April 16, 2025 • 30 mins
Welcome to another insightful episode of Digital Coffee: Marketing Brew, where we dive deep into the world of branding and brand strategies that businesses need to thrive. This week, your host Brett Deister sits down with Katie Zeppieri, a renowned two-time TEDx speaker, author, social media influencer, and founder and chief brand strategist of the Mic Drop Agency, to explore the essential elements necessary to elevate your brand's presence. Listen in as Katie shares her compelling journey from aspiring broadcaster to becoming a powerhouse in marketing and PR, offering invaluable tips on brand strategy, brand amplification, and the pivotal role of storytelling in creating connections that drive business success. Whether you're in the startup phase or looking to refine your brand's message, this episode promises to equip you with the knowledge to enhance your brand's impact and visibility. Tune in and discover how to transform your brand's story into a compelling narrative that resonates with your target market.
💡 Guest bio
Katie Zeppieri's journey into the world of marketing and PR was a serendipitous one. Originally focused on pursuing a career in broadcasting, she studied radio and television in school with the aim of securing on-air roles. However, after university, she discovered her entrepreneurial spirit, which led her to establish her first business. Her initial ventures were rooted in youth leadership, a field she dedicated herself to for a significant period. Despite not initially envisioning a path in marketing or as a publicist, Katie embraced the unexpected direction her career took, leveraging her diverse skill set and entrepreneurial mindset to make a mark in the industry.
🌟 3 Fun Facts
- Katie Zeppieri drinks both coffee and tea but is particularly fond of Balzac's Coffee from Canada.
- Katie gave her first TEDx talk at the age of 22 after being selected in a TED Worldwide Talent Search.
- Katie is not just a marketing and PR strategist; she also flies planes and integrates that passion into her personal branding content.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brett (00:00):
And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew,
and I'm your host, Brett Deis.
If you could please subscribe to thispodcast at all your favorite podcasting.
Absolutely.
Have a five star review.
Really does help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing, but thisweek we're gonna talk about branding.
(00:31):
Mm, that's good.
Brand strategies and brand, allthe things that brands need to
understand to actually be well.
Aware or people for, to beaware of your brand because
that's how we get some sales.
If no one knows who you are and youdon't get any sales, but with me, I
have Katie with me and she's a two timeTEDx speed speaker, author, social media
(00:52):
influencer, media personality and founderand chief brand strategist of the mic
drop agency and award-winning agency.
Fast growing boutique PR agencyand marketing firm specializing
in brand amplification.
For innovative companies and people.
Mike Drops roster of clients range fromhigh growth tech startups to serial
(01:13):
entrepreneurs to C-suite executives andreality TV stars, including Netflix.
Love is Blind Star, dip Beat,I think I'm saying that right.
And Kelly Chase, who togetherhave a combined total of over 1.4
million followers.
But welcome to the show, Katie.
So much for having me, Brett.
(01:35):
Yes.
And the first question is, all my guestsis, are you a coffee or tea drinker?
Katie Zeppieri (01:39):
I am both, but I think my first, cup in the morning is coffee.
I.
Brett (01:44):
Any like specifics?
Do you just do whatever's in front ofyou or whatever's in the pot or you, are
you like very specific on what you want?
Katie Zeppieri (01:50):
I am a big fan of a company called Balza Coffee.
It's big in Canada, Toronto area andget that shipment direct to the door.
So I'm particular aboutthis particular blend.
I go back and forth.
I'll drink my coffee black.
If I'm out, I'll order a cappuccino.
And then for tea, I'm a big fan ofmatcha and love a good matcha latte.
Brett (02:12):
Nice.
And I gave a briefsummary of your expertise.
Can you give your listener my listersa little bit more about what you do?
I.
Katie Zeppieri (02:20):
I think it's really important to know that I have come into
the world of marketing and pr by accident.
Like I, I did study radio and televisionbroadcasting in school, but I never
thought that I would be a publicist.
I never thought thatI would be a marketer.
In fact, I was really pursuing on airroles at the time, but I quickly realized
(02:40):
that I had a, an entrepreneurial spirit.
After university started myfirst business worked in youth
leadership for quite some time.
That was where my first businesses were.
But over the course of a decade, whatI was actually doing, and I didn't
realize in addition to working onthese causes that I was passionate
about, was building a personal brand.
I was speaking, I, at 22 I submitted anapplication for the TED Worldwide Talent
(03:04):
search and got selected and flown outto Vancouver to give my first TEDx talk.
At 22 that was a pretty big deal.
I self-published two books.
I pitched myself for media opportunities.
I became a regular on aToronto radio station.
So all along the way I wasbuilding a personal brand and I
didn't recognize it, and it's onlybeen within the last few years.
(03:24):
And that I realized that theexpertise that I had gained could
be applied to brands and people.
And so the Mic Drop agency wasstarted just in November, 2021.
And it's been a fun, fun couple years.
Brett (03:37):
So you did the opposite of me.
I actually got a PR degree andwas trying to actually do PR and
then I switched to podcasting.
And you did the opposite of what Ijust did, which we switched Brett.
Anyways.
Can you explain the fundamentaldifferences between brand strategy
and brand amplification and why bothare crucial for business success?
Katie Zeppieri (03:58):
Yes, so I recently read a book called Good Strategy,
bad Strategy, and it made merealize that we think about strategy
almost as the same thing as a goal.
It's not, goals are where you wannabe, strategy is how you get there.
So the strategy isalmost like your roadmap.
If I follow the strategic plan,it's gonna help me achieve my goals.
(04:20):
That's how you shouldthink about brand strategy.
What are my goals for my brand isone category, but just having goals
for your brand is not a strategy.
You need to actually say,here's how I'm gonna get there.
Here are the steps that I'm gonna take.
Brand amplification.
Is, how do you get people, ideallyyour target market to know about
you, to know about your brand?
There's a wide variety of ways to do that.
(04:43):
PR is so much more than just radioand tv, although that's part of it.
There's podcasts, there's blogs,there's social media, there's
so many different elements.
Speaking.
These are all ways that youcan build brand awareness.
Brett (04:56):
And talking a little bit about data, how do you actually like.
Tell your boss what you're doing,because a lot of times PR is not
really data driven or tries to bedata driven, but it's hard to actually
quantify the data because if it'sjust awareness, I can be aware of a
brand, but do I care about a brand?
Probably not most of the time.
Katie Zeppieri (05:16):
Yeah, It's so true.
It's one of those industriesyou see so many memes online of
everybody thinks that they can tell.
Marketers what to do.
Everybody thinks that they haveexpertise in marketing, right?
It's oh, we just need to postthis, or have you tried this meme?
So it's really easy, I think for amarketing professional to sometimes feel
like the job can be a bit thankless.
(05:37):
And it's also something where Ithink, if you start showing, oh,
here are the impressions thispost got, or Here's what this got.
People roll their eyesat those metrics, right?
It's okay, what does that mean?
So my best advice.
Is as best as you can possibly do.
So always try to tie.
Some of the metrics that you'retracking to the fundamental goals
(05:57):
of the company, fundamental goalsof the company is to make sales.
That's period, right?
So you're not always gonna be able tohave a direct path to showing that, but
there's certain things that you can do.
For instance, the day that you put outa press release, what were the traffic
numbers to your website on that day?
What were the number of.
