82. What is a successful brand?
How do you know if your brand is successful? ✨ In this episode, hosts Lauren and Phil try to make the intangible tangible by breaking down the qualitative and quantitative ways to measure your brand's success. If you're thinking about investing in your brand, or you feel like your brand is capable of more than it's achieving, you're going to love this no-nonsense exploration of determining a brand's success.
This episode is sponsored by Hero Cosmetics.
Episode transcription
Phil
This episode of Brand Therapy is sponsored by Hero Cosmetics and specifically their Mighty Patch which is a hydrocolloid acne patch. If pimples are a problem then this is a solution. Try on a Mighty Patch original overnight and in the morning that pimple should be totally flat. Very cool. And if you want to try the mighty patch for yourself use code BRANDTHERAPY15. For 15% off on herocosmetics.com now onto the show.
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's Welcome. Welcome, welcome. We're so happy you're here. You're here. You're in the right place today we're going to have a successful conversation.
Lauren:
Oh, look at you.
Phil:
Well If you've listened to podcasts before you know that we've gotten to the rhythm of alternating. So we'll have on a guest that we learn from and then on the other episodes, we have just ourselves. So we're stuck with ourselves today. And you're in charge of today's topic. So I say successful, but I don't even fully remember what we're talking about today. Can you enlighten me and enlighten listeners?
Lauren:
Oh, yeah, I sure can. So today, we are going to be trying to answer a very challenging question, what is a successful brand? So a lot of times I feel like brand, it's kind of like, you know, how there's that famous quote that talks about what porn is? I don't know how to define it, I just know it when I see it, it's like from the 60s or something, some big trial I can't even remember. But I feel a successful brand has that same ambiguity where when a brand works, you know it works. But there isn't a tried and true formula for success, until now, until we talk about it.
Phil:
Well, I think it's interesting. I think we're good subjects of this to take the intangible and make it tangible. You and I both don't like operating on high level discussions. We just don't like it. I just don't like anything that wastes time. We are a lean but mighty company, I think like an operation like there's two of us. And we don't spend a lot of time on intangibles because there's not a lot to show for it. Do you know what I mean? Like we don't waste time on things. So whenever we take the time to have a discussion, usually we're recording it like this. So it has two purposes. Right? This is a discussion that will benefit how we work with clients, but it also benefits people who decide to listen in on this. We're not going to talk high level about this. Let's talk specifically about what it means to be successful as a brand. I think it's a great topic.
Lauren:
Do you have any initial thoughts or opinions on this?
Phil:
Yes. So when we think about measuring success, and I've talked about this at speaking engagements before, because it is somewhat intangible, it's kind of like where do you start? Right? So there's two different ways.
I think of measuring success, quantitative measurements, numbers, qualitative measurements. So we're like adding every possible metric into a grouping. I feel those two groupings at least cover at least initially, like the basis, right?
Lauren:
Yeah, yeah. So maybe let's go through some qualitative ways that you would measure success with a brand.
Phil:
You're starting with the harder one, we should start with the other one, quantitative, is so much easier to measure.
Lauren:
I think quantitative is harder.
Phil:
No, no. Quantity is like website traffic followers, number of inquiries, anything that's a number that you can actually track. Which by the way, we should mention, we do track numbers and metrics monthly. Thank you, Brad! We have a spreadsheet called waterfall. And that enables us to track hard data. We have a goal, a sales goal every month, right? And we break it down more specifically, like we want a certain number of brand audits, a certain number of ongoing clients and a certain number of course, sales. Quantitative is way easier because there's a number attached to it, whether you succeed or not. Qualitative is harder to measure.
Lauren:
Okay, argument, I'm going to challenge you on this. So the example that you brought up is whether a business is successful to you or our business and brands the same thing, or are they then diagrams where they overlap in the middle?
Phil:
Hmm, well, I don't think differently about the two. To me a business is a brand and a brand is a business. So I've never thought of the two differently, ever, particularly working with people and personal brands. S
I think that when you brand yourself, you are legitimizing the forms of access that people have to you. So I've never thought about those two things differently. I wouldn't even know how to define them differently.
Lauren:
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Interesting.
Phil:
So, yeah, what is your opinion on this?
Lauren:
Well, I'm not sure. I guess we could debate it. But I know all psychopaths are sociopaths, but not all sociopaths or psychopaths. That's kind of how I feel about businesses and brands. So I don't think every business is a brand. For example, the dry cleaner on the corner, they don't necessarily need to have a brand and they might not actually have a successful brand, but as a business they could do well. But then I guess you could also make the argument that the absence of a brand is a brand in itself. So I can see it both ways.
Phil:
Yes, I but I think that's interesting. I think that's very interesting. Because then you could I mean, maybe I would argue it's a business and they have a reputation. So they have a brand and your brand is your reputation. But at the same time, it just depends on defining that term. Point being, the term itself is somewhat confusing. And I think it also has a negative connotation in some way.
