Small Gestures, Big Impact: Branding through Local Events

How often do we overlook the power of local visibility and personal interactions in building a brand? In the virtual Lemonade Stand, Crystal is riding solo to unravel the potential of community-based marketing and traditional advertising techniques in creating brand awareness, highlighting how a boots-on-the-ground strategy and involvement in local events can help your brand conquer the local market and maximize your marketing budget.

0:07 - Utilizing Local Marketing for Brand Awareness
12:42 - Effective Marketing Strategies for Business Growth
26:00 - Effective Community Marketing Strategies

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• Episode Transcript

  What's up, lemonheads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. It's just crystal again this week, but we are going to be talking about something that is always a hot topic when do I hire somebody to come in office and run my marketing? When can I use some third parties? Win, win, win, win, win. So today I thought I would tell you why you should look at marketing on the local level and how you can make it happen and really squeeze the most out of that marketing budget. Let's sip some lemonade, alright. So I get this question like super often. So people will say, well, I don't know, like when do I need to bring somebody in my team? When do I need to use third parties? When do I need to use consultants? And, to be honest, I wish there was a solid answer like oh, exactly this revenue goal, or exactly at this marketing spend, or exactly at this employee count. It's just not the same for everyone, and the main reason I say that is because it really depends on what you, as the owner, or prioritizing, and so I am a firm believer of hitting the ground running. I love owning. Dominating the market immediately. That is my jam. I also understand that dominating the market immediately normally involves losing some money up front Forward, facing dollars that have come into play, that you're putting a lot out there with not a lot returning immediately, and that's a struggle. Not everyone has that capability, not everyone has that ability to have just that much cash on hand. So we're going to talk a little bit about today, like how can I marry these two things? How do I utilize experts and a local marketing person? How do I do this? And so today I'm really going to focus on owning your local market, the gorilla style boots on the ground I call it boots on the ground because that's my style, that's my jam Boots on the ground marketing and how I can utilize this position or this person, whether it's a part time role, a full time role, a hybrid role. There's ways that we can flush this out, but for the most part, I'm really going to focus on community based marketing today and how no one could replace someone on your team specifically dominating the local community boots on the ground thing. So let's get started with one of the first things that I think a community style marketing position would work so when you are out and about in the market, what you're trying to do with your brand. So wrapped trucks or billboards or radio jingles, all of the things that are brand based what you're really trying to do is build up that top of mind awareness. So you are trying to be heard and seen so often that when the problem arises that you solve for happens, the homeowner immediately thinks of you, whether it's through your mascot or through your jingle or your parade float or those truck wraps a good, bad or indifferent how are they memorable? Those things are very, very crucial to brand building. This is where so many people miss the boat. Guys like listen to me, listen to me. Good, if you want to find low success speeds, launch everything. That's direct call to action, because you have to implement a branding strategy or a branding strategy will implement itself. And what I mean by that is you need to tell the narrative about who your company is so that people adopt that narrative. If not, naturally, some little for lack of a better word, I'm called a pissant situation. Like you know you're somebody on your company, maybe they have a wreck and something happens. Or you know your truck is parked at a strip club, or you know you pass people in a funeral procession. I'm from the South. That's kind of a big deal, like you pull over to the side of the road, right? So all of those things a lot of times, if you don't already tell the narrative that you want told for your brand, little situations ships, as I call it will will pull the narrative that direction. So we want to make sure that we're in, we want to ensure that we are pushing out a message first. So a lot of ways that that happens is just straight up being visible. Well, visibility is hard, visibility is time consuming, okay, especially with this boots on the ground approach. So what I want to encourage you about here is understanding your mass media strategy. That's designed for top of mind awareness and brand awareness is Very important to your long-term goal. But the boots on the ground is how you put it into motion, how you bring it to life. Okay. So billboards fantastic, radio great. All marketing works in some capacity and in some markets. But this boots on the ground style is like really like bringing it to life and putting a face to this Jingle and a face to the name. So if you have a