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When you want to have a branding happy hour, just meet up with Laura Markz, or listen to this interview where she serves up shaken and stirred branding business recipes. How does one build a successful online business? What are some branding do’s and don'ts? Why do some people waste money and website and visuals? In this exclusive podcast-turned-masterclass, Laura Markz shares what it takes to develop a successful brand online. From building a website to understanding your audience, the branding expert tells it all!
In this episode of the Social PR Secrets Podcast, host Lisa Buyer talks with Laura Markz, host of the Biz and Booze video podcast, school of branding and community. A former online strategy executive in the agency world, Laura now runs her own online education and consulting business. She offers online resources, guides, and courses to help entrepreneurs learn the modern-day methods of branding. This next January, she will also launch an online university that will take students through the process of building their own businesses. By signing up for the monthly subscriptions, customers will be able to get Laura as their private consultant and join MyBizU.
In her video and podcast series Biz and Booze, Laura makes business school fun by merging classes with a Friday happy hour. On the show, she helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build their brands. Such advice is the four proactive steps people can take to develop a successful brand. First, look at brands similar to yours. Understand what they do well and not so well, find out what makes you better. Second, she recommends getting inspiration from businesses outside of your industry. She says that once you bring something you admire about another brand to your industry, it will come to life in a completely different way.
Third, make sure you really understand your audience. And last, identify your brand’s characteristics. Think about how you want your audience to perceive you. Write down how you want people to feel when they interact with your brand. Laura has put together a free workbook on how to brand your business, which includes 200 such adjectives. You can find it here.
To Laura, one of the most common mistakes people make is to spend a lot of money on their website and logos. She says, “I spent $5 on Fiverr for my logo and I'm still using it.” Another service she recommends using is Leadpages. She uses it to easily use predesigned templates that allow her to get landing pages and website up in a day. Another common mistake Laura warns against is having a website that’s too crowded. She explains that you only need one or two pages on your website. You need to decide what the first thing you want to get across to visitors is. She also advises to always include a call to action. Overall, she says not to spend all your time working on your website and not throw all your content on it.
When it comes to social media, Laura recommends that her clients focus on captions and attention-grabbing visuals. She says that while Instagram was all about polished photos a few years ago, it’s now all about graphics, quotes, and engaging text. She adds that grids do not matter anymore and that each individual posts are all that matter. Laura’s biggest inspirations on social media and in the industry are Jasmine Star on Instagram, Amy Porterfield, and Tony Robbins. She also loves the work of Stu McLaren and his TRIBE program which helps you develop a membership model for your business.
To Laura, your brand is not just about the look, it’s how you make people feel. In addition to your brand’s characteristics, Laura recommends you identify your brand’s tangibles. The latter are aspects of a brand’s personality that people can make connections with. As such, when faced with those tangibles, your audience will associate them with your brand, without any effort on your part!
Are business cards still relevant? How much brand awareness is too much brand awareness? How has the internet affected branding? Listen to the full episode to hear Laura Markz discuss all you need to know about starting or developing a successfully branded business!
“People love to buy from brands that represent who they want to be.” - Laura Markz
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