Creating Your Brand Strategy with Melanie Grandoit

Jillian

Hi, Melanie, how are you today?

Melanie

I'm good. How are you doing?

Jillian

I am good. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Melanie

You're welcome.

Jillian

Yes. So I think a good place to always start when I have a guest is my listeners obviously want to know who they are and what they bring to the world.

Melanie

Yes, absolutely. So my name is Melanie and I am a brand and web designer. And so I particularly help women who have left corporate America and they want to start their own business. So starting their own brand, like, taking their corporate skill set and then using it in a business environment. So I help them build their brand identity, their visuals, their logos, their colors, also understanding, like, their messaging and ideal client. And then we go into designing their website as well and local to like, the metro Atlanta area. I'll do their brand photography to bring it all together so that they have like, a cohesive, consistent online presence that reaches the right audience.

Jillian

Oh, wow, that is awesome. And that is all stuff I do not know how to do.

Melanie

So good.

Jillian

Yeah, I'm not good with colors and messaging. I'm working on. Let's start with why is it important to build a brand? Like, why do we need it?

Melanie

Yeah. When I hear the word brand right, I think identity. Right. So each of us is unique. You're unique, I'm unique. Each of us is unique. So a brand is a way it's an identity of your business, who you're serving, your mission. So it's important to understand that identity. So that your audience that you want to work with can relate to you. Right. They want to understand, who are you, what do you stand for, what are your values, what are the problems that you're going to help me solve? So being able to understand your brand, your identity, the problem that you solve, the client that you want to serve, is going to help you to better articulate more confidently to yourself, but then also to your audience as well. Like, you're going to be confident in knowing, this is my brand. And then once you're confident, then people will also be confident in what you're serving or selling to them.

Jillian

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Yes, definitely. So where do we start? Like blank slate, where do we begin?

Melanie

Believe it or not, when people first start me, I have them start with like, one two page business plan. And I study business in school, and so business plan were like, 20 pages, but they're simpler. So I have them start with, like I said, a one and a half, two page business plan. And a lot of those fields that I haven't filled out are going to be, what's your mission, what do you want to accomplish through this business? Who do you desire to serve? Like, being more specific than just, I'm going to serve all women, you know, that's really broad, like really getting specific on who's your ideal client, what do you value, right? What's the problem with the business you're so in that business plan, we're identifying what's the problem that you're going to be solving and the solutions that you're going to offer, what's that transformation look like for your end user, and then also looking at what tools and resources are going to be required to run your business. Right. Or maybe there are certain systems or tools or software or things that are going to be required to run that. It's good to know that as well. And then we also look at like, brand messaging, right? So some people will call it like a value proposition statement or a brand proposition statement, but really looking at how you articulate that, whether it be that 32nd pitch or that elevator pitch, how we articulate that to your client. So we really just do a snapshot of the business. That's where we start. Right. Most importantly, that problem that you're so great at solving and then the person that's going to pay you for that problem.

Jillian

Yes. Great place to start. Yes, I didn't so much do a business plan, but yes, I did write out some of those things.

Melanie

Yeah, you may not call it a business plan, but if you're writing out those things, it's pretty much that. But as long as you're identifying those key elements, then you're good.

Jillian

So when it comes to our graphics and the way we present ourselves online, or most of my listeners have a podcast, what are some important aspects to have on your podcast? Cover or graphics that you use to promote your podcast? Yeah.

Melanie

So do most of them already have their solid name of what they want their podcast to be?

Jillian

Yes, most of them do. Yeah. And then they're just trying to design the artwork.

