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What's a Brand? (Hint: It's More Than a Logo)
58 Plays6 years ago
Listen in as B2B technology branding expert Chad Nelson of The Basis Group shares insights about branding. Chad tells us:
- What led him to become so passionate about branding
- How a brand is more than a logo
- Why a brand is as important internally as it is externally
- About a brand's impact on corporate culture, customer experience, and even hiring
- Why branding is even more important than features when it comes to B2B technology companies
- The challenges of changing founder's (and quota-carrying salespeople's) minds to favor brand over features
Links to information mentioned in this episode:
Seth Godin's definition of brand
The Marketing Mix is brought to you by Jackson Marketing, Inc.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Marketing Mix Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Marketing Mix Podcast with Alaina and Stacey. Each week we'll bring you ideas that you can implement in your own marketing strategy. We'll share what we know as well as advice from industry experts, some of whom will join us from time to time here on the show. Are you ready to mix it up? Let's get started.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey there, this is Stacey Jackson. And I'm Elena Jackson. We're co-founders of Jackson Marketing. We're also sisters. And we're bringing you Episode 7 of the Marketing Mix. Elena, what is today's episode about?
Featuring Chad Nelson: Branding in B2B Tech
00:00:36
Speaker
Today, we've got a special guest joining us to talk about branding. His name is Chad Nelson of The Basis Group.
00:00:42
Speaker
out of Colorado, and the Basis Group helps B2B technology companies take their brands to the next level. And coming up after the break, we are going to have Chad introduce himself and tell you a little bit more about him and his company. And branding. All right, I can't wait to get started. So let's go to break and hear from today's sponsor. Then when we come back, we'll welcome Chad.
00:01:09
Speaker
Alright, and welcome back and we are here with Chad Nelson from the basis group. So Chad, we've given you a slight introduction, but maybe you can give us a little bit more about you and what you do at the basis group and then we'll kind of kick it off with talking about branding.
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, you bet. Well, thank you, Elena and Stacey for having me on your podcast. I really look forward to the conversation. So yeah, so the Basis Group is a brand communications firm. We specialize in B2B technology companies. The majority of those tech companies have been software companies, and the majority of those software companies have been software as a service. In fact, our first SaaS company we started working with
00:01:55
Speaker
was a company called IRM, who is later acquired by AFS. And we started working with them in 2001. And I know you two are familiar with AFS. Yeah, we're alumni. Yeah, we're familiar with them. And so, yeah, so started back in 2001 with our first SaaS company. And so we've kind of been there from the very beginnings of sort of the SaaS model. We are located 10 miles north of Boulder, Colorado. And we started the company back in the year 2000.
What is Branding? A Broader Definition
00:02:25
Speaker
Chad, I think a lot of people get confused with branding. Maybe they just focus on a logo or corporate identity, but there's more to it than that. So can you walk us through what is branding?
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, you bet. You're absolutely right. There's just a myriad of definitions and it's crazy. If you go on the internet, you will literally find thousands of different definitions. I actually think that it's the design and creative world in many ways that has made the mistake of thinking about a brand as a logo. Again, it's not uncommon for people to show the Nike swoosh and say, that's the Nike brand.
00:03:03
Speaker
Though that is an iconic representation of the Nike brand. It really doesn't embody what the brand is. I like the definition that Seth Godin has, and I'll just read that.
00:03:14
Speaker
He says, a brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer, whether it's a business, a buyer, a voter, or a donor, doesn't pay a premium, make a selection
00:03:33
Speaker
or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer. So when I think about a brand, it really isn't just, it's not just your logo and it's not even your corporate identity. It extends to the person who answers your phone. It's customer service. It's somebody's experience if they have used your product.
00:03:52
Speaker
It's someone's experience if they have gone to your website. So it's a whole group of memories, expectations, and relationships that make someone's perception of your brand. And if that's not a positive experience, then of course, they won't pay a premium. They won't select you, and they won't spread the word. And so that's really, again, what I think a brand is. It's a much more holistic look at how people perceive your company and the products that you offer.
