In this episode of the B2B Brand180 podcast, host Linda Fanaras is joined by Jeremy Miller, founder of Sticky Branding and a leading strategy consultant. Together, they dive into the world of branding and discuss what it takes to create a truly remarkable brand in today’s competitive market. Miller shares his insights into how businesses can differentiate themselves, the importance of defining brand values and communicating through the lens of your customers.
To learn more about Jeremy Miller and Sticky Branding, visit stickybranding.com.
Thanks for listening to the B2B BRAND180 Strategy podcast with Linda Fanaras, CEO/Strategist at Millennium Agency.
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand 180 and CEO of Millennium Agency. If you want to transform your B2B marketing into a powerhouse brand, then you may wanna listen in today. And if you like what you heard, click like, share or subscribe. Today we’re gonna talk about branding and there isn’t a better person on earth to invite on the show today other than Jeremy Miller, a brand strategist and bestselling author. Jeremy’s first book, sticky Branding is a branding playbook for how small to mid-size companies challenge the giants of their industry to grow their brands. It was a number one Globe and Male bestseller. His other book called Brand New Name is now available, so check that out too. And that book provides a great step-by-step process to create an unforgettable. So let’s welcome Jeremy to the B2B Brand 180 podcast, and thanks for joining me today. How you doing,
Jeremy Miller:
Jeremy? I’m doing amazing. Thanks for inviting me, Linda. I’m excited for today’s interview. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
today will be great. We’re really I’m gonna ask you some really tough questions today about branding since we’re both branding experts. Welcome. So what Yep. So let’s get to it. So why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself, and we’ll start
Jeremy Miller:
with that. Sure. I, uh, you mentioning the intro, I, I founded a a branding agency, or actually it’s a strategy consulting firm that’s called Sticky Branding, and this was born out of just my frustration of how does a. A smaller mid-size business owner and a team grow that remarkable brand. So for me, a sticky brand is when your customers know your brand, they like it and they trust it, and they choose it first. It doesn’t matter what the technology is, whether it’s Google or Chat, G P T, and all the bandwagons that are going on. You build those bonds and connections with your customers. So, you’re able to continue to grow with them. And so this was born out of my own entrepreneurial experiences of how do you challenge the giants of your own industry and grow your business and your brand. And, and we’ve taken that out over the last decade. Now we were founded in 2011 and we’ve been sharing these ideas and these messages with companies from around the world. So it’s just. A, a beautiful evolving industry and career to be able to affect sales through brands.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, You’ve done an amazing job with your sticky branding brand in itself, so I’m really impressed with the work that you’ve already done. Alright, so that’s awesome. So what I thought I’d do is ask, you know, I’m gonna ask you some tough questions today, like I mentioned a little earlier, but one thing we know, Jeremy, is that if you really want to command a premium. you can’t just have a great idea, but you have to have a real amazing brand and brand positioning and strategy. So I guess in today’s highly competitive market, what are some effective strategies for creating a distinctive brand identity that actually stands out from the crowd
Jeremy Miller:
having a remarkable business? Actually, let me take a contrarian answer to this question cuz. For me, branding isn’t about logos and taglines and colors. It’s really structural. One of the things that, that we’ve advocated for a very long time is that great businesses create great brands and never the other way around. So it’s in your products, your services, your customer relationships, your team, your operations, and it’s building that from the inside out. And all marketing is doing is amplifying what you do. and what makes you remarkable. And so to have a great brand is really to serve your customers brilliantly and better than what they can get from the competition. And so this is why I really think branding is strategy. It’s choosing where you play. How you win and what’s the infrastructure that you’re gonna need in order to serve that market. And then all your marketing is doing is amplifying those stories, creating that impression that validates all the great work that you already do.
Linda Fanaras:
I think that’s where a lot of companies do get a little stumped up is like, okay, they’ve, they’ve established a brand. But, but then the question is, how can an actual brand manager or brand maintain a consistency across all the different channels that are available today? I mean, we have social media, we have traditional advertising, we have packaging. They’re dealing with all of the consistencies amongst the multiple channels, but they also have to adapt to some of the unique characteristics of each one of these platforms. So do you have some ideas or strategies for our audience today on maybe how they could do that in the most effective way?