Clicks to the book a demo buttonor to the contact us button.
(06:20):
There's certain things that you cando in steps that you can take that
can help try to tell a story of howthe various efforts that you're making
are helping the brand stand out.
And I really think it's a narrative play.
You have some numbers, but I think inyour meetings and update conversations
with your client or with your manager, Ithink you also need to show, here's how
we got here's how I think our efforts havecontributed to this sale or this success.
Brett (06:46):
So it's like thinking a little bit about marketing, but also like specific
things to the awareness tied to it,because I think that's where we get stuck.
It's how do I quantify awareness?
And it's like you have to doreally specific things to quantify
that part of the awareness,or it's just what did you do?
I brought awareness and your boss is okay.
Did that help sales?
(07:06):
Did that help bring me new,more people to my newsletter?
What is that?
Katie Zeppieri (07:11):
Yes.
Track as much as you possibly can,because sometimes marketers can
get a reputation of maybe being,it's, people say it's fluffy.
Like it's fluffy what you'redoing, and we know it's not fluffy.
It contributes and there's so many thingsthat you can't quantify that's like this.
This essence of people talking aboutyour brand and having conversations
that you're not even aware of about yourbrand, but as much as you possibly can do.
(07:33):
And there are so many different toolsthat you can use, starting just with
the analytics on your social pages,starting with the analytics on, the press
releases that you're sending, the blogs,like who's reading it, who's clicking,
like all of those are the details.
Wherever you can pull a number,Brett, you should, because it shows
that you're paying attention to howthis is impacting fundamentally.
Overall growth of the company.
Brett (07:56):
And what are some of the first steps for startups should take when
developing a brand strategy from scratch?
Katie Zeppieri (08:02):
So in order to create a really good brand strategy, you
first need to know where you're going.
And look, it sounds simple but one of thefirst things that we'll do with some of
the startup clients that we work with iswhat is the problem that you are solving?
Fundamentally, what is the problemthat you are solving and who is
going to benefit from this solution?
Like you need to go right down to the verybasics to help understand who's the target
(08:27):
market for this, because you can't startto set some goals for your brand until
you know what's the problem I'm solving.
Who's gonna benefit from this solution?
Who's gonna be willingto pay for this solution?
Then from there you canset some brand goals.
Okay, what do we wanna achievein the next year for startups?
Maybe you're thinking aboutyour next investment raise.
You're thinking about hitting yourfirst 50 customers, you're thinking
about so many different things forlarger brands, maybe it's like a
(08:49):
sales figure number, like what aresome of the brand goals that we have?
And then from there you can.
Start to put together a strategy.
So from like a marketing perspective,looking at the channels that you're
going to use that are gonna helpyou make progress on those goals.
And those channels aredifferent for everybody.
Whether you're B2B or B2C, there'sdifferent channels that you
(09:11):
should look at, consider and use.
So you wanna make sure that it's reallyspecific on who you're targeting.
What do they care about?
What platforms are they on?
What are they reading?
Where do they go?
What kind of form of content do they like?
Long form, shortcombination, like what is it?
Help understand thattarget market really well.
Only then can you really start tobreak down here are the strategic
(09:32):
steps we're gonna take this year.
Brett (09:35):
And for the difference is for like B2B, would it be
like LinkedIn and maybe X?
'cause X does have some value to it,but would it be that for those brand
channels for you to communicate?
Because B2B, Facebook, you could doit depending on your customers, but a
lot of that is more B2C and LinkedInis very focused on the B2B aspect.
Most of their, I think I recently saw thehat an ad for them, and it was about B2B.
Katie Zeppieri (09:59):
Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly right.
B2B, you need to payattention to your industry.
For instance, we have some clientsin the construction tech space.
LinkedIn is one of the most popularchannels that they're using.
We look at what.
Publications they're reading, whatdo people in the construction space
care about and wanna read to stayup to date on future transits?
All of those things for our realityTV star clients, one of which wrote a
(10:21):
book, was selling direct to consumer.
She's using Instagram and TikTok.
Those are her primary channels,and there's a little bit of a
different approach that you'regonna have to each of those with
B2B, it's very thought leadershipheavy, and what I mean by that is.
You have to often educate, especiallyif you're creating like a new tech
that people don't know what itis or how this is gonna help me.
You're creating a new category.
(10:42):
There's a certain amount of explanationthat you're gonna need to do in
educating as part of your marketing.
So that's one, approach.
Whereas direct to consumer, it's I.
How do I create a FOMO effect inthe case of this book launch where
everybody's gonna wanna read thisbook, there's juicy details, other
influencers that people look up toand admire in this target market are
posting about the book, sharing about it.
(11:03):
There's, really glitzy glam launch events.
You have different goals fordifferent groups and you need to
pick the platforms that matter.
Brett (11:11):
And for me, with using LinkedIn, I've had people come to me for.
Testing out their products.
So is it good to findthose first adopters?
Because the first adopters,especially when you're talking
about tech, is everything.
'cause if you don't have thosefirst adopters, it's hard to
get moving in the direction.
Obviously you have to go eventuallybeyond the first adopters, but.
(11:32):
Is it better to find those throughLinkedIn than anywhere else?
If you're, if we're speakingabout tech specifically,
Katie Zeppieri (11:38):
so tech specifically, I think look, yeah, you're exactly right.
Finding those first couple earlyadopters users are key because
what that's gonna help do for youis validate product market fit.
What that means is the productthat you are offering is a fit
for the market need, and they arewilling to pay for said thing.
This again, sounds simple, but it's not.
(12:00):
It's actually reallydifficult to try to find that.
Sometimes companies will build thisreally cool tech and they think, oh,
this is perfect for one industry.
But when they actually go starttesting and having these conversations,
they're like no, actually,like we wouldn't pay for this.
And they realize actually maybetheir tech could just be adjusted
to solve a problem, a similarproblem for a different industry.
(12:21):
So there's like a whole backand forth thing that happens,
but I think the best place.
To actually get your earlyadopters is through picking up
the phone and or attending eventswhere the crowd is going to be.
I, I'm a huge advocate forexperiences, live events.
You need to haveconversations with people.
You need to hear an interview.
(12:42):
A big part of what we'll do,even at our agency is helping
companies do discovery calls.
With their target market, youhave to ask them questions.
What does their daily workflow look like?
What are the tools thatshould they're using?
How do they, how does their companymake decisions about what new IT
products they're gonna bring on board?
Like all of those sorts ofpieces are critical to understand
you can make better decisions.
(13:03):
And you need that real time feedback.
So I think.
You would do all of those steps beforeyou start scaling, which I'd consider like
sure, maybe LinkedIn you use to connectwith people and book call with them.
But you're gonna learn so muchmore from those conversations.
And then you can scale with some ofyour other content, ma marketing and
other marketing efforts beyond that.
Brett (13:23):
Yeah.
And specifically if you go toevents, you're actually going to
events where people care about theindustry you're in for the most part.
There's always a few of 'em that don'treally care, but Mo, for the majority
of them, they actually do care.
Katie Zeppieri (13:34):
Yeah.
They're there to learn.
And especially like a lot of theselike industry tech conferences, I.
People wanna know what's next,what's the latest in InsureTech?
What's the latest in climate tech like?
They're there to see what's cuttingedge, and it can be a really good spot
to talk to people who can give youfeedback and insights that'll help you
grow and market your product better.
