#139 Why brand matters more in an AI world, with Sandra Phillipson

Jonny Ross

-: 00:31

Welcome. Here is something you are going to hear a lot this year. The artificial intelligence has made brand matter less. That's when a machine is choosing who to recommend, the story of a business, the feel of it, what it stands for.

Jonny Ross

-: 00:41

None of that counts anymore. It's all just data. I think that is exactly backwards, and so does my guest today. Welcome along.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:00

I'm Jonny Ross. This is the Fractional CMO Podcast. It's episode 139, and for the next 45 minutes or so, we're going to be making the case that in an AI-first world, your brand matters more, not less. And more to the point, what you actually are doing about it come Monday morning.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:24

If you're watching live, thanks for being here. Perhaps you're on the replay listening. However you're here, we are absolutely delighted. My guest, Sandra Philipson, has spent more than 25 years in brand and customer strategy, 22 of them inside one of the biggest banks in the country, shaping how millions of people feel about who they bank with.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:38

She now does that thinking for everyone else through her own consultancy, Crowzest. She's genuinely one of the sharpest people I know on the commercial side of brand, which is exactly why I wanted her on this one. Sandra, welcome.

Sandra

-: 01:43

Thanks for the lovely introduction there, Johnny. Yes, lovely to be here.

Jonny Ross

-: 02:03

It's an absolute pleasure. Listen, let's start gently before we get into AI. You've spent 25 years in brand and customer strategy, as I said, 22 years in one of the biggest banks in the UK. What do brands understand that most businesses just simply miss?

Sandra

-: 02:31

Oh, so when you work in big businesses like Lloyds Banking Group and you're working in a team of 30 people thinking about the brand, It's all about the importance of that brand and really what that brand means. And I think people think big businesses, they've just got too much money, they invest in brand because they've just got big budgets. It's not. It's about the return on investment that you get from investing in the brand.

Sandra

-: 02:59

And that is actually the biggest commercial lever in terms of your marketing that you can have. I often talk about this example where you have two identical pens and one pen has been used by Madonna to sign a record contract, say, and the other pen is identical. And if you sit in a room of people and say, which pen do you want? 100% want the pen that Madonna has used.

Sandra

-: 03:22

And that is understandable because that is the associations that they have with that pen. It's a commoditized market. A lot of our markets are commoditized, but brand is your biggest lever for actually creating a psychology behind it that actually just makes a customer want to pay more for your product.

Jonny Ross

-: 03:24

I definitely want the Madonna pen.

Sandra

-: 03:29

Me too and if I had it I probably wouldn't even be here.

Jonny Ross

-: 03:43

So what does brand let you do to a business in terms, because I've heard you talk about how it can enable you to even charge more.

Sandra

-: 04:09

So it's all about getting a really clear positioning on what your business is about. that actually creates a psychology in the customer that actually makes them want to do business with you. And that's what it does. It really goes deeper than just thinking, I want customers who are this age in this postcode.

Sandra

-: 04:19

It looks at values and beliefs. I like to talk about North Face. They don't sell jackets. They sell adventure.

Sandra

-: 04:27

And it's taking that thinking to that next level. And that requires time and a bit of investment. Yes, it does. But that investment will pay off.

Sandra

-: 04:37

Once you've got conviction and clarity about your band and it's consistently being delivered, then that is where you'll drive the commercial benefit.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:57

How do brands achieve this? Because you've given that North Face example and you're right, you instantly feel adventure. How have they done that? What are these big businesses doing that the small businesses just are not using?

Sandra

-: 05:09

It's tapping into the customer psychology. It's being less, I think smaller businesses tend to think about it from an internal perspective. We are a business. This is what we sell.

Sandra

-: 05:24

So therefore an appropriate logo, appropriate brand is this. Whereas actually they talk about the business. They don't talk about the problem they're solving for the customer. And you'll see very often, even on websites, we do this, we do that.

Sandra

-: 05:43

They don't talk about, We're going to alter this for you as a customer. We are going to enable this for you. And that is what the brand association and branding does. It creates a different mindset in your consumer that resonates with them and becomes memorable with them.

Jonny Ross

-: 06:00

I like, I listen to and read a lot of Rory Sutherland. And that steps in a lot to psychology, a lot to behavioral science as well. Yeah, is that someone that you follow as well?

Sandra

-: 06:16

Oh yeah, 100%. I know we probably might get onto this, but he's got a really good perspective on the performance marketing versus branding, and how that's evolved over time, and why that's now gone full circle, really.