Internal Impact of a Well-Defined Brand
00:04:19
Speaker
That very last part that you were reading from his definition was then there's no brand. Is that what it said? Yeah. It says then there is no brand value that exists for that consumer. And I think that that's probably where a lot of companies are because they're not branding those companies. And just to think about it that way, that's got to make a lot of CEOs and owners of companies go, wow, do we have a brand? You know, and, and to just question it. Right. Well,
00:04:47
Speaker
I think at the end of the day, everyone has a brand. They may not be aware of actually how they're being perceived in consumers' eyes, but everyone has a brand. You think about every company you interact with, and you have a perception and expectation and awareness of who and what they are, or you don't have that. I think some people might think, hey, we don't spend a lot on branding, so we stay under the radar or whatever. I don't know. But they still have a brand by default.
00:05:16
Speaker
It just may not be the brand they are hoping. Exactly. So you kind of have to change the mindset of what people do. They're also in marketing in a way. They're part of the brand. They need to be part of it. That's absolutely right. Yeah. So right. It is people's holistic impression of a company you think about. If you, for example, love a company,
00:05:37
Speaker
and then you call them and you're actually on hold, you go through a very complex menu and then you're on hold for a half an hour. Maybe even if you love their product, you may really sort of discount their brand after that experience. So again, it goes deeper beyond product or offering or anything like that. It goes deep into all the ways that you interact with your consumers.
00:05:59
Speaker
Obviously, branding is something very close and near and dear to your heart. What is it that got you so passionate about branding? It really started back at the beginning of my career. I'm a designer by trade. That's my original position.
00:06:16
Speaker
And we would go to meetings where we would either be presenting creative ideas, whether that be a logo or a brochure or website design or whatever. And I was often struck that once we got done presenting, and again, we would show our various ideas. And as we showed each idea, we would support it with rationale and that rationale would be based on either the creative brief or it would be based on
00:06:42
Speaker
a conversation we had with someone within the company before we started. But as soon as we get done presenting our ideas, I'd always be surprised how it would immediately devolve to a critique about the aesthetics. So the direction that was picked oftentimes would be, well, that one, I really like that one. That one's cool. Or I hate the color on that one. Or why did you use that typeface? It seems so chunky.
00:07:07
Speaker
or those kinds of comments. And that got frustrating for me because I really didn't actually know where the target was anymore. I didn't know what the objective of what we were designing was to achieve. And so I thought, I've got to find a more objective process where I truly understand what the company is about. And then our creative objective would be to communicate that in a dynamic way that was relevant to the customer that was
00:07:34
Speaker
That was interesting but also enlightened them on on sort of core attributes that we wanted to communicate and so that's when I started discovering what a brand was and started researching more and then from there my partner and I developed a methodology.
00:07:50
Speaker
And so it's sort of evolved from then, but it really was bore out of that frustration. I think the other reason I'm kind of passionate about branding is I've actually seen, yes, it really helps on the creative and sort of the external communication part. It's much more effective if you have a sort of brand definition to push ideas up against. But I think I've really liked
00:08:13
Speaker
what's done internally to companies and so when you have a well-defined brand people actually know what your value proposition is they know what your values are they know what your market differentiation is they know what
00:08:29
Speaker
the pain points of the customer are. And so it allows them to work in a much more unified fashion and towards a goal. And they actually know what they're there to deliver. So again, if that customer service person understands what the brand's about, they're going to handle a customer, hopefully accordingly. They really ingest what the brand's about.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about I know that you deal with some technology companies that are maybe evolving to the next level of their maturity. And Alaina and I have dealt with some of those too. And what we have observed is that when it's especially a really tight knit group of employees who have been there forever,
00:09:10
Speaker
They feel like the brand is an extension of their identity But they need to switch their mindset to how can they be an extension of the brand's identity? I think that whole corporate culture working together is so important there people still have unique gifts and they do have a unique perspective and so I do think that is one of the challenges for sure is like how do we pull you in as an individual into our company and
00:09:35
Speaker
Right. And take advantage of your passions, your unique skill sets and gifts, and marry that with our brand so that you actually can make those gifts up an additional bright light or component of that brand. And that's where, again, one of the things that I've been wrestling with for a long time is not just the brand definition, but then how do you extend it to the entire company? How do you make sure that every employee actually understands the brand?
00:10:04
Speaker
and can personally own it and understand how that brand impacts their job.
Employee Skills and Brand Identity Integration
00:10:11
Speaker
And so that's a process. And again, it's not a one-size-fits-all. And again, part of it is that personalization of like,
00:10:20
Speaker
If you're someone who is in HR, how do you view the brand? How does that impact how you treat the employees, how you set up culture and promote culture and prioritize things the brand wants to prioritize? So your job is different than say someone who's a developer because the developer might say, okay, how does the brand affect me? Well, it may affect you in that the product needs to be developed so it delivers a particular experience.