mascot, great. If you don't, great. You just have to own who you are, you know. So you may not have a mascot, maybe you have a symbol, or maybe you have a tagline that's catchy. Find something that is yours and yours alone, that you can own and then literally take it to the people. So right now, this time of the year, as holidays are getting here, we have parades, y'all. Parades are so Easy to do in the grand scheme of things, especially those of you that have really good wraps on your vehicles Just literally drive the van. If the least you can do, drive your van through the parade route, I'll put a trailer and pull the cheerleaders from the local high school, put a, put the local high school mascot in the bed of one of your trucks, have them sign a waiver, put them in the bed of your truck and drive them through the parade. There's lots of cool things that you can do there to just be present. Okay, this is the difference. This is what I'm telling you. It's not just about hardcore, traditional advertising techniques anymore. Yes, they're great and they have. They all serve a purpose, but there's nothing like the handshakes and the high fives and the Handing them of this and handed on that, and the eye contact and the emotional exchange that happens when someone actually experiences your brand live and in person, whether that's a parade or whether that's a a Booth at a local festival. They need to have an experience. And so, again, it sounds super corny, like I can hear people, like you know, but really, guys, this is, I mean, there's, there's a method to the madness. Here we want to Engage with our, our community, in a meaningful and intentional way, and the reason that that happens is because, no, the Majority, the vast majority of the children and the adults that waved at you as you drove through the parade route are not Jumping on their phones to go book an appointment with you while they're sitting and watching the parade. It's not gonna happen. It's not what's intended to happen. What's intended to happen is for people to experience your brand in a fun way. Maybe your mascot has on a Santa hat, maybe you have all your little. Your CSR team is walking like little elves handing out candy canes. Maybe they're handing out little, tiny plungers. Maybe they're handing out little a Stocking holder, if you're a chimney company, you're a landscaping company, and maybe you're handing out like little seed packets, like guys. Just think. Think about the experience of me handing something to you, or me waving at you, or bubbles coming off of my float. Just all of these things are an experience, and so flip down around. Maybe you don't want to be in a Christmas parade, maybe you want to be in, you know, for the July parade. Same concept, right, same concept. But also is at at events I. So our town has a local like Christmas tree lighting is what it, what it amounts to. But it's really a pumping unit. It's like a little an oil. So you're gonna make fun of me because my Texas is about to show, but I say oil, oil. So I can't say I say all like I'm gonna go change my oil in my car. So I'm gonna try to say it correctly, which is oil. So it's an oil pumping unit. But is? He's literally painted to look like a Rudolph. You have to go look it up. It's on the city of Lufkin's website city of Lufkin L? U, f, k, I, n, and they literally like count it three and they like this thing up. It's super cool. But instead of just like being in the parade, like what if you were out there saying we're giving out hot chocolate? We had a local HVAC company do that. Now thought was genius idea. You give out hot chocolate or you sponsor the coloring page Contest and so you get all the local schools to color and you're gonna give out a winner. So you're randomly gonna choose a pre-k at elementary, a junior high and a high school student. That's gonna win a hundred dollar gift card. And they get to ride on your float and you're gonna blow their pictures up like big posters and put it on your float. And guys, you know what? That is freaking gold. That is community engagement gold. You that you need to be finding those Things. Those are wins, friend. Those are super cool ways that you engage with the community in a non-salesy way. But it has to be intentional and you have to be dedicated to getting it done. And then, while you're there, so if you're doing the hot cocoa station right, let us warm you up this winter. Call McWilliams for all of your heating and air conditioning need. Let us warm you up this summer with hot water. Call, you know, easy flow plumbing. These are cool ways to get people to get involved by using the term hot, whatever that means for you for hot cocoa, right. But also you are out there and you're live on social media or you're taking pictures. This is where a person on your team Dedicated to this boots on the ground, strategy comes into play. Part of their job is Identifying the opportunities, so they can't just look at and go a root off lighting. Nobody's gonna do anything. You've got to think outside the box. So who's providing the coloring pages, like, who sponsored that? Who's providing the rubber reindeer ears that everyone's putting on? Who's giving out blankets? Who's giving out cocoa? Who's who's announcing the countdown? Who's going live on social media? Like, how can I own any of those things? Somebody that has a creative hat that they can put on to really