Brett (13:55):
And what does the role of storytelling play in
effective brand amplification?
Because we've all heardabout tell your story.
It's a story.
I think for the past, like 10 years,I think I've gotten tired of hearing
about telling your story, but I get the
Katie Zeppieri (14:08):
power
Brett (14:09):
of it.
Katie Zeppieri (14:10):
Storytelling is essential and it's interesting
because this has been a part of.
Human experience sincethe donna time, right?
We tell stories, we learn aboutthe world through storytelling and
marketing and PR and comms are away to channel that for brands.
And what I mean by that is I.
(14:31):
People aren't just going to care aboutyour product or service, you're going to
have to bring them into a story that theycan care about and get excited about.
And that's the story of perhapswhy the company was created, why
it was founded, why it matters.
For instance, some ofour clients who like.
Have been in the industry themselves,experienced a pain firsthand.
(14:55):
It's not like they're justlike, some person outta college
who just had an idea of tech.
They've actually been in theindustry, experienced a problem
and built the solution for it.
That's a compelling story.
When that person gets on a stage totalk to their peers, they have so
much credibility because it's like.
They have experienced this, so that'swhy they're creating the solution.
So yeah, I think likestorytelling and approach.
(15:15):
And there's a really great book.
It's a podcast all aboutbuilding a story brand.
And that's what the book'scalled by Donald Miller.
And the idea here is you asthe business are not the hero.
Of the story.
You're not, the customeris the hero of the story.
You're the guide.
So the hero goes about their journey.
(15:36):
They have a place that they wanna be.
They wanna do work faster, they wannabe more efficient, they whatever
their goal is, somewhere along theway, they experience a problem.
Too many manual tasks,whatever it might be.
You're the guide.
You're the wizard who shows uppartway through on this hero's
journey, and you help that personget to where they want to go.
That's how we shouldthink about storytelling.
(15:58):
How do we pull in our customers?
Make them feel like theyare the hero of this story.
We have built this solution.
We have done this thing for them tohelp them get to where they wanna be.
Brett (16:09):
And how can businesses leverage this podcast?
Because, from my understanding ofbeing a PR person and being a podcaster
myself, a lot of marketers don't reallyunderstand the power of podcasting
or even the metrics themselves.
To be fair, podcastmetrics are pretty awful.
So they're not wrong about it.
They're not that great yet, but.
How can they leverage all of theopportunities that podcasting gives?
(16:32):
'cause you can turn your podcastinto a blog, into video, into
audiograms, and a lot more.
Katie Zeppieri (16:38):
Yeah.
A few things I'll say about podcasts.
Podcasts are.
Essential to a good PR strategy.
We have had clients that we have bookedon podcasts who have gotten a seven figure
deal from that podcast that they were on,and we've been able to point back to that.
Why?
Because they need to beon the right podcast.
They need to be on the podcast thattheir target audience is listening to.
(17:00):
It's not just any podcast, right?
So for instance, if we book a clienton a general entrepreneurship podcast.
We're not expecting that to turninto sales if they're building
like a climate tech product, right?
Because it's an entrepreneur podcast,people are listening for advice
about entrepreneurship, but itmight help with some other marketing
goals, general brand awareness.
But fundamentally, if we want them to sellthat product, we're gonna need to book
(17:22):
them on the types of podcasts that peoplethat they're selling to would listen to.
So there's like a real strategy to pickingthe right podcasts based on your goals.
The second thing, which you broughtup, Brett, is an excellent point.
It's so much more thanjust this interview.
This interview on a podcast is the longform content, but from this, you're
gonna get bite-sized videos, clips,audiograms, photos, so much more.
(17:46):
Content Marketing is king, right?
Content marketing is how brandsget to tell their story again
and again in different ways.
So you showing up and keeping top ofmind in people's feeds and online.
If they search your company, theycould maybe watch these clips to
learn a little bit more about you.
So it can help in thebuying process that way.
(18:07):
Huge value.
And the last thing I'llsay, I'm a podcaster myself.
I have a marketing podcast.
I interview people whohave built notable brands.
One of my latest clients thatwe just signed at Mic Drop
was a guest on my podcast.
So there's another way ofthinking about podcast too.
It's not always about having a millionimpressions, but or listeners, but it's
also, who am I interviewing on thispodcast that I wanna add to my network?
(18:30):
That's a really strategic way ofthinking about podcasting too, is
building your network with the typesof people that you wanna engage with.
Brett (18:38):
And what are some of the common mistakes companies make when
trying to amplify their brands?
We talked about the positives about it,but what can they avoid with doing it?
'cause everybody has that idea, thatgoal or that strategy of I'm gonna
do this, then all of a sudden it'sthat didn't work out very well.
Katie Zeppieri (18:54):
Ah, a couple mistakes that come to mind.
I think expecting immediateresults is probably one of them.
Like organic marketing takes.
Time and not everybody wants to hear that.
It's not like you're gonna posttwo blog posts this month and
you're gonna skyrocket your websitetraffic and get, 40 book demos.
It's just not gonna happen from that.
(19:15):
Is it important to do though?
Yes, because it ties tothis larger strategy.
It's building your digitalfootprint, building brand awareness.
It's like compounding interest.
It take, it takes time, right?
You have to start building with the rootand then it builds and grows from there.
So that's a big mistake that I'veseen and I think as marketers.
We need to be very honestwith clients about this.
(19:37):
We need to say Hey, here are the thingsthat are really important for us to
do right now that are foundationalpieces, but they're gonna take time
to see full results from, it's gonnatake 12 to 24 plus months to start
seeing some real results from this.
But here are some other.
Marketing tactics that we coulddo that's gonna help provide
quick short term results.
(19:58):
And for instance, that could bethings like paid ads or events, right?
Getting in at events, at trade shows,and actually meeting you can walk away
with a great leads list from that.
Much more quickly than youcan from building a leads
list, just from posting blogs.
So I think breaking it down for theclient to help them understand why
they're doing certain activities andgiving them, the one two punch, something
(20:21):
that's like long-term and sustainingfor growth, but also the things that
are gonna offer immediate value.
Brett (20:28):
And how can you do that with being budget conscious?
Because right now, I mean we allknow everything is expensive.
So when businesses are like reallystarting to tighten the belt,
and unfortunately when businessesdo that, guess what goes first?
It's always the marketing and PRbudgets that gets slashed pretty hard.
So how can you do that with beinglike really cost effective with.
(20:49):
Showing results.
Katie Zeppieri (20:50):
You're right.
And some of the startups that we workwith are bootstrapped many of them are
venture funded, but some are bootstrapped.
They're just operating with kindof what they have coming in the
door and building upon that.
So I think, look, as a marketer tobe a good marketer, you need to be
scrappy and you need to be nimble.
And you need to understandwhere your company is, where
your client is in the process.
(21:11):
If they're in a position where the budgetis so tight that they can only really
invest in one to two marketing channels,then I would not start with the long.
Term build for 12 to 24 months becausethe company might not have 24 months,
they might run out of runway by that.
That point they mightnot have reached sales.
I would instead focus onthose quick turnaround.
(21:34):
How can I get as many leads as possibletop of funnel and just pick one to two
marketing strategies that you feel.
Confident, everything's a bit of ahypothesis, but that you feel confident
is going to drive leads to top offunnel so that they can make sales so
that they can invest then in, in themarketing, larger marketing budget.