00:10:47
Speaker
You know, that's an interesting point about HR and the brand because they need a great employer side of the brand to attract the people that are going to live the brand values. Right. That's right. Exactly. And it goes deep into hiring. Exactly. I mean, that, that's one of the hopes is that you, you, you first would understand the brand. And then as you went out and hired people, you would really sort of look for certain attributes and characteristics to say, is this person going to be a,
00:11:14
Speaker
Joyfully a part of our brand or are they actually just not a good fit for whatever reason and I think it can help Help you in that process, right? Have you I just was thinking about a lot of companies over the last few years are have become really big with social responsibility and having that as part of their brand have you noticed that being a big part of the branding process with any of the companies you work with I know you work with more technology companies, so it makes
00:11:44
Speaker
be as huge, but is that what you've noticed? Right. I haven't noticed like a lot of the consumer brands that sort of much more... You're seeing a lot of consumer brands literally jump into the hottest political issues of our day and actually taking a position on it. And again, I don't see that as much in the world that
00:12:04
Speaker
that we work in, I do think, boy, I mean, when I look at that, I actually think, I think it's okay to have values as a company and you need to have values. I think you've got to be careful that you're not alienating half your audience. And sometimes when I see consumer brands going out and doing things, yes, they're supporting their values and they may be supporting some or maybe even more, most of their employees with their value position. But I also think it's, yeah, you got to realize that you might be really alienating.
00:12:33
Speaker
half your audience. And so it hasn't really taken hold of the business to business technology world yet. But again, that may be something as companies strive to want to have values because I think companies actually in many ways, there's been such a push for revenue over the past 20 years where that's like the ultimate value, I guess, is to say, hey, as long as we're meeting our financial needs, we're performing well as a company. And I think
00:13:03
Speaker
consumers and employees and stuff are just demanding that they stand for more than that. And so that's where I think you've seen those trends come in. I don't know if they'll continue or not. It'll be interesting to see. Yeah, it's definitely more prominent in the B2C world than in the B2B.
Why Brand Building is Crucial for B2B Tech
00:13:18
Speaker
I completely agree with you there. In the B2B world, since you focus more on technology companies, why is it so important for B2B tech companies to focus on branding?
00:13:29
Speaker
Well, I think first and foremost, well, there's probably three reasons, I guess I should say. First and foremost, I think it's the internal benefits of branding that tech companies really benefit from. You know, it's important to cast a vision and when employees aren't clear about
00:13:46
Speaker
who they are and what they value and what they strive to deliver, they end up being a feature-focused company. So I think that internally, it just really helps guide employees and where we're going. What's the roadmap for the company? What kind of services do we need to build out in order to deliver this brand to the world?
00:14:05
Speaker
I think the other thing tech companies, and this happens particularly in more mature markets, is it's easy to become a commodity. I know we've experienced companies where there may be five or six solutions out there, and they essentially all have the same features and benefits.
00:14:22
Speaker
And as soon as one company comes up with a new feature, they sort of tout that. And they're like, Look at us, we got this new shiny nickel here. And that maybe gives them a little burst of sales for a short period of time where they have an advantage. But then almost immediately, everyone writes that feature into their roadmap, particularly if they see it's successful. And 6 months later, they have that same feature. And so if you base your brand
00:14:47
Speaker
on that differentiation then you need to know that you will lose that advantage in that differentiation almost immediately and so there's got to be elements and components of your brand that live above that it's your value set it's the way you deliver your products and services it's the user interface and user experience
00:15:07
Speaker
So these are all part of what a brand is made up of. And so again, that's another thing a brand can do is help give you more differentiation. I think third, and again, this is very important, is tech companies need to build brand equity. And I'll explain what that means. But one of the things that tech companies experience maybe
00:15:27
Speaker
unlike maybe traditional companies, there is often a lot of change. Tech companies constantly have to evolve. So you think about software companies, and so many of them essentially went from software out of the box, then it was like, software as a suite.
