162. How do you master relationship marketing? (f. Jessika Phillips)
Wish you could genuinely connect with your audience? ❤️ Then you'll love learning about relationship marketing! Hosts Phil and Lauren meet with Jessika Phillips, a speaker, business owner, and marketing expert to learn how to convert potential customers into brand advocates. Jessika breaks down the nuances behind growing a customer base without relying on gimmicky campaigns. You'll be inspired to define your brand manifesto, determine your "why", and create an experience that keeps people coming back for more!
Episode transcription
Phil
Well, hello, welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brand. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Guess what I can promise you some incredible knowledge, even some inspiration, after listening to today's conversation with one of my very favorite people on the planet. She's here. I've wanted to have this conversation for years, and it's finally happening today. Let me tell you a little story. My dear friend Jessika, and I met in Las Vegas years and years ago at a social media conference. To be frank, I didn't really enjoy the conference, I found it kind of boring. My most memorable. It's true, it was horrible. My most memorable moment from that conference was meeting Jessika and not just meeting and beginning being friendly, but becoming great friends. And I've had the distinct pleasure of speaking at your conference, which for the record, you'd think, okay, a smaller town in Ohio, what's the name of the town? I always get the name wrong.
Jessika
Lima. Everyone calls it Lima.
Phil
Yes, everyone calls Lima. But it's Lima, I went there, and to see the passion and loyalty that you have fostered in this place, I walked into this room, and it felt like a wedding. Everyone was basically like family, and was so excited to be there. So passionate, and you, my friend, are at the helm of that. And I just think the world if you and I'm so happy you're here on brand therapy, you're here. Yay.
Jessika
Yay. And you're the best. I'm so glad we're finally having this conversation.
Jessika, you have the most amazing quote that I feel like introduces this concept that I don't even know if you coined this, I think this is you, you are the relationship marketing expert. I don't care if someone else made that term. That's you, it's yours. But you say ‘the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing’. Ooh, isn't that good, Lauren Moore?
Lauren
I love it.
Phil
I hear it. And I identify with it. And that's why I'm happy to have the three of us in this little virtual room. I don't know, I hear it. And it feels like that's us. And I feel proud that that's us and how we've grown our business. Maybe Jessika to kick things off. I think relationship marketing to you is like personal branding to me, it's kind of my thing. So you give us the definition of what relationship marketing is.
Jessika
Thank you so much. I did not coin that term. But I do believe in that term. But I do say relationships will always be more powerful than marketing. And I love that you are all about personal branding, because it all kind of ties together. I feel that relationship marketing is a mindset kind of thing. It starts at its core, the core of your business or your personal brand of who you are. And it means truly, that you just show up to out care, the competition, and that you truly do care about what it is that you're doing. And that it's not this campaign or an approach or a tool, it is the technique and how you show up and who you are.
And by doing that, and starting at the core of who you are, and understanding the core of who you are, you can grow organic, sustainable and momentum growth in your business that cannot be bought. It is something that you create, and that you maintain. And the beautiful thing about relationship marketing is that it feels good to do it. It's like doing good business. It's like being authentically you and being able to authentically attract and relate to the people that you can serve to grow your business. But it does. It's this mindset shift. And it's like, well, as soon as people get it, you can see it in their mind in their eyes, like something shifts and like, Oh, I get it now. I can do this.
Lauren
We all know what it's like to follow a brand that's heavy into advertising and very transactional. I'm curious to know, could you name a brand or even a few brands that you think will get relationship marketing, right?
Jessika
Yeah. And I think all of us can, if we think about the brand that we feel connected to it, because what relationship marketing is and that mindset shift, it's the sense of belonging, versus just buying. So if you think of the brands that you belong to that you're like, those are my people. I'm going to belong with this brand. And I'm going to continue showing up for this brand because they get me and they care about me. So for me and anybody else that's in the digital space. I really respect AgoraPulse, I really respect Sugarwish. I really respect the brands that show up that are there to serve, not just sell to me so they're the brands that I would say even like TOMS shoes that something probably everybody would know, right? They're the ones that you can identify with, on a conscious level of saying, I understand who this brand is and in their personality. I know what they care about, I know what they're here to do, and I trust them. And when you can answer those questions, and then you say, hey, by me buying from them, I feel like it says something about me, then those are the brands that that truly get it. And it doesn't matter what they put out, or how do they decide to pivot along the way, you know that you're still in good hands. And those are the brands that you want to stand behind.
