Lessons

Lesson Info

Brand Awareness

Huge pet peeve advertising does not always equal sales our industry is horrible at processing this they just don't get it well so I ran I ran a magazine and it didn't work why didn't it work? Well, we didn't book anything from it no that's not how advertising works it's about creating awareness the rest of corporate america gets this do you think when they won the super bowl commercials on a doritos ad do you think they can measure? We sold twenty more bags of chips or two thousand more bags of chips because of that doritos commercial no it's called brand awareness here is the worst thing that can happen all your brands no one knows who the hell you are if I go to denver and I'm like have you heard of jewels? Great photography and they're like no who's that she knew how long you been in business seven years that would be disastrous seven years, seven years and actually not that long ago there I met a photographer photographer's wife at a show in january and she was like, oh jules gray ...

I've never met you I've never even heard of you and I was like, oh that's a photog ra who was in your niche she doesn't know where the hell you are that means brides don't know who the hell you are okay, you cannot come into st louis good batter and different and somebody getting married not know who we are it's not possible every wedding planner knows who we are the church's know who we are that's it doesn't it's not because I'm great it's not because our business is perfect it's because we understand the value of brand awareness that's why we do bridal shows who's at the brown shows brides and other vendors so you can't walk by my booth and not hope know who I am anymore you know who we are we've got to understand the value of brand awareness but again as a whole it's not just us by the way the labs don't get it the you know, the photoshopped plugging tools don't get it right we don't have money for that we need a budget for that we don't have this for that. Nobody knows who you are if no one knows who you are, they can't buy your product and there sure as hell not going to spend extra money on your product when they've never heard of you. Would you spend more money on a suit for soup manufacturer you've never heard of? No, but would you spend more money for louis vuitton bag? If you have the money, you would spend it because you've heard of them their stand for quality all these other things right? So people don't know your name you've gotta ask yourself, why not and would you ever spend top dollar on a brand you never heard of no it's simple we're back to consumer behavior we're not backto what south says we're back to study after study after study about consumer behavior this is how they work stop resisting it stop coming up with reasons it's not right it is right it does work make the change awareness campaigns are where it's where it's at we have to have awareness campaigns for our brand that can be on facebook there's a host of ways we're going to talk about those ways over the course of the three days but we have to invest in awareness campaigns some will be free some will cost money grass roots but we've got to start doing things and understanding the value of the brand so what goes into a brand name the name of your brand matte matters guys if you're like happy feet photography what hell is that okay sorry a few own happy feet photography I did not mean to insult you I'm just dude I'm just speaking really what is happy feet photography you take pictures of feet is that what you do or your feet happy or did you watch the penguin movie I don't know okay but we've got to get clarity on what that means your name is part of your brand you've got to think about that for me I made the decision early on salvatore's in qatar photography right? It sounded personal to me. I love the italian part of our name, right? Typically that stand people think of italians, they think of art. So all of those things were conscious decisions and what we were doing it wasn't accidental. Okay, now you've got to rethink that on what your name is. Don't take it personal, right? Don't blame other people don't be like aw, sally's jerk I can't believe you just made my happy feet photography, right? Think about it. What message are we sending to your client's logo logo's matter? Why don't we think logo's matter? I'm proud of all of you it's got photo shop and you got in designed that doesn't mean you're a graphic designer so let's knock off that madness just like everyone's, not a photographer. Everyone is not a graphic designer, right? So your logo does matter. It sends the message to the client. I've been back for the record. I'm embarrassed of my first logo it's, just horrific man like it was really, really bad. I think I might have to show you guys earlier on one of my first flyers we ever sent out. So the flyer's not too bad, but our logo is kind of laughable ah, your website is part of your brand, this all matters we know it matters again because the study's air out there saying eighty percent of our clients are out there looking at our website first. So your websites very important. Of course you're logo's on your website. Pricing matters, right? We just covered that. It says a lot about your brand perception's reality awareness if I've never heard of you and I'm unaware of your brand, I'm not gonna be willing to spend money on you. We've got to get people aware of who you are. That is very, very important quality party of brand. Okay, are you producing a quality product? Are you standing by your product, right? For all our clients, we have a lifetime warranty on their album, lifetime warranty on their