Forget your logo. Brand Your Business with Strategy, Tools and Systems First - Teacher: Cassia Marina

forget your logo. Today on the Useful Content Podcast, we take a look at how small businesses should use tools and systems to brand themselves.

We discuss brand experience, email marketing, and answer the age old question of Do I really need a website for my business? Here we go.

hello and welcome to the Useful Content Podcast and today we have a new teacher in the useful content classroom, Cassia Marina.

Hi everyone. 

So Cassie, it's great to have you on. I think we may have encountered each each other on TikTok. Possibly when I was, it was TikTok, I was active there. I would call that back in the days.

Now, 

TikTok back in the days. 

Back in the days and and yeah, I was kind of following your content and so now you're on LinkedIn. So we, we connected there as well, which is good. 

So tell the people what you do and how you help your clients make useful content.

Okay. So essentially I am a brand strategist and web designer and I help business owners develop a plan for their business, develop their branding and help them launch their business in the online space.

Right. So is your branding expertise mostly focused on identity or is it focused on the intangible parts of branding?

It's the intangible parts as well, because this is where the strategy part comes before the visuals, because it's really difficult to execute an efficient visual brand without doing that upfront foundational work, which is part of the framework that we do.

Right. And today we're gonna talk about our framework and that framework emphasizes the importance of branding yourself and how to do it effectively. What's the, name of the framework?

The name of the framework is the complete brand framework.

Complete brand Framework So I guess, you are telling people this is how you make a, a whole brand that is ready to go to market type of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Specifically for the online space, but really and truly the brand system that I have helps you online and offline as well.

All right, so we're gonna talk a little bit more about that and dive into to how people can actually do that and why that is. I. Important. So a big part of your, your belief is that if people want to build a brand online it will require that they show up with appropriate strategies for themselves personally and also for their business.

Why do you believe that that is important?

um, See in the online space, especially, I mean, Advertising in general, it's a mad dash for attention, right? You want to get in front of the eyes of your consumer and you want to deliver the message that you have to deliver to your target audience, but first you have to gain their attention. And how do you do that?

You have to stand out in a very noisy market, place..

so we often hear this term, noisy marketplace or noisy internet. In your own words, what does noisy mean?

Noise is where you're hearing like a lot of things, but there isn't any clear message into it. Whereas, when you have a clear message, it sounds like music. So your ears just naturally tune into something that sounds good, and it sounds good because it's resonating with you. But other than that, there are a lot of people, especially creating content, and it really doesn't provide any real value. They're just there to show up for cheap likes and comments and looking for that viral movement rather than creating content that is Strategically geared towards their ideal target audience and who they're actually here to serve

Right. So is it your thought that likes is less important than building relationship or looking to have a clear message or speak to your Ideal clients?

I believe it's important, but it's not the sole driving force because when you show up or you create contents

Purely for likes that's when your content becomes watered down.

now that we talked a little bit about what the framework is and about our introduction to branding, let's get a bit into the actual framework itself, and there are two or three main things that you talk about when you introduce this framework. One of them, the very first thing is building a brand foundation.

And that sounds like a pretty important part of the process and alliteration not withstanding. So explain to us what does building a brand foundation mean?

So I like to use a lot of analogies to bring the point home. So I would use even like building a house to explain a website. But before we get to the website part, we talking about branding and brand strategy and the foundation is essentially the strategy. Oftentimes people really resonate when they look at your content, they're looking for the tangible. Brand assets, which is the logo business cards, website, social media. But then when you have that initial discovery call, it's like, okay well, who are you speaking to? What problem do you solve? Like, I really want to get to the heart. of what your business is about, why you started it, you know, the whole background, the story, et cetera.

Sometimes some people, they haven't even really honed in on what their business name or brand name is. And there's so much foundational work that they need to take care of before they can reach the website, before they can reach the branding, the visual branding, because these things are going to help inform what the brand would actually look like.

Okay. You don't want to just choose colors because, well, I like these colors. You want to choose colors that actually make sense for what the business is about and who it's targeting. So you kind of have to marry the both because you could be a business that's in, let's say you're selling, you're into clothing, but maybe you're not targeting teens, you're targeting children.

So the color scheme, the brand voice, all of these things will be different because the target audience is. Very specific.

All right, and so that is part of the foundation. What what else is in the brand foundation?