Brett (21:54):
And how can personal branding strategies be integrated into a company's
overall brand amplification efforts?
And especially for thoughtleaders and executives?
Because, it goes hand in hand,even though, like you said,
we're not the hero of the story.
We have to interject ourselvesinto it a lot of times.
Especially if you are thefounder of the company,
Katie Zeppieri (22:12):
right?
Yes.
Personal branding.
Is essential for companies to be leaninginto because you don't just connect with.
A brand in and of itself anymore, youwanna know the person behind it, the
founder behind it, the story behind it,the people behind it there's other ways
of doing this too, for direct to consumer.
They'll pick influencers.
(22:33):
Oftentimes, sometimes you'll seethe face of the company, but they'll
also pick the influencers who theyfeel tell the right story about
their particular product or brand.
So personal branding, every single person.
Who has a job and is workingon building their career
business, has a personal brand.
And essentially how I define itis what someone would say about
(22:54):
you if you weren't in the room.
So what are the skills that you have?
What are your talents?
What's your work ethic?
What's your style?
All of those things areyour personal brand.
And so I really think we wannaencourage everyone to lean into that.
The clients that we work with.
We'll profile their founders.
We wanna know about their story, theirwhy, how they got here, how they found
(23:17):
this problem that they wanted to solve.
Why they feel like theirsolution is the right one.
We profile that founder andwe don't only post about their
career and their business, we alsoprofile them as people 'cause.
People wanna connect with other people.
So one of our clients, for instance,who's built several tech companies he also
flies planes and, flies himself to events.
(23:38):
Super cool.
We put up lots of content of him inhis plane views from out the window,
talking about his journey as a pilot,lessons that he is learned from
being a pilot that could tie to his.
Tied to his business and entrepreneurshipmindset, those are the interesting
stories that help add so much colorand texture to who you are and
fundamentally make people connect withyou and wanna do business with you.
Brett (24:00):
And how do pr pros like guide those founders that want
to be thought leaders or are riskaversions so they don't wanna do it?
Because unfortunately in this climate,sometimes if you say the wrong thing.
There goes your business sometimes,or at least you lose a lot of,
you could lose a lot of sales.
So how do you guide them through that?
Because it is a little scaryif you put yourself out there.
(24:24):
Something could happen.
Unfortunately,
Katie Zeppieri (24:26):
it's true.
And I think, look, it'simportant to remember.
So on the one hand, we'll sometimes comeacross executives, founders who just don't
feel comfortable being in the spotlight.
And there's kind of twoways to address that.
Like either one, we pick someoneelse in the company who's gonna
be more of the spokesperson andwho we feel can help really tell
the story of and brand message.
(24:46):
But two, the other thing, anotherway to look at it is it's not.
Just about look at me.
In fact, good personal brandingshouldn't be, look at me.
It should be you pointingto something else.
So when you start to think aboutpersonal branding as idea sharing, I.
It's not, Hey, look at me.
I'm so great.
No.
It's like I'm gonna share somethingwith you that might have the ability
(25:08):
to impact the future of your business.
I'm gonna share something that I learnedthat helped me, that could help you.
Now it's like idea sharing.
So it starts to pull it awayfrom, I'm this star, to no, I'm
just a person showing up as me.
They should be as, fun, authenticas possible and offering new
ideas for other individuals who.
Just feel a bit nervous about puttingthemselves out there for fear of
(25:31):
criticism or saying the wrong thing.
I think it's really important to havesomebody on your team that you do.
Run by some of the contentthat you're hoping to post.
Like ideally it's a commsmarketing professional.
But even just having another set ofeyes on the content that you're posting.
And that's why I think it's important,the work that we're doing with startups
not that the founders couldn't be doingthis themselves, but one, it takes time.
(25:54):
Two, you need to build a good strategy forwhat personal branding is gonna look like.
And three, you wanna make sure thatsomebody's looking at the messaging that's
going out with a bit of a critical eye.
And trying to see it from theaspect of, okay, like what
messages are we communicating here?
Is that in alignment with what we wantpeople to know about our brand and
making recommendations based on that.
Brett (26:13):
And what should PR pros be looking at for the emerging trends on brand
strategies and brand amplifications?
Because there's alwaysnew trends coming out.
And should they just stick to thebasics or should they be on the
lookout for these new emergingtrends that could actually, I.
Be worthwhile,
Katie Zeppieri (26:30):
I think to be a good marketer, you want to leverage your
past experience of what has workedwell, but you should also be keeping
an eye to what's new and comingbecause things change overnight.
Algorithms change.
Google recently deprioritizedgenerative AI content.
That was a big change.
For the first advent of chat, GPT.
(26:51):
There were companies just pumping out,50 blogs a month that were completely
AI generated and putting them up ontheir website and, oh, this is perfect.
This is gonna help us with our SEO.
Now like Google and other searchengines are deprioritizing that content.
They can actually tell thisis completely AI generated.
They're pushing you lower on the results.
So there's things like that.
There's things happening big changesthat happen to platforms, new
(27:13):
features, new ways to use tools, right?
LinkedIn went from being.
Pretty basic in terms of what theyoffered from a posting strategy.
Now they've got some form of almostlike an Instagram reels, where
it's a lot of vertical video.
You can click on a specific tab and youcan actually scroll through a bunch of
video after video, which is something new.
They've got their carouselposts, the swipe throughs, but
(27:34):
it's different from Instagram.
In the sense that on LinkedIn you uploadit as a PDF and if somebody's looking
at that document on their desktop, theycan actually click to download that PDF.
So it's like a reallygood lead magnet tool.
These are things to be aware.
So I recommend spending alittle bit of time setting up.
Sort of your notifications.
(27:55):
I think setting relevant Googlealerts first for your clients, the
customers, their industries, buttwo, just like digital marketing
trends and other kind of key termsthat'll help you stay up to date.
I think do some searching on thesesocial platforms to see who are
some really important thoughtleaders about marketing, pr.
Maybe they have newsletters,maybe they have podcasts, right?
(28:16):
These are places that you should.
Dial into, subscribe to followalong so that you're always
hearing about new upcoming things.
And then really it's up to you.
Like not every new thing is gonna be afit for your client or for what you're
working on, but you should at leastknow what's out there and be making, key
decisions around what you're choosing andwhat you're recommending to do and why.
Brett (28:40):
Got you.
And people are listening to thisepisode and wondering where can
they find you online to learn more?
Katie Zeppieri (28:45):
Yes.
So the mic drop agency.com
is our site.
You can also find me on social.
I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram the most.
Also starting up TikTokand getting back onto X.
It's just my first andlast name, Katie, Zapier.
Brett (29:00):
Gotcha.
Any final thoughts for the listeners?
Katie Zeppieri (29:02):
Thanks so much for this conversation, Brett.
My encouragement to marketing and PR prosand comms professionals out there is just
to say kudos for the work that you do.
I know that sometimes it can feelthankless and it's hard to maybe always,
remember the successes that you'rehaving and things are always moving a
mile a minute, so it's hard to keep up.
(29:23):
My recommendation to you is to keepa little folder or a little document
of your wins moments where you'vehad good wins for a client, something
that was very successful, a campaign.
That was great.
Have a little folder of wins.