Jonny Ross

-: 06:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's the cost of getting this wrong or leaving it too late, then? If I'm in a smaller business, I'm not one of the biggest banks in the UK. I'm not North Face.

Jonny Ross

-: 06:37

But I'm a decent size. What is the cost to the business of leaving it too late?

Sandra

-: 06:58

It's just about getting, the cost is, is a negative customer experience really. If actually you're not clear on what you offer, you're missing opportunities because customers will look at your business and think, What do they sell? Why is that different? Why is that better than the competitor?

Sandra

-: 07:19

And that's, you know, branding is about the three different areas. It's about your consumers, it's about your competitors, and it's about your company. And I always spend a lot of time in my work looking at what makes a business unique. And people will be like, I've often worked for businesses, and they'll go, oh, there's loads of people offering what we do.

Sandra

-: 07:27

It's very commoditized. And I'll do a workshop with them. And we'll come out with seven different reasons why they're unique. And that will be service.

Sandra

-: 07:43

That will be their agility. That will be their depth of knowledge, the quality of the products. There's a load of stuff. But leaning into that and really just getting clear on that, And communicating that in a way that resonates will drive that benefit.

Sandra

-: 07:54

And so I guess the question I'm trying to say, the answer really is, is that it's about them missing that opportunity to connect with the customers they want to connect with.

Jonny Ross

-: 08:24

Yeah, you've mentioned the customer a lot and the consumer. I know that when having spoken to you before, when you build or sharpen a brand and you're looking to begin on that, you very much say you need to start with the consumer and they become first before everything else. Talk to me more about that and the things that we as a small business need to be thinking about.

Sandra

-: 08:50

Oh, so it's really it goes back to the psychology stuff and getting clear, getting the clarity and conviction of what your business is all about. But then thinking about it from a, if you were a customer looking for my business, why would you come and do business with me? And it's about shifting it from a commodity. I love the Airbnb example.

Sandra

-: 09:30

I've talked to this with you before, is that, you know, they essentially create, well, they offer holiday lettings for anybody. And all of a sudden, they totally shifted the market because what they did is actually say, actually, you can belong anywhere, I think is the strapline. And that is about creating this psychology that actually it was about home from home and cultural experiences and using terminology like host and that business group. exponentially, and they can charge much higher than other letting agents because their brand is so strong and the associations they build.

Sandra

-: 09:53

And so it goes back to really thinking deeply about your business and your market and just getting really clear about what you stand for, but also delivering on what you actually stand for as well. That's really, really important because a brand isn't just your logo. It's about your onboarding experience. It's about your operations.

Sandra

-: 10:14

It's about the vans that deliver. It's about your after sales. It's about your retention and the full customer experience from start to finish and the continued experience when these people remain loyal customers of you. And if you are delivering on that clear brand promise and you're doing it in a consistent way, then that is different.

Sandra

-: 10:37

I was listening to something yesterday which was talking about Hermes. And they rebranded because they were all about service and they were really renowned for really bad service. So they rebranded to Every. But the thing is, they didn't fundamentally solve the problem because actually they still were delivering really poor service.

Sandra

-: 10:59

And so that's where the disconnect often is with businesses, is that create something that's achievable and realistic. It isn't about trying to do what the big brands do and really spend a lot on marketing. It's about just getting clear and being really super clear about it and getting that clarity.

Jonny Ross

-: 11:17

Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple of things you mentioned there. One of the things you mentioned about was about onboarding. Another thing you mentioned was the Hermes moving to Every. We were also just talking in the green room about, you know, big news about what's happened with Halifax and Lloyds.

Jonny Ross

-: 11:27

Now seeing that, you know, that's where you've come from as well. I'm guessing you might have a take on what's just recently happened. Is this good or bad? How are consumers going to feel?

Sandra

-: 11:39

Right, there's going to be a lot of upset consumers for sure. There's, you know, it's a very long-standing Northern Heritage brand that was straightforward. It was engaging. It was fun.

Sandra

-: 12:00

And then it got taken over by Lloyds. And the cost, the reality is, is that the cost of running two brands is high. And when Lloyds took over Halifax, the systems got aligned, the processes got aligned. Essentially what was different was the marketing, the branding and the branches.

Sandra

-: 12:31

Everything else like the call centres, everything else that sat behind it were all the same. So from a customer perspective, and I spent quite a few years working on brand strategy, working on what is different about Halifax customers versus the Lloyds customers. There was a lot of time spent, but essentially Lloyds Banking Group is a big PLC. And that decision gets made because they can see the commercial benefit and the shareholder value for just running one brand.