The brand foundation. So typically I would do like a VIP day intensive or a 90 minute session, and in that brand strategy session, we go through a collaborative exercise. So instead of, you know, oftentimes people will just send you a questionnaire, which does give you a lot of time to self reflect.

So there is value in having your clients sit by themselves and answer these questions. And then there's value in sitting with a strategist where I help. You find those answers and pull it out of you. And sometimes clients don't even know how to articulate what they're trying to say, but somehow I intuitively help them piece it together and find those words.

So let's say for example, okay, when you think of your business, what are the values that your business stands for? What do you believe that people in your niche deserve? So an example of that is, well, I believe that All women deserve to have reliable and safe transportation. So that's the reason why I decided to come up with a Uber service of sorts that's geared towards women. So then that will also inform your messaging, which then is going to help you create better content. A lot of the times people aren't clear on their message and that's when they struggle with content creation or they struggle with social media on a whole. Mm

And so you're saying that in order for people to begin to create relevant content, that obviously by relevant, we mean that's speaking to the people who they want to buy from them. They have to first look at why am I doing this thing? Was the reason, was the drive or behind creating this, brand, and why do I have this service?

Are there any other questions you ask people in order to, to pull that out of them?

There's a series of questions. So I have like a working document and I also created a workbook, which called, which is called from basic to branded. With every client, it's different where I don't like stick to this like boring exercise of like, okay, we have these 100 questions and we're just going to go through them. It all depends on how the conversation goes. So I'd ask you, okay, one of the first, you know, really basic questions is who's your target audience? Let's figure out who is your overarching ideal client, because a business will have an overarching target audience, and then they'll have specific avatars in between, which then we line that up with the services that you're offering, because you'll have even different tiers of services, and each one will match that different persona.

So we uncover all of those things, we discover solutions, and then that will also help us inform what we'll give. Your pricing strategy. Now I say pricing strategy, but I don't call it a pricing strategy, but essentially that's what it is Which is packaging up your offers and then you're packaging up your offers that align to How you want to position your business and your brand? So let's say you want to be known for being the best Portrait photographer then you would have a package that aligns to that

makes sense. Okay, great. So, so now we talked about a little bit about the foundation and, and what that entails. Let's go a little deeper by talking about the need for effective systems and tools. And these effective systems and tools, of course, supports the building of the brand.

So why would someone need systems and tools to build a brand? Isn't it something that you could just do without that?

Absolutely not. Effective systems are key to the experience that your customer is going to experience ultimately, right? So often we come on social media and we, we see tons of content, especially on TikTok about poor customer. experience, right? Well, poor customer service, but that comes from not having an intentional customer experience mapped out.

And when we align that to branding, I like to call it, and this part of my framework is actually called brand experience, where you're curating the experience, a signature experience, Specific to your brand. So I like to use Starbucks as the example because, you know, when you think Starbucks and its experience, it's very signature right from the time you walk into a location, it's the smell, the aroma, the color scheme and the interior design contributes to that experience.

The customer service, every point of interaction is your customer experience. And I. Took a lot of pride in translating that in an online aspect, because it's a little trickier when you don't have a brick and mortar business. So those tools and those back end systems are key to supporting that experience that somebody has with your brand.

So it's every touchpoint from the time they find you on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, the opt in tool, let's say they download something, all of these touchpoints. are supported by tools, are supported by a system, so that they have like this seamless experience from the time they find you on the internet till to the point of working with you. And obviously we know that people don't work with you right away, so there will be a space in the journey where they're just enjoying being a part of your community. You know, so if, for example, they come on your website and they are bumping around, they can't find what they want. The customer is having a poor experience because there's friction, they're, they're frustrated.

They can't find what they want, or maybe they find what they want, but then you're using a cheap email marketing software. So for some reason they're not getting your emails, it's going to spam, then it's, it's a mess, right?

So, okay. So you, you covered a few things in there. You talked, talked about customer experience, you talked about somebody, like an example of how people go around the website and you talked about email. Give us an example of of a system that you recommend to clients on how they might use it. 

Okay. So the most elementary tool that I'd recommend that applies to most people with an online business is the email marketing software that you decide to use, right? I would also, do you want me to quote a specific tool, like the

name of 

sure. Feel free.

All right. So I don't want to throw shade on MailChimp because I actually did a roadmap to MailChimp mastery workshop at a point in time because it's free.