A document where you create hyperlinksof stuff that you're really proud of,
that you can go back to, you can goback to for future job interviews,
you can go back to on a bad day.
(29:43):
And you can reference in futureclient conversations when you're
looking for experience based onwhat's worked well in the past.
Brett (29:51):
Alright.
Thank you Kitty for joining Digital CoffeeMarketing Brew, and sharing your knowledge
on brand strategy and brand amplification.
Katie Zeppieri (29:59):
This was awesome,
Brett (29:59):
Brett.
Katie Zeppieri (30:00):
Thanks for having
Brett (30:00):
me, and thank you for listening.
As always, please subscribe to thispodcast on all your favorite podcasting
through the five star review.
It really does help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing.
And join me next week as I talkto another great thought leader
in the PR and marketing industry.
All right, guys.
Stay safe, get to understanding yourbrand strategy and brand amplification
and get rolling on that if you can.
(30:22):
And see you next week later.
And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew,
and I'm your host, Brett Deis.
If you could please subscribe to thispodcast at all your favorite podcasting.
Absolutely.
Have a five star review.
Really does help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing, but thisweek we're gonna talk about branding.
(00:31):
Mm, that's good.
Brand strategies and brand, allthe things that brands need to
understand to actually be well.
Aware or people for, to beaware of your brand because
that's how we get some sales.
If no one knows who you are and youdon't get any sales, but with me, I
have Katie with me and she's a two timeTEDx speed speaker, author, social media
(00:52):
influencer, media personality and founderand chief brand strategist of the mic
drop agency and award-winning agency.
Fast growing boutique PR agencyand marketing firm specializing
in brand amplification.
For innovative companies and people.
Mike Drops roster of clients range fromhigh growth tech startups to serial
(01:13):
entrepreneurs to C-suite executives andreality TV stars, including Netflix.
Love is Blind Star, dip Beat,I think I'm saying that right.
And Kelly Chase, who togetherhave a combined total of over 1.4
million followers.
But welcome to the show, Katie.
So much for having me, Brett.
(01:35):
Yes.
And the first question is, all my guestsis, are you a coffee or tea drinker?
Katie Zeppieri (01:39):
I am both, but I think my first, cup in the morning is coffee.
I.
Brett (01:44):
Any like specifics?
Do you just do whatever's in front ofyou or whatever's in the pot or you, are
you like very specific on what you want?
Katie Zeppieri (01:50):
I am a big fan of a company called Balza Coffee.
It's big in Canada, Toronto area andget that shipment direct to the door.
So I'm particular aboutthis particular blend.
I go back and forth.
I'll drink my coffee black.
If I'm out, I'll order a cappuccino.
And then for tea, I'm a big fan ofmatcha and love a good matcha latte.
Brett (02:12):
Nice.
And I gave a briefsummary of your expertise.
Can you give your listener my listersa little bit more about what you do?
I.
Katie Zeppieri (02:20):
I think it's really important to know that I have come into
the world of marketing and pr by accident.
Like I, I did study radio and televisionbroadcasting in school, but I never
thought that I would be a publicist.
I never thought thatI would be a marketer.
In fact, I was really pursuing on airroles at the time, but I quickly realized
(02:40):
that I had a, an entrepreneurial spirit.
After university started myfirst business worked in youth
leadership for quite some time.
That was where my first businesses were.
But over the course of a decade, whatI was actually doing, and I didn't
realize in addition to working onthese causes that I was passionate
about, was building a personal brand.
I was speaking, I, at 22 I submitted anapplication for the TED Worldwide Talent
(03:04):
search and got selected and flown outto Vancouver to give my first TEDx talk.
At 22 that was a pretty big deal.
I self-published two books.
I pitched myself for media opportunities.
I became a regular on aToronto radio station.
So all along the way I wasbuilding a personal brand and I
didn't recognize it, and it's onlybeen within the last few years.
(03:24):
And that I realized that theexpertise that I had gained could
be applied to brands and people.
And so the Mic Drop agency wasstarted just in November, 2021.
And it's been a fun, fun couple years.
Brett (03:37):
So you did the opposite of me.
I actually got a PR degree andwas trying to actually do PR and
then I switched to podcasting.
And you did the opposite of what Ijust did, which we switched Brett.
Anyways.
Can you explain the fundamentaldifferences between brand strategy
and brand amplification and why bothare crucial for business success?
Katie Zeppieri (03:58):
Yes, so I recently read a book called Good Strategy,
bad Strategy, and it made merealize that we think about strategy
almost as the same thing as a goal.
It's not, goals are where you wannabe, strategy is how you get there.
So the strategy isalmost like your roadmap.
If I follow the strategic plan,it's gonna help me achieve my goals.
(04:20):
That's how you shouldthink about brand strategy.
What are my goals for my brand isone category, but just having goals
for your brand is not a strategy.
You need to actually say,here's how I'm gonna get there.
Here are the steps that I'm gonna take.
Brand amplification.
Is, how do you get people, ideallyyour target market to know about
you, to know about your brand?
There's a wide variety of ways to do that.
(04:43):
PR is so much more than just radioand tv, although that's part of it.
There's podcasts, there's blogs,there's social media, there's
so many different elements.
Speaking.
These are all ways that youcan build brand awareness.
Brett (04:56):
And talking a little bit about data, how do you actually like.
Tell your boss what you're doing,because a lot of times PR is not
really data driven or tries to bedata driven, but it's hard to actually
quantify the data because if it'sjust awareness, I can be aware of a
brand, but do I care about a brand?
Probably not most of the time.
Katie Zeppieri (05:16):
Yeah, It's so true.
It's one of those industriesyou see so many memes online of
everybody thinks that they can tell.
Marketers what to do.
Everybody thinks that they haveexpertise in marketing, right?
It's oh, we just need to postthis, or have you tried this meme?
So it's really easy, I think for amarketing professional to sometimes feel
like the job can be a bit thankless.
(05:37):
And it's also something where Ithink, if you start showing, oh,
here are the impressions thispost got, or Here's what this got.
People roll their eyesat those metrics, right?
It's okay, what does that mean?
So my best advice.
Is as best as you can possibly do.
So always try to tie.
Some of the metrics that you'retracking to the fundamental goals
(05:57):
of the company, fundamental goalsof the company is to make sales.
That's period, right?
So you're not always gonna be able tohave a direct path to showing that, but
there's certain things that you can do.
For instance, the day that you put outa press release, what were the traffic
numbers to your website on that day?
What were the number of.
Clicks to the book a demo buttonor to the contact us button.
(06:20):
There's certain things that you cando in steps that you can take that
can help try to tell a story of howthe various efforts that you're making
are helping the brand stand out.
And I really think it's a narrative play.
You have some numbers, but I think inyour meetings and update conversations
with your client or with your manager, Ithink you also need to show, here's how
we got here's how I think our efforts havecontributed to this sale or this success.
Brett (06:46):
So it's like thinking a little bit about marketing, but also like specific
things to the awareness tied to it,because I think that's where we get stuck.
It's how do I quantify awareness?
And it's like you have to doreally specific things to quantify
that part of the awareness,or it's just what did you do?
I brought awareness and your boss is okay.
Did that help sales?
(07:06):
Did that help bring me new,more people to my newsletter?
What is that?
Katie Zeppieri (07:11):
Yes.
