Marketing + Margaritas Episode 6 - Branding Touchpoints

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This episode of Marketing + Margaritas has been Rebel Certified! Tune in for some branding tips you may not have considered to take your brand to the next level. Small, subtle additions that will undoubtedly improve the brand experience for your clients.

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SHOW NOTES

Okay, today we are talking about branding touchpoint What the hell is that Jade?

Your brand is not just your logo or getting business cards or uniforms or signage.

Oh my God, completely new information.

Your brand is really about how you're perceived. It's your personality, it's your values. Your brand is something that you build on bit by bit, by having multiple touchpoints.

Today, we're going to run through a bunch of different examples that you might not have thought of before. Many of them have very, very low cost as well, if not free.

Absolutely, these are really cool.

First off the bat is office styling. If you have an office where people actually come and see you, you're not working out of your spare bedroom or the granny flat.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

If you're doing that, it's fine, this may apply. But office styling can be as simple as choosing colour-coordinated cushions for your waiting room chairs. If your branding is reds and blacks, then some red and black cushions are going to make that pop really nicely. Getting some wall prints that are similar to what you do - so, if you're a mechanical business - then some engine blocks might look cool in there.

Some really cool photos blown up as prints. It's subtle, it's not just slapping your logo over everything, it's just these subtle touches that you can do. When someone walks into your office, they're already getting a sense of what you're about and who you are. Especially things like colour and stuff, it’s so visual.

You walk into an Optus Shop and everything is green and yellow. Down to the carpets, down to the couch that you're sitting on, they're all brand theme coloured. So you're amassed in it, you're amassed in the brand, you know where you are. I wouldn't imagine if we walked into Coca-Cola tomorrow that they would have anything blue. It's not going to happen, it's going to be red. So, try doing that with your own business. Another really fun one, and you won't realise it when you see it, but you'll notice it when you make the difference - is screensavers. If you've got an open-plan office, screensavers or your background screen on your computer, you can brand those images.

That can be something like a photo of your work, a project or something that you've worked on and just popping your logo subtly down in the corner. Or it could be an image that's just brand aligned or it could be a design. But if it's just something that you're doing in-house, there's nothing wrong with taking some photos of things that you do and choosing one that works really well, giving it a bit of a touch up, popping a logo on there, and then having that as a screensaver on all the computers. If you've got a meeting room, like a boardroom or something...

TV in the waiting area...

Yeah, any of those big screens as well, definitely put a branded screensaver up there. It's a very simple thing, but it just looks professional.

It creates uniformity.

It looks good. As long as it's interesting. Lani and I used to work somewhere - where we won't name - but the screensaver was corporate and boring and it did not inspire you in the slightest.

So this is for your staff and your clients?

Well it is, I mean, we have a client who's a building designer, and we got them to do this as part of their marketing strategy. When you'd walk in, they would have these beautiful shots of buildings that they had designed. If you were sitting down to work on a project and you see a completed project that you had done that you're proud of, even as a staff member, how much would that inspire you as well?

Yeah, so it's a nice little touch there. Something people don't always think about is phone messages. Whether it is your office phone message for after-hours like, "Leave a message, we're not here," kind of thing. Or if it's your key staff who are sales or managers that have a work mobile, scripting an actual voice message that aligns to your brand.

It doesn't have to be hard. Just put a little bit of time and thought into it. I always used to have one on my phone voicemail that if you told me what your favourite book was, or what you're currently reading or something, I'd put you to the top of my callback list. Obviously, with marketing, we have clients from all walks of life and stuff, but I have people from really high up in government calling and they'd be like, "Oh, can you return my call etc. Oh and by the way, I'm actually reading Wuthering Heights. It's really great." And I'm just like, "Oh my God, that's so cool." It's just really interesting, and there's a point of connection. I'm not saying everyone has to do weird stuff like me, but...

I think yours is a "drinks order" at the moment.

I think I updated it during COVID. I have not done anything funny or fun since.

It was drink order last, which was cool. Depending on what time of the day, that was a fun one to answer. So yeah, it doesn't have to be as quirky as that, but also just aligning those messages, so they are a similar tone, is another way of keeping that uniformity and professionalism. A really cool one is one-of-a-kind merch. Now, you've done this before, haven't you, McAuley?

Yeah. When I was a sole trader, I got myself a phone case with my logo on it. Because I was working from home, in my PJs every day, all of my meetings happened out at cafes...

Did you have colour coordinated cushions in your office?

I had no cushions in my office. I didn't have a waiting room in my office.

So you're meeting at cafes?

I didn't want to get a uniform or anything at that stage, because it was just me. I don't know, it just seemed kind of a bit dicky at the time.

It didn't align with your brand.