Brand, influencer any of these terms that have kind of been run through the mud. But what does that mean? And I think that's what we're talking about today is how can you start to look at some specifics to understand if your effort is paying off. If you're yielding results in some kind of way. Quantitative, qualitative thoughts?
Lauren:
Yeah, so the things that I would measure for the success of a brand might be a little different from measuring the success of a business. And it is not that I'm saying there aren't parallels between the two. So for me, if I was going to be measuring the success of a brand, I would want to measure how far the brand is reaching, and how quickly the affinity to that brand is.
So if we're looking at a sales cycle, how quickly is someone making a purchase or trying to get in contact with you? How quickly are people engaging with your social content? So it's not necessarily your monthly business income that I would be measuring for a brand, but it's related.
Phil:
Mm hmm. So what else? I like that idea of measuring brand affinity. I like that idea because people might not even think about that. We know it when we hear it, but what are some other ideas on things you could measure?
Lauren:
Yeah, so I think comments on social media for your brand's profiles, to me are an indicator of major brand affinity. If someone's taking their time out of their day to comment and weigh in and contribute and give an opinion, that to me is something that's really important to measure. And you know, now that I'm thinking about it, it doesn't necessarily need to be on social media at all. It could also be comments on your blog posts, nice emails from customers, etc. So that maybe is another quantitative way that I would measure the brand.
Phil:
I like it. So that's kind of a cross between qualitative and quantitative because we're still looking at numbers of engagement but you're also looking at quality.
Lauren:
Yeah. How would you qualitatively measure the success of a brand?
Phil:
Or do you mean quantitatively? Or me qualitative?
Lauren:
You qualitative, unless you want to talk about quantitative. These que words are messing me up.
Phil:
So I think comments are good. I think affinity is good. I think general sentiment is good. I think looking if you sell a product or a service, how are you connecting with someone beyond transaction. I've talked about that before.
So if we are in a really basic sense, a brand is made up of two things, content, what you say, personality, how you say it. So you might be selling a product, you might be talking about your expertise in a subject. That's the content but the personality is what we like about you. That's the part that keeps us coming back to you and only you for that content. And I think having measurement of round, it's not dissimilar to affinity but like sentiment, are people happy? If you're offering customer service and people are in touch with your brand, are they generally happy?
Let me give you an example. I am really happy with T Mobile right now. And then I think about how awful cell phone companies normally are. But I'm in Mexico at the moment with no plans to go anywhere anytime soon given the situation in the world, and I've gotten a series of alerts that say Phil, you're seriously roaming outside of America, we're going to cut your data off. And T Mobile, to be fair, has warned me about this for several months. Well before I said that well before pandemic situations. However, I thought, well, I'm going to be stuck in Mexico and I'm not going anywhere soon, I might as well get in touch with them and tell them that I can't go anywhere. So I sent them a message on Twitter. They replied to dm within 15 minutes with a really nice, detailed, thoughtful reply, and said, Phil, not only are we going to take care of it for you and make sure that your service isn't interrupted on this day. We're also going to follow up with you that day to make sure that your service isn't interrupted. And they did. That was today. They sent me a message today and said, Just following up as promised, amazing. I thought, I thought that was amazing. That's amazing customer service.
So I think in industry, that's pretty difficult. When you're not happy with your phone, you're not happy. You know, I've had some terrible experiences with other companies. And generally, I'm super satisfied with them. And that's an example of like, one instance of building brand loyalty of having not only content or the product itself, but also the personality around it.
Lauren:
That is so interesting. This story made me think that a business is what a company does, a brand is how that company makes you feel. Because I think a big part of why you like about T Mobile right now in the story, it's not just because they were following up with you and making sure that you're happy, but I have a feeling it's also the tone of voice that they're using. How it's almost more casual in nature, it's positive, and it's making you feel a certain way.
Phil:
Absolutely.
Lauren:
So when we're branding clients, it's so tough to describe success in a visual way, because, again, it's intangible. And to me a successful personal brand is really when you capture the essence of a person and align it with their long term goals. But that's just my opinion. That's not necessarily something that everyone could see and measure. So what do you think, when we're branding clients, how do you know if the brand is successful or not?
Phil:
So we've actually gone back to clients after doing their projects to ask them, was it successful in their opinion. That's what's interesting about this. Like we've gone back and I've actually talked to past clients to understood how they measured success because I have some ideas of it. And certainly when we're working on a project, we have a desired outcome. But it's also up to the client to continue that, right. So if the goal is to build a brand that's going to help you get more speaking engagements, we work together to make it but that client is also responsible for continuing that after getting what they need from us.