And when people are dabbling with email marketing, I tell them, yeah, go for it. It's free. Get familiar with email marketing and whatnot. And some people have a great time with it, but most people find that it's not intuitive, which I do see their perspective on where they're coming from because they've done a lot. And. It's a bit confusing so you want to choose an email marketing software that you can get a handle on and the one that I Like using of late is flow desk. It's really simple. And I think that simplicity makes it really easy for someone who's new to email marketing or even seasoned people.

And you just don't want to have a bunch of extra stuff to navigate. You want to get in there. You want to make sure that your message is being delivered. And know that. You can track things easily and set up the sequencing and whatnot. So I would recommend Flodesk. I also recommend ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit. Those are some really good platforms. Oh, and of course HubSpot.

So how would a, client of yours use this and gain benefit from it?

Well, the thing with email marketing, it allows you to. Automate a lot of your systems. So let's say, for example, you are creating content, right? And someone wants to work with you. You have a easy entry level offers that okay, they may not be able to work with you or not. Maybe not. They won't be able to, but oftentimes you need a low entry offer so that people could just get a taste of what it's like to work with you.

So let's say that's like a 90 minute consultation. You tell them, okay, click the link in my bio. They click the link in your bio. They go to your website, the sign up wherever, let's say they decide to do a free discovery call and that's connected to your email marketing software where everything is automated on the backend, right?

So they are getting those emails because it's linked with. MailChimp so, You can automate your sales process when you have an email marketing software. Some would say it's more specific, you'd want to use a tool like HubSpot because it's really designed for that, but some people might not be ready for such a professional tool.

So at least on a basic level, your email marketing software allows you to keep in contact and send out, let's, okay, for example, we are doing this. Podcast episode, you can keep in contact with people who might have downloaded your freebie. Usually you have a freebie on your website so that you can gain leads and not just gain leads. It gives you an idea of people who might be somewhat interested in your offer, your service. So if they download this freebie, you can keep in contact with them because social media, you can't depend on the algorithm all the time. So you have this warm list of people who are interested in the topics that you have to talk about and you can email them, keep in touch with them, have call to actions at the end.

And that is working in the background for you on your behalf. I like to think of using a software like Again, MailChimp, Flowdesk, ActiveCampaign as a way to support all of your content efforts because you have them in this back end funnel or system where you are repurposing your content to support you.

All right. Right, right. So that's what you mean by tools. And of course there are other things that people could use in order to, to continue to build this relationship with their, their potential clients and customers. and I love how you, you made the connection between 'cause, 'cause emails are content essentially.

So, uh, 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

So 

But it's something that you have a lot more control of and it's like you're a little community here that you can talk to at any point in time.

Yeah. So it's something that you can manage on your end and you're not subject to a platform. It's a okay, so, you clearly have heard of the, the saying of don't build your house on rented land. What 

your perspective on it. 

I would have said that a couple times as well. So when it comes to building your brand, I like to explain social media as a networking event, right? That's not where you should... ideally be doing business. That is just, as you said, it's rented land. We all set up shop with our little booths.So our profiles are our booths and we might go across each other's profiles. We talk, we interact, but we're not going to sit there and, you know, do a transaction on social media. I mean, the platforms are trying to get us to do that, but ultimately you want to take them. Now to your office and sit down and do business, which is your online home on the internet, which is your website, which is maybe via zoom.

We do a discovery call. We decide, okay, Hey, we want to work together. Okay. I'm going to email you the invoice or depending on what systems that you have, they can go to a landing page and click, okay, I want to buy this service. I'm ready to work with you. It really all depends on, of course, what region you are in, because, you know, in the Caribbean, we have to. Kind of build a lot of our systems to work automatically. And whereas in the U S and Canada, there are platforms that you can use where it's literally plug and play. So you may not even need to have an email marketing software separately. You could use something like Cartra. And you build the website, you build your sales pages, they sending out the emails on your behalf, but ultimately, regardless of the tool that you use, the systems, once you are clear on your systems, you could use any tool. I think