Yes, that's that's exactly what I was thinking. I just ordered one through Kmart or Snapfish, or one of those kinds of ones, just a once-off phone case with my logo on it. So that when I was out and about, there would be a touch of my branding with me as well. That looked a bit more professional and also it's just one of those things that helps get your name out there as well.

Yeah, so it doesn't have to be your mobile phone, it could be a work folio or compendium, if you're always using a notebook for meetings.

Like your iPad cover, that's a really nice one to do as well. If that's what you prefer to use to take meeting notes, etc.

To get those kinds of things printed, you can go through a merch provider, but if it's a one-off thing or just two items, more often than not, it's more affordable to go through like a Harvey Norman.

Big W?

Or Big W photos centres, and you just start uploading a JPEG of your logo or an image that is brand-aligned. You can set those up in Canva if you really want to have a play and put some design elements to it. It doesn't have to be a full-blown procedure.

Another one that's really good is water bottles. I carry a water bottle everywhere I go. I prefer glass, though, I don't know if you can get those branded or not. But if you were someone who would carry a water bottle all the time, it doesn't have to be something that you can then give out as gifts. As Lani said, if you go into a merch provider, there's generally a minimum order. You do get a really good price, a lot cheaper than probably what you might think for some pieces of merch, but if it's just a once-off piece for you or for your sales team or something like that, then yeah. Just think about what you use all the time that can have a touch of branding on it, especially when you're meeting with people, etc.

And that can be a nice little gift for the likes of your sales team. If they're hitting their targets or there's an anniversary, you want to celebrate those little things...

Once they hit a certain XYZ KPI, then that's when you get a little gift pack of, I don't know...

What aligns to your brand?

Yes. So, an interesting thing for a brand touchpoint is to sit down and actually review the client’s process with you, as a business. So say you meet your clients in person, you have a meeting with them - so, whatever they might see then - you can introduce your branding and your styling there. Obviously, you're going to be a representation of your business, so you are your brand as well. Then think about when you talk to them, and what they actually see from you and what you'll find is, you can pick out points where you can show off your brand a little bit more, or add a little bit of... not customer service, but just like those nice little...

Client care?

Client care touches, that's perfect. One thing we have introduced a little while ago, was when we get printed items...

Like brochures, business cards, flyers...

Pull-up banners, anything like that, that comes into the office, before we deliver it to the client, we always check it over and make sure it's A-OK, and our suppliers have done an amazing job like usual. Then what we do is, we tape the box back up and we put what we call a 'Rebel Certified’ sticker on it. This is a sticker we've had printed, and it just says that we A-OKed this product and we've double-checked it. So, the boxes aren't branded with anything, but this sticker adds our flair to it and a little bit of security, so that the client knows that we've checked it, we know what's good.

What we did is, we actually sat down and went through our process for how we're doing something so that we could improve those processes. But during those points, we were like, "Oh, well, this is something we always quality control." Yes, we are a premium service, but part of that is that we have high levels of quality control. That's something that we know that we do...

We take pride in it?

Exactly. It's just another visual way for clients to know that we are double-checking their stuff before it gets to them. You know when it's 'Rebel Certified', then it's actually been checked by us not just come direct from the supplier. So, it communicates our brand value as well as popping our name on there for brand awareness.

Absolutely. One you can really have fun with - obviously, we've had a lot of fun with the language we use on our website and our social media - but Jade actually sat down herself and wrote our quote ‘terms and conditions’. So, if we quote to you, and you accept the job, our terms and conditions are listed at the bottom of the quote. Those that have read them have actually got quite a kick out of what she's done.

Basically, I did start off with a proper legal set of terms and conditions. But then I wrote it as if I would be saying it to somebody, which is how I do a lot of my copywriting. I write as though I was talking to somebody, so that way, you can really hear the voice and the personality behind those words.

And Jade is not a lawyer, or an accountant or anything like that. So the way she speaks is much more flamboyant.

Even then, I added in - I don't know if it's on this iteration, but I know the first one had that if you paid your bill on time, you'd go into the draw to win a hamper once a month. I know a lot of people don't read terms and conditions but my thoughts were that this was a once-off thing for me to do, so that if someone was to read the terms and conditions - especially at the quote stage. Quotes are when someone's considering working with your business. This actually really starts to show you who we are as a business.

Definitely. If you're keen to see what we've written in the conditions, you're more than welcome to shoot through, and I'll whip you up a quote.

Subtle, subtle. Love it. Free quotes for all.

Free quotes for all.

Continuing on this, as an example for a touchpoint from a client, both of our main print suppliers do a really good job of this. Unfortunately, we don't really share it with our clients who they've done the work for. Say we've got a delivery - we got one today from Payne Print, and when they drop it off, they bring us this little cardboard truck.

It's a branded delivery truck, basically. It’s really cute.

The backdoor opens up and they fill it full of lollies. Usually, the girls dive on the delivery man...