And I think it's the clients who really believe wholeheartedly in the brand, using the visuals, believing in the parameters created for them, but also really thinking more qualitatively about the brand. What does it represent? How do you put it into words, what is on brand, what is not on brand.
When you start to really follow those parameters you create for yourself, and you start to also like, visualize your goals and make sure that you're working every single day, or every single week I could say, towards those for me, I need to have a day of the week where I'm not interrupted with clients. work, I need to Phil day. That's Wednesday, Wednesday is Phil day and Phil gets to do whatever he wants on Phil day. And it's usually work on our own projects.
So I guess I went on a tangent, but I think people are going to define success in all different ways. I think as long as you know what those goals are upfront and you revisit them routinely, then ultimately, you can work towards achieving them. That might be getting more speaking engagements, it might be growing your business, getting more clients, increasing your rates, negotiating bigger contracts. I don't know, those are examples of the types of goals that we've heard from clients.
Website traffic, you know, having a website that people actually learn what they need to learn from you in order to take the conversation from online to off. I think of Kate Payne in that instance, right? As someone who trusted us to deliver a website and then came back to us months later and said, hey, it's working, people found us the only explanation is the website. So I don't know there's different examples.
Lauren:
Mm hmm.
Phil:
Time for a little break mid conversation so we can tell you about our sponsor this week. Our sponsor this week is Hero Cosmetics. Save us from pimples Hero!
Lauren:
This is a really cool brand. They sent us over the Mighty Patch which is this hydrocolloid acne patch. So if you have a pimple pop up, you just stick a Mighty Patch original on it overnight and in the morning, there's a good chance that the pimple will be completely flat when you're done.
Phil:
This company graciously even sent us samples so that we can tell you truthfully that we've tried it and it worked. And then they sent us some questions about it and we want to share our experience.
Lauren:
Okay, so Phil, what was the experience like compared to any other acne products you've tried like harsh pimple creams, scrubs, peels, other acne patches?
Phil:
Well I'm happy that at the ripe old age of 31, I have less acne that I did when I was a teenager, but actually, this was a problem for me. However, I still get the occasional zit as I call them, pop up. And the timing of this was perfect because this actually came when I had a zit. I've been working out more, and maybe I've been sweating more, and I think that's the problem. I mean, it's not a problem. It's a good thing, but I definitely had one and this was amazing. It was amazing. You just literally put it on the zit, pimple or whatever you want to call it. And what happened was it like flattened it, you put it on overnight, and it gets rid of it.
Lauren:
Could you see the gunk?
Phil:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, they did ask us about this. Yes, you could. It's disgusting, but it's satisfying. You know, there's channels and stuff about pimple popping, people have a fascination with this.
Lauren:
I'm one of them. Whenever I'm stressed out or need to turn off my brain, I always look up like blackhead removal.
Phil:
That's disgusting. So when you remove the patch, you see the gunk, but it flattens it. So I would recommend this Mighty Patch. Again, the brand is Hero Cosmetics. I would recommend this Mighty Patch if zits are a thing in your world. Code BRANDTHERAPY15 will give you 15% off on Hero Cosmetics, which is super cool. So check that out if you're interested.
Lauren:
And one other thing that's really cool about the Mighty Patch is that it only has one simple ingredient and it's suitable for sensitive skin and you have sensitive skin and it completely worked for you.
Phil:
I have horribly sensitive skin. Yes, it worked. Yes, you should try it. Shall we get back to the conversation?
Lauren:
One last thing. I just want to add what's on the blog this week. So in this episode, we're all talking about what a successful brand is. And on our blog, we've got three examples of successful brands that actually we have helped develop.
Phil:
Yeah, check it out. Check out lots of exciting things pimples, brands.
Lauren:
This is just my sweet spot of content topics.
Phil:
Yeah, blackheads and brands baby, this is the episode for you. Okay, now we get back to the episode.
Lauren:
I'm trying to think of how we can give listeners some guidelines. If they're rebranding or thinking about branding, and if they hire another designer, how can they measure the success of the brand that the designers are making for them?
So the first thing that you've touched on multiple times during this recording is setting goals and figuring out what kind of brand you want to become. Just having the goal to make, I don't know, a million dollars is great, of course, but that's that goal doesn't translate to a brand. I think it's important for people to consider who their audiences are, what they want that audience to feel when they interact with the brand, and what kind of values people are communicating through that brand.
As an example, if you're wanting to convey a very sophisticated, luxurious elite experience, then probably a neon color or like a hot pink might not communicate the values of your brand. It could, but it might not. So I feel that kind of like goal setting is really important for designers in particular to hear, what do you think?
Phil:
I agree? Yeah, I agree. So visual parameters. What about brand voice?
Lauren:
Yeah, so brand voice is a really tricky one. My favorite thing to do when writing for clients is define who that ideal audience is and actually in my brain, put like a name to or a person to that audience.