00:15:45
Speaker
Then it was like software in the cloud, and now it's like these full software platforms. Software has evolved a lot, and therefore the products and the solutions and the services also have changed as marketplaces change. Well, when that happens, if you want to be able to do that in a seamless way and in a very strong and efficient way,
00:16:04
Speaker
It's really important to have brand equity. And I'll just give you an example. You think about Apple. Apple, essentially in the year 2000, was a PC maker. And they had software and so forth. So they provided computing solutions for the creative class. And so they had built a very loyal brand amongst that audience. They were very successful and had very loyal brand followers.
00:16:28
Speaker
But it was interesting to note, when you think about the fact that the iPod came out in, I think, 2001 and then iTunes came out in 2003, here's an industry that Apple had never been in.
00:16:40
Speaker
It's the music industry. It essentially had been LPs, cassettes, and then CDs. Here, Apple was saying, no, we're not just going to introduce a new product in a completely new marketplace known as the music industry. We're actually not just going to introduce a product. We're actually going to create a whole ecosystem. You're going to actually buy through us and you're going to be able to carry your entire music collection in your pocket, which was mind-blowing.
00:17:08
Speaker
Again, they had amazing adoption and people loved their product. Much of that came from that loyal brand audience they had built in the PC market. It's like those people immediately went there with them. That brand equity, again, is all that value that you carry over.
00:17:25
Speaker
So that when you do deliver a new product, people take all the great attributes you had in your previous products into that new product. They make assumptions that, of course, they're going to deliver. And Apple is very consistent and good at actually delivering all those attributes in their next product. And that's why then when the iPhone comes out, in 2007, you see lines wrapped around the building.
00:17:49
Speaker
of people that want to buy this phone, even though that was an amazingly competitive space. Apple had never been in the mobile phone market, but again, instantly successful. And that was really based on brand equity. So again, that's sort of the third reason why I think tech companies need to get involved in branding and need to understand their brand is because brand equity is one of the ways they're going to be successful through a lot of transitions.
00:18:14
Speaker
Do you think tech companies lose sight of the fact that today's buyer has changed? They're more modern. They're more educated. They have the internet to do research and they can easily see when, okay, all these, these five companies all have the same features. So, and features aren't what is selling for them. They need to differentiate themselves.
00:18:37
Speaker
When you go into those situations, how do you convince those CEOs and the founders and the different tweet people that you're working with that you've got to have a different, it's not about features. I mean, again, that can be, that can be tough because I will say this, the branding takes discipline. Again, the example I just used with Apple, Apple is one of those companies that's amazingly disciplined in, in delivering their brand. They are incredibly uncompromising.
00:19:06
Speaker
And so it does take convincing the CEO or the executive team.
00:19:12
Speaker
that, hey, this is the right approach. Yes, your salespeople particularly might feel like features are the best way to sell the product quickly. And that's what I've found. That's part of the reason so many tech companies don't do a great job of branding is because at the end of the day, they're not patient enough. They're not disciplined enough. They actually... It's so easy to call a customer up that you haven't talked to in a while or a prospect that you have not talked to in a while and essentially say,
00:19:39
Speaker
Hey, we got this new feature. I think you're going to love it. I think I heard you talk about it in our last conversation. So can we demo the product? It goes there because it's very tangible if you have a new feature and it's very easy to understand. And so again, I think a lot of companies fall back on that in some ways because it's just very tangible and easy to sell.
00:19:59
Speaker
So it does take some convincing to the executive team. It says, hey, you're going to be in a commodity space. And if you start essentially, if everyone looks the same in your industry and all the solutions are essentially the same thing, but slightly different user interfaces, you need to know that you're going to be in a race to zero. You're going to be essentially battling only on price and you're going to have no premium value in the mind of the consumer. Because again, you've just, all you've done is said, we think this features king, but guess what? Everyone else has it. So now you're saying, well, we can be cheaper.
00:20:29
Speaker
I think particularly if executives have gone through that pain of saying, wow, we are really losing margins and we're not nearly as profitable as we used to be, they start to say, yeah, we need to do something that's going to help us differentiate and add value, perceived value for sure in the minds of our customers. Yeah. And I think that that's where a lot of tech companies, they
00:20:51
Speaker
lose track of branding in the sales process too, or they don't understand what their brand really is because they're only focused on those features. I think that's where a lot of tech companies kind of lose customers and sight of what's happening in their overall process because they don't, they're just focused on the revenue and let's just get it done. We know the features, we think we're awesome, so let's just move forward with this and not differentiating themselves. I think that that's
00:21:20
Speaker
I think you hit the nail on the head with why they do such a poor job with branding themselves. Yeah. And just to touch on that, I do think there's a couple other reasons that tech companies don't do a great job branding. I think part of that is that when tech companies are first developed, there's an idea and then there's a product that's developed, a solution that's developed. And so that the technology itself becomes king.