Or boys. Remember, there's boys too.

True that.

So yeah, pretty much we fight over the lollies. We love our supplier for this, they keep us very happy, and it's a bit of a running joke in our office. But that's the fun little touchpoint they do for us. BB Print, every time we sign for delivery from them, they give us a fresh pen to sign with and tell us to keep it. So, our drawers are full of BB Print pens.

Ah, so good! I love the BB Print pens, they're really good pens. But from their perspective as well, that means that then when I'm in meetings with clients, I'm using a BB Print pen. I'm advocating, I'm showing whoever I'm meeting with that I use them as a supplier. So, that's a really strategic thing on their part - for me then to be showing that I'm a customer of theirs as well.

Absolutely. It works really well.

And we don't have to buy pens.

Yeah, we don't have to buy pens, so we're always reppin'. Okay, so that's some nice little branding touchpoints that you might not have thought about for your business. A few do's and don'ts that we'd really like to highlight to wrap this up, is this is not about slapping your logo or your business colours on to anything you think looks cool.

Not only that, not onto anything and everything - so there is such a thing as overdoing it. Again, not going to name names, but there are certain businesses around town where it looks like someone's vomited their colours up in their office. They're just slapped everywhere. It's excessive and it's confronting.

Yeah, I guess If you're doing the office styling, make sure you're using someone that's not colourblind. And you're wanting to make sure that the items that you're branding or the things that you're doing actually align to your brand's values and your brand's personality.

I've said this before, about doing a phone case. Whereas if you're a health and wellness person, and you want people to be less on their phones, and less distracted, etc, that's probably actually not a good fit for you. You know what I mean? Have a think. You might instead do a pot or something with your brand on it, and have a cool plant in there instead. I now want a branded pot. We have a lot of pot plants at the office and Lani finds the cutest little pots. Where they're really in our colours, but in different interesting textures. So it's that subtlety again.

Another tip... Well a 'do and don't', is to make sure you follow your brand style guide. Our graphic designers will be cringing if they've put together a lovely style guide for you, for your brand and put a lot of effort into it, and then you're stretching things or you're using slightly off colours. Your designer would have put together a style guide for you for that reason. Please use that as a Bible.

Little bit passionate there. I know what your colours are, because I got in trouble the other day because I thought our colours were like a deep red, white and black and a pattern. Then we had a couple of new people start, and they're like, "I think that's a pinky colour".

It is.

And I'm like, no, it's a deep red. What are you even talking about?

Okay, so Jade's not styling our office - clearly she's colourblind.

Yeah, we all know that that's not my strong suit.

Then last but not least, is just reiterating business messages - that these things, abide by them and align to them. Ultimately, they're going to work while you're not to build stronger brand recognition, and establish those relationships with your clients. So, if they're walking past your office, and you've got signage, then that's speaking for you. If they're waiting in your waiting room, while you are running late, whatever is in there is speaking to them.

It's like we were saying before about the 'Rebel Certified' stickers that we pop on all of our printing and merch and stuff that we help to create for clients - yes, the person who's our client, the person who's buying from us, knows that it was Rebel that they ordered it from, but they could be going back to an office.

It could be the admin or the sales staff that are potentially opening this. So, there's another client touchpoint - it's not just the one person that's been leading the project that's worked with us.

For business like us, it's like anything, like the carpenter who's got falling down cupboards and the plumber with a blocked toilet or wherever. As a marketing agency, we're not particularly always the bestest at marketing ourselves, or remembering to market ourselves. So, these kind of little touchpoints are something that you can do quite simply as a once off, that keeps your marketing going. Honestly, because we don't really advertise, like the amount of work that we get, that is that word of mouth - remembering that word of mouth isn't always just two business owners talking together - the amount of clients that we get where it's like, "Oh, I work at blah, blah, and my husband's business is looking for a website, I loved what you did with ours." Or whatever, it might be business cards, "I've never seen business cards like that before. They're actually interesting. I wanted to take one, I would love that." Or "My niece is looking at starting this business, I think she should come see you." When you think about word of mouth, it's the best marketing you can get, obviously, but there are definitely things that you can do to facilitate that happening as well. It just takes putting in a little bit thought, a little bit of time, a little bit of energy.

But once you implement them into procedures, for example our sticker. Once you implement them into your job process...

It's no time, it's no effort. We already do quality control - all we're doing is putting a sticker on it afterwards to visually show that this has been quality controlled and PS: It's from Rebel.

Yeah, exactly. How much longer does it take to do that sticker? Definitely a great way to review your processes. Do it with other people that don't always have a touchpoint on that job, so they can see it from a client perspective.

Yeah, hundred percent.

Awesome. That was branding touchpoints. Thank you so much for joining us for Marketing + Margaritas.

Cheers.