Episode 7: Branding, Marketing, & Meta: Trifecta for Success
I had the pleasure of speaking on this topic at the Influential BWN Retreat and wanted to share it with you guys. So be sure and tune in to today's podcast!
This week, we're tackling a topic that's essential for any small business looking to thrive: the powerful trifecta of branding, marketing, and Meta ads.
It's easy to get lost in the day-to-day operations of your business, but taking the time to focus on these three key areas can make a HUGE difference in your success. In Episode 7 of The Nouveau Podcast, we dive deep into each of these elements, and I'm excited to share some of those insights with you here.
Marketing: More Than Just Ads
A lot of people think marketing is simply about creating ads. But it's so much more than that! At its core, marketing is about determining the best ways for your company to reach its target audience. It's about crafting effective messaging, creating compelling visuals, and connecting with your customers on a deeper level.
Marketing is about what you are doing for your customers in your field and how you want them to feel when they work with you!
Marketing doesn’t have to be hard, when you know who you are working with (your ideal customer) and how you are helping solve their problem.
Think of it like this: a brand's marketing department guides people through the stages of the marketing funnel:
Awareness: Getting people to know your brand exists. This is where social media, content marketing, and even local sponsorships come in.
Consideration: Once people are aware, you want them to start considering your products or services. Product demos, case studies, and free trials are great for this stage.
Conversion: This is where you turn those prospects into paying customers!
Loyalty: Nurturing those customer relationships through product guides, newsletters, loyalty programs, etc.
Marketing plays an important part in turning your prospects into buyers (conversion). And later, in engaging and retaining those customers once they’ve made a purchase (loyalty).
What can marketing do for your business?
Build Brand Awareness: Marketing helps you build a reputation, so people recognize your brand, associate it with quality, and trust you.
Platform through social media to tell your brand story: Connect with your audience on a human level! Share your values, your mission, and what makes your business unique.
Foster Loyalty: Happy customers become repeat customers. Marketing helps you build those long-term relationships.
Data-driven decisions: Track your results and see what's working and what's not. This data helps you make informed decisions.
Blogging for long-form conversation: Your blog is a platform for building authority and engaging with your audience.
Marketers first identify the target audience’s interests and preferences. Then they coordinate with content creators to produce articles, podcasts, videos, and imagery that resonate with that audience.
They also strategize the best distribution channels and promotion methods to ensure the content reaches, engages, and potentially converts its intended audience.
To ensure successful customer engagement, marketers often turn to tools that help them understand what people search for.
Keyword research tools are essential. They help you identify the terms and phrases your target audience is using to search for products or services like yours.
Now, here's the key: aligning your content pillars with your marketing goals.
Generate: Create high-quality content that attracts your target audience (blog posts, social media, videos, etc.)
Convert: Turn website visitors into leads (calls to action, landing pages, etc.)
Retain: Nurture those leads into loyal customers (valuable content, exclusive discounts, etc.)
And throughout this entire process, remember to keep your mission, values, and vision top of mind. Everything you do should align with your brand identity and resonate with your ideal customer.
Branding: Your Business's Personality
Now, let's talk about the heart and soul of any successful marketing strategy: branding.
Think of your brand as the personality of your business. It's the unique identity that sets you apart from the competition and creates an emotional connection with your customers. It's not just a logo or a slogan; it's the overall experience your customers have with your business.
Building a strong brand takes time and effort. Don't try to do everything at once. Focus on building a solid foundation and gradually refining your brand as you grow.
Find your voice, tell your story, and connect with your audience on an emotional level. Great branding creates an emotional connection that goes beyond simply selling a product or service. It's about building relationships, fostering loyalty, and creating a community around your brand.
Think about the packages you order, why do you order them? What attachment do you have to the company or the product?
Create ways to solve problems Build your customer experience around being a problem solver
Now, here's the thing: You can't build a strong brand without knowing who you are as a business. That's where tools like the Small Business Marketing Audit Toolkit come in handy. It helps you dig deep and understand your business from the inside out.
Think of it like this: Just like you conduct a financial audit to understand your business's financial health, a brand audit helps you understand your brand's health. It helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses, understand your target audience, and refine your brand message.
Key elements of a strong brand include:
A clear and concise mission statement: What is the purpose of your business? What problem are you solving for your customers?
A compelling brand story: What makes your business unique? What is your origin story? What are your values?
Consistent visual identity: This includes your logo, color palette, typography, and overall visual style.
A strong brand voice: This is the tone and language you use to communicate with your audience. Is it friendly and approachable? Professional and authoritative? Fun and quirky?
A consistent customer experience: From the moment a customer first interacts with your brand, whether it's on your website, social media, or in person, they should have a consistent and positive experience.
Building a brand guide can be incredibly helpful in maintaining consistency across all touchpoints. This guide should outline your brand's mission, vision, values, voice, and visual identity.
Remember, slow and steady wins the race. Focus on building your brand, not just selling your products. By consistently delivering on your brand promise, you'll build trust and loyalty with your customers, which will ultimately lead to long-term success.