00:21:43
Speaker
It becomes the ultimate thing like this is this is our baby we started from this amazing idea we saw a need in the marketplace and we created this thing and it's amazing and so they think the magic is actually in the technology in the features and that works for a while particularly again if you're coming up with a solution where there is no solution.
00:22:02
Speaker
You know, if you've sort of like come up with something completely fresh and there is an unmet need, the technology is king because there was nothing because nobody else has it. Exactly. There was nothing before. It's when new players start coming in and you realizing we're playing in a competitive field now and wow, they have what we have. And maybe in some ways it's even better. Okay. Our options are again, we can.
00:22:25
Speaker
we can keep cranking up the feature list until we get something that's better than them or we can think about what what really is our brand about what is the mission and vision of our company and then what are the brand values what do we believe in who whose problem are we solving how are we uniquely solving it and that can start to drive the differentiation.
00:22:45
Speaker
As I mentioned earlier, too, I think sales and marketing have quotas. I was touching on this. And again, I think features sometimes can expedite the sales process. So I think that's another reason tech companies do such a poor job branding. I think the third thing is that so often
00:23:01
Speaker
particularly the companies that we work with because we work with a lot of companies. They're outside the startup stage and they've got maybe 10 to 30 employees and they're at that stage where the technology is starting to have competitors and things like that, but they don't really have the skill set to define their brand. Not only did they not have the skill set, I think the people that are inside are so close to things. They don't have the objectivity either. That's why I think using outside firms can be very helpful for a tech company.
00:23:31
Speaker
someone who will come in and do the primary and secondary research and actually ask the tough question. And it's not uncommon for me. If I have a company that says, for example, hey, we've got the best customer service in the industry. Our customers love us. And I find out, actually, after doing reviews and talking to customers, no, that's not actually your sweet spot.
00:23:51
Speaker
I will actually come back and challenge them too and say, if you really believe in this, and this is a value your brand possesses, it's an attribute you possess and deliver on, then I need to hear several ways in which you uniquely deliver customer service that none of your competitors deliver. Then I'll believe it's actually a value, particularly if you'll painfully deliver that. There's a cost there that you don't see back, but because you believe in customer service, you uniquely offer
00:24:20
Speaker
avenues of customer service that the competitors don't.
00:24:23
Speaker
then I'll believe it's an attribute you believe in and we'll make it part of your brand. Right. If they don't and they just kind of, well, hey, our customers love us. They leave it at that. Then I know, okay, here's something that is actually going to compromise their brand because they're never going to be able to deliver it in the customer's mind, despite the fact that they market it themselves as a customer service driven company. So there's a disconnect there. And so those are kind of three reasons why I think tech companies do a poor job branding.
00:24:50
Speaker
In my own experience as a customer of a company like yours, I was a lower level marketing person who went in with my CMO and we hired a firm and, oh yeah, let's do this. Let's do that. And the CEO was like, yeah, you guys go do it. Then when it came time to present, that was his baby. That was his software and things just fell apart. So do you have any, um,
00:25:12
Speaker
even though we had a chief marketing officer involved, things didn't go quite according to plan. What are your recommendations to people who want to do this, but maybe don't have everybody on board? Well, and I do think, I mean, I know in every brand conversation that we've been, when we go to present our definition of a brand. And so typically we do a lot of research upfront, primary, secondary, we do surveys, we do all kinds of ways of gathering information. Then we start bridging that together and take all that disparate sort of information and start
00:25:41
Speaker
pushing it together and we end up with a very well-defined brand. We'll often go present that. And by the time we get done with something like that, I literally feel like we probably understand the industry better than they do. Maybe we don't understand the dynamics of selling and really how customers... Because some of those salespeople have gone up against the objections, but we even try to mine all that information. We'll talk to salespeople and interview them and ask them, what kind of pushback do you get?
00:26:09
Speaker
What are the things that they're asking about that you don't have? So we try to really vet that whole thing. By the time we get in front of a CEO, I feel like it's pretty tight. And I think we can defend virtually any of our definitions. At some point, you're right. You are going to have that, this is my baby, how dare you... Call it ugly. Yeah, right. Exactly.