Sandra

-: 12:58

And I totally get that. There will be people that leave that brand And they'll have factored that in, because the bigger prize is the cost saving that they'll make. And so it's a sad week, really, for what was a challenger brand, and quite an iconic brand, and what they did with Howard Brown, and how they made banking more engaging and fun. But it's the commercial reality of a big organization.

Jonny Ross

-: 13:01

Do you think Lloyd's are making a mistake?

Sandra

-: 13:27

In terms of the customer attrition, there will be a financial loss there. But the bigger benefit is it's all about the shareholder price. The Lloyds Banking Group shares have been undervalued for a long, long time. And you'll see even, there's been rumors about this for a while, that the share price is flying.

Sandra

-: 13:43

And that's what they'll be bothered about, sadly. they are customer focused and you know I'm not saying they're not but from a pure branded perspective there could be an argument but what reality is is that you know it's about investment and return.

Jonny Ross

-: 14:18

I mentioned onboarding and the reason I mentioned it was because, and I mentioned this to you in the green room, that when I, my first ever bank account was probably the age of maybe seven or eight, I can't remember, but I do absolutely remember it was the Halifax, I remember getting a Halifax money box which was in the shape of a house And I absolutely loved it, and it gave me such a connection. I was with the bank until at least the age of 30, had my first mortgage with the Halifax. My kids have got savings accounts with the Halifax now.

Jonny Ross

-: 14:22

I guess that tapped into my psychology and grabbed me as a kid.

Sandra

-: 14:49

Yeah, and that's a brand association. That is something tangible even, that's even more powerful. And that's what brands do by not just leaving it at the logo, is that if you're obviously reminding people and reinforcing what you are all about, which is what that does, it creates then brand associations and it drives that loyalty and trust. And that's what branding is all about.

Jonny Ross

-: 14:59

The McDonald's Happy Meal? You don't have a take on that.

Sandra

-: 15:08

It makes, it makes kids happy. It makes parents happy. You know, obviously, you know, McDonald's is a massive iconic. That's a whole, that's a whole podcast in itself.

Jonny Ross

-: 15:47

So one of the things that I imagine, and we're going to step into AI very shortly on how this has changed things, but where I also think AI is being used is I imagine that business will be thinking, well, I'll just use AI to look at my demographics and to sharpen and to start building the brand, focusing on the consumer, but using AI to do that. Why should you absolutely not just or not at all be using AI at this stage in terms of sharpening and building the brand.

Sandra

-: 16:13

In terms of building a brand, so you can put stuff into chat GPT, into Gemini, wherever you use, and it will produce something that is fantastically compelling, fantastically smart, You know, obviously, I experiment with these things. But ultimately, it hasn't got human critique. AI has a natural bias. It's learned behavior.

Sandra

-: 16:31

So it will go and it will crawl all people in your category and come up with something that's really compelling. But it can never be unique. And it can't have that human critique. And actually, if you want it to resonate with people, you need to use people to do the thinking.

Sandra

-: 16:55

And that's not to say, you know, in brand strategy, like in marketing, there is loads of efficiencies now that you can drive using AI. Of course there is. But in terms of driving something that's truly unique, that is a really clear balance of your company, your customers, your competitors, is that you need some human thinking. You need to have some visualization.

Sandra

-: 17:05

You need to have some of the techniques that you use when driving a brand. and creating a brand that are actually genuinely authentic and human, really.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:13

And just a couple of quick tips on that. How do you get that human feedback into the loop right at that very early stage?

Sandra

-: 18:01

So the best way is to ask people who are already your customers or to find people who you want to be your customers and just ask them questions, whether that's a qualitative session of, you know, tell me how you feel about this, tell me how, you know, qualitative feedback is fantastically powerful if used in the right way. You know, people always, like we live in a world where we all want everything proven and people often go down a quant route because they want to see that 80% of people like this. But actually the nuggets and the powerful psychology often comes from that verbatim that you get from just having proper conversations with people about what their beliefs are, about what really drives them.

Sandra

-: 18:07

And sometimes research, you know, it's a powerful tool from branding.

Jonny Ross

-: 18:24

Beyond consumer, just finishing on the sort of segment of building the actual brand, and then we're absolutely going to move on to AI, but beyond the consumer, what else are you looking at when you're developing that brand?