Meta Ads: Reaching Your Ideal Customer
We've discussed understanding your target audience, building relationships, and creating a brand that resonates. Now, how do you actually get in front of those ideal customers? That's where Meta Ads come in.
Now, I know many of you might be thinking, "Ads? That sounds expensive and complicated!" And you know what? You're not wrong. But here's the thing: running successful Meta Ads isn't about throwing money at the problem. It's about a strategic approach.
Things to think about before you create the ads: Key priorities, product features, and benefits. Specific objections your customers may have when shopping with you?
Think about it. When creating ads, what is your main objective? Are you just trying to get a bunch of new customers and then hope for the best? Of course not! Using ads can help broaden your reach and expand your main goal, but the biggest key, and the hard part, which really shouldn't be the hard part if you understand marketing and branding, is loyalty and bringing that new customer into your VIP funnel.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you run a t-shirt company like Sweet Baton Rouge®. You might think, "I just want to sell more t-shirts." But that's a short-term goal. Our main objective should be to become the go-to source for Louisiana-themed apparel. We want to foster a community of consumers who not only love our t-shirts but also appreciate that we support local artists, printers, and other businesses. We want to build a brand that resonates with the Louisiana spirit.
Why do customers shop with you? You can pull the following:
Reviews
Product Features That Make a Difference
Benefits of choosing your brand.
Write down a list of Pain Points + your benefits on how you will solve them
Our friend Wayne, CEO of Ugly Mug Marketing in Alexandria, Louisiana, wrote a book, "Full Circle Marketing." You want to use Meta Ads to get your ideal customer to know you exist and demonstrate why they should like you, not just buy from you. It's about building a connection, showing them that you share their values and that you're more than just another brand.
Don't overthink it and make it too complicated. Think about this when you are creating your ads: what does your ideal customer (strangers) need to hear, see, and feel in order to know about you and begin to like you? It's that simple.
I’ve created ads on my own over the years, with little to no money invested by understanding how Meta Ads worked on the backend using Ads Manager by creating campaigns, ad sets, and then the ads. However, one thing I learned quickly was to delegate the things you want in order to scale and grow your business. In July, I hired a marketing agency to broaden our reach and assist in sharing our vision.
Think of your ad angle as the “story” that speaks to your audience (persona), articulating their problem, and the solution your (product) is providing.
When creating ads, you want to think as a roadmap for your customer. You want to test past content and see which ad is your winning sales and conversion campaign. This test can live with a small budget and give this step two to three days to see your best outcomes. Once you know your best selling/conversation campaign, you can pause it to then build two additional ads that can be on-going to bring awareness to that ideal customer and retargeting them, and then your traffic campaign to convert them to your website! I learned this method by using Jane Bishops Facebook Bootcamp! I was able to learn a lot on the backend, so when I did hire an agency I was able to continue to take the data to make sure we were seeing real time results and not just throwing money at it.
Clearly defining your target audience is crucial. Using high-quality visuals, optimizing for the right objective, testing different creative variations, leveraging audience retargeting, carefully crafting ad copy that resonates with your audience, monitoring performance metrics regularly, and adapting your strategy based on data insights are all key to maximizing campaign effectiveness and achieving your desired results.
The biggest takeaway is choosing the right campaign objective based on your desired outcome, whether it's brand awareness, website traffic, lead generation, or sales.
Continuously analyze performance data to refine your targeting, bidding strategies, and ad creative for better results.
With Meta Ads, the goal is not just to boost an ad, it's really about the strategy you're putting into creating successful ads.
Video ads are perfect for getting attention and reaching new buyers at scale.
Static ads help drive conversions by targeting warm audiences who already know your brand.
Catalog ads leverage Facebook’s AI to show the right product to the right customer automatically.
Here's are some paid recommendations if you want to learn and do ads yourself:
Jane Bishop Facebook Ads Bootcamp
Boutique Hub Black
Meta Blueprint has free tutorials
Too busy to teach yourself, our friend Jordan with @wheretogeauxsocial can help you as well, if you want to work locally!
But if you invest into learning, trial and error, learning the basics, YouTube has a lot of free stuff out there. Once you’ve grasped the basics, it’s wise to experiment on a small scale with a limited budget. Spend 20 mins each day on it and you will get good and learn by doing.
A lot of ads problems are from underlying business problems, like defining audience, the offer, and product/market fit. Ads don't solve those problems. Remember, what does your ideal customer need to hear, see, and feel in order to know about you and begin to like you?
Final Thoughts
Building a brand is a journey, not a destination. There will be obstacles, but with resilience and a commitment to your vision, you can overcome them. Remember, the strongest brands are often forged in the fires of adversity. So, embrace the challenges, learn from your mistakes, and never stop growing.
The world needs your unique voice and perspective. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." - Steve Jobs
I hope this blog post helps you on your journey to success! Remember to check out Episode 7 of The Nouveau Podcast for even more in-depth information on branding, marketing, and Meta ads.