Track as much as you possibly can,because sometimes marketers can
get a reputation of maybe being,it's, people say it's fluffy.
Like it's fluffy what you'redoing, and we know it's not fluffy.
It contributes and there's so many thingsthat you can't quantify that's like this.
This essence of people talking aboutyour brand and having conversations
that you're not even aware of about yourbrand, but as much as you possibly can do.
(07:33):
And there are so many different toolsthat you can use, starting just with
the analytics on your social pages,starting with the analytics on, the press
releases that you're sending, the blogs,like who's reading it, who's clicking,
like all of those are the details.
Wherever you can pull a number,Brett, you should, because it shows
that you're paying attention to howthis is impacting fundamentally.
Overall growth of the company.
Brett (07:56):
And what are some of the first steps for startups should take when
developing a brand strategy from scratch?
Katie Zeppieri (08:02):
So in order to create a really good brand strategy, you
first need to know where you're going.
And look, it sounds simple but one of thefirst things that we'll do with some of
the startup clients that we work with iswhat is the problem that you are solving?
Fundamentally, what is the problemthat you are solving and who is
going to benefit from this solution?
Like you need to go right down to the verybasics to help understand who's the target
(08:27):
market for this, because you can't startto set some goals for your brand until
you know what's the problem I'm solving.
Who's gonna benefit from this solution?
Who's gonna be willingto pay for this solution?
Then from there you canset some brand goals.
Okay, what do we wanna achievein the next year for startups?
Maybe you're thinking aboutyour next investment raise.
You're thinking about hitting yourfirst 50 customers, you're thinking
about so many different things forlarger brands, maybe it's like a
(08:49):
sales figure number, like what aresome of the brand goals that we have?
And then from there you can.
Start to put together a strategy.
So from like a marketing perspective,looking at the channels that you're
going to use that are gonna helpyou make progress on those goals.
And those channels aredifferent for everybody.
Whether you're B2B or B2C, there'sdifferent channels that you
(09:11):
should look at, consider and use.
So you wanna make sure that it's reallyspecific on who you're targeting.
What do they care about?
What platforms are they on?
What are they reading?
Where do they go?
What kind of form of content do they like?
Long form, shortcombination, like what is it?
Help understand thattarget market really well.
Only then can you really start tobreak down here are the strategic
(09:32):
steps we're gonna take this year.
Brett (09:35):
And for the difference is for like B2B, would it be
like LinkedIn and maybe X?
'cause X does have some value to it,but would it be that for those brand
channels for you to communicate?
Because B2B, Facebook, you could doit depending on your customers, but a
lot of that is more B2C and LinkedInis very focused on the B2B aspect.
Most of their, I think I recently saw thehat an ad for them, and it was about B2B.
Katie Zeppieri (09:59):
Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly right.
B2B, you need to payattention to your industry.
For instance, we have some clientsin the construction tech space.
LinkedIn is one of the most popularchannels that they're using.
We look at what.
Publications they're reading, whatdo people in the construction space
care about and wanna read to stayup to date on future transits?
All of those things for our realityTV star clients, one of which wrote a
(10:21):
book, was selling direct to consumer.
She's using Instagram and TikTok.
Those are her primary channels,and there's a little bit of a
different approach that you'regonna have to each of those with
B2B, it's very thought leadershipheavy, and what I mean by that is.
You have to often educate, especiallyif you're creating like a new tech
that people don't know what itis or how this is gonna help me.
You're creating a new category.
(10:42):
There's a certain amount of explanationthat you're gonna need to do in
educating as part of your marketing.
So that's one, approach.
Whereas direct to consumer, it's I.
How do I create a FOMO effect inthe case of this book launch where
everybody's gonna wanna read thisbook, there's juicy details, other
influencers that people look up toand admire in this target market are
posting about the book, sharing about it.
(11:03):
There's, really glitzy glam launch events.
You have different goals fordifferent groups and you need to
pick the platforms that matter.
Brett (11:11):
And for me, with using LinkedIn, I've had people come to me for.
Testing out their products.
So is it good to findthose first adopters?
Because the first adopters,especially when you're talking
about tech, is everything.
'cause if you don't have thosefirst adopters, it's hard to
get moving in the direction.
Obviously you have to go eventuallybeyond the first adopters, but.
(11:32):
Is it better to find those throughLinkedIn than anywhere else?
If you're, if we're speakingabout tech specifically,
Katie Zeppieri (11:38):
so tech specifically, I think look, yeah, you're exactly right.
Finding those first couple earlyadopters users are key because
what that's gonna help do for youis validate product market fit.
What that means is the productthat you are offering is a fit
for the market need, and they arewilling to pay for said thing.
This again, sounds simple, but it's not.
(12:00):
It's actually reallydifficult to try to find that.
Sometimes companies will build thisreally cool tech and they think, oh,
this is perfect for one industry.
But when they actually go starttesting and having these conversations,
they're like no, actually,like we wouldn't pay for this.
And they realize actually maybetheir tech could just be adjusted
to solve a problem, a similarproblem for a different industry.
(12:21):
So there's like a whole backand forth thing that happens,
but I think the best place.
To actually get your earlyadopters is through picking up
the phone and or attending eventswhere the crowd is going to be.
I, I'm a huge advocate forexperiences, live events.
You need to haveconversations with people.
You need to hear an interview.
(12:42):
A big part of what we'll do,even at our agency is helping
companies do discovery calls.
With their target market, youhave to ask them questions.
What does their daily workflow look like?
What are the tools thatshould they're using?
How do they, how does their companymake decisions about what new IT
products they're gonna bring on board?
Like all of those sorts ofpieces are critical to understand
you can make better decisions.
(13:03):
And you need that real time feedback.
So I think.
You would do all of those steps beforeyou start scaling, which I'd consider like
sure, maybe LinkedIn you use to connectwith people and book call with them.
But you're gonna learn so muchmore from those conversations.
And then you can scale with some ofyour other content, ma marketing and
other marketing efforts beyond that.
Brett (13:23):
Yeah.
And specifically if you go toevents, you're actually going to
events where people care about theindustry you're in for the most part.
There's always a few of 'em that don'treally care, but Mo, for the majority
of them, they actually do care.
Katie Zeppieri (13:34):
Yeah.
They're there to learn.
And especially like a lot of theselike industry tech conferences, I.
People wanna know what's next,what's the latest in InsureTech?
What's the latest in climate tech like?
They're there to see what's cuttingedge, and it can be a really good spot
to talk to people who can give youfeedback and insights that'll help you
grow and market your product better.
Brett (13:55):
And what does the role of storytelling play in
effective brand amplification?
Because we've all heardabout tell your story.
It's a story.
I think for the past, like 10 years,I think I've gotten tired of hearing
about telling your story, but I get the
Katie Zeppieri (14:08):
power
Brett (14:09):
of it.
Katie Zeppieri (14:10):
Storytelling is essential and it's interesting
because this has been a part of.
Human experience sincethe donna time, right?
We tell stories, we learn aboutthe world through storytelling and
marketing and PR and comms are away to channel that for brands.
And what I mean by that is I.
(14:31):
People aren't just going to care aboutyour product or service, you're going to
have to bring them into a story that theycan care about and get excited about.
And that's the story of perhapswhy the company was created, why
it was founded, why it matters.
For instance, some ofour clients who like.
Have been in the industry themselves,experienced a pain firsthand.