dig deep into these community events and make them your own, own them. We're looking for things about water or Flush or plumbing or chimneys or pest control, or don't let Christmas bug you like how can I make all of that work? And it just takes some creative Thinking. But let me tell you what that is. That also equates to time suck, right. So Creative outlets like that, where you have to sit down. You kind of have to research who's there, what's there, who's been doing it for 30 years and all of those things. It requires time because then you got to reach out to the organization, designate what you're gonna do, get your funding and then get your idea, because it isn't just that you're the hot cocoa sponsor. Now you've got to have people to work that hot cocoa booth and cups and actually hot cocoa and a booth, a tent, a Tablecloth, handouts like coupon codes. So that's where the time comes in. So you know what happens, contractor, you have the best of intentions, but what happens is all hell breaks loose Right three days before this and you don't have everything finished again like screwed. I shouldn't have done it in the first place. So I really encourage you like this. This person on your team that is devoted to community and social media, I think alone pays for itself in a year from just exposure with with good expectations. So you can't hire this person and be like well, I want you to be involved in the community and post on social media. Absolutely not. That's not detailed enough. So I would say the expectation is that we are actively participating and showing up to One event a month at a minimum. We're in at least two parades, or these are the two parades that I want to send. We are supporting at least one to two Drives. So is it a diaper drive, a food drive, a dog food drive, a paper towel drive? We participate in two of those, I want 12. I want a post every day on social media for Facebook. I want post twice a month on LinkedIn, like you need to build out your program and set the expectations up front, because this is all about being seen. So guess what, if they're shy and don't want to be seen, this ain't it. This is not for them, because this person is literally the walking, the walking Advertisement of your company. So they are very involved in chambers and other groups that are affected by your business and so your pest control company. I'd be all up on the realtors. I'd be all up in that, okay, and I would be hey, referral bonuses. Or you help them offset the cost of a new client gift. You do pest control at their home for free, like work out some things At their realtor luncheons. You're not just there. You sponsored the blackout prize. Or you gave a your company's red and yellow and you give out this really cool red, cooler with your logo on it and you offer to engrave it. For I mean, guys, you got to get in deeper Then just sticking your name on a logo, on a banner. So that's one way that this person can be very beneficial is Identifying the nonprofits to partner with. Getting involved with a chamber of commerce is, or convention and visitors bureau. Whatever you have going on there that's active Lions clubs, Rotary clubs, other civic organizations. Your whole job is to freakin get involved, like, get in the mix, right? The other thing is your social media. So I sell social media limancy. Does social media for people. We can't physically do it because then it would be for lack of a better term Pooh-Pooh. Okay. So if all you're doing is throwing up graphics on your social media, yeah, you might as well. I guess it's better than nothing. So let me take a snap back. It's better than nothing. But, guys, like it is not Growing your business at all. And the reason that I tell you that is because people don't care. I Hate to tell you that, but like people do not care I, unless they can start seeing real people and real things that they can relate to. So memes and five-star reviews and video testimonials and tips, not just a graphic, but like a video of people that work in your company, actual people from your team posting content, actual community landmarks. So if I'm going to make your video content, I would think that my van needed to be in front of the university that's very popular, or the certain park that everyone knows, or in front of the high school. So those are golden. So can content creators help you? Sure, but it should be in addition to your localized content. So if you have someone on your team that you're thinking about employing social media would be the second thing I had them focus on, with clear expectations of what needs to be posted. And I mean so. If I live in the South and I do your social media for you in the North, odds are I'm going to miss some things that just aren't Southern. Okay, because that's what my exposure is to. So do I know what good marketing looks like? Yes, do I understand radiant heat flooring versus, and boilers versus when people use heat pumps and, and you know, different sears of units? Yes, I know those things. But what I don't know is that the biggest rivalry in town is high school A versus high school BI. Don't know that. I don't live there. So my content might say, hey, let's highlight a local rivalry, but someone on your team is going to have to identify who that rivalry really is. Or it's National Hamburger Day and we're giving out a gift cards to the local hamburger shop. You're going to need