It’s nearing the end of the year and fatigue for business owners and their teams is at an all time high. The holiday season can also evoke a lot of emotions and expectations. Which is why we thought it would be timely to chat to Kim Houdebine Benjamin, a coach who uses Human Design to help us understand ourselves and those we care about on a much deeper level so that we can have more fulfilling relationships.

Whether it’s with your partner, your kids, your colleagues, or even your business, we know it often starts with the relationship we have with ourselves.

This chat is an opportunity for listeners to check-in on their relationships with and within their business, those most important outside of their business and most importantly, their relationships with themselves - all of this, from the context of Human Design.

Learn more about Kim’s work and your own Human Design chart at www.kbhcoaching.com/hdchart

In our previous episode, we talked about how to create personas that represent your intended audience. But what next? How do you use what you know about your audience to communicate in a way that really resonates with them and helps them connect what they need with what you’re selling?

Brands grow through emotional resonance. At the heart of great brand messaging is a true empathy for the humans you’re here to help. When you start with empathy, you can offer relevant solutions (not sales spin), alleviate rather than agitate a problem, connect rather than coerce and pull people towards a decision that’s right for them (rather than pressure them through potentially unethical techniques).

In this episode, we’re talking about why leading with emotion creates the connection you need to sell, how to understand the emotional drivers behind purchasing decisions, and why storytelling will be one of your best brand assets.

Without knowing your audience, you’re shooting in the dark. It's essential for your marketing, messaging, and product development. As the adage goes: if you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one. Really understanding your audience goes beyond demographics - especially in an increasingly diverse world. In this episode we’re talking about how to craft effective, inclusive brand persons (or buyer personas) by digging into the psychographics that drive decisions and avoiding bias and stereotypes.

And if you want to grab that free persona workbook we mentioned in this episode, visit www.markmywords.co.nz and hit the ‘DIY copy resources’ tab.