canvass, lifetime warranty on their prints. I had a client one time mom dropped the print into a puddle the day before wedding. I'm talking about like a twenty by thirty print slid out of her hands into a puddle completely ruined. Mom called me panic attack now argue arguably that's not part of my warranty. You dropped it in the puddle. Not me. Ok, I replace that print for free that's good service that becomes part of the brand service reputation your image, your personal image is part of your brand. We can't ignore this we can't pretend like it's not reality we judge people in the first ten or ten or fifteen seconds we're looking at them they may not even say anything and we're already jumping to khun questions you don't think clients of jumping to conclusions about you right? Your experience of course that's part of your brand or your long established brand there's some brands I met I met a woman in pennsylvania she's third generation in her studio her reputation is a big part of the brand now mind you that could be both good and bad write her brand could be part of like the old style so she's gotta work towards making sure her brand doesn't start you know carrying that stigma off being old school right she's still current and trendy and moving forward packaging come on man tell me that's not part of my brand this is our black label packaging and I want to show you guys some of this here is the awesome part whenever stuff comes in to our studio I'm going michael jackson on you right now he's left any I have no idea he's michael jackson he did whatever he wanted to do it we're in tiffany's all of a sudden it's buckingham palace is the reason I show you this is when our clients stuff come in everything's white gloved it's part of the brand right we're touching the album were touching we don't want fingerprints all over that stuff guys these things are like fifty cents go buy a pair of white gloves this is how we're inspecting everything when it comes into our studio thes white gloves then go in the box with the clients albums so that they can like love their own album okay, so it starts seeming like an art piece to him which is what it is that I want to sell it to him the bags the packaging okay um this is all part of the brand you open this up okay and check that out you've seen this before right? Everything is labeled metal tags black kraft paper so this is very very high end stuff for our clients that were that were showing them all right I've got more so if your black label client okay you can see the branding they're in the bag it's our different labeling its more high end for them and I want you guys on a break to come here and check check this stuff out but even the packaging in here is completely different so now they've got a black eye uh velvet ribbon and a new tag a metal tag these metal tags are a dollar apiece this is what I'm trying to show my clients as a high end package when they get this stuff they're looking at it going oh my god I've never seen anything like this right? This is tangible stuff that they're seeing in there feeling the boxes this was something we upgraded to uh recently we wanted this these drives and I'll tell you where I get all this stuff this is ah crystal drive with a metal cover when you feel this it's not some flimsy piece of plastic the box is not a flimsy tin can right it's more high end again something tactile that they're seeing their feeling that's what I'm looking to give all our clients that level of experience products what products are you carrying? What kind of products are you offering your clients? Are you offering your client's high end products where you offering your client's low in products because you can't afford the high end products people are willing to spend more money if you start offering them high in products albums is a perfect conversation I have with all sorts of clients so when I'm talking to clients and I ask them um right, why don't you offer albums when I say clients I mean other photographers and I asked him, why don't you off? Why don't you carry albums? Why can't afford those high and albums you can't afford them because you're not selling them start offering them start giving your client the opportunity to even pay more money for them and they will you'll be surprised you've got to take a look at offering a high end album inside your packages you just have to write it's another way of charging more money you can't just raise your prices and then people are gonna spend more money you've got to give him the value that's associated with that so I want you to describe your brand think about your brand think about what makes it what it is what's the name your brand what's your logo what do you want your brand to be? Do you want it to be low and high and same for you guys out there describe your brand to me write write it down if you watch the pre video because you pre registered this was part of what I needed you to do think about your brand what does it represent? Jules, grab that mic tell me about your brand describe it give me three words describing your brand creative, creative fun fun and artistic artistic let's pass it down danielle describe your brand timeless creative and um passionate passionate robbie similar mine are creative, passionate and personal okay, so creative is making its way and everybody's brand jules what was your brand again? Greg grab that mike she's smiling creative artistic I do and I apologize you know I love you I'm ripping her apart right now so this was something she didn't really know was gonna happen but as a gift to jules I redid her logo and her branding and we're going to see it right here something is saying so