Jeremy Miller:
so I think the, the question on this, Linda, is even more complex than channels. It’s also the evolving business, especially if we’re talking about fast growing B2B companies that are evolving quickly. The, first thing to recognize is that your brand is living and changing. It’s, it’s actually not static. I think one of the ideas of brand consistency that gets really confused is we wanna behave. Nike or Apple or Starbucks and have the same look and feel in every single channel. But you think about it, those businesses, if you go back to their early days when they were say less than a hundred million in revenue, they were changing and evolving dramatically as the business grew. this becomes the, the issue is that there’s two key concepts. Here’s your brand, and you can take Jeff Bezos example or definition of it, which is your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. Mm-hmm. the problem is, is if you’re innovating rapidly, then what they experience from you may have changed even in six to 12 months. So branding is really strategy. It’s looking forward to, to define what is. The market. So who and where are the customers that will drive your next stage of growth? What’s the brand messaging and story that you wanna share that will provoke people to buy? And then how do you deliver that across the channels, to your point, consistently? And so the way we do that is by actually being deliberate. The first thing is having that clarity of where you play and how you win in the story that you wanna share. And then as you look at your channels, making sure that you are. Reaching the right audience. And chances are if you have inconsistency, there’s two symptoms that are going in play. The first one is you need to go do an audit of what are some of the messages out there and either update them, delete them, or change them depending on what you’ve done historically. And then the other is to to just constantly be asking and, and looking. Who are the customers that we really need to look at which is the second big mistake. We assume we have to be in every channel and be doing all the marketing everywhere, always. And that’s actually not true. If you’re a B2B business and your customers are not on TikTok and Instagram, it probably makes sense not to have channels there. So rather than having inconsistent experiences, Just turn those off, delete them, and focus where your customers are and do those fewer things brilliantly will create better experiences long term. So it’s, it’s like tending your garden. It’s choosing what areas that you’re gonna plant and then weeding and removing legacy pieces as you grow. But it is an ongoing work in process. I always think of. A brand is that work in progress. You just keep getting better and keep working to create that consistent customer experience that moves the sales
Linda Fanaras:
needle. Yeah, that’s a great point. Actually, you made two really great points there because I think what happens a lot of times is when marketers or leaders are creating, their advertising copy, for example, they may start out with social media strategy, and then they have to figure out how to get that into a display ad. And maybe they’re saying, okay, let’s, let’s run some video, or let’s do some TV advertising. And then the ne the next thing you know, it’s kind of a jumbled mess. And I always like to look at. Developing that strategy from the top down. So what is the medium obviously we need to know who the target audience is. That’s a, that’s an absolute definite, but what is the unique selling proposition, and then what is that supporting statement that backs up that unique selling proposition? And then what is the medium around that, and how much content can we write to support what those two points, the unique selling proposition, and then the, this sort of the sub-headline around that. And in that way you’re staying focused. You know who your target audience is, you know what your unique selling proposition is, and you know how you’re planning to support that, but you can keep that consistency across the multiple channels. I always think that that simplifies the process as well. Yeah. The other piece that I, that you’ve mentioned is the multiple channels. And, and to your point, we see this a lot and I’m sure you do as well. there are so many choices out there, and, and every day there’s new ones popping up. You’re absolutely right. Pick the channels, you know, work not everything works for everybody. So, in that, in that instance, just. Figure out which ones are giving you an ROI and focus on those and then maybe double down on some of the ones that are most effective. So, yeah, I love those two points that you just made.