to tell me who has the best hamburgers where you live. Right, I can go online and Google and say, oh, you need to go to you know, fat Daddy's barbecue, they have the best hamburger. But then you are going to say, oh, fat daddy's as gross, with like 32 demerits from the food safety people, right? So I don't know those things always, and so that's why this local content, so you can use content to support your creator. But I think you need it. It's great to have someone on your team that's dedicated to this. Now listen to me on this part. I think that this could be a stipend position for a CSR dispatcher or technicians, someone on your team that wants the additional responsibilities. So the goal would be to identify how you kind of give them and right now people think hybrid work from home and work from office, but a little bit of a hybrid role where 10 hours a week or two hours a day, they are dedicated to working on social and community involvement things, and that's how they help you grow your brand organically boots on the ground. So you know, a good example would be, let's say, your local chamber announces the business of the year. Why not deliver them pizza or cookies and say Our team at Yellow Bear Air was so proud of you know, big picture photo booth for winning best new business. Congratulations from our team to yours. So then guess who's going to go share that? The person that owns big picture photo booth, and then she's probably going to share it on her business page and all of those things, and then all of your team should be on there posting Congratulations. We love her. It's awesome, right. So look at all that engagement. It doesn't have a fling flinging thing to do with plumbing or any other home service. It's just a good wheel gesture that makes people go gosh. Those are good people over there. Those are good people. Also, this person could be looking for, like I just saw earlier today. Again, we're in the middle of holiday season when this episode's gonna air. But you know the Salvation Army is a big organization here where we live and they do the angel tree. So you go pick off an angel, buy a few things that that kid wants. So there's still like 300 unadopted angels right now. Y'all I would be playing hero like ain't nobody's business right now. I would be swooping in as a company and saying Yellow Bear Air was happy to go adopt 150 of these kids, and not everybody can do that. But Yellow Bear Air was excited to go adopt five kids off that family to represent the five employees that we have. Right, like, put a story to it, because what happens is when you promote it, then you say we're encouraging other people to go out and help us get the other 255, 295 kids adopted. Whatever those numbers look like to you, don't get hung up on those numbers, but whatever those numbers looked like to you and now you're a hero and you're actually serving a need, but you've gotta have someone on your team that's dedicated to understanding what their parameters are, because that is a fantastic PR, it's fantastic culture. Like, think about your team. So my team at Lemon Seed they love to support we went and volunteered at a food pantry one time. We've adopted kids off of those angel trees. My sweet little team loves to support the community and so then they're gonna be excited and they're proud to be a part of who you are. And so if you deploy, don't deploy Well, I guess you could deploy this initiative, but employ a person that their focus is getting you noticed right, doing good will and getting you noticed Right now. There's zero reason that you should not have TikTok going on for your business. I can go both directions with TikTok, don't get me wrong. I struggle to find real connections to local calls to action because TikTok can go so wide so fast. But at the end of the day, it's a piece of the puzzle, not the main pieces. So you know marketing. I want y'all to look at advertising as the finished puzzle. If one piece is missing a lot of times, the puzzle is not complete. So that's the same way that marketing and advertising works. You have to have all these different components working correctly so that your overall marketing concept is achieved, and one of those things should probably be TikTok for recruitment and for brand awareness. It's extremely hard to keep it super local. But again, do some cool things, get noticed, just so you can say that you're getting noticed. Right, but localize, like Facebook content, your email marketing getting picked up by a news station. Heather Ripley owns Ripley PR. She's a fantastic book out right now. I have it on my e-reader. It's great and it talks a lot about the basic things that you need to understand for PR and just how do you get noticed. And, being an industry expert, well, this position their goal is to get you recognized. Are there local podcasts that they could get you on? Could you be on the radio station? A big freeze is coming and why is the news not calling you? Well, because you've got to push yourself out there a little bit more. So I really encourage that. And also the last and final thing. So I've talked about the community involvement piece, the boots on the ground, the social media style. The last thing that I want to say is just ensuring that everyone is made aware of what your marketing campaigns are. So, for example, if you're doing a big cash giveaway and so for every you know, for the systems