Lauren
I love that. Now, I know that you are a speaker, and then you also run an agency of your own. So I would love it if you could break down for our listeners, where to begin with figuring out who you are and what your mission is, what do you recommend?
Jessika
I'm a huge fan of acronyms. So when I say I'll care, the competition, I've actually broken down like I care if we can just care first. And this is how you can show up as a brand. So you start with, okay, how do I even capture attention? Because that's usually what's at the forefront of the brands? Like how do I get people to see this thing that I'm trying to put out, whether it's a product service, whatever. And they start thinking about a push versus pull mentality. So if we can pause first and say, Okay, what is that my core? If I want to capture attention, I really first need to think about what am I here to do. So I call this like the brand manifesto. It's not necessarily just what you're there to sell. It's like, what's at the heart of what you're there to do. It's the personality. And the brand manifesto., if you want to Google this, there's a ton of them out there. I know we only have 45 minutes or whatever the length of the show is, but I could go on and on about brand manifestos.
But the brand manifesto is that statement, the one statement that you can create in your company that includes your customer, your client, whatever, at the core of your message. And I'm a huge Apple fan girl. So their manifesto is like here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the troublemakers, The round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently, they're not fond of rules, they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them or glorify them. But the one thing you can't do is ignore them because they're here to change things and they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people that are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do. And don't ask me why I have this memorized, because it does. But it resonates with me, right. So like, that's when I got it because it's not like Apple's putting that in all their marketing messages, right? This was created in this garage, right? When they're creating a brand, here's what Apple's here to do. And you can go look at every marketing message that they've created. TV, commercials, websites, social design, it compares it against the tone of their manifesto and says, it still feels the same. It still made for those people that they focus on what we're here to do, our mission, you know, our declaration to the world. And here's who we're here to do that for.
And when a brand can kind of create their own internal manifesto of saying, here's who we are, here's our personality, here's who we're here to do it for, and really, truly get that part of it first, starting from the core, then they can compare everything else that they're going to do and make sure that it just matches that kind of soul Northstar, if you will of the brand, but they have to start there with capturing attention because you can't capture attention. If you're just vanilla, 90% of all buying decisions start online. And I guarantee whatever brand you are, whatever niche of a niche of a niche of a business that you are, there's somebody else that does that thing that you say that you do, and you have to stand out in a way that makes people feel something that makes them stop and say, hey, they're speaking to me. And the only way to do that is to identify first who you are as an organization, then kind of that next layer of it is understanding who you're there to do it for. Right? And who you're here to do it with. So that's your team members, or who you're aligning with, like, this is why Phil and I like I adore him so much. And it doesn't matter how long time passes, you know, before we talk, like I have this connection with him because I know he gets it right. He's like my kind of person. And by doing that, and identifying who those people are, then what it becomes, instead of the push, I'm going to broadcast all my messages out, it becomes a pool like a magnet, you're going to strengthen your magnet of who you are and draw the right people into you.
Because I believe it's not like a sales funnel that we have to look at anymore in business. It is a flywheel. And as soon as we get that core momentum at the beginning of who we are, then what happens is the people are going to be drawn to us and want to talk about us more and more and more and that's where the a of care is articulating our message. Now we're crystal clear on what we want to say because it identifies with who we are, who we want to build relationships with, and then the experience that we want people to have that's going to reinforce that feeling that they have about who we are as an organization. And why doing that it grows a momentum, more people wanting to talk about you, more people are going to want to stay loyal to you. And that's how you can grow outward organic, sustainable, long term growth is a company without focusing on marketing as the push broadcast message. It's a magnet.