Jeremy Miller:
So there’s one word to layer onto there. So there was a study by MOZ, the social media platform, or social media analysis company, going back probably three, four years ago. And they found at that time that 50% of all. articles written by companies, they said about a million blog posts. They found 50% of articles published had no likes, views, and shares, so most people weren’t even seeing them. And Google’s got to the point now where it’s d indexing a a lot of content. Mm-hmm. And so the playbook that we look at for social media and digital marketing is largely run from. Perception that was created by HubSpot and Inbound Marketing going back circa 2007 through say 2012. And most organizations still think, well, we need to be active on all these channels. We need to be creating content. We need to be doing all this. S E O. but the rules are changing underneath our feet. Constantly just take what’s going on with AI and chat, G P T, that, that people are now just stuffing content into all these channels. I advise anyone who’s listening to do is really. Look at the acquisition lanes. What are those key areas that engage your buyers? the people that are involved in the purchasing process and focus on that. Like if you can get down and create a machine that drives the sales needle. Mm-hmm. build your brand in those swim lanes, those acquisition lanes, versus trying to think how do we grow this brand awareness that everyone in our industry knows. Who cares, right? Gets the people who buy you and buy your services and give you money and build reputation and recognition there because they will do the word of mouth and the other activities that you want. I really do believe we’ve got through a transition and a tipping point related to most digital marketing, where most small businesses are not doing advertising on the Super Bowl or, or television. Mm-hmm. So why do you look at LinkedIn and go, I gotta be there cuz everybody’s there. That, that’s not the way to think of your, your brand and your communication strategies. And when you do, you have those consistency problems constantly.
Linda Fanaras:
And that’s where the data analytics really comes into, into play is, is analyzing that and to your point, making sure you’re picking the right medium for whatever you’re trying to market in the industry. The, the other question I did wanna ask you is, how can a brand actually navigate what I consider the delicate balance between appealing to your existing customers and then also attracting new ones by als, but at the same time try to stay true to your core values a nd mission. What are your thoughts
Jeremy Miller:
around that? I wanna reverse the question and get your opinion on this. Why is it a delicate balance? Because when I hear that question, I. they should all fit together. So what’s the delicate balance from your perspective?
Linda Fanaras:
Well, I think with existing customers, it is about building loyalty, making sure that you can retain and maintain your existing customers and keeping them happy. So, you’re looking a little bit more on the service side. You’re looking a little bit more on the engagement side. What kind of insight and ideas can you come up with from that perspective? But when you’re looking to attract new ones, you’re actually looking to try to figure out, okay, what do they need? Do they have a fragmented brand? Are they looking at a merger and acquisition? You know, maybe they need to reposition themselves in the market because they’re, the competitors are coming up. So there could be a lot going on between the two markets. But what you’re trying to do with all of that is you wanna stay true to your core values. So whatever that is, how do you, balance all that? And I think there’s just a lot going on that could compete with
Jeremy Miller:
one another for sure. I think this is where. True brand exists is, is within the, the conversation of that strategy and values, I believe are really one of the, foundational pins by which you grow your business and your brand. Because if you look at any significant brand crisis over the last 20 years, it always stems from a breach of values. So one of my beliefs is if you ignore your values, you risk crashing a brand one of. Dramatic and recent examples was what Volkswagen did, going back several years now, but they put a deception switch in their diesel vehicles to make it look like their emissions were lower than they were today. There’s no diesel Volkswagens of North America and Tesla has filled that void. So, that mistake, we probably would be in a very different market. I’m not saying E Diesel was going to stop the growth of EVs, but it was a true, viable alternative to what we have today. But because they ignored their core values, that brand and those products no longer exist or at least in the North America. so when I think of your values, they are static. They don’t change. If you think of your brand as, say, a boat on the ocean while the shore is the is your values and you want to navigate around that and always stay true to them, and that gives you that. That, that directional compass to deal with choices. Anytime you’ve got a difficult decision to make for your business, for your employees, for your customers, it’s worth pulling those values out to help you navigate and give you those decisions or allow you to make choices when everything is being disrupted around you. But then as you start to extend outward, you get to the meat of your question, which is, how do you market to existing customers versus new customers? And ideally, it is to try and tie that value