that you're buying, that can get up to $1,000 back in their pocket, right, are you making the most of that promotion? So, number one, does your whole team know about it? So, are your CSRs prepared with a script? Is your tech? Are your technicians prepared with the information about the actuals of their promotion? If you have comfort advisors or selling texts, are they prepared? Do they understand? And then, last but not least, that social media piece of every time. I would have a big checkmate and every time someone installed a system and I was giving them 500, 700, 1,000 bucks, I would go out there and take a picture with them. If I could get them and if you just ask, I bet you can close 50% of these homeowners that are getting new systems. If you say, hey, I'll make it 1,050, if you'll let me take your picture and you have them stand in front of that new system holding a check for $750 or $1,050, because you gave them an extra $50. At the end of the day, it is so worth it. And then use those same pictures in an email blast that say, hey, this is the last month. Are you like Mr Lopez, where he just earned $750 back from buying a new system with McWilliams? Everyone should be like Mr Lopez, right? Like, have a good time with it. And then there's a picture in there. Have them sign a simple waiver. Guys, don't overthink those things. It's more than anything, about just being intentional and being active, and so this boots on the ground approach that I'm encouraging you to do is literally putting people on the road. That this is what they do. You know what? Also, put them in a car that's marked, that's branded, so that, as they're going to the chamber events and they're showing up at customers' homes and they're doing social media, they have this vehicle that's also wrapped and it's an investment. But if you find the right person, the right person, I would tell you, is probably, in my opinion, a full-time position. I hate on me. All you want to. I think this position is a full-time position. I think it's mid-level pay. There is a lot of nights and weekends, because that's when festivals and events are, so take that into consideration and even being flexible with time or compensating the position correctly for that. But also like it's a cool job, right, people that are social. So if you use this profile like the high eyes on your team, they want to be this person. Like let them write in a parade, okay, let them take pictures and sign checks, because that is right up their alley. I encourage you to look at that and when that fits into your business. In my opinion, once you're able to spend money in the community, that's when I would launch a community marketer position, even if you start out part-time, where they guarantee you, you know, Five hours a week of just developing some things and let me see to have some some support pieces in place to help with this. But honestly, guys, there is no comparison to Having a team or a person on your team that there's. So Responsibility is being the face of the company. Unless you like being it and some of you do some of you love the community aspect, well then you better own it and you better do it consistently, and I say this all the time. You're gonna get started, then so will the other companies that are around you, because they're just gonna be a flash in the pan, because they're gonna be jealous that you started out and you. You're doing some things and you're really getting noticed. So then they're gonna deploy that. But when times get tough, strategy gets weak, cash flow gets low and things start being a little wonky, they'll pull it, they'll pull out. You have to be focused and dedicated to saying. This is what I'm requiring this person to do and this is how I'm inquiring, empowering them to do it, giving them a budget. Hey, your community budget, whether it's 5,000 or 50,000, put a budget on paper and where you plan on utilizing those dollars and how you plan on making the most of those things. Social media it cannot be just get post done. That's not enough guys. That's no. You have no time to grab at the end of the month when the social media is poopy. You've got to get stronger. And then Engagement is another piece of really engaging and watching when your clients, when your customers, win awards, or even when someone passes away, or when you notice that there's a need highlighting those things, highlighting your team like this, is a good position for that. So, even if you have to start out small, start out, just start deploying this. My sweet little clown I'm not gonna call his name because I love him, but he's been with me for three years now, saw great growth. Really, just, he was a great operator and we had great marketing. I just have to tell you it was the perfect combination. But I had been telling him for two years You're really ready for a mascot in a community marketer. I don't know crystal, I don't know crystal, I don't know crystal. Hey, you really should look at a community marketer. I don't know cuz he was giving back money, he was doing all the things. It was just very haphazard. So about three months ago he got acquired by a PE and I helped support this PE. So the, the private equity company, was like oh, you need a community marketer because that's our plan. So they put a community marketer on the ground and I'm like what in the world? His engagement has skyrocketed, his comments have