Sandra

-: 19:08

So definitely the competitors, looking at how the competitors, looking at the competitive nature of your market, you know, how are people doing business in that market? um which will help you understand what your competitive edge is but also going back to the company themselves you know creating something that's true to that company and realistic you know smaller businesses tend to be founder owned and actually they have their values and their passion a lot better defined than a bigger corporation that's trying to spread it over, 10,000 people say. So it's actually, in some ways, SMEs are more agile, more real.

Sandra

-: 19:30

You know, they are entities that are driven by people. But actually distilling that and getting it clear and getting that in words that make sense to a consumer are really what you do. And it's a balance between all of them three to really get to a point where you're like, yep, this is clear. It feels right for the business.

Sandra

-: 19:33

It feels right for the customer. And it feels right against competitors.

Jonny Ross

-: 20:21

laid out the brand fundamentals and in fact one of the reasons that we ended up chatting very early on and sort of collabing quite a bit is the this power of knowing that look it's AI visibility and being found from sort of my point of view search engine optimization we're going to get to this later on in the podcast is one thing but actually what the brand is saying and the tone and all of that things all of that side of things can really make just as much difference as well. And so we coined this sort of the magic multiplier. I think you came up with it, Sandra, the idea that actually, you know, it's a bit like the 1%, isn't it?

Jonny Ross

-: 20:42

So if you can do like, you know, three things that change 1%, actually, it can change like 10% on the bottom line. And the point you're making here is, you know, if you can get both sides right, then that can make a huge difference. I'll share a scorecard that we came up with at the end for people that are listening or watching. And just to say, again, thanks for being here.

Jonny Ross

-: 20:59

And it gives you a way to be able to score your own business right now and see how you're doing with some of these things. So we've covered the brand fundamentals. As I said, none of that's, I don't think that's hugely changed. It sounds like it's been, like I said, the fundamentals.

Jonny Ross

-: 21:18

But what has changed, and it's changed very fast, is that the world the brand has to show up in. So in terms of AI, how has AI shifted brand over the last couple of years? What should, last few months even, what should business owners actually be thinking about right now?

Sandra

-: 21:40

Oh, so AI is, and I talk a lot to SMEs and I've done various talks about this, is that We all humans, and so this is a massive change. This is a total disruption to the market. But it's shifting consumers. Consumers are overwhelmed.

Sandra

-: 21:59

The amount of notifications, reels, feeds, everything we get. I think something like we have 255 distractions a day. And you get 2.6 seconds to grab somebody's attention now, which means that your brand has to work so much harder than it ever used to. In addition to that, you've got the customer journey.

Sandra

-: 22:13

It's a lot more fragmented, and it's a lot longer than it's ever been. Content is all over the shop. People are using AI to create content. And some of that is really poor, which is just adding to the noise.

Sandra

-: 22:29

And then competition, that's intensifying everything. And so when I've talked about, I create this 4Cs framework that we've talked about. But fundamentally, what does that mean? That means your brand needs to be showing up in more places and more consistently.

Sandra

-: 22:55

over lots of different platforms. Years ago, Daniel Priestley, it was 2015, I think, he talks about seven hours, four different types and 11 different touch points. And that is probably multiplied. I think typically, depending on your type of business you're in, it's like 24 different touch points.

Sandra

-: 23:04

And consumers are going off the normal websites. They're using AI to research. Also, they're looking at Reddit. They're looking at Quora.

Sandra

-: 23:24

They're looking at all these different bits. And what you need to do is make sure your brand is consistently showing up on all of these. because we all know that really now with AI is that the actual golden bit of it is actually showing up on the AI overview and actually a brand is a massive trust signal.

Jonny Ross

-: 23:39

Yeah, I like Daniel Priestley a lot. I always bought into that whole seven hours piece. As you say, it goes further than that. You were saying it's the seven hours, it's 11 interactions.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:00

So across different touch points, like you were saying, and four over four different platforms. So that's, that's a quite a lot for businesses to do. But the but what is being said in that is that the chance of you converting, if you can achieve that, is just so much higher. And people need to see things X number of times in different places.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:03

And that's what the whole thing has been built on.

Sandra

-: 24:30

Yeah. I think the marketing data on this is that if you are showing up on the AI overview, that is the best brand trust signal you can hope for, which means that when people hit your website, they will convert three times higher than they would have previously, which actually, for SMEs, means that quality over quantity, and that, from an efficiency point of view, has got to be better.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:52

And so that conversion, you know, stepping ahead in terms of if you're shown in an AI overview and you're, you know, therefore three times more likely to get that conversion. Why? What's going on there, Sandra? Why is that happening?

Jonny Ross

-: 25:04

that all of a sudden I've gone from, you know, I might convert to three times the chance of me converting if I come from AI and AI overview.

