Building a Brand: Why?

Welcome to the first episode of Market It! the podcast that inspires and guides authentic entrepreneurs to build the soulful brand of their dreams and lead a purpose-driven business.

Today, we're focusing on the importance of branding. Branding is more than a pretty logo; it helps you stand out in a sea of competitors. Here, we'll cover the basics of what branding is and why it's so crucial to your business.

If you enjoyed this episode of Market It!, let us know by leaving a review! Join us on Instagram to keep up with the latest episodes, ask questions, and talk about all things branding. We'd love to hear from you!

At AHBC Group, we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs launch and grow a brand that is authentic to them, their purpose, and their audience. We enjoy working with entrepreneurs who have a strong purpose, a clear vision and who are animated by ethical, eco-conscious, and inclusive values, who like to challenge the status quo, and are not afraid to build a truly unique brand. If that sounds like you and you would like to discuss your project with us, apply here!

https://ahbc-group.com/

Transcript

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Why branding matters is it enables your business to be memorable. So think of a party where you meet people, you usually remember the persons with strong personality traits or who have clear opinions about certain topics. And the same goes for businesses. You're listening to Market It!, by AHBC, Group. Hello, hello, and welcome to Market It!, The podcast that inspires and guides authentic entrepreneurs to build the soulful brand of their dreams and lead a purpose driven business. I am Anne-Héloïse Chavin, the host of this podcast and the founder and Brand Builder in Chief at AHBC Group, a branding agency based in Miami, Florida. So as you've probably already understood from the title of the podcast, and from that intro, this podcast is going to be all about building your brand, and branding. So, I thought it was important for the first episode to kind of define branding, to go through what is branding and what we mean by branding, and to also explain why it's important and how it can actually help your business. So let's get right into it. And I thought I would start with a little bit about my background personally to explain how I became a branding specialist and what I currently do and how I help my current clients. So a bit about my background, I studied Marketing and Communications right after high school. In France, I'm originally from France has you can probably hear or if you were wondering where the accent is from that's where and while studying marketing and communications, I had a bunch of internships in small businesses. So the program I was following had us do internships actually every year and it was part time. So I would intern in the morning, and I would go to class in the afternoon. And then do homework and case studies and projects in the evenings. So it was quite intense, but it was amazing because you could get to apply the skills you were learning in class. You got to apply them and actually see how they were helpful in the real world and I feel like especially for branding and marketing, that's super important. You kind of learn by doing and not that much with theory, like you have to have that foundation. But also you need to directly be able to apply it in order for it to really get ingrained into your brain and like know that it's like a lot of practice more so than just the theory. So that was great. My internships were mainly in small businesses. I worked, I interned for my hometown City Hall at some point, I did internships for magazines, which is I think why also, I'm super attracted to the editorial style in design. So I think you can you can see it in my designs. And yeah, just overall a bunch of experiences in different industries within the marketing space. And I really wanted to do it that way. So I had an internship that was more journalism, one that was more designed based, and on that was more PR. I wanted to kind of see everything so I could get a foundation for all of those skills, but also so I could kind of define what exactly it is that I love doing and what I actually wanted to do. Then after I got my master's degree from that school, I came to the US and I worked in marketing in a property management real estate company, and I stayed there for about a year and a half and then I went back to Europe and I did a second master's degree in marketing brand and business development. So that was in a business school. So it was a big project for me although the master's program was still quite specialized because I still wanted to do that but to specialize in actual brand building, because that's what I felt was super interesting to me. And if you're someone that currently studying or kind of wondering what to do, I highly recommend, if you can take your break within your studies or work while you're doing it, it's super helpful to actually know what a job is like and what you really resonate with in order to then get the degree and the credentials that you will need in order to go towards that full time as your job. So yeah, I did that second master's degree. And I did I think that one my master's thesis I did on experiential marketing. So I was super interested in the, the whole experience the customer experience. So I did