You do this to you write with a hairstylist in mind when you're doing your own stuff. And I think of the same thing about clients.
So I think the key is for developing your brand voice, you've got to think about your audience. And it's easier to think about your audience when you're thinking about a person.
Phil:
Yeah, don't just think generally about the demographics of what your audience might want, actually name someone and describe them. Where are they sitting? What are they doing? What's their job? What's the routine? What keeps them up at night? What do they love to do specifically, and not someone that your client tells you about. It should be someone that, you know, ideally, that relates to that demographic.
Of course, you have to listen to your client because maybe you don't have the perfect audience archetype, but I think it's important for you to relate to someone personally, as you're writing in that client's voice.
Lauren:
I have a controversial opinion. I don't think it's possible to successfully brand without knowing who the audience is. Do you agree or disagree? Oh, you do agree?
Phil:
Well, yes. If you don't know, because then you don't take any risks. You can't stand confidently and give an opinion, a statement that's different from what everyone else says. When you don't know your audience you become, even if not on purpose, a generalist. Because you're afraid to take a stance, you're afraid to speak specifically to an audience that yes, might not resonate with what you say if your message isn't directed at them. However, the power in communicating to a specific audience that does identify their needs in what you offer, that's a game changer and all of a sudden you just stood out in a sea of 1000 other options.
I think about Adelaide Goodeve, who's on our website, as an example of this. Adelaide could be a business coach, maybe not a business coach, but let's just call her a coach in general, an overused term coach, technically, we could be coaches. But, when she went all in working with triathletes. Very niche very specific, all of a sudden, those people who are her audience, identify themselves and what she offers.
Lauren:
It's true. It's true. I'm also thinking about operational ways to measure the success of a brand. So for us, I think having those complimentary logos are so critical. I do a really bad job of explaining what a lock up is. Phil could you explain?
Phil:
Well, it's just multiple versions of your logo. So if you think about your logo design, and you only have one version that can exist everywhere, it gets repetitive and boring, and it doesn't feel special in the context that it exists.
So think about having a Horizontal version that would make an amazing email signature. Think about a round icon, something that could be a profile photo on social media or a favicon in a browser window, that little icon that appears up there, that is your logo, right? Then hop over to YouTube or LinkedIn where you need a really landscape design for your banner. What do you put as a simplified version of your brand in the header of a website? I normally do the text only version and pepper the mark throughout the website itself just to keep it really simple and legible.
Or I go with just the icon and no text. It just depends. But you always want to go as simple. And yeah, that's a lock up.
Lauren:
Great. So I think that a successful brand almost functionally, is flexible enough that you can stay on brand, no matter where anyone sees it. And having lockups really helps with that.
Phil:
Right. And It customizes the experience of where they're consuming your brand.
Lauren:
Great. And then other kinds of consistent elements of a successful brand would include, typography, sticking with the typography that your designer has selected for you, that's really key.
Phil:
Yes. We have lots of instances where people decide to get really fancy and start using other fonts or typography. And it just, it's just not something you should do. When you make a rule, follow that rule.
Lauren:
Yeah. Great. I think that should cover it. Anything else you want to say about what a successful brand is?
Phil:
Not really.
Lauren:
Okay, so let's summarize everything that we've discussed today.
Phil:
Measuring your success.
Lauren:
Yes.
Lauren:
So how do you quantitatively measure the success of a brand Phil?
Phil:
Anything to do with numbers. So website traffic, inquiries, sales, followers on social media.
Lauren:
Mm hmm. And you basically want to have those baseline, sort of those benchmarks, and you want them to improve. So you want people to be buying faster, you want them to be commenting faster, you want the traffic going up, you want your subscribers going up, you want your followers going up. And if it's not going up, that might be an indicator that your brand isn't quite at the level of success that you need it to be at.
Okay, so let's go over to qualitatively. So how do you qualitatively measure the success of a brand?
Phil:
Sentiment on social media, connection beyond transaction when it comes to selling your product or service.
Lauren:
Consistency and visual experience. Speaking to your ideal audience, consistent tone of voice.
Phil:
I think that sums it up.
Lauren:
Okay.
Phil:
Great. Hopefully this episode will help you be successful as a brand. We want to know what you think. Find us on social media online @philpallen.
Lauren:
@thelaurenmoore
Phil:
#brandtherapy so we can continue the conversation if you enjoy our podcast. If you've made it this far and you're listening, you might as well say hello. In my opinion, you might as well say hello. We'd love to hear from you. And if you really enjoy it, then do us a favor and go to the iTunes store and leave us a review. This helps other people discover this podcast that we work very hard to create so that you can enjoy it very much. That's it for us this week and we look forward to being back here on Brand Therapy. We will see you then.
Lauren:
See you next time.