Sandra

-: 25:33

It's because people do actually trust AI. It's a personal human feeling, even though it's not a human. It's that whole, you know, your chat GPT starts to know you and starts to make assumptions about, and I hate that sometimes. It's like, you kind of got that bit right but you didn't get that bit right but more and more as you look you know it learns from you about your preferences and so therefore once it starts to get to know you it then goes a step further you

Sandra

-: 25:53

put something into there say can you recommend a hairdresser in North Leeds for this price point but It's complicated stuff. And then, boom, you'll have a recommendation. And it'll give you reasons why it's recommended. And even more than that, it'll tell you all the sources that it's looked at to come to that.

Sandra

-: 26:24

So that is so reassuring in a consumer mindset to say, this has saved me loads of time. And it's given me an answer that I trust, basically. It's absolutely so fundamental and it's so interesting because it's such an opportunity though at the same time for smaller businesses. They have that agility, they have that expertise, they just need to make sure they're showing up.

Jonny Ross

-: 26:30

I think it genuinely feels like a recommendation from a friend as simple as that.

Sandra

-: 26:46

Exactly. It's like almost that in business, we always talk about what's the holy grail? Well, word of mouth. This person became, because their neighbor three doors down used the business, and now they've come over, and they trust them.

Sandra

-: 26:59

And that's the best free business, if you like, because you've not paid for that recommendation as such. But almost like chat GPT or whatever is almost the next best thing to that.

Jonny Ross

-: 27:22

So I think what you're saying is that it shifted the consumer behavior and therefore the whole buyer journey. In fact, are people further along that journey when they eventually do arrive at you? That's what you're insinuating, aren't you?

Sandra

-: 27:48

It's absolutely been proven that now 70% of the journey happens before they even hit your website. So they've gone and they've looked at Reddit, they've looked at Various ways have looked at the AI search in Google or whatever they've looked at. And they've spent time researching different aspects that are key for them and important for them. And then they've landed on your website.

Sandra

-: 28:07

And before they've even had an interaction with your sales team or an interaction with your website, they already know quite a lot about you. And that's the thing now is digitally, there's so much information about everybody everywhere. You know, it's proven.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:44

So it's about the consistency showing up across multiple platforms with one clear message, having that consistency across all of the different platforms, across all the different touch points. I think that's where I think that's where a lot of smaller businesses, or certainly SMEs, you know, when I say smaller, I'm talking smaller than the largest banking group in the UK, or one of the largest, you know, so but that's where they often get it wrong. that they might be trying to push content out, and I'm using the word push as well, trying to push content out in different places, it shouldn't be about push either, but they lack the consistency as well, yeah?

Sandra

-: 29:03

Yeah, because they're focused just on one channel. I'm a great believer in doing one channel really well, but also at the same time, now there's pressure to be showing up wider, or being clear about how you do show up wider on the forums that you can't control as well.

Jonny Ross

-: 29:33

So this is about, there's no doubt that AI visibility becomes key, but it's also one of the strongest trust signals. And so what are the things that we need to be considering to get a brand to show up and how do we control what's being said in a way?

Sandra

-: 30:10

I guess it's about, well, two things. I kind of frame it in a, you know, put that work in up front, you know, get really clear on the clarity of your message, the conviction of your message, and the consistency of your message. Make sure that that message is the same wherever. So whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's Facebook, whether it's, you know, wherever you show up, or even in your shop front, if you have a physical premises, making sure it's really clear to a customer what you offer and why you offer it.

Sandra

-: 30:49

But then secondly, it's more about scanning, what this is, this is the big thing, I think now that people sometimes miss is that the flip side of this is that AI is brilliant at helping you scan, your visibility. You know you can find out your digital footprint really quickly and really quite cheaply and continuing to monitor that and understand the customer sentiment or your brand visibility or anything that you want to measure is much easier than it's ever been.

Jonny Ross

-: 31:05

So it's clear that this isn't one or the other brand versus the technical side of things. It, you know, brand fully earns its place. It is both.

Sandra

-: 31:24

Yeah, absolutely. It's both. It's about, you know, you're and I'm sure you're the expert on this, but SEO is still really important, you know. your information has to be readable really well from both a human perspective and from a AI perspective.

Sandra

-: 31:37

And that means good schema and everything else that that entails. But on the flip side of that, you need these trust signals. So as I see it, you know, there's two things, isn't there? There's content and authority.

Sandra

-: 31:49

And actually the brand is the bit that is the authority piece, it's the trust pilot reviews, it's the additional bits that indicate to a customer that your brand is the brand that they want to do business with.