Lauren
I love that. I love it. I love it. Okay, with a manifesto, when you're figuring out who you are, and really what your company's mission is on this planet? Do you have any recommendations with how specific someone should be? And I'll give you an example. Sometimes when we are approached from by potential clients, they'll have a very, very, very specific target audience incredibly specific, I want to help people who do XYZ at this specific point of their career, I guess there's an argument to be said that being specific can be great, but at the same time, it could also be to detriment. So what is your advice on figuring out who that target audience is,
Jessika
It's not about our product or services, you know, your message is bigger than your product or service. So sometimes when you focus in on that one product that it's made for this individual person, then you're limiting yourself to only that one thing, like, hopefully, you're going to grow and evolve at some point. Going back to the Apple example, this is why we're comfortable buying watches from them, and television from them, and it would feel, you know, whatever they're selling music, versus if Dell were to do the same thing, like you're gonna buy that Dell watch, it would feel weird, right? Like, because they're focused in on their message of who they are.
Now, when it comes to creating your personas, or your avatars, after you've developed who you are, as an organization, your overall mission and how you want to show up for people, then it can just be the type of personalities that you want to work with. So use this example of a water bottle company, because when we meet with clients, and we interview them, and we go through this discovery process to truly see if we can work with them, and we can help them, and if we're the right fit, and vice versa, we asked them, you know, a series of questions. aA that wants to buy from me, right? I'm like, Well, yeah, but no, right. So I'll use the example of like, oh, this water bottle company that we worked with, as you would think anybody could buy a water bottle, right? Like anybody could buy a water bottle. And that's both a great thing in the worst thing, because now anybody can buy a water bottle and you're not differentiating yourself, except maybe on price is in their case, they were selling an Amazon or on Amazon and Walmarts and that was what they were getting competitive upon was price, because anybody can put a motivational quote or whatever on this bottle, right? So when we got to their core of who they are, first, what they were there to do, they weren't there to sell water bottles, we got to the core of they were there to help people live an extraordinary life.
And who they then is a brand personality connected with was a certain set of individuals. They connected with that this mom that had now their children back in school, that is trying to figure out herself again, right, she's now going back into the yoga classes and trying to meet up with her friends for mimosas and all that. And she's all they're also selling to Mackenzie is their persona name that is now advancing in her career and trying to level up and this hometown hero, Marcus that is really wanting to show up for his community and do good in his community. Those people that are trying to strive for that extraordinary life. Now that could be a multitude of different people. So we're not limited in to, hey, we're selling to this athlete, because the athlete, any athlete does not fit just those mindsets, right. So it's like this connection that is deeper than a demographic or a role. It is on a authentic relating kind of under the surface, not just surface level connection. So you can still definitely have a persona group that you're selling to without limiting yourself to this niche, nonspecific kind of surface level status, if you will.
Phil
Give us like an example or a story of like even someone small applying this great strategy.
Jessika
So I'll use the same company as a water bottle company because they're actually in Lima, Ohio, and you think now that they're on Amazon and selling Walmart that they're great, but they didn't start there, right there in Lima, Ohio, which let me set the purposes, population 30,000 people. And so they started selling this water bottle, just a husband and wife, team. And at first, you know, they're thinking, okay, I do want to be big and I have to sell to everybody in the US. And that's just going to be our thing, like we're building in the US. So that's gonna make us different. And it wasn't right. It wasn't enough.
The people that they were attracting were people that were wanting to support at that time the election. And so they're getting these these people that were all about jobs in the USA, but again, it was not their people.
So backing up to talking about them when they truly identified they were helping people living next door. ordinary life, they got that part. They were wanting to show up for this specific group of people that were all about living their extraordinary life. The next thing they did, instead of looking at, hey, I need to hire these influencers to help me market my message out, instead of thinking that way of buying the attention, because relationships are not something for sale. Instead, we're like, let's flip it, flip the script and say, why don't you create the influencer? So why don't we invite your community because the things that you first have to get to, like I said, with building these layers is the core of who you are, knowing your audience, knowing your team, then is that next level who you hire, because those are the people that are going to be engaging with your customers, they also have to be aligned with that message, but then your community. So the community is the people that you're going to align with to build those relationships. Now with them. When we say building the influencer, we said, hey, community, on this social media, we're asking, who is a woman that you feel is helping to evolve her community, her his community, right, and truly show up to help this community be extraordinary. Submit in these people for a chance to, you know, win this prize, which was like a customized water bottle and some other goodies that was in this basket.
