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How is Your Brand Out of Sync with the Value You Communicate?

Now, I want to start to talk about how your brand is out of sync with the value that you communicate. So in the last lesson, you learned how a small increase in price can have a big impact on your bottom line and it's the more you sell, the more of an impact that is, so we looked at how over time not raising your prices could result in a huge loss of income could be the difference between buying a house or not. So we looked at those small increases could make a big difference. Then we faced your pricing fear, so I know that raising your prices can be scary, and so we talked about some of those fears and ways to address them, and then you learned nine triggers of perceived value, and we looked at these triggers and talked about some ways that they could work, and what we're going to do now in this lesson is we're actually going to really specifically dive in and look at them in your brand and in your products. So we already kind of talked about a share from some of our in studio audienc...

e, so I'd love for you guys watching online, we'll come back to the a little bit later, but share in our chat room. And with our hashtag create to make what is one way you thought of that, you could increase the perceived value, so want you guys to start brainstorming ideas, and we're going to go ahead and drill down and really look at putting these into practice. So our first exercise is that I want you to create a list of ways that you can improve your perceived value on the brand level. So this is where we take the big ideas that we talked about in the last lesson we're going to turn them into actionable steps for you if you remember our nine triggers have perceived value, we've got situational anchoring, professionalism, fame and recognition those air our brand level and then at the product level, we've got emotional category, material, utility and price so let's talk about these brand pieces and how you can actually apply them so let's start with situational and remember situational is the context and the marketplace, and so some of the things that you can think about in terms of improving your situation about situational value is do you need to move to your own branded sales platform? So how many people on our audience are like I got up and move off of etc moved to your own site? Definitely one that's going to improve your situation about you so you want to go ahead and add that to your list to make these notes for yourselves, right? That's not remember we're all about actionable content, right actionable steps so I see people nodding their heads if this is for you, this is on your show us write it down. Do you need to stop doing crappy craft shows? Anyone I see if you and sarah you would have an interesting question because you're doing craft shows right in your local market and tell me about the response you're getting from people, I'm getting a really positive response to my work. Your work is lovely, your work is beautiful oh, my gosh, that's, gorgeous! And then they walk away so they're not necessarily buying right the product. So I think that I'm also in a situation where the product that I'm creating and designing doesn't fit the audience right. And so the nr two pieces, so one of the other one is that you need to make sure that you're actually asking for the sales, so you want to not let him walk way before you're asking for it, but then right, what it sounds like is that there's definitely a situational fit, so we talked about, you know, your marketplace or your shows, but your global area might be out of think it might not have the situational value you need. I live in the middle of nowhere, pennsylvania. If I had tried to build a local business, I would not be standing on the stage talking to you guys. I would be well, looks like cider now flipping burgers or something because there's, just not the perceived value for what I dio in my local area, they'll go toe the outlets and by a coach purse, but they're not going to buy expensive high end jewelry. So you have to understand that about you know, is your local marketplace the right? What do you need to move? And there are plenty of ways that you can overcome that there was a time where yes, you one hundred percent dependent on local but now you've got online that's one of the reasons that wholesale has been such a big part of my business because I can sell to stores wholesale gave me high situational value is in stores and great locations, a lot of prestige value there. And it got me out of my local market. So anyone else doing crappy craft shows you? Yeah, actually, I was doing artist roy the farmer's market I yes, the farmer's market not really there's a there's a level of perceived value that happens at the farmer's market for food not for your kind of their products it's just a really big challenge so that's a good one I had we had someone in our facebook group who mentioned she did a show it like her, I think your brother's office or something she's like no one wanted to buy who had situational value. So where can you reposition yourself? What can you stop doing? And then can you be more selective or more strategic about the stores or galleries that sell your work? So brought one mentioned I'm not really in the kinds of stories I want to be in because I stopped trying, so your actions step might be to go back and start pitching your work to some of those stores that can help raise your situational value and this, you know, selling just stores has a double impact because it raises your situational value, but it also gives you revenue because you're selling to the store, so this is a great way to kind of increase your situational value. Anyone else think of any as we're going to the exercises, anything else that you can do personally to increase your situational value instagram followers that went by my work rather than just like people who just enjoy looking at it or and there's that there's a type of followers that follow me that I don't really necessarily want you getting yourself in right get attracting the right audience. Do you have a sense of why you're getting that audience? I'm getting a lot of people who are into clarity and lettering that are also trying to make their own, but I'm been trying to get away from that. Are you using hashtag that draw people in that way? When I first started my incident, I did, but I moved away from that. Yeah, and so that's actually a really great example, and I hear this all the time from people where they're like, I'm on ly attracting other makers, other people who are trying right business it's because you're using those maker oriented hash