Jonny Ross

-: 32:20

What I see in a, in a, in a lot of businesses is that there's always a, uh, the, the, the two are not often, uh, even at all. And the easiest way to see that, or the place to see that is brand versus performance marketing. So you've sort of got your brand people, you've got your performance people. The board often, in a lot of the businesses I work on, are very focused on performance marketing.

Jonny Ross

-: 32:36

They really are. But that separation is a problem, I think. Have you seen them brought together correctly and properly? And why do they drift apart in the first place?

Sandra

-: 32:54

I guess, you know, this is a great quote, I think. I'm trying to think who it was, it was an American guy. in the 50s, and he went, 50% of my marketing works, I just don't know which bits of it actually work. And that still holds true today.

Sandra

-: 33:24

Is that because this wider sphere, it's an ecosystem, there is various touch points that you can control, that you can't control. And as ever with business, we like to say, I've spent this amount of money, I've got this amount of leads and X amount converted and that created sales. So I can say if I spend this much, this is what I'll get. And that's why there's a, there's a, the accountants and the finance people love something that's attributable.

Sandra

-: 33:45

But unfortunately, AI is disrupting that. AI is disrupting this journey because 70% of everything's already happened before they click on your website. So that then becomes harder, which is then why you need brand and performance to work together. And I think we're seeing this already, aren't we, in terms of website traffic's down.

Sandra

-: 34:04

We're seeing the cost of paid media going up because it's harder to target and get these people. And so I think it's just this measuring of the brand side of it and then demonstrating that value on once. And it is hard. It isn't a straightforward formula.

Sandra

-: 34:12

But it is getting that sentiment. It is getting that feedback. And it is then getting that momentum. And it doesn't happen overnight either.

Sandra

-: 34:45

It's about being consistent. And I'm sure you'll talk about this with marketing generally and anything that you do is that you can't switch it on. and switch it off and you know it doesn't happen overnight you've got to be consistently showing up and even like you know people talk about this on LinkedIn for example is that you see results if you post in once a week and you're consistently driving the same message If you're posting three weeks full on, and then you don't post for another three weeks, you won't get the same results.

Sandra

-: 35:24

The better result is that drip feed of consistent activity, consistent visibility. I liked the Mark Ritson way of thinking about this, which is all about if you think about it in a holistic way, your brand is warming up. 90% of your customer base that are going to buy from you at some point or are likely to buy from you, whereas actually your performance marketing is what converts them. And actually, if you're doing them two in isolation, you're not really getting that synergy and that multiplier effect.

Jonny Ross

-: 35:40

So is it about like, why do they drift? Is it more to do with who should own it inside the business? And historically, it's always been two separate teams. What do you see?

Jonny Ross

-: 35:41

How do you fix that?

Sandra

-: 36:21

It's really hard. It's, you know, there will always be, it's a bit like marketing and sales and, you know, there's always these frictions. But genuinely, the thing I would say is that, you know, part of your brand is about making sure there's consistency around the people that you work with and you're all clear about what that business is about. And actually, if you do that work and some of that is mission vision value stuff isn't it but it's aligned to your brand there's a lot of parallels with that kind of work and your brand is that it then becomes easier to say, actually, we're all almost like

Sandra

-: 36:53

created as a joint accountability. Actually, if you create something that's a joint accountability, so saying that brand awareness, brand engagement, and brand experience, and customer satisfaction are all linked in, and it's not just purely about number of widgets and sales. I think that's the way you have to do it. And this is, you know, It might sound complicated, but in some ways, it's just getting clear on what your business is about.

Sandra

-: 36:59

And actually, if you're clear on what your business is about and how everybody's operating in that business, it should naturally happen.

Jonny Ross

-: 37:10

Here's a tough one for you. If you've got a small budget for the next quarter, how do you decide where to spend it on brand or performance?

Sandra

-: 37:31

You've got to get the balance right, depends on the business, depends on, you know, what you're trying to achieve. There's a lot of things you can do, you know, to drive awareness, to drive sales. It's getting that balance right. There isn't a perfect answer to that.

Sandra

-: 37:57

It's about taking a step back from your business and thinking more strategically about it is actually really the reason. And when I say that, I talk about strategy quite a lot. And really, what that is is about understanding your business better to make better decisions and not just following what a competitor does. And just, I've heard social media is good.

Sandra

-: 38:06

Let's do a load of money on social media, or we should do some Google paid ads. Let's just do that. It's not about that. It's about stepping back and thinking, who are we trying to resonate with?