And these nominations came in of all these people wanting to nominate the people in their community. And what happened is, then we took that individual, we featured them then on social and we gave them a personalized letter, handwritten letter note to this nominee that had won. And that one thing generated 10 times more sales than the influencer post that they have paid before. This is something that any small business can do. It's simply thinking about how can we build relationships and reporting, right, our community and to be part of our brand.
Another example of this is, same thing with water bottle company, we're like, hey, we're looking at creating this new label for the water. But what are your kids want to see on it, and they're inviting the community and again, the sense of belonging. And by doing that they're, you know, coming up with all these different the time it was the VSCO girl, and it was like, save the turtles and stuff like that they were coming in. But then we created these designs, where now their community felt this buy in from it right into the brand, and then they bought the product.
That's something that any brand can do. It's simply looking at how can we invite our community into the conversation, no matter what company that you are, for us, like, okay, let's use another example. That's not a product, maybe you're saying I don't have a product, I have a personal brand. For now Marketing Group, we've never had a salesperson. But one thing that we do is we try to feature and highlight other people that we're helping like this, what about a company 50 strongly I'm mentioning, but I will also include other people into the conversation, whether that's featuring somebody that's doing something amazing, I'll try to include them on social by doing that, and featuring others and shining the light on others, it shines a light back on your business. And you just make sure that you're aligning with the values of the person that you're shining the light on, if that makes sense. And you're showing up to serve in a way. So how we do it at non marking group, I'll feature an example that somebody else is doing. And I will say, here's one great way that they are driving engagement on Instagram by doing X, Y or Z I'm featuring, you know, Phil, because he's has this great class on Instagram that you should check out and how to master Instagram. And I'm showing that off to my community because I know that something that's going to help them one, it's something that I believe in two, and then three, now this is building a stronger rapport with now you and I, because I'm featuring you, but also with the community because it's helping them more.
So who's going to keep coming back and remembering that that connection, that relationship, everybody that we've helped. So you start small thinking about things like that, on how you can feature, even your team, team members are doing awesome things, your community, even somebody that maybe it's not, it doesn't have to be a client can just be somebody that's doing something awesome, and your customers, those are great ways of building rapport as a small business to keep that growth happening.
Phil
I love those examples. I even think of a recent example for us, we invited a client of ours to come on to our podcast, and it was 24 hours after the recording that she emailed us and said, Hey, by the way, can you guys help me out with this project? And it turned out to be a full rebrand and website launch. I know even this podcast has been super helpful I wouldn't say and in winning more business, but actually rekindling relationships that are win win. That's how I would put it and I love that. Like I've said to Lauren before, I know people listen to the podcast. I'm not even super worried how many people listen to the podcast because we get so much value from this time together, not just in time that we get to like, brainstorm on ideas, and, but also have conversations with people like you and people that you know, radars that I want to stay on. And that's the magic of it.
Jessika
I love that. And I love that you think of it of people that you decide you want to stay on the radar off and build relationships with. And it's not that you're going out like, hey, this person's going to be my client. No, here's the people that may never be my client, but they align with my ideals. And so I know by us continuing this relationship, they have a trusted built in community that now I'm being introduced to. So even though we are not, you know, customers or clients of each other, there's still potential though, to serve both communities, because we are aligned in our ideals, that then introduces us for more opportunities to get a sale. And so if you're still thinking, like, okay, this relationship marketing stuff sounds good and all, but where's the dollars, right? Where does the sales happen, that's where it happens. It's just introducing you to a wider community, one that you're going to get growth to, you're going to have residual repeat business, that people that stay with you longer, spend more, and you don't have to then earn that business again.
So I think a lot of brands seen us in 2020, the year that we should not mention, but 2020, this was where I think now brands are getting it, right. They're like, oh, my goodness, we should do something about this. One, do something about how we're showing up, because who's going to stay loyal to us, when we have to close our doors, and maybe they're not getting the full benefits of that whatever that thing that they're buying from us, or it's a little bit harder to get access to that thing that we're selling.