tags on dso, I don't use any of those. I still get a lot of jewelers that follow me because I stood up here and do this, but I don't use those hashtags and so one of the things and I'll give you guys a little trick. People always think about using hash tags as I have to post them on my image, but what you can do is find hashtags that your people you really want to target or using, maybe it's whatever design sponge is latest hashtag of the month is or that's darling from darling magazine and you can go in and you can look at that hashtag like people's photos follow them, interact with them and that's, how you're actually gonna find your real people there. So that's a perfect example of bringing in a better audience and improving your situation about you that way. Excellent. Anyone else? Other ideas for situational? I found that by doing a trade show that it just it was just again changes suddenly your professional monks, you know, emily mcdowell's of the world, you did the stationary right? Yeah, on dh then, you know, you get those stores coming in that then increases your just looks yeah, that's such a good example, especially because in your industry, you have this one big, prestigious trade show and so right that's a huge way to boost situation about you. Excellent. Anyone else have anything that they feel like? They need to add to their to do list for situational or they're stopped doing list for situational. All right, so what? Talk about the next one, which is anchoring and I know we've had some people here who need to employ that a little bit better. So really, there are two ways that you can employ anchoring and remember anchoring is we've got two products, so in this case I had a necklace that was to seventy five and a necklace that was three, eighty and I added one more product that was five, ninety and that increased sales for the three hundred eighty dollars product because it angered the prices, gave us something higher and made the next price point down look more reasonable so can you raise the price significantly on your most expensive products so you may not have to design anything new? You may just have to take your top products and saliva them up the scale and I'm guessing tiffany that that's probably some of what you need to dio right? Can you slide some stuff up the scale a little bit more? And so what what's great about this technique is that you don't have to do in a butt like across the board price increase you're going to pick a few things and you actually pick things that are not your best sellers and raise those and it's gonna make your other prices maybe you raise your prices a smidgen makes those look more attractive that's one way to employ anchoring the other way that you can actually just create new products that are a higher price point now if you're not sure where to start, there were actually be running a class on that called product line strategy, so we'll talk more about that but just thinking about what else you can add so it might be a more expensive product desert I asked you know, I tell karzai can't make a more expensive card but you can bundle cards together you khun do set you can add prince you can do other things that are higher price point and that will then anger and make your other prices seem more reasonable and you could even go so far as to say and that one card all my cards there what's the price one of your card okay for fifty then I'm going to dio like a four card box set then I'm going to do a ten card box set and you're probably not going to sell a lot of the ten card box set but that will help drive the four card box set more than if you just added the four card does that make sense? Yeah so that's a perfect weight at angry in can you won't think about it specifically that they're going to add anchoring in they will raise my prices on some make some products that are more one of a kind art jewelry higher end and you know raise the actor a lot more than some medicines yeah, you know one of the other things that I like about anchoring is that it's kind of fun to do because it lets you design crazier things and you're probably you know, ok why not doesn't have to sell but it gives you that anchor price point and it's fun I'm going to studio make something more expensive that's really thoughts that's all you can employ anchoring all right, now talk about professional value who needs to up that? So how many of you guys still need to make the move go? You're on brandon website really kind of off that professional value. I see some hands to make sure that's on your list the other one that I think is really important for professional value is making sure your web design and your fonts are current and up to date and spoiler alert. Annette, I'm gonna pick on you in a few minutes when we hot seat because I looked at your web site and I want to talk about that a little bit more. So this is one of those things where, just like everything else, thoughts come in and out of fashion and you have to pay attention because if you're using an outdated font that actually seriously undermines your business it's so simple and so stupid but it's true, so you need to pay attention. Well, this is where you can look to bigger brands you can look to the things that are current and we'll get what types of fonts they're using because the font can really date you and impact your brand, I'm just making sure that you're using a professional domain name and email address don't use that gmail, create the custom one your name at your whatever dot com or info you're whatever dot com take five minutes to set that up so they haven't done that yet without on your list, make sure you've got the logo, the business cards and we're not going into all of this detail here because I actually did an entire class on branding called brand your creative business here on creative live so this is an area particularly in the professional value where you know you fall short, I highly recommend you guys take a look at that brandon class because we go into this and a lot more detail and you can see how this impacts what you're doing and then the last one fame and recognition. So can you add logos or social proof to your site? How did you guys have logos like as cnn on your site right now? Sarah doesn't create kristen, what sort of how do you sort of have amazing the first letter of my business name and a certain fought as my oh yeah, so what I'm actually asking here is not are you using your logo but are using other logos? Remember I showed you guys yeah, like the as seen in logos? No, I'm not okay, so a lot of you need to do that, sarah yeah, because I have my own wordpress site and I link to shopify, but that as seen in is on the landing page of red line