proposition and that strategy together, but looking it at as, as a continuum, yes, the reason someone buys your services may be different from the reason they stay, but there’s still a truth that holds those two things together. So, If you find that you have to do a Jedi mind trick to sell a customer and then they stay, that’s probably a brand problem going on there. But if you can create a consistent message or story that really pull back to what makes you unique and different, then that’s gonna be your strength. So lemme give you a very quick example. Take Zappos now owned by Amazon. Zappos created an unfair competitive advantage by clearly understanding the issue that customers had when buying shoes online. Mm-hmm. And so they created a system or a, a brand value, proposition around customer service and customer support. But it was more specific than that they offered. lots of choice. They offered by as many pairs as you’d like with free shipping on all of those products. You could return any product unworn for up to a year. You could have free shipping on those returns and you could always speak to a human being, whether by text, phone, email, anything in between. So those five things really set out their differentiation. And so people would go, come, would buy shoes once and just to get what they needed, but they would come back because. Brand pillars. Those differentiators really c serve their needs. And if you look at what your brand pillars are, those key things that differentiate yourself, that you do brilliantly to either solve a problem or to help your customers or to, to separate yourself from the competition, chances are it’ll be a continuum from what the reason someone buys to the reason they stay. And you won’t have to do that Jedi mind trick of convincing ’em to stay on a relationship cuz that’s not sustainable
Linda Fanaras:
s strategically. Right, right. That’s a great point. And, and you know, it’s so interesting about the core values too because I think especially new companies or emerging companies are quickly growing companies. core values. If it’s not defined and it’s not clear to the staff and you know what you stand for and, and why you stand for those things, it’s like a free for all because everybody has their own opinion. They have their own thought process and if they’re not set in stone, then there really isn’t that foundation that’s being used to build up that company. So that is one area that I feel is so vital to the success and growth. Of many large organizations. So let me ask, what, what do you think some of the key pitfalls are of rebranding and, and how can companies actually minimize the risk to ensure that they actually do a successful transition? There’s so many moving parts.
Jeremy Miller:
I think rebranding is actually very powerful because if you are creating dissonance for whatever reason that, that you’re, say Company was named isis. And then the, the, we have the, the, the problems with a terrorist organization using that type of term. So there was many rebrands that came out of out of, of names getting co-opted. There could be product fit issues. So rebranding is a good strategic choice to help make your business more marketable, but the problem in the pitfall is not in the rebrand, it’s in the strategy. Geena, I always keep coming back to the strategy questions. So there’s two key issues here. The first one is, why are you rebranding? Being really clear on that. If you’ve just hired a new VP of marketing or a new director of marketing, and the first thing they say is you need to rebrand. that’s called marketing addiction. And that’s what every marketing manager hire always wants to do. They look at whatever the previous administration did and they wanna do it better. And it’s just our, our, our projects. So that’s not a good enough why, but if it’s, if you have dissonance or you have a clear strategic reason to change, that’s a good start. The second part to this then is you gotta look at your brand, like a vessel, like it, it holds all the experiences, knowledge, and everything else. So the, the mistake is you just rebrand and you don’t pour the contents of the old brand into the new brand. The transition is the most important part of the rebranding process, not the rebrand. And so it’s the communication strategies of how are you introducing it. How are you reiterating it and, and communicating it effectively and looking at essentially the marketing plant of the rebrand. is actually the real power there. And what most companies will see if done well is a lift in sales that can be quite dramatic because now you’re going to market answering the question, clarifying the message, and tying it to the old, mm-hmm. And so if you look at this as a a process to pour the contents of the old brand into the new brand and then communicate the. Mm-hmm. you’re setting yourself up for not only a sales lift, but a, a smooth transition. Yeah. If you don’t have that project plan, it’s gonna go off the rails and you’re gonna regret every choice you made to do it to do that. Rebrand.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. Branding provides such a great refresh and I think it’s underestimated because years will go by and, and the brand gets dated and the messaging is wrong. And, and the next thing you know, it’s just the brand just feels old compared to some of the other brands that are out there and they, and they lose market share and they don’t realize the impact of the value of branding and how it can really provide that. Uplift that you’re, that you’re talking about. So, appreciate that.