Or that it's not a great opportunity to work for a company. They're realizing like we had this great resignation is what they call it 2020, the great resignation, that so many people left their jobs, because when they had time at home and realize and have that pause moment of what's important to them in how they want it to be treated, they have this shift of saying, I don't want to work for a company that just treats me like a cog in the wheel. And customers have this opportunity of saying, I can get something easier, more convenient, and that cares, you know, somebody that's going to show up for me, when I need to pause maybe my membership or something for a minute, because I'm having a challenging time. How are they going to treat me in that moment. All of us had this pause moment to see how are people really treating us. And I think this created this divide and this opportunity and this awakening for the brands that needed to do the work to show up in a better way for all of those that they're serving. So that's the silver lining, I guess that came out of 2020. But also the awakening for people say, this is the stuff that matters, this is the stuff that's really going to be the difference that makes a difference that you have to get right? Because it's that foundational thing that nothing else can replace. You cannot you cannot buy enough ads or marketing or anything to replace relationships. Relationships will always be more powerful.
Lauren
How can someone measure the success of their relationship marketing efforts?
Jessika
Yeah, so you can measure it directly in your sales, right? And also reduce churn. And it's not an overnight thing. So when we did the Water Bottle Company, which I do have, which we can include, if you have show notes at the end, like the couple case studies, but on 50 Strong, like it took a year's time, right? It literally took a year's time and I always tell people that like, give yourself 12 good months. At first you're gonna be like, what are we doing? Because like, in the case of the water bottle company, we lost 1200 fans on their social media pages that they became 1200. But those were the people that were not caring about what they were saying at all or selling for that matter because they weren't buying, but they were there for like some of the free giveaways that they were just giving stuff away to just anybody and everyone. And the the wrong messaging they were paying for likes, right? So we said stop counting likes, start counting conversations.
]So you want to measure first the conversations, those are the things that you're going to notice that happen first. So when some of the dip maybe in your likes and stuff on your channel happens because you're going to sifting through to get to your real core people, start seeing have conversations are starting to happen. real true, meaningful conversations. That's the first.
The second is you'll notice the difference in how your team shows up. Like how are they wanting if you're truly bringing in the right people and everybody's on the same page can't just be like a manifesto that you're reading and putting on the wall and leaving alone to look at you know, when you walk by the hallway, but something that you're truly embracing in your everyday team, you'll notice this shift, and your team does show up in how they show up that they're caring more for how they're serving your, your, your clients. You'll notice people aren't quitting as often people are wanting to work for you because they're seeing the attraction of who you are. And then your customer start staying longer, and then more sales coming in. But it starts at that beginning first, which is conversations, team, then you'll see the community, and then you'll see the sales, but it usually takes a year's time. So in a year's time, we reduce that water bottle company's ad budget, overall, we reduce their ad budget by over 45%. And we increase their sales by over 133%. But it was at a year's time that it took so at the beginning, it took a little dip with their likes, their sales didn't take a huge dip. But their traffic did until this all went into place.
Lauren
Amazing. I've never heard of counting conversations before. But that makes so much sense. Brilliant. Thank you.
Phil
Do you have any tools that you love to accomplish? This are things that you use that people might want to check out?
Jessika
Yeah, so some of the tools depending on what you're trying to do. One is, you know, making sure you have a tool internally to communicate with your community, which are your team members, I should say. So if we're more teams that are going remote, just make sure you have something in place, I love GroupMe, which is just like a group conversation. It's free, just to keep kind of conversation going with your team. I love a tool called Bucket List, which is a rewards platform that you can engage your team and give shout outs for the things that they're doing well and you can reward them in experiences. So like instead of just giving them a gift card for something, you can reward them and points and they can exchange it for experiences near them. So if they want to learn go skydiving or have a barista come to their home for a day or whatever you can exchange it for experiences because that cultures or nurtures that culture and increases the culture. For dealing with clients and and some of the tools I love there at first start with the tools that are built in, like responding with somebody makes a comment, having a response back to keep that conversation going. Use the audio tools that are built into these tool to all the social apps. Like sending audio messages, or video messages over just a text so people can hear your tone, they can get a sense of how you're feeling.
I love just you know, shooting an audio text to someone and just checking in on them, or a video, email, video emails, some of the tools I love their BombBomb, that works really, really well to send a video email instead of just shooting a message out. Because again, people can sense what you're feeling they can hear your tongue, especially if it's a hard, you know, kind of message that you have to deliver. That's an amazing tool.