skyrocketed and I'm like boy, yeah, I was telling you to do this three years ago before. It was cool, but what it was? It was scary to him because he did not have any desire to be the face. But once he had the backing of some supporters and understood, like okay, I'm gonna launch this position, this is who we're looking for, this is how we do it. So here are a couple of things that you would look for in a community marketer style position or a marketing position in your company. Number one I think they have to be a creative. They really need to naturally be creative and some ways to test. That is when they interviewed, just say hey, if I was gonna have a parade float and a Christmas parade and the theme was toyland, what, what kind of float would you put together? Hey, if we were gonna sponsor a 5k and we had to work a water station, if in budget wasn't an issue, what would you do at the water station? Hey, we just found out that one of our clients won an award. What would you do? What's your recommendation? And just see how they think, like, how do they process? What questions do they ask? There's really not a right or wrong answer. You're more trying to follow, like, their thought process, like, do they think outside the box? Are they quick? Are they creative storytellers? What makes them cool? And then ask them social media, tell me you would have to look this up first if this is not your jam. But say, hey, tell me one tip-talk trend that's popular right now and how we could incorporate in our business. And Listen it will. It will become Very apparent pretty soon. You're either gonna scare the crap out of them because I can't answer any of that, or Someone's gonna be like, oh my god, it's like my whole dream job, right, so you're gonna have that. But another thing is say, hey, we just found out that one of our our team members, mom was diagnosed with cancer. What is something we might can do for them? Or you know, hey, we need to. You know, figure out a way to engage with the adoption center or the CPS. You know child protective services in our area. What are your ideas? What it does is it's not so much marketing focus. You're not talking to them about ROI, on a digital strategy. You're seeing, did they even get it? Tell them to name three nonprofits that are active in your market, you, and do they know any of the executive directors? Do they know any of the board members? And what that's going to do is it's going to give you a good idea if they are already engaged. One of the keys that I think makes people successful is when they are already actively engaged in their community. In some aspects it allows them to, like, really dive in. So I think they need to be a high-I personality, maybe a D, just because you kind of have to get stuff done. But they also have to be a good time manager and you have to trust them to be a self-starter, because this position you can't micro-manage it to the T, because literally they might be at the coffee shop, at the local rotary clubs. You know coffee morning break and people on your team are going to be like well, crystal was at Stampipe drinking coffee today at 10 o'clock. Well, that was Crystal's job. She was sitting with a group of realtors. That was her job. Or I noticed that Crystal didn't come to work today till noon. Well, that's right, because last night she worked the Habitat for Humanities Casino night until 2 o'clock in the morning, so I told her she could come in late. You're going to face a little bit of that funkity junk at the beginning, but you have to set the standard that. That is their role. Their role is to be seen and to be present, and also they've got to get the buy-in of the team. So do they have a personality that people want to follow and people want to help. So if you're going to do a parade float, you know it's really hard to do, drive it and ride on it. So you got to find two people at least. So they have to be able to recruit your own team members to participate. So they just need to have that personality. I also think that they do need to have exposure to marketing. So even things like Lemon Seed puts on our juice conference once, our juice conference, our juice class once a month, and it's really talking about overall marketing conceptualizations that are appropriate for the season and strategies, and it's really good exposure for people that don't have the deep strategy side. And we talk about community marketing. So it's a really good fit. So, guys, I really want to encourage you to own the boots on the ground approach right now, and holidays are the easiest time to get started. So, yes, it's going to require you to give up a little bit, find some budget, find some ways to get active. Maybe you need a rebrand or a refresh, or you need to do something to get cool. We're here to help you with that. So just a friendly reminder Lemon Seed is a full service marketing agency, all here to help you build out your strategy. Think of us as like a fractional chief marketing officer position. Help you with your strategy, help you with your doing, help you with your creative. We have a fantastic Rockstar team of designers that are here to help you refresh your brand, rebrand. Get everything looking really good, guys, because branding is how you win the long game. Thanks for sipping Lemonade with me for another episode of From the Yellow Chair. If you love us, leave a review. We will see you next time.