00:26:28
Speaker
or my logo orange right right and so it's not problem free that's part of the discussion as you work through those things and honestly i don't pretend to think like i understand things you know as well as ceo's understand them i mean there's so many parts of running a business and running their business dynamics and stuff with employees and
00:26:47
Speaker
partners and customers and product development. There are so many dynamics that they're going to actually have a much richer, deeper grasp of. And so we're going to stay there with our definition. We're going to argue in the merits for why we defined it a particular way. But at the end of the day, you're right. You need to get buy-in from your executive team. And if at some point they go, No, I think you need to change this and this and this. We try to find a way to come back and look at it and say, Okay, can we incorporate that feedback? Can we
00:27:17
Speaker
And usually, there's a way. It may not be our first choice. But again, what you do want is buy-in. So we would never want to end up with a brand where the CEO actually completely disagreed with our take on something. Hopefully, there's a discussion where you get through that. Right. So branding today has changed with the introduction of online strategies. How does the branding impact the overall online strategy?
00:27:41
Speaker
I mean, I think it's critical that someone actually understands their brand before they start into a sort of online strategy. I think you need to understand sort of what you're communicating, what your story is, what you value. Because if you understand that, it's going to impact content strategy part. It's going to impact what you write about. It's going to impact how do we write about it.
00:28:04
Speaker
you should be looking at as you develop content. You should make sure that it reflects the company's values and how you want to improve the world, like how your solution actually improves the world. I think another thing too, you know, on content, and this probably goes to more of a social thing, it's not even just about the content you write. I think if you really understand your brand, you can actually curate or repost content, particularly if it validates your brand. I think that's actually a strong way when you take actually outside people that aren't a part of your company.
00:28:33
Speaker
and say they're essentially validating what we've always been validating about how our approach to solving this problem. Right. That's kind of what we do.
00:28:43
Speaker
when we do social for our clients is anything that we curate, it supports the message that they want to convey. That's right. Yeah. So again, you can only do that if you first understand your brand, if you're essentially just taking anything that has to do with the industry and plopping it in there, then who knows what you're supporting? You know, I suppose you're supporting the industry, but you're all over the place.
00:29:04
Speaker
It's not clear to customers, again, where you stand and what you believe in.
Websites as Brand Reflectors in Tech
00:29:08
Speaker
I think when it comes to keywords, too, you need to have a keyword strategy that, again, where the things that your brand values, those words need to rank high. So if someone types that into a search query, then you're coming up above the fold on those particular words because it's saying to the customer, we value
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, this approach, we value these words because that's part of what our brand is. I also think, you know, it absolutely should be a part of your emails that go out, you know, and that's just good marketing, you know, you just want to have a strong consistent brand. So both visually and verbally, your brand needs to be reflected in your emails, certainly your website, it should be driving all those things.
00:29:46
Speaker
I think brand is actually getting more important than ever because again, it's so easy to blur the lines when you're literally ingesting that much information. And so if you don't stand for something and you don't have a consistent message, so it's clear what you stand for, you're just going to be lost in the sea of information. So it really needs impact. Yeah. Your, your online strategy. You know, uh, Rand Fishkin, who's famous in the SEO circles, he does these series of whiteboard Fridays for Moz and
00:30:15
Speaker
this current series he has going, he's walking people through SEO and why it's important. He made an important point in this last week's episode where he said, you can't start with SEO strategy. You have to start with corporate goals and the brand. And too many people think, at least in my opinion, that, oh, if we just hit the right keywords, we'll get all the traffic we need, or that SEO will generate the demand, but SEO should just funnel the traffic
00:30:44
Speaker
to you based on what your brand and corporate goals are all about. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. Well put. A moment ago, you mentioned that the website needs to communicate the brand as well. One thing that Stacy and I have noticed, because like you, we focus on B2B tech companies. The smaller ones. B2B software companies. Yeah, the smaller ones. We've noticed that a lot of times tech companies
00:31:12
Speaker
their websites just do not reflect that they're a tech company. Is that something that you found? Like maybe it's an older looking site or it's not a more modern feel, which you would expect a tech company to have. So this idea that one of the attributes tech companies should have is a sense of innovation.
00:31:33
Speaker
The solution is new and it's fresh and it actually provides something that hasn't been provided. One of the ways you do that, obviously, is through design. You should have a look that feels somewhat original and modern because so often, technology creates efficiencies and things like that. Does your website communicate an efficiency?