Sandra

-: 38:17

And actually the people we want to resonate with, these are the three things we should do. And it's not a trade off. It's, it's, it's this joint collective thing about where you spend your money.

Jonny Ross

-: 38:22

Is there a size of business where this doesn't matter or is it, is it everyone now?

Sandra

-: 38:59

I would say it matters to everybody, you know, in terms of, I mean, maybe if you're a solopreneur and you don't really have much visibility and you work on recommendations, that's fair enough, you know, you're doing good. But then as businesses start to scale, it becomes more important, I would say. Once they start to hit that, you know, million turnover or whatever that is, whatever that benchmark is, it's that when they start to get more serious about their marketing, that's when the benefit comes of being clearer about why they're doing what they're doing.

Jonny Ross

-: 39:17

So let's just pull the technical side in for a moment without going too far down the rabbit hole, but the whole SEO, AO, GEO, where does all that meet the brand work that you've described and how does all that work?

Sandra

-: 39:37

That's a good question. So I mean, the technical side of your website is still very important, but almost the brand stuff is the upfront stuff. Brand isn't something that you will do every month. It's something, it's an upfront piece of work to get it right and make sure it feels right.

Sandra

-: 40:02

And then once you've got that, your SEO and everything else fits in much better. You're actually, I always say this when I do brand work, I create a brand framework. And that is almost like the Bible of how you operate in terms of your brand, in terms of what your values are, in terms of your purpose, in terms of how you show up. But more importantly, it's also about what you don't do, what you don't do.

Sandra

-: 40:17

And actually, once you're clearer about that, you then know exactly what is most important in terms of your website. You need to then max that and dial that up appropriately to make sure you're driving the benefit you need.

Jonny Ross

-: 40:54

Yeah so I'll very much talk about using FAQs on a website to make sure that you're answering customers queries but I guess what you're saying is that where the brand meets and is more important in terms of that front loading part, is the only way to get to understand the right questions to be answering on your website is to really understand your customer and the language that they're using and the actual questions they're asking, not just the sort of generic that we think they might be asking.

Sandra

-: 41:14

And it's great, you know, go and answer the public or whatever and you can find the questions that these people are putting in anyway. you know, you can get really clear on it. And that's the two things, you know. Firstly, what answers the question really clearly, but secondly, what are the signals to show that this brand shows up wider than this?

Jonny Ross

-: 41:46

But also the point being that you could go to answer the public and get the questions that people are asking, but I think what I'm reading between the lines here is that you really need to understand the brand helps you understand exactly who the audience is and therefore there might be Just even a couple of subtle words that you would change in that question, that would actually make the whole thing more psychological, more in tune with exactly...

Sandra

-: 42:01

It's about resonating, it's about creating them associations. It's all psychology, and that might sound like a big word, but it's just the language they use, it's the things that matter to them, and positioning it in the right way, but doing it consistently.

Jonny Ross

-: 42:21

And we're only human beings, aren't we? So, you know, tap into the psychology. The only other thing I would mention on the SEO side is that for me, it's all about EAT, which I talk about a lot. That's about being helpful, demonstrating experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness in your content.

Jonny Ross

-: 42:46

That's what AI really loves from an SEO point of view, the GEO point of view. And I guess the key thing is making sure that using brand, you're using the right language and using the right words within that. So if a founder's watching or listening right now, and they could only do one thing this month to get their brand working harder, what would you tell them to do?

Sandra

-: 43:05

Go and have a look at your brand footprint, which is quite easy to do. You know, have a look at how you're showing up in the AI space, in the Google space, wherever. And you can do that quite quickly and easily. It's not that hard.

Sandra

-: 43:28

And actually being aware of that is actually really insightful, having a look at Reddit and what people are saying, having a look at all the different forums and your reviews and everything else. To say, if I was a new customer coming in, How would I see this brand? And that is the most powerful way to understand how you're showing up. Are you consistent?

Sandra

-: 43:38

Are you clear? And are you compelling? Are you different to any of the competitors that are out there? It's the key questions I would ask.

Jonny Ross

-: 43:43

Any tools that you would recommend using?

Sandra

-: 43:56

Ooh, it depends on what you want to measure. There's like Brandwatch, there's Brand24. There's free bits of all these tools. Even use your chat GPT.

Sandra

-: 44:22

Go in there and say, can you review wider and tell me where I show up? And it'll tell you the sources if you go in the right. the top right corner, you can click on sources, you know, sometimes I work with businesses and they're like amazed, they're like, wow, all these things and this is what it looks like. But it's really quite powerful to understand, you know, the bits that you didn't realise were there.