that's key to understand. I think sometimes we get so caught up in the tools that it's not really tools that make you. Well, they support you. It's, it matters which tool that you use, if it's reliable. But first thing before you decide on tools, you have to know what your system is. And it's funny that you asked me this question because back in the day, I would have had so many things automated, which I need to clean up. A lot, some of my things in the back end. So it's like, and from time to time, you'll need to audit things, evolve things, change as you evolve as a business, your customer desires something differently, or maybe this doesn't work anymore because this doesn't resonate in the process. The customer journey is too long. So I'm always experimenting and trying new things. So I realized last night that things has changed and I, you take pen and paper before you get to the tools, you take pen and paper. And this is literally what I was drawing out last night, how to make my content more efficient because I was like, wait, no, after I put out this, let's say 90 minute video, what's next? You know, I want to know that you are continuously being nurtured. And this comes back to what you spoke about on LinkedIn, which is the short form content sometimes is part of the problem. So even if you're going to use it, it's not to like vilify short form content, but we have to know where it's place is in our brand building activities.

So I know, okay, this is a snippet from my podcast and I'll have little queues of Letting people know that it's part of a podcast without actually having to put a logo. You could put the logo, nothing is wrong with that, but I'm just saying the way you frame the video. So like right now, I could have my phone set up there at the side and you could tell, oh, this is a podcast. And then you could put a little description. And then you send people to where they want to listen to this podcast. And in that podcast, you would have even call to actions that, Hey, if you want to learn more about this, or, Hey, if you want to work together, this is a really long explanation of what a brand experience is, because you have all your things working together and everything is intentionally built. And these are the types of conversations I would have in a brand strategy. And obviously I can't. Touch on everything in that initial call, that initial call is really to help build the visual branding, which comes next and just a little bit of systems that you have to consider, but it's an, it's ongoing work.

Excellent. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Right. Okay, great. So we, we spoke about the foundation, we spoke about some of the systems which you extensively covered, which I appreciate and I'm sure the people listening in the content classroom will appreciate that as well. So let's now move on to things like your website.

Now I, you, you did mention website before and, . You spoke about integrating in some instances you can integrate your email marketing into your website and build your business and your brand online. So when somebody comes to you for a brand strategy, does everyone need to get a website?

Oh gosh. Yeah. You caught me off guard with that one. The question is everybody needs to have a website. It depends on where you are in your business, right? Most of the time I would say you should have a website. But not everybody needs a full page, I mean, a full five page website straight out the gate. It is useful to have a simple landing page, a scrolling page, you know, those websites where it does say about services, you know, the, the basic pages a website would have, but

instead of building out, yeah, a one page. But instead of building each page out on separate pages, you could just start with something simple. I like to call it a scrolling. One page website because people when sometimes when you say a one pager people might just think of one little box here And it ends there, but no there's still an experience that happens, and there's still some visual storytelling taking place, right? Why I would recommend that is that it gives you some sort of footing to claim your stake on the internet like this is my land and You know, I have some way that you could still come and meet me, know about me, know about my story, download my media kit. Sometimes it doesn't always have to be a freebie.

It could be a media kit and you capture emails that way. It allows people to still immerse themselves into your brand without the distractions of social media and with a little more professionalism.

Right, right. So some people may need a website, some people may not need. But in general, you take a look at what the needs, what the needs of the clients are, and you determine. To what degree does this person need to exist online in their own space? And of course then you do a build out according to that.

Yeah.

yes, exactly. Everything is situational and while ideally, the website is kind of like the last piece in the puzzle because you have to build all these things first as the foundation leading up to it, depending on, you know, your budget, again, where you are, what's your goals. I also love to call my brand strategy sessions and my VIP days where we build your brand plan of action because people, they come and they have. All this, all of this happening up here and they just know that they have this burning desire to launch and they have this idea and they need to get it out there. But there's so many things that you have to put into place. It's overwhelming. And one thing that I hear often is like, I was like, okay, tell me, tell me what's going on. Tell me your business, et cetera, why, et cetera, et cetera. And then when they're done, they're like, does that make sense? And I'm just like, yes, it makes sense. And my gears are already turning. I said, okay, this is what you should do.

First, second, third, fourth. Because it's so confusing when you're consuming educational content on the internet. This one is telling you TikTok tricks, and this one is telling you this is how to get visibility in front of your, like, TikTok has all this visibility and it's organic reach, so get on TikTok. And then someone else is telling you to get a website, and someone else is telling you you need to have visuals. Someone else is telling you email marketing, but you don't have a clear... Understanding of, okay, well, where should I start first? Because everything has its place and everything has its importance. But you have to know which one makes sense to roll out first. It doesn't make sense you go and you hire a social media manager, but you haven't done any branding. You don't know who your target audience is.