that. And I then worked. So from my previous experiences that were with small businesses, I moved to way bigger companies, because I kind of wanted to see that side of things and how brands were, like big brands were managed, and marketed. So I worked at Procter and Gamble in the female grooming section. So it was at the HQ in Switzerland, because I was still in Europe at the time. And I worked with the brands Braun and Gillette Venus. So female grooming hair removal, basically. And I was an assistant brand manager there. And it was actually super cool, a lot of research and very like data based in order to make decisions for the brand and for branding. So definitely, that was really, really interesting and seeing how the brands were managed, the product launches, etc. But I was kind of also missing that more creative side, because when I was there, I don't know if that's still the case. But probably everything more on the creative side, was actually outsourced to agencies. After my time at P&G, I stayed in Switzerland, but moved a bit and I got a job at Nespresso. And there, I had a role that entailed both digital marketing, and kind of outdoor marketing. So I was handling mostly on the digital part, the campaign launches for a few markets for emailing and websites landing page. So when you have, for instance, a campaign that is launching, so let's say you have your sustainability campaign, or whatever the case may be, you will have the usually you will have a landing page. And you also have email links that go out. And since it was the HQ, we were handling all of the deployment of those campaigns in the different markets. So we had like 16 countries or something and we were a team of four people handling that because that's a lot. And we had to make sure that all of the guidelines were met, that the dates were followed, and all that stuff. And yeah, it was super interesting, what I took from that experience mainly, was how consistent they were. And especially since the positioning is quite high end and luxury, especially for that category, that is kind of the only brand that is like it's the luxury brand of coffee. And everything had to be super consistent and cohesive in terms of branding. So in order since it's a huge company. In order to do that, you have to have people actually checking and being the guardians of the brand, basically. And you also have to have those strict guidelines. And also, of course, like handling, like the actual processes and the organization. So we were big on processes because when you have one launch that has to take place in like a span of let's say a week, in 60 different countries, you have to be quite organized to make sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible. So that was that and yeah, both were great experiences. And I loved working for those businesses but also I kind of miss my let's say my independence and the the fact that what's kind of frustrating for me in bigger businesses is that since there are processes, which is normal, because you I think at some point you do absolutely need them to, to bring consistency to your brand and to make sure everything's cohesive. But decision making usually takes a bit of time. So we cannot be as reactive and you cannot just be like, Oh, I have an idea. And let's do this and this and that. And especially since I was also a junior at that time, so you have to you have people above you, and you have, like, it's just not as creative. And I was kind of missing, also the creative, and intellectually stimulating aspects that I love with branding and marketing, or that I had even before that when I worked with smaller businesses, because you just don't have as big a team. So you have a lot more responsibilities, of course, but I highly recommend like, and it was great for me to, to see both sides of the coin. And I definitely learned a lot from all of those experiences. So that kind of leads me to my next point, which is why I created a AHBC Group. So I actually created AHBC Group, because I wanted to bridge the gap in terms of strategy between small businesses and large companies. So that was one of the main things that I could notice, between my two types of experiences, is there was kind of a gap in strategy. And where small businesses were kind of slacking was the strategic part. So since usually you will have maybe a founder and a small team, you can be super reactive. But then if you're only reacting, and you're not actually planning ahead and strategizing, you're kind of missing out on a lot in terms of marketing. And then I would also talk because at that point, I was moving back to the US, I was moving to Miami. And that's where I launched the agency. So that was at the end of 2018. So over three years ago, like three and a half years ago, and I was talking to a few small businesses. And they were telling me like, oh, yeah, this, for instance, this guy contacted me. And now I'm going to do SEO, because he said, it's super important to rank first, like be number one on Google. And so I'm spending that amount of money to do SEO. And they knew I was in marketing and kind of wanting my opinion on that. And then when I would look, I would see, like the website was super crappy, for instance. So they were about to spend all their money in SEO or in ads and the website design was horrendous. So you want to bring people to a website. That's ugly, AF. And so that's not an