creative I would make the argument that logo is not creative go ahead I agree okay what else? What artistic artistic you agree don't say anything else right now so you have to understand that as we're all sitting here looking at maybe you guys at home are doing the same thing going wow wow that's not really good logo that's not a really good brand that doesn't exude high end right and you're all right but we've all started somewhere when you look at my branding in the beginning it was horrible everything was all over the place packaging was all over the place, right? We used one supplier for this another supplier for that we were this color that color our logo was horrible, right? I had photo shop I had illustrator therefore I was a graphic designer no was fricking horrible out it so here's what I did for jules I felt like she needed a brand makeover. Okay, jules is somebody I've been working with for a couple of years now and I am damned if you are not going to be successful do not start crying on me I worked with my grandma the designer his name is justin hung okay. He owns a company called visual laure dot com and he gave her a makeover. Okay, that was my gift to her. Thank you, justin. And step one was inspiration. We needed inspiration for her. What did she want? Her logo looked like it was vintage and modern. Those were the key words she picked. And if you look a jules bodywork vintage and modern or yes, that is her brand. Okay, step to justin worked on some mock ups. Step three. We gave her an initial design, some adjustments, and then step for was final. So here was what jule sent for inspiration. Okay, for her logo. This is in her logo. This was online. This is what she wanted for inspiration just and then went off. And this blew my mind right? Because I cannot draw a circle. Okay? There are things people are good at and there are things were not good out. Justin is amazing at this. This is all drawn by hand while he's talking to her he's just sitting there doing right, listening to her. Listening to what? Our inspiration is this white, so powerful for youto have somebody okay, that's interested in and understands branding and brand awareness, he is amazing at it, step three here were initial designs off her logo so we came back to her with you know, nine or twelve different logos and all of a sudden jules is overwhelmed for all the right reasons, right she's like oh my god, how am I going to decide ideology rules stop goofing around make a decision right? You'll have analysis paralysis let's make decisions on what we want our logo and brando look like we narrowed it down to the top three with some tweaks so if you look back and forth there is definitely a difference between the version she picked and what ended up in her final three so there was a creative process where she was engaging our logo on what she wanted it to look like and she selected so everybody knows that bottom one for jeff and jewels, right? So she's in business with her husband they worked together the j j which is perfect I can see just that j j standing alone as a watermark for you, right? This was a perfect job by justin he then went off and he created letterhead for her is this awesome? Does this now meet the brand you want your company to be absolutely creative? Vintage modern high end is this whole cayenne this looks high end man then he went a step further and he created a mock up a website for her this is amazing this is a clean website it looks high end right it's got that modern yet vintage e feel to it he gave her a room for c o so that paragraph down at the bottom that needs to be there we're going to talk about seo that needs to be there for ranking um the latest block post that also needs to be there because if you want your main page to rank well you're content can't be static so every time jules makes a post it'll show right up on that main page and then of course that main picture big image we're photographers we don't where we look showing our clients these tiny little images let them see images as big as they could possibly be and now she's gotta scrolling banner there you love it love it, jules how do you feel right now seeing your whole brand redone and receiving that anna so overwhelmed because we when we started out it was like, oh, we're going to do this it's going to be amazing and just I don't know what since I found cell since the first time I saw him in denver it was life changing for me and I I haven't been the same our business hasn't been the same so to see this is that's where we want it to be from the beginning it's just awesome thank you well, well, well, jules, thank you so much for sharing that with that's when the audience there in south for all that I have tears in my eyes, no tears of happiness and joy and love uh, for here for jeffrey schools now any website by something it's beautiful. I want to hire you e I think sometimes that's all people need is just a kick in the ass toe get going in the right direction. And, um, because I find that the photographers we help, you know, we've been doing this for several years now, and the photographers we help get those emails, man all the time, the thank you's you've changed our life, you've changed our world and I that hits me because to think that doing just that one little thing changes your changes your world changes your direction is why I got into teaching to begin with. So it's it's overwhelming, to say the least, and sometimes it just needs you need people need to be pulled, you know? Don't you think they need to be pushing in the right direction even if you don't believe in yourself? It's good to know other people believe in you and I believe in all of you.