00:31:58
Speaker
I mean, that's one of the great things Apple does. You sense their design actually reflects what they believe is a company, which is their technology is made for human beings. And it's beautiful. It's aesthetic. It's created not just as a utility, but it's actually created to align with human beings. And when you look at their
00:32:24
Speaker
When you look at their website, it's beautiful but simple. There's just so many things they do right to visually and verbally communicate those brand attributes. So yes, I think, again, first, you got to figure out what do we believe in. Like you said, so often, technology is there because it's a tool. It's a tool that can be used to help better communicate, to create efficiency, to those kinds of things. Those attributes need to be communicated.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah, and your website should look as good as you hope your customers think your software looks. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, right. No, right. Exactly. So if your website is inconsistent, if it's broken, if it looks dated, that absolutely impacts the way people perceive your software. And if I can't figure out what you do right when I get to your site, I'm leaving. Right.
00:33:17
Speaker
I don't want to have to hunt and peck to figure out, okay, they set this on the link I clicked on Google, but I don't see it anywhere on this page. I don't know exactly what they do. And I think that's one thing that a lot of companies miss out on is clearly defining even in above the fold on the homepage. What do you do? Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
And you're absolutely right. Because again, that communicates something... I may extrapolate that like, oh, so if I use their user interface, I could equally be as lost. Or maybe their software is not going to be as intuitive as I thought because, wow, their website sure isn't. Exactly. And you're right, you can't help but make those comparisons and read through that. And that is part of understanding your brand and then communicating it
00:34:09
Speaker
in all ways is important. So Chad, are there any other thoughts that you'd like to leave us with when it comes to brands or branding that our audience should keep in mind?
David Ocker on Branding: Key Insights
00:34:20
Speaker
Well, I can tell you someone that I really have looked up to and learned so much from is a gentleman by the name of David Ocker. And David, I believe he works at Cal Berkeley, but he works for a company called Profit, at least in his commercial world. And then I think he also teaches some courses, I think at Cal Berkeley, but he's sort of been like a mentor.
00:34:39
Speaker
just through his books about what great branding is. And here's what he said when he talked about the vision. Here's what great vision a well-defined brand can provide. He said, it reflects and supports the business strategy, differentiates from competitors, it resonates with customers, it energizes and inspires employees and partners, and it precipitates a gush of ideas for marketing programs.
00:35:03
Speaker
I thought that was really well put. A really well-defined brand does all those things. It does support the business strategy. It does differentiate. It does resonate with customers. It does inspire employees. It's just so many great ideas captured in that definition. Again, David Ocker, you can find him on the internet, really bright person, someone, again, I've learned a lot from.
00:35:27
Speaker
Well, we'll definitely add a link to his information in the show notes. Well, Chad, thank you so much for joining us today. You have given us a lot of information and provided us with some things that hopefully all of the people listening, if they have a B2B tech company, especially are considering that they need to maybe refocus their attention on their branding and that they will reach out to you. And in fact,
00:35:54
Speaker
How can they reach out to you? What's some ways that they can connect with you? Is it LinkedIn, your website? Give us some examples. I always love when people connect with me on LinkedIn, and it's Chad Nelson at The Basis Group. That's just an easy way to connect and then have a contact. But certainly, they can also visit our website, and that's www.thebasisgroup.com. Then they can also email me. My email is cnelson.com.
00:36:24
Speaker
at thebasisgroup.com. So yeah, anyone who's interested or has questions, I'd love to hear from you. All right, folks, that is it for this episode of The Marketing Mix. We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope that you will connect with Chad on social. Don't forget you can connect with us on Twitter, and it's Stacey underscore Jax, and that's S-T-A-C-Y underscore J-A-X.
00:36:49
Speaker
And Alaina underscore Jax, A-L-A-N-N-A underscore J-A-X. Or you can look us up on LinkedIn. That's Stacey Jackson and Alaina Jackson. If you have the Anchor app on your phone, don't forget you can visit our show there and leave us a voicemail on anchor.fm. We might put it on next week's episode. Have a good week, guys. Bye.
00:37:13
Speaker
The Marketing Mix is hosted by Stacey Jackson and Elena Jackson of, you guessed it, Jackson Marketing. If you need help with your inbound marketing efforts, visit us at JacksonMarketingServices.com.