that's when I talk about strategy, it can be as basic as that. I think the term is quite impressive, but it's just like doing things in the right order. And it's usually it's like common sense. But when I think you're not in that field, and there's so much and people talk about so many different things. And people will only want to sell you the one thing that they're that they're selling. So for that guy, it was SEO, and he doesn't really care or know about like the website side of things. So I wanted to have an offer that was really integrating everything, so that we could look at things in a smart way and figure out from the businesses objectives where we should spend the dollars since it's, of course, obviously, for small businesses, it's more limited, you have a limited budget and you need to be really smart about how you're spending those dollars in order to get the best possible return on your investment basically. So yeah, that's why we launched, I think we have a heavy focus on launching new businesses, new businesses that are launching or businesses that have a few years under their belts, and who actually want to elevate something. So they started they kind of went into it. Sometimes it was like by surprise or they had a product or an offer or something, it kind of worked little by little and now they actually want to spend time focusing on the strategy, the vision and actually like okay, now I'm all in and I'm going to build this brand. So we have those two types of clients. I really want to work with purpose driven entrepreneurs. So anything regarding creating positive change, whether it's picking up a new hobby or switching to sustainable habits or any like vegan brands. And yeah, I really strongly connect with people who know their why and their businesses purpose, or who kind of have an idea and they need my help in order to actually define what is that why. And then how can we bring that forward in the best light to the public to their audience so they can reach their dream client or customer. So what actually is branding? Branding is basically the personality and reputation of your business. So I always love to think of businesses as people, when I'm talking about branding, and yeah, it's basically a person's personality, that would be for the brand is that for business. And it shows through all of what your business is doing from product, or service to website to your Instagram posts and stories to your visual identity, and, of course, to your customer service. So it's not only like a logo or pretty colors for your website, it's really a 360 approach that takes everything that you're doing in your business. And that's why you will often hear us talk about brand values, and basically referring we have the same words as you would for a person. So whenever working, for instance, on a brand strategy, I like to talk about, yeah, the brand values and the brand personality, and we really craft our brands as if there were people. And then why branding matters, is I think the main thing is it enables your business to be memorable. So think of a party where you meet people, you usually remember the persons with strong personality traits, or who have clear opinions about certain topic and the same goes for businesses. So the ones with a clear positioning and identity are memorable. The others are like bland people at a party and no one remembers them. So you, you want to have that memorable aspect. And in order to do that, and that's what we'll dive deep into within like the other episodes of the podcast. But in order to do that, you absolutely need to be really cohesive and consistent and authentic, just as for people, and that does not mean at all that your brand has to be the life of the party. On the contrary, you will have to be authentic to connect with your audience. So whatever resonates with you and comes naturally to you is what you have to do. And same is for your brand, you cannot pretend to be another brand and like copy what others are doing, it has to actually be authentic to you. But however, this does mean that you need to know who you are targeting, because you can't present yourself or your brand authentically, if you are trying to be liked by everyone. So basically, you want to really be laser focused on who you're targeting what you're offering, and then how you will convey that and bring that to the world. So that your brand is crafted around all of the things and then be really, really consistent. And I mean, not only like for a few weeks or a month, it's like the process takes years. Like it takes a long, long, long, long time to build a brand, just as it takes a long, long, long, long time to build a reputation. So you want to keep that in mind when embarking in this process that it's a long term thing. Well thank you so much for listening to MarketIt! I am your host and I hope this episode brought you value. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot if you could take a few minutes to rate and review the podcast. Follow along on Instagram at a AHBC Group so we can stay in touch and so you can let us know if there's a specific topic that you'd like us to cover in future episodes. And for sure, in the future episodes we'll talk about the brand foundation so a bit more about how to really craft your brand foundation and then we'll also have topics that will be a bit more operational so the actual how tos etc talk very soon.