.650 --> 00:18:53.009 the day, if you think about what what brand awareness is, what you're 244 00:18:53.049 --> 00:18:59.960 trying to do is you're trying to persuade customers to recall your brand correctly and 245 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:03.119 associate your brand with a specific product or service, because if they can't do 246 00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:08.960 it, you've failed to actually reach those customers in a meaningful way. So 247 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:14.430 if, as a customer, I don't know what a brand means or does, 248 00:19:15.069 --> 00:19:17.750 it's irrelevant to me. I'm not going to care about it. When 249 00:19:17.750 --> 00:19:21.789 I see it, I'm going to skip it. And so a brand at 250 00:19:21.789 --> 00:19:22.670 the end of the day, I mean if we think about what a brand 251 00:19:22.710 --> 00:19:27.420 identity is, it does two things. It helps me understand what to expect 252 00:19:29.819 --> 00:19:33.059 and it creates an emotional reaction. So I like apple products. When I 253 00:19:33.099 --> 00:19:37.619 see the apple logo a lot goes on in my brain, but ultimately I 254 00:19:37.819 --> 00:19:40.250 know the products are to be high quality, I know they're going to be 255 00:19:40.329 --> 00:19:42.970 expensive, but I know they're going to be industry leading products. And so 256 00:19:44.569 --> 00:19:48.089 when you can create that consistency as a brand, you've created lots of loyal 257 00:19:48.809 --> 00:19:52.609 customers and people who love the brand. And and so, the end of 258 00:19:52.650 --> 00:19:59.480 the day, any contact point with a customer prospect requires consistency. So whether 259 00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:03.039 you it's a social network or you're doing an offline event month, which I 260 00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:07.230 hope we all do soon. When you're doing seminars or you're speaking to groups, 261 00:20:08.029 --> 00:20:12.670 you want to create a consistent message and a consistent way to showcase your 262 00:20:12.710 --> 00:20:18.150 brand. Absolutely Russo's a great example. With the apple products as well. 263 00:20:18.269 --> 00:20:21.460 They're you know, I'm more of a Google fan myself. James will give 264 00:20:21.460 --> 00:20:22.900 me a hard time, and a lot of people do about that, but 265 00:20:22.940 --> 00:20:26.019 I will say, you know, I've heard people talk about you know, 266 00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:30.660 and and even hey, I'm kind of best of both worlds, I guess, 267 00:20:30.660 --> 00:20:34.339 because I use my my apple are pods with my Google Pixel. I'm 268 00:20:34.380 --> 00:20:38.490 just weird that way. But I've heard people talk about even the unboxing of 269 00:20:38.730 --> 00:20:44.609 apple products is is a brand experience, like how did they make that something 270 00:20:44.809 --> 00:20:48.529 that's that's memorable and like this is an apple product that I'm opening. So 271 00:20:48.250 --> 00:20:52.680 just great reminders. They're very specific things to think about, from from your 272 00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:56.799 audio identity to the voice, the tone that you're using across social channels, 273 00:20:56.839 --> 00:21:02.920 as well as add copy visual identity as well as audio identity. We've we've 274 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:06.829 covered a lot today Ross if anybody listening to this would like to stay connected 275 00:21:06.869 --> 00:21:10.589 with you or reach out and find out more about how you guys help a 276 00:21:10.710 --> 00:21:12.309 crowd spring. What's the best way for them to go about doing that? 277 00:21:12.950 --> 00:21:19.900 So crowd spring, Crowdsprimgcom is our main site, or on twitter at crowd 278 00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:25.940 spring. I'm on twitter personally, at Ross Kimberovski, and they'll see the 279 00:21:26.059 --> 00:21:30.539 the name and in your show notes and ultimately we write a lot about these 280 00:21:30.579 --> 00:21:37.210 issues at Crowdspringcom blog. These are important issues, as I said. You 281 00:21:37.250 --> 00:21:41.890 know, businesses around the world, especially smaller businesses, struggle to implement these 282 00:21:41.970 --> 00:21:45.970 concepts well and they're increasingly important. So, you know, maybe fifty years 283 00:21:45.970 --> 00:21:51.200 ago you could market without spending a lot of time thinking about consistency and such. 284 00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:52.960 If you are a small business, that's just no longer true. You're 285 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:57.799 competing with companies in every corner of the globe and so it's more and more 286 00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:02.789 important today. Yeah, absolutely, the bar has been raised there, but 287 00:22:02.950 --> 00:22:07.069 thankfully it's also somewhat easier to do both. You know, based on companies 288 00:22:07.109 --> 00:22:11.910 that help, such as yourselves and and other technologies out there, it's also 289 00:22:11.029 --> 00:22:14.589 easier to do so, you know, the bar has been raised, but 290 00:22:14.670 --> 00:22:17.180 the the floor has been raised a little bit too. So we just got 291 00:22:17.220 --> 00:22:19.299 to move up with both of those Ross, thank you so much for joining 292 00:22:19.339 --> 00:22:22.259 me on the show today. This has been really fun. Enjoy the conversation. 293 00:22:22.460 --> 00:22:29.500 Thank you. I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask their listeners for reviews, 294 00:22:29.740 --> 00:22:33.210 but I get why they do it, because reviews are enormously helpful when 295 00:22:33.210 --> 00:22:36.250 you're trying to grow podcast audience. So here's what we decided to do. 296 00:22:36.730 --> 00:22:40.289 If you leave a review for be to be growth in apple podcasts and email 297 00:22:40.329 --> 00:22:44.680 me a screenshot of the review to James At sweetfish Mediacom, I'll send you 298 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:48.519 a signed copy of my new book, content based networking, how to instantly 299 00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:51.880 connect with anyone you want to know. We get a review, you get 300 00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:52.440 a free book. We both win.