Sandra

-: 44:37

or anything that's been picked up in articles, in previous conferences you attended. It's amazing what is out there. And so just being aware of what's out there and how it's being said is really quite a powerful starting point.

Jonny Ross

-: 44:48

A couple of quick round questions for you. Is there a brand out there, big or small, that you think is quietly getting this right at the moment, right now, at the moment?

Sandra

-: 45:06

That's a good question. I really like, there's a brand, it's a Yorkshire brand actually called Full Circle. And I like the way they've reinvented the category. So they're all about making funerals and a taboo subject more human.

Sandra

-: 45:18

And the brand is about full circle, the acceptance that we all die, and taking more control over that. But they're not black. They're not somber. They are brightly colored.

Sandra

-: 45:55

They are engaging. And they appear to be growing really quite well and really quite nicely, because they're just clear that, it's about opening up and breaking that taboo. And, you know, that they're out there consistently with their brand and showing up in care homes and different places. And I think that's just a really nice example of a really small business that is invested in a brand, a brand that does what it says on almost the tin without calling itself a funeral and changes that perception in the mindset of the customers that they're dealing with.

Jonny Ross

-: 46:02

Nice. 22 years in a bank, what did it teach you that you could only have learned there?

Sandra

-: 46:17

Oh, goodness. Not how to count, as we discovered earlier. But just that, do you know what? You have exposure to stuff and agencies.

Sandra

-: 46:38

And I think when you're in that bubble, you don't realize it. I talk to people who've come out of corporate, similar to myself, is that, you know, you have been exposed to really complex thinking, complex ways of looking at customers. And so it was a privilege. I do see it as a privilege.

Sandra

-: 47:09

And it's always about, now that drilling down, is that there's something about all that experience that tells me that there is some simple things that small businesses can do. without having to spend lots of money because that is the biggest constraint of smaller businesses absolutely is and it doesn't have to be as complex as that and it's about distilling some of that into something that's practical and actionable.

Jonny Ross

-: 47:31

And sometimes it's just simply going through a process, isn't it? And knowing there's a process, being aware of it, and actually going through it. And as you say, at the complexity level that fits the business, right from really easy to- Big businesses have lots of problems because they can't control it.

Sandra

-: 47:44

They're big tankers. And that's why I think AI is such a fascinating area. For smaller businesses who are experts, you know, goes back to the Google E and everything else there, is that it's all about authority. It's all about expertise.

Sandra

-: 48:00

And actually, if you can start showing up showing that, that's really, really powerful, because the big companies are still wrangling with governance and committees and everything they need to do to get things, you know, off the off the path, really.

Jonny Ross

-: 48:08

Yeah. Absolutely. Sandra, that has been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much.

Jonny Ross

-: 48:23

If people take three things from this, I think it is these. One, brand is a commercial lever, not a logo. I think it's that lets you charge more. I think two, the buyer journey now starts before anyone reaches your website.

Jonny Ross

-: 48:31

You've made that very clear for us. Thank you. And so being visible and trusted at that moment is so important. And it, in fact, is everything.

Jonny Ross

-: 48:43

And three, brand and performance are not two teams. They're one job. And the businesses that win are the ones that stop treating them as separate, to be perfectly honest. Now, if you've listened to this and thought, right, where does my brand actually sit?

Jonny Ross

-: 48:58

We have built a free scorecard for exactly that. It's at johnnyross.com forward slash magic hyphen multiplier. We'll put that in the show notes as well. You can score yourself on your brand and your AI visibility, and it only takes a couple of minutes.

Jonny Ross

-: 49:11

There's no cell at the end of it. It just shows you where you are strong, where the gaps are. As I said, I'll put the link in the show notes. Sandra, where should people go to find you and your work if they want to continue this conversation?

Sandra

-: 49:19

Oh, just contact me on, reach out and contact me on LinkedIn, or I do have a website. Either way, but yes, just reach out.

Jonny Ross

-: 49:28

Sandra Phillipson, thank you so much. It's been really useful. Thanks for watching. If you found this helpful or useful, please do tell your friends.

Jonny Ross

-: 49:38

We'd love feedback. Let us know what you think. Leave a review. And if you caught the replay, thank you for being there and thank you for listening or watching whatever it was for you.

Jonny Ross

-: 49:49

We'll see you next time. It's been the Johnny Rush Fractional CMO. Sandra, thanks again. We'll see you next time.