And trust me, let me tell you, when you walk away with that plan of action and then hire a social media manager, they are just like, yes! This is what we need. Like, Oh, you have a brand style guidelines. Okay. We have all the hex codes. We have the logos. We have all the brand assets to now effectively manage your social media, your social media content.

You're going to walk away with being clear on your messaging. When you take that to a social media manager, they're like excited to work with you because they're like, Oh, this business owner has their ish together.

Mm mm. Wonderful. Wonderful. And I think that that is a very core point that you, you just made, which is that the process does not start in the doing. It starts in the knowing who you are, why your business exists. I. Who your ideal clients see? So from a strategic point of view when people are going to talk about business, they should really always think about not just doing this stuff.

And some make the argument that you don't have a business until you make a sale, right? But if you wanna sustain a business over a long period of time, especially as you suppose you're already in business and you've been doing well without any of this, there comes a point when you do need it 

You do need to come back and create a plan for yourself. So it's okay. Like to be like, okay, I want to test out this product or service. So you just decide I'm going to create a page. I'm going to put it out there and validate the idea. Little do people realize that is part of strategy. Because you're testing something and you're gathering data to come back and you could bring that to someone like myself a consultant or strategist and be like, okay, this is what the interest was like, you know, you are testing the product at that point, you may be testing different price points. So you might have launched a product, you've got a lot of interest, maybe too much interest and you realize, Oh, I need to raise the price. Until I find that sweet spot.

I like that. Too much interest. And as a result, you raise the price. 

Yeah. 

with something big digital that you don't really have to do any more work on you. You just, you raise the price so that you know, you get more value out of each sale as opposed to getting a lot of tiny sales. Oh, it's interesting.

I like that strategy. That's interesting. You could tell people that. 

Yeah.

and I mean, there's nothing wrong with it because some people might think, oh shucks, I shouldn't have charged so low, but no, this is your opportunity to gain testimonials insight you might talk to the customer and get You know more insight as to like, but why was interested in this product?

I mean, obviously besides the price and that would give you an opportunity to create informed decisions because one of the Pieces of homework that I would leave clients with in a session is okay I've asked you some questions here that you rightfully wouldn't know so go out there And get the feedback, create a survey, if you already have an social media page, create polls, just have conversation because sometimes I think people think gathering feedback has to be this rigid survey monkey exercise that it doesn't have to be, it's just having conversation and the more you have conversation, you are like kind of blown away by the feedback of things that you had not considered because when we are, it's our baby, we're too close to it. So you need that outside perspective of like, Hmm, I hadn't considered that. Or, Oh, you actually think X, Y, and Z. And here I am thinking I'm missing the mark, you know.

Yeah, and have the conversations with your clients. So that you can gather the valuable information to continue to build your business.

All right. Well, is there anything else you wanna tell the people? Like 'cause we spoke about the brand foundation, we spoke about the need for effective systems, and we spoke about how to use your website to build your brand online. is there any last piece of advice you'd like to share with the people?

I would say show up and tell your story about your business, show the world why you're passionate about it and essentially show up for your business and your brand through creating useful content. Don't worry too much about likes up front, because I know we get intimidated by the feedback. But when I was now starting out, it, it seemed like no one was listening in the beginning. And it may seem like someone isn't listening, but you keep at it and you keep consistent. But again, you have to be clear on the messaging. This is the only way it will work. Three months in, six months in. Your ideal customer will email you and reach out to work with you. What I have found in my experience is that the persons who are the quietest are the ones who are observing you to work with you versus the ones who are always commenting and liking. That's not shade at all. There are people who are there to work with you and there are those who are there as cheerleaders to keep you going and to keep you showing up on your content.

So everybody has their role. So my key piece of advice is get very clear on who your brand is as an identity. It's messaging and then show up and rinse and repeat and refine as needed.

Excellent. Excellent. Good closing words for your potential clients and customers. Thank you so much Cassia for joining me in the useful content classroom today so thanks everyone for joining us today on a Useful Content podcast, useful content classroom dismissed.

Okay.

We clear? We are clear.

Now we can exhale.

We can exhale a little bit. I mean, it seems like a lot of different things are happening.

Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness. That's okay, man. I'm gonna leave some of that stuff in.