Melanie

Yeah. So whatever that name is that they branded their podcast to be, they want that to come through through the artwork. So with building a brand, get clear on your colors, right? So in order to build trust with people, consistency builds trust. Right. So if one day someone has like, pink and blue is the color, and the next month they have like green and blue as their color on a different platform, then it's like, hey, wait, this is not consistent. You know, so subconsciously the person's like that doesn't trust because they're constantly changing, you know? So like, if we were to walk into Target one day and everything was yellow one year, the next year it's green, they trust. So with your brand art, you want to make sure whatever colors you've picked be consistent with those colors. And think about really like because when you're going through a podcast feed or stream, think about creating cover that's really going to stand out against other podcast covers. Right? I'm trying to think there's some this really depends the photo, you really want the photo to be able to speak to. And sometimes it may not even be a photo of you, sometimes it photo view, but sometimes with podcasts it's less about you and more about the problem or the topic that you're solving. So if there's a way to communicate that through the photo, I would say do that. So, like, for a photographer, there's a photography podcast that I listen to. A good cover would be just a picture of them. They have a picture of them with their photography, like their camera or their equipment or something like that. And like, for me, with a brand designer, I would have like somebody could look at my photo and say, oh, she's branding, so she might be talking about branding. So whatever it is you want to talk about, whatever it is that your topic is about, have some elements of that in your cover photo, if that makes sense. So that someone because it kind of applies to like, you know, when someone has their website, when someone goes on your website, your photos, they should be able to look at your photos and tell exactly what you do. And you kind of wanted to have that same concept. When you're working with your podcast cover, can someone look at this and be able to tell by the name and the photo what this thing is about? What this podcast is about?

Jillian

Yeah, exactly. Because they're scrolling through so many cover arts, you got to stand out and they got to kind of know just from looking without even reading the description, like, hey, this is what this is about.

Melanie

Yes, exactly. But yes, exactly. The colors help choosing colors that resonate with your audience. So, like, if you're speaking to a group of women choosing colors that they would be welcome to or inviting to versus like all black and all red. So different audiences are going to require different colors. And so that's why when you first create your podcast, you want to know who's most likely going to be my audience. And that may require some market research. You may have to go out and ask people who would be interested in listening to this podcast so you can get an idea of who's in your audience so that you can create colors and a message that relates to those people that would be most likely be able to listen.

Jillian

Yes, that's really important. I think most of the time we pick like, our favorite colors and not always the one that resonates. Yeah. I do have to say though, my favorite color is teal and I made sure I did get that into one of them.

Melanie

Yes, it's okay. I have pink in mind, girl. Pink my face. I'm like, I'm keeping it.

Jillian

We talked a little bit about websites, so does our podcast need a website?

Melanie

So that's a great question. So I've seen people do it really well. So if someone may have a website, but they may take their podcast and they may multipurpose that, right? So the great thing about podcasts is audio, but you can multipurpose that into like a written blog on your website, which could also be a video on YouTube. So you could take that content and you can make it appeal to different audiences. People like to listen, people like to read, people who like to watch. So I would recommend if you're really wanting to get your content out there, I would definitely recommend having it on type of website because it will help with SEO, like people finding you on Google, like if someone searched for whatever that topic that your podcast is about. If you put that podcast on your website, that will show up in Google rankings, which will increase people who reach who you can reach and increase your audience as well. So it's definitely a great idea to take that and put it on your website for sure. Or if you decide, hey, maybe I would just want to do it, take it and put it on YouTube. You can do that. But it's definitely a great idea to increase your audience.

Jillian

Yes. I am the queen of repurposing. Yeah, I video them, I write them out everywhere.

Melanie

You can put it good.

Jillian

Put it. Yes. So I would love to know what are your top tips when you are designing a brand with your clients?

Melanie

Tips? Okay, there's so many different things. So I usually work in phases. So just the branding part, not necessarily like the website part, just like the branding.

Jillian

Okay.

Melanie

Great question. I'm thinking to my process, so I don't know if they're tips. It's more of my process. It's more of like a process that I take people through. But I guess you could repurpose those into tips. I'm trying to think of a good one that your audience can relate to. Okay, so I can talk a little bit. When I first meet with people, a lot of times people come to me and they want to go straight to the logo or straight to the website. Right. So a tip or strategy that I use with people is those are actually like the last things we think about. We actually look at strategy first. Right, so strategy would be, okay, so what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish within the next one year, two year, three year? Right, so when you build a brand, you look at long term building versus just getting that quick end result. So I'm looking at what their goals are. And then a really, really good thing when building a brand is market research. So a lot of times when we think we have an idea of who our audience is, but until we actually go out and research and talk to potential clients of what their needs are and what they're looking for, we really don't know. Unless we've actually talked to someone. So market research is like a big part of understanding your audience. What would they pay for, what do they want, what do they even want? Because we could go out this amazing thing and then we haven't talked to anybody and then we don't have anyone that will purchase our product because we didn't figure out if that's what they really wanted. So definitely the market research would be key. It's like, have an idea of what you want to offer, but then reach out to certain people who you would love to work with and see if they'd be willing to either get on a short call with you or fill out a short survey in exchange for something. Especially if you actually go for market research. Some people, like for me, I might say, I give you a free website audit, or some people offer a gift card or cash to Starbucks or something like that, but usually give them something in exchange for their time to make it worthwhile for them. But market research is really going to help you to understand what services should I offer, what packages, what my packages look like, what should my pricing look like, and who really would pay for my services? So that's a really key part before we ever start designing anything.