(14:55):
It's not like they're justlike, some person outta college
who just had an idea of tech.
They've actually been in theindustry, experienced a problem
and built the solution for it.
That's a compelling story.
When that person gets on a stage totalk to their peers, they have so
much credibility because it's like.
They have experienced this, so that'swhy they're creating the solution.
So yeah, I think likestorytelling and approach.
(15:15):
And there's a really great book.
It's a podcast all aboutbuilding a story brand.
And that's what the book'scalled by Donald Miller.
And the idea here is you asthe business are not the hero.
Of the story.
You're not, the customeris the hero of the story.
You're the guide.
So the hero goes about their journey.
(15:36):
They have a place that they wanna be.
They wanna do work faster, they wannabe more efficient, they whatever
their goal is, somewhere along theway, they experience a problem.
Too many manual tasks,whatever it might be.
You're the guide.
You're the wizard who shows uppartway through on this hero's
journey, and you help that personget to where they want to go.
That's how we shouldthink about storytelling.
(15:58):
How do we pull in our customers?
Make them feel like theyare the hero of this story.
We have built this solution.
We have done this thing for them tohelp them get to where they wanna be.
Brett (16:09):
And how can businesses leverage this podcast?
Because, from my understanding ofbeing a PR person and being a podcaster
myself, a lot of marketers don't reallyunderstand the power of podcasting
or even the metrics themselves.
To be fair, podcastmetrics are pretty awful.
So they're not wrong about it.
They're not that great yet, but.
How can they leverage all of theopportunities that podcasting gives?
(16:32):
'cause you can turn your podcastinto a blog, into video, into
audiograms, and a lot more.
Katie Zeppieri (16:38):
Yeah.
A few things I'll say about podcasts.
Podcasts are.
Essential to a good PR strategy.
We have had clients that we have bookedon podcasts who have gotten a seven figure
deal from that podcast that they were on,and we've been able to point back to that.
Why?
Because they need to beon the right podcast.
They need to be on the podcast thattheir target audience is listening to.
(17:00):
It's not just any podcast, right?
So for instance, if we book a clienton a general entrepreneurship podcast.
We're not expecting that to turninto sales if they're building
like a climate tech product, right?
Because it's an entrepreneur podcast,people are listening for advice
about entrepreneurship, but itmight help with some other marketing
goals, general brand awareness.
But fundamentally, if we want them to sellthat product, we're gonna need to book
(17:22):
them on the types of podcasts that peoplethat they're selling to would listen to.
So there's like a real strategy to pickingthe right podcasts based on your goals.
The second thing, which you broughtup, Brett, is an excellent point.
It's so much more thanjust this interview.
This interview on a podcast is the longform content, but from this, you're
gonna get bite-sized videos, clips,audiograms, photos, so much more.
(17:46):
Content Marketing is king, right?
Content marketing is how brandsget to tell their story again
and again in different ways.
So you showing up and keeping top ofmind in people's feeds and online.
If they search your company, theycould maybe watch these clips to
learn a little bit more about you.
So it can help in thebuying process that way.
(18:07):
Huge value.
And the last thing I'llsay, I'm a podcaster myself.
I have a marketing podcast.
I interview people whohave built notable brands.
One of my latest clients thatwe just signed at Mic Drop
was a guest on my podcast.
So there's another way ofthinking about podcast too.
It's not always about having a millionimpressions, but or listeners, but it's
also, who am I interviewing on thispodcast that I wanna add to my network?
(18:30):
That's a really strategic way ofthinking about podcasting too, is
building your network with the typesof people that you wanna engage with.
Brett (18:38):
And what are some of the common mistakes companies make when
trying to amplify their brands?
We talked about the positives about it,but what can they avoid with doing it?
'cause everybody has that idea, thatgoal or that strategy of I'm gonna
do this, then all of a sudden it'sthat didn't work out very well.
Katie Zeppieri (18:54):
Ah, a couple mistakes that come to mind.
I think expecting immediateresults is probably one of them.
Like organic marketing takes.
Time and not everybody wants to hear that.
It's not like you're gonna posttwo blog posts this month and
you're gonna skyrocket your websitetraffic and get, 40 book demos.
It's just not gonna happen from that.
(19:15):
Is it important to do though?
Yes, because it ties tothis larger strategy.
It's building your digitalfootprint, building brand awareness.
It's like compounding interest.
It take, it takes time, right?
You have to start building with the rootand then it builds and grows from there.
So that's a big mistake that I'veseen and I think as marketers.
We need to be very honestwith clients about this.
(19:37):
We need to say Hey, here are the thingsthat are really important for us to
do right now that are foundationalpieces, but they're gonna take time
to see full results from, it's gonnatake 12 to 24 plus months to start
seeing some real results from this.
But here are some other.
Marketing tactics that we coulddo that's gonna help provide
quick short term results.
(19:58):
And for instance, that could bethings like paid ads or events, right?
Getting in at events, at trade shows,and actually meeting you can walk away
with a great leads list from that.
Much more quickly than youcan from building a leads
list, just from posting blogs.
So I think breaking it down for theclient to help them understand why
they're doing certain activities andgiving them, the one two punch, something
(20:21):
that's like long-term and sustainingfor growth, but also the things that
are gonna offer immediate value.
Brett (20:28):
And how can you do that with being budget conscious?
Because right now, I mean we allknow everything is expensive.
So when businesses are like reallystarting to tighten the belt,
and unfortunately when businessesdo that, guess what goes first?
It's always the marketing and PRbudgets that gets slashed pretty hard.
So how can you do that with beinglike really cost effective with.
(20:49):
Showing results.
Katie Zeppieri (20:50):
You're right.
And some of the startups that we workwith are bootstrapped many of them are
venture funded, but some are bootstrapped.
They're just operating with kindof what they have coming in the
door and building upon that.
So I think, look, as a marketer tobe a good marketer, you need to be
scrappy and you need to be nimble.
And you need to understandwhere your company is, where
your client is in the process.
(21:11):
If they're in a position where the budgetis so tight that they can only really
invest in one to two marketing channels,then I would not start with the long.
Term build for 12 to 24 months becausethe company might not have 24 months,
they might run out of runway by that.
That point they mightnot have reached sales.
I would instead focus onthose quick turnaround.
(21:34):
How can I get as many leads as possibletop of funnel and just pick one to two
marketing strategies that you feel.
Confident, everything's a bit of ahypothesis, but that you feel confident
is going to drive leads to top offunnel so that they can make sales so
that they can invest then in, in themarketing, larger marketing budget.
Brett (21:54):
And how can personal branding strategies be integrated into a company's
overall brand amplification efforts?
And especially for thoughtleaders and executives?
Because, it goes hand in hand,even though, like you said,
we're not the hero of the story.
We have to interject ourselvesinto it a lot of times.
Especially if you are thefounder of the company,
Katie Zeppieri (22:12):
right?
Yes.
Personal branding.
Is essential for companies to be leaninginto because you don't just connect with.
A brand in and of itself anymore, youwanna know the person behind it, the
founder behind it, the story behind it,the people behind it there's other ways
of doing this too, for direct to consumer.
They'll pick influencers.
(22:33):
Oftentimes, sometimes you'll seethe face of the company, but they'll
also pick the influencers who theyfeel tell the right story about
their particular product or brand.
So personal branding, every single person.
