06 - Build your B.R.A.N.D - Mini Marketing July Edition with Abi Jacks

Today, our marketing leader Abi Jacks discusses the critical elements of branding for children’s activity organisations. 

Discover the five key areas of effective branding—Build it, Repeat it, Align it, Niche it, and Deliver it. 

Abi explains how to construct a robust brand foundation, ensuring consistency and distinctiveness in a crowded market. Whether you're establishing a new brand or revamping an existing one, this episode provides actionable insights into creating a brand that resonates deeply with your target audience and aligns perfectly with your organisational values. 

Stay tuned for more insightful episodes from Steps2Success, where we help you navigate the challenges of running a children's activity organisation with practical advice and expert insights.

Created with pride by LoveAdmin

Edited with finesse by Making Digital Real

Transcript

Abi Jacks: 0:04

Hey everybody, I'm Abby Jax, director of marketing and growth at love admin. And you're listening to the mini me podcast, where I'll be taking you through the world of marketing for your children's activity organisation, with no buzzword bingo as a promise. Welcome back to mini marketing. I hope you enjoyed the last session on getting to know your target audience. If you haven't heard it, then check out the full step to success channel and add 10 minutes to your listening experience. Today, I'm going to be talking to you about your brand and giving it the best overview I can on a pretty huge topic, so that you can understand the basis of what you need to look out for to make sure your brand is consistent, stands out and works for your organisation and not against it. Now we can all think of brands that make a positive impression on us. And those who've really missed the mark. I thought of listing some examples to make a point. But how we feel about a brand is so personal to us, we may all have very different viewpoints, which also makes it particularly hard to get it right every time for every person. When working on branding, there are five things to cover. And I've tried to make it easy to remember, B stands for build it. R stands for repeat it. A stands for a line it. N stands for nichette. And D stands for deliberate. So let's talk about be building your brand. You don't have to be new to build a brand you may have never actively built it before. And your initial success has been from word of mouth. Or you may be rebuilding it as what you were initially known for when you started out has evolved. Either way, you can look at the same elements, your name, your mission, your brand values, your brand messaging, and your brand identity. You need all of these things carefully considered and written down as your basis. I actually like to start with the values before looking at even the name just in case this one's up for change. Because this is the heart of your business. Usually you would have around five values that you and your team will live by. And these should permeate everything you do from messaging, how you interact with your customers. When making decisions, the works. An example could be friendly, with a short statement saying what that means to your business like, we make sure that our club always gives a friendly atmosphere, and that it feels welcoming to everyone who steps through the door. Now, you know I love a workshop opportunity. So bring your team together and discuss what your brand values could and should be. The more you bring the team into building your brand, the easier it is for them to live it. Your mission would usually be discussed with business leaders, and is a statement that defines what you stand for and how you do that. It can be aspirational, and something you're working towards. But don't write something that's not recognisable to people, so much so that they don't trust you. Because you're not delivering on your promise even closely. What I'll say about your brand name is that it needs to have longevity. Changing a name makes it harder to build your brand as you need to remind everyone for years what your new name is, and you will likely still be referred to by your old name for a little while. It can be done. I've done it many a time. But all that history you've built with your previous name will need starting again and with our good old friend Google as well, because it'll mean any web address redirects and other things to make Google happy. So when you think about a name that suits you and your target audience in year one and two, would it appeal to a new audience if you started in new sectors, or age groups, or with an expanded offering? Case in point, you might start out in grassroots sports. So to put in grass roots in your name is perfect. Three years later, you're expanding and want to ride Academy clubs or step into dance. And suddenly that name feels off and not so appealing to a new audience. Messaging comes from values should be value lead, ie why should they care about you and not just what you want to say, and should be written down and shared? Yes, it will evolve but get everyone on the same page and use a core set of messages that are aligned to your values and your target audience. If you didn't listen to my last session or know your audience then this would be a very helpful place to start before planning your brand messaging. And brand identity takes us nicely into our repeat it because your look and feel needs to be consistent and repeatable. So people recognise you not just your logo but your core colours. You would usually have one or two key colours for your brand, and then an extended set of secondary colours that you may want to add in so it doesn't get too samey. What else should you repeat when building a Brand, everything. Because people take a long time for something to sink in at least seven times for a message to be remembered well and consistently. So don't think that putting your website live and sending your email and a few posts will mean that your brand work is done. It's never done. Your brand will outlive your organisation if it's done well. Oh, do you remember when Sam used to attend monkey monkeys, they were the friendliest club we ever found, and is branding just a marketing thing? No, hello a for a line it Welcome to the party. Brands are best built when everyone in your organisation is living and breathing, the brand values and messaging and everything they do. They may be coaching at an event, writing an email to a parent posting some results on social or training new teachers, if they're encouraged to live the brand values and pass those on to others. They are building and aligning the brand for you. But they need to know the values, the messaging, what they stand for, in order to do that well. So talk about it in meetings, write it down in a document and send it out and get their input into how they can bring it to life. When it comes to your marketing and communications, it's really important that you stay consistent with your look and feel and show customers your branding from the moment they see an ad through your website and booking pages through their welcome email and onwards. It's been shown to increase engagement and registrations when people receive an aligned branding experience. Now, I'd love a natty segue into N furnish it, but my brain says no. So we'll just jump right into that one. There's a really annoying thing for marketers that's called a USP, otherwise known as the Unique Selling Point buzzword. But we don't love this as in a busy marketplace, there are lots of companies offering the same thing. And unless you've got a new and unique product and service, you can spend hours trying to find the most unique way to talk about something that five other people can do. That said, there is a lot for being targeted, and focusing on niches that you can own, or at least have your own approach to. I'm not saying only have your brand going after a particular niche, but it's worth looking for those little areas that aren't busy and building a service around that. For example, if you can list another five companies similar to you pushing the friendly message, how many of them are driving a message about their skilled instructors. Or if you offer holiday camps, how many of people are pushing the whole family camp for people with three kids, or maybe a camp for friends where you book with your best mate for a discount. There will always be little niches to find in your industry. And these can be really helpful to make your brand stand out about others. Think about what your target audience really value and package it up for them and give them the best experience that you promised. And that's D for deliver it right. The number one rule of nailing your brand, deliver what's expected. Because if you don't, you lose trust, and it's much harder to build trust than to lose it, especially in our industry. So when you go through your values, start to write your messages. And you get that brand into the world through your team and others. Build it on something possible, something tangible and something honest. It's not enough to promise something exciting if you can't deliver it. We all remember that one core experience in London. Don't be that brand. It's time for a recap before we finish up. There's a lot to perfecting your brand. And if you're enrolled in the news love admin School of marketing, we deep dive much further into how you can make yours work for you. But for now, remember these things. Number one, build it. Set your foundations write them down. To repeat it, it takes seven times. So keep it going. You see it lots but they don't. Three, align it. Use your team and be consistent from the look and feel through to the message put out there. Number four mishit. How can you offer something existing to an existing audience? And lastly, deliver it never over promise and under deliver. Stay true to your word. Subscribe to the step to success channel and next month I'll take you through getting your content on. I'm just one of the experts dedicated to helping love admin customers achieve success. If you're looking for a software provider that gives you more we'll help you grow, then visit lav admin.com To book a demo call with our experts. I'll see you next time