Jillian

Is that something that you help your clients with, is the market research part?

Melanie

I have a person that I collaborate with. She does that part. So my part is more of like the messaging, the vision, the values and all of that. As far as the in depth, she goes, like really in depth. So I work with other experts that would help do that part. So she's like you could call her a content strategist and so you guys can look her up. It's social rebellion. Marketing. And so she is really great with helping people, like do that market research, that content strategies, not just for the website, but also for social media and email. Like she'll do email sequences and social media and things like that. So her name is Candace Blackman with Social Rebellion Marketing, and her marketing strategies are really, really good.

Jillian

I'll make sure to put that in the show notes. I love that you're collabing with others who are in Arizona a genius, and then you're in your zone, but they go together.

Melanie

Oh my gosh, yeah. It's so important because it's like, as entrepreneurs, we feel like sometimes we have to be able to do all parts of the process and it's like, no, I know my lane, I'm going to stay in my lane. I want to collaborate with marketing people. I want to collaborate with content strategies, you know what I'm saying? So it just makes it takes a load off to know I can focus on what I'm great at and then I can refer people to other people and what they're great at.

Jillian

Yes, definitely. And when you design websites. Do you also do the copy so.

Melanie

The client will provide the content to me, but I like to go in there and I'll tweak the headlines and stuff. Okay. And a lot of times I'm trimming stuff so sometimes we can get really wordy with the word. So I'm trimming out, like, extra filler words, and then I'm making the headlines stand out because when I'm thinking about how someone browses a website, it's the headlines and the photos. They'll browse that and they'll go back and possibly read. But I want to make sure, like, all those headlines are on point. The photos show exactly what they do. And then Candace, the one I mentioned earlier with social rebellion, she will write website copy. Like, write it from scratch. I just tweak what the client gives me, so whatever they give me, I will tweak it. But my main focus is going to be, like, sign the strategy and the website.

Jillian

So that's great that you have somebody to give them to if they're like me. Not very good. A copy at all. Absolutely. Or the whole branding thing at all.

Melanie

Oh, my gosh, yes. She'll write the whole thing and then do the email sequences. She's great.

Jillian

Yes. I love to see entrepreneurs collab and help each other out.

Melanie

That is awesome. So important.

Jillian

Yes, it is. Well, thank you so much for being on today. This was so helpful. I know that when we're designing our podcast cover, website, whatever, this is going to be so helpful. Can you tell the listeners how can they work with you if they're ready to design their brand and really make it speak to the Ideals clients?

Melanie

Yes, absolutely. They can email me at hello@Melanielatrell.com or then go to my website. It's Melanie Grandoit. Right now, I'm actually going through my own rebarance. So I have what you call like a squeeze page. Just the header thing with the button in my photo and what I offer. So I'm actually going through my own I find it's harder to rebrand myself, but I'm going through my own rebrand because all the stuff that I told you to recommend, I'm going through all that stuff again with myself to make sure that I've got it 100% clear. So it's like the second reason, because when I first started when I first started my business, I had one idea of who I was going to serve. But after being in business a certain couple of years, now I'm realizing that it's a different audience that actually comes to me. So I'm rebranding for that audience. So it's exciting. It's really exciting. So I love when you get clarity like that.

Jillian

Yes. And that's a great thing to reevaluate our brand every so often, to update it, because we change. We're not the same as when we first started. Yeah.

Melanie

And it's okay to change. Sometimes we think, oh, man, it didn't work out. The first thing that I thought but it's okay to shift and evolve and change. Look at bigger corporations. They shift and evolve and change. So, yeah, it's okay to be open to that.

Jillian

Definitely. Well, I will make sure all your links are in the show notes. And thank you again so much for being on today.

Melanie

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.