Another amazing tool that I love is called Sugarwish, which what this does is allow your recipient of who you're gifting to be a kid in a candy store, literally, like a nostalgic candy store. And you can shoot them a message I could shoot. So like, Hey, thanks for having me on your podcast.
Phil
You have before you sugar before and I still remember it and I was that kid in a candy shop, it was so thoughtful and so cute.
Jessika
It is so fun, right? So they get to then get the first the email that you've gifted them something. And then the next step is they get to go into this nostalgic like candy store, we can get the lemon drops and warheads or whatever. And now they've expanded to some other areas. But they literally get to have that sense again, so you're invoking more senses for them to shop. And then the next step is it gets personally delivered to them, which who doesn't love getting a gift in the mail. And it does have a little bit of your branding on it, but also a personalized little cute note.
So the more senses that you can involve, the better with these things. So if you kind of notice a thread of these tools I mentioning, you're invoking more senses and you're putting your other recipient, whoever you're delivering this to, at the helm of of making some of those decisions. So that's the part of care and when we talked about experience exceptional experience, the more that you can make an experience for people working with you or having a conversation with you or just any way that they're, you know, experience a relationship with you and you can leave them better off than when they first came to you. That's the best way so experience is how you're making people feel. So all these tools that I'm mentioning are ways to help you deliver that so Sugarish is a great one BombBomb is a great one native tools built in Bucket List of for working with your team or group me for your free app to kind of keep the conversation going with your team and making sure that you're showing up to let them know that you care about them. All those things are the best and one other tool sorry, is Agorapulse. I love them one because how they show up with relationship marketing but to the social listening that they have built into their tool to listen and leave notes in it blends the conversations from all social channels and follows the person so you can make sure that no matter who's showing up to respond to messages that you have a clear understanding of who that person is. It is amazing tool for social listening and just to be there and respond in a thoughtful way back to people.
Phil
I love that you gave us a whole actual list of tools like we can now I've got I've got all these tabs up on my computer now like wow, I didn't know about this. I've used BombBomb for absolutely absolutely love it. I used it actually in conjunction with a course launch. are someone that bought all three of my courses, I would send them a personalized video. I don't know, just listening to you reminds us that we, I think, learn we do some of this stuff intuitively. But it's such a nice reminder with some of your creative examples and creative strategies to remember the importance of relationships. We keep track of our clients in a spreadsheet. And I think that spreadsheet is the most important asset we have as a business. That list of people that have hired us in the past, I am so protective, who referred them, and who referred them that list, that is my most important asset in my business. Nothing is more important than that list.
Jessika
I love that you said it intuitively, because that is what we who we are right. And we somehow in business, we think like it has to be so much more difficult, but it doesn't like. So another way to start out as a brand. If you take one action item out of today, write out your sales process, before when somebody is finding you online, like what they're searching every step that they have to go through to work with you. And then after they hire you what you're doing to stay in touch with them to keep going and look for opportunities, whether it's you're building a spreadsheet. Start with as low tech free as you want, look for opportunities to remove friction for them to do business with you, and increase the light, like increase a way of staying in more rapport with them. So whether you're using the spreadsheet, and then you just plug into your calendar, hey, I'm going to check in with them in three months, or a month or whatever. Or, hey, I'm going to send them a personalized thank you after that. But add those steps in and watch the difference that it makes and just the relationship that you have with people because doing what you say you're going to do in exchange for money is just business, right? That's not relationship building. People expect you to do and provide what you say you're going to do.
But in order to be extraordinary in order to be remembered and craveable where people want to come back to you and do business with you again and again, you have to do something a little bit extra. And those are those moments that the difference that makes all the differences like to say that's the opportunity that we as brands have to show up and to build that organic repeat referral growth.
Lauren
Wonderful advice.
Phil
So awesome. Where can people get more from you this sage advice?
Jessika
Yeah, so you can connect with me on jessikaphillips.com. My name is spelled a little difference Jessika with a K and Phillips with two L’s.
That's the proper way to spell it! I recommend people you're like just one of my greatest business friends but friends in general and I learn so much from you. We're so grateful for you to spend time with us on Brand Therapy. Thank you.
Jessika
Thank you. You're amazing. I loved hanging out with you.