design not on the shop if I put it on your shopify page two okay, you can't that's one of those things where we're done and see it's totally fine because well might miss it wanted it is hard to link actually link back to your writing website from shop yeah, yeah exactly. So make sure that you've got every because you don't know where people I mean in my experience having a wordpress site in the shop by sight a lot of people come in through my main website first, but not all of them do you want to make sure that you've got those logo's in both places I'm in any place that makes sense to employ them on your product pages well, so that better homes and gardens cover that I showed you were tricia yearwood was wearing my hearings, which she owns you know, I just did that again, I actually have that image on that product page, so you've got that kind of social proof right there as well. So there's a guys who aren't using local if you're any good so I have a son as cnn's that I could use some of those are things that, like the britain co are at sea, you know, those are things that air kind of attracting other sellers versus or like other makers versus my target our didn't but then there's also so there was some like holiday gift guides there some logs ryan's like that would you put those just a social proof is fillers until you hot yes better better one yeah replace that definitely ok and not just have it out is that studies have have shown that any logos are better than no logo so even if people don't recognize them when they see a grouping of logos and what I do just for brand consistency as I take my logos and I make them all gray scale because I like black white and gray so instead of having awkward colored logos it's just all gray scale all the logos and as cnn's so yeah pick the ones that seem the most prestigious of what you have and then replace them over time okay? Eso does anyone else so those guys you don't have well those are social proof do you think of ones that you can employ or you need to add in action step to maybe try to pitch a few way talked about collaborations and karen st cloud rating with people so you might not get a lot out of it but if there's someone who has at least brandon themselves enough to have a logo I would hope that your marketing guru friend does but apparently not but like if you can partner with someone who you know is running a block and they have a header for their blawg pull that is a logo anything that you can do that sort of communicate that does help increase social proof, because, again, it just gives you that kind of level of credibility and trust, then think about can you grow your social media following on one strategic platform? So how many of you guys are dabble in and all of them right now? Yeah, so what I want you to do if you think this is a strategy that should that could work for you, it doesn't necessarily have to if your audience skews, oh, excuse older social proof by growing up social media, following is probably not your best time spent that makes sense, but if you feel like your audience does pick one platform and focus on growth and there are strategies, every platform has its own specific strategies for growth, we're doing pin dress. You can watch my pinterest class there's, instagram classes there's so many strategies pick one if you're really pressed for time, but you have a little money you can pay for facebook likes, and that what's funny about that is that you might not generate sales in the people come over from your facebook page, but it could generate social proof is and how she's look, jez she had, you know, she has, like so many facebook followers have, like five thousand facebook fans of mine economic page I thought most of them but when people click over to that it makes me look so much more credible than if I had four hundred and they're actually you could buy likes pretty cheap all right so then and that actually is the store next one is can you use advertising or paid placements to increase your favorite recognitions so maybe it's to increase your following on facebook or maybe it's to get covered by a specific blogger you know, some a lot of the unfortunate part is a lot of fashion bloggers on a lot of even some home to core bloggers they realized you know what we need to get paid to feature products it's understandable they're running businesses too and they're provided they have a large audience of providing a service so if you're not getting free placements it might be something to look into if it feels like it's going to boost kind of that fame and recognition piece and then can you partner with a blogger or social media influencers so like I said, you know I work with stasia and I met station at all tonight you're about sarah tio so you know can you go and connect with people and look at these collaborative relationships because even though stations audience smaller than mine she brings that level of fame and recognition because she wears my product and uses it all the time ok, any questions about these things everyone right down where we're writing down our actions step yeah bringing online question yes, we have a question about the logos yeah, so what's the logo's do you need permission to use them and if if so what's the process of obtaining them and getting permission to do that? So I have never done that because mine are big enough names that I don't think the philadelphia inquirer is going to come knocking on my website door and be like please take down our logo because I was in the philosophy inquire so usually as long as you've illegitimately been in there you're probably fine to use it yeah ok and then there were several people have the question how do you create the as seen in logo? Is there a specific legal for that? No, so literally all I do is like the text on my whatever page my side is as seen in and then I go into photo shop or you can go into pic monkey or can vote or whatever use and double the low goes in and and make it a graphic that you upload on your site if you want to see that if you go to magnum and dot com and scroll down, you'll see my as seen it on the bottom of my home page you can take a look at what that looks like and I I think he's, too. A vertical one for my blog's sidebar. A camera if I change that or not so there's a couple different ways that you could orient them, too. So you can put them on as many pages as possible, because you never know which page people are entering your sight from. So the more places you can put that logo, the better. I don't put them on specific product pages, because that kind of construes that that product was seen in, but I keep them on all my general brand pages. My about page, my home page, all those pages.