Jeremy Miller:
There’s two signals here to just on your point. The first one is every brand has a shelf life, so it can range. If you’re in, say, consumer electronics, consumer goods, that brand might only have a shelf life of 18 months. If it’s industrial, it might be upwards of seven years. But the, the simple canary in the coal mine, that indicator to know your brand needs a refresh, is when you go look at your website and. Ooh, that’s rough. And you mm-hmm. you kind of have that moment and your website’s probably three to four years is about as far as you can take that that, that, so every time you look at your website or every time you need to do a website refresh, that is a good moment in time to actually go. Back through all of your social channels, all your messaging, all your brand identity. It might not be a dramatic rebrand, but you’re refreshing the brand and bringing it back to consistency. That’s that weeding the guard in moment to to do that. And if you go in there and that website’s a hot mess and it’s time for a total rebrand, maybe new name, new positioning. Beautiful. Now you’re doing the work, you know, you should have been doing several years ago, but you’ve finally got the chance to do it right.
Linda Fanaras:
Exactly. So my last question is, is how do you think a brand can effectively communicate its message and values to a diverse audience that have a variety of, cultural backgrounds and perspectives? What’s your recommendation around that?
Jeremy Miller:
We have to all do that now. Yeah. And we have to be sensitive and we have to listen, and we have to accept that we’re not gonna get it perfect. But I do believe it really starts with curiosity and, and openness because, Most brands are, are communicated through the lens of themselves. So we, we create what we like, generally speaking. So we’re gonna tell the story in the way that we understand it. We’re gonna tell the story in we’re gonna choose the graphics that we like, the identity that we like. Like if you think of, of. Compare the brand development process to like picking out a Hallmark card. So you go and you choose a card. You think you’re picking it out for the individual, but it usually, it’s a reflection of what you actually think is interesting and using cute, it’s more of a, a representation of yourself in the choices you make than the actual individual. It takes a great deal of empathy, awareness, and curiosity to truly. Build the brand for somebody else. And so to do that, I think to your point, it’s absolutely critical. We have to be doing this. And the, I think the way we start is by getting to our customers and understanding them and then adapting with it. Data helps li listening helps surveys help. What is the language of the customer and potentially having different entry points to your website or your marketing, depending on who you’re serving. Mm-hmm. the most, the easiest example that most company, large companies have done this for years is multilingual multi-country marketing. So if we know we’re going into South America or Europe, you’ve got multilingual versions of your website, senior Change of Value Propositions according to that, the issue now, It’s so much more complex, and this is where loyalty programs actually kick in. If you look at most neighborhoods you can’t identify what the culture of that neighborhood looks like. So I live in Toronto Canada, and so we’ve got a population here of roughly 7 million people and the way that grocery chains used to market as they. That’s the Italian neighborhood. That’s the retiree neighborhood. That’s the young couple neighborhood. Mm-hmm. young families, whatever it is on my street. We’ve got people from Ethiopia, Pakistan Europe, you name it. I, I’m Canadian, born and raised. So we’ve got everything here. So you wouldn’t be able to just take a zip code or a postal code and say, this is the demographic. And I think the same thing is happening in B2B companies is that. You don’t necessarily, your buyer personas are lying to you most of the time, cuz if you assume this is what your customers look. Chances are they don’t. Cuz when I walk inside most organizations, it’s very multicultural. It is very diverse. And so you’re better off assuming personalization over personas in a lot of our marketing.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, no, that’s a great point. Yeah, absolutely. I love what you just said. Well that was fantastic. Thank you Jeremy. I appreciate you being here. And I also wanna thank the audience for listening in today and. Behalf of our B2B brand 180 podcast. Thank you Jeremy for all your branding insights. If you’d like to get in touch with Jeremy, just visit sticky branding.com or to buy’s book. Go to Amazon. It’s called, one is Sticky Branding and the other one is called brand New Name. So that’s in. Bye. So definitely check that out. Again, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. If you’d like to visit us, go to mill.agency or connect with me directly on LinkedIn, Linda Fanaras, and just to help our channel grow and educate more B2B leaders on brand strategy. Feel free to like, share, or subscribe. Thanks.