Who has a job and is workingon building their career
business, has a personal brand.
And essentially how I define itis what someone would say about
(22:54):
you if you weren't in the room.
So what are the skills that you have?
What are your talents?
What's your work ethic?
What's your style?
All of those things areyour personal brand.
And so I really think we wannaencourage everyone to lean into that.
The clients that we work with.
We'll profile their founders.
We wanna know about their story, theirwhy, how they got here, how they found
(23:17):
this problem that they wanted to solve.
Why they feel like theirsolution is the right one.
We profile that founder andwe don't only post about their
career and their business, we alsoprofile them as people 'cause.
People wanna connect with other people.
So one of our clients, for instance,who's built several tech companies he also
flies planes and, flies himself to events.
(23:38):
Super cool.
We put up lots of content of him inhis plane views from out the window,
talking about his journey as a pilot,lessons that he is learned from
being a pilot that could tie to his.
Tied to his business and entrepreneurshipmindset, those are the interesting
stories that help add so much colorand texture to who you are and
fundamentally make people connect withyou and wanna do business with you.
Brett (24:00):
And how do pr pros like guide those founders that want
to be thought leaders or are riskaversions so they don't wanna do it?
Because unfortunately in this climate,sometimes if you say the wrong thing.
There goes your business sometimes,or at least you lose a lot of,
you could lose a lot of sales.
So how do you guide them through that?
Because it is a little scaryif you put yourself out there.
(24:24):
Something could happen.
Unfortunately,
Katie Zeppieri (24:26):
it's true.
And I think, look, it'simportant to remember.
So on the one hand, we'll sometimes comeacross executives, founders who just don't
feel comfortable being in the spotlight.
And there's kind of twoways to address that.
Like either one, we pick someoneelse in the company who's gonna
be more of the spokesperson andwho we feel can help really tell
the story of and brand message.
(24:46):
But two, the other thing, anotherway to look at it is it's not.
Just about look at me.
In fact, good personal brandingshouldn't be, look at me.
It should be you pointingto something else.
So when you start to think aboutpersonal branding as idea sharing, I.
It's not, Hey, look at me.
I'm so great.
No.
It's like I'm gonna share somethingwith you that might have the ability
(25:08):
to impact the future of your business.
I'm gonna share something that I learnedthat helped me, that could help you.
Now it's like idea sharing.
So it starts to pull it awayfrom, I'm this star, to no, I'm
just a person showing up as me.
They should be as, fun, authenticas possible and offering new
ideas for other individuals who.
Just feel a bit nervous about puttingthemselves out there for fear of
(25:31):
criticism or saying the wrong thing.
I think it's really important to havesomebody on your team that you do.
Run by some of the contentthat you're hoping to post.
Like ideally it's a commsmarketing professional.
But even just having another set ofeyes on the content that you're posting.
And that's why I think it's important,the work that we're doing with startups
not that the founders couldn't be doingthis themselves, but one, it takes time.
(25:54):
Two, you need to build a good strategy forwhat personal branding is gonna look like.
And three, you wanna make sure thatsomebody's looking at the messaging that's
going out with a bit of a critical eye.
And trying to see it from theaspect of, okay, like what
messages are we communicating here?
Is that in alignment with what we wantpeople to know about our brand and
making recommendations based on that.
Brett (26:13):
And what should PR pros be looking at for the emerging trends on brand
strategies and brand amplifications?
Because there's alwaysnew trends coming out.
And should they just stick to thebasics or should they be on the
lookout for these new emergingtrends that could actually, I.
Be worthwhile,
Katie Zeppieri (26:30):
I think to be a good marketer, you want to leverage your
past experience of what has workedwell, but you should also be keeping
an eye to what's new and comingbecause things change overnight.
Algorithms change.
Google recently deprioritizedgenerative AI content.
That was a big change.
For the first advent of chat, GPT.
(26:51):
There were companies just pumping out,50 blogs a month that were completely
AI generated and putting them up ontheir website and, oh, this is perfect.
This is gonna help us with our SEO.
Now like Google and other searchengines are deprioritizing that content.
They can actually tell thisis completely AI generated.
They're pushing you lower on the results.
So there's things like that.
There's things happening big changesthat happen to platforms, new
(27:13):
features, new ways to use tools, right?
LinkedIn went from being.
Pretty basic in terms of what theyoffered from a posting strategy.
Now they've got some form of almostlike an Instagram reels, where
it's a lot of vertical video.
You can click on a specific tab and youcan actually scroll through a bunch of
video after video, which is something new.
They've got their carouselposts, the swipe throughs, but
(27:34):
it's different from Instagram.
In the sense that on LinkedIn you uploadit as a PDF and if somebody's looking
at that document on their desktop, theycan actually click to download that PDF.
So it's like a reallygood lead magnet tool.
These are things to be aware.
So I recommend spending alittle bit of time setting up.
Sort of your notifications.
(27:55):
I think setting relevant Googlealerts first for your clients, the
customers, their industries, buttwo, just like digital marketing
trends and other kind of key termsthat'll help you stay up to date.
I think do some searching on thesesocial platforms to see who are
some really important thoughtleaders about marketing, pr.
Maybe they have newsletters,maybe they have podcasts, right?
(28:16):
These are places that you should.
Dial into, subscribe to followalong so that you're always
hearing about new upcoming things.
And then really it's up to you.
Like not every new thing is gonna be afit for your client or for what you're
working on, but you should at leastknow what's out there and be making, key
decisions around what you're choosing andwhat you're recommending to do and why.
Brett (28:40):
Got you.
And people are listening to thisepisode and wondering where can
they find you online to learn more?
Katie Zeppieri (28:45):
Yes.
So the mic drop agency.com
is our site.
You can also find me on social.
I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram the most.
Also starting up TikTokand getting back onto X.
It's just my first andlast name, Katie, Zapier.
Brett (29:00):
Gotcha.
Any final thoughts for the listeners?
Katie Zeppieri (29:02):
Thanks so much for this conversation, Brett.
My encouragement to marketing and PR prosand comms professionals out there is just
to say kudos for the work that you do.
I know that sometimes it can feelthankless and it's hard to maybe always,
remember the successes that you'rehaving and things are always moving a
mile a minute, so it's hard to keep up.
(29:23):
My recommendation to you is to keepa little folder or a little document
of your wins moments where you'vehad good wins for a client, something
that was very successful, a campaign.
That was great.
Have a little folder of wins.
A document where you create hyperlinksof stuff that you're really proud of,
that you can go back to, you can goback to for future job interviews,
you can go back to on a bad day.
(29:43):
And you can reference in futureclient conversations when you're
looking for experience based onwhat's worked well in the past.
Brett (29:51):
Alright.
Thank you Kitty for joining Digital CoffeeMarketing Brew, and sharing your knowledge
on brand strategy and brand amplification.
Katie Zeppieri (29:59):
This was awesome,
Brett (29:59):
Brett.
Katie Zeppieri (30:00):
Thanks for having
Brett (30:00):
me, and thank you for listening.
As always, please subscribe to thispodcast on all your favorite podcasting
through the five star review.
It really does help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing.
And join me next week as I talkto another great thought leader
in the PR and marketing industry.
All right, guys.
Stay safe, get to understanding yourbrand strategy and brand amplification
and get rolling on that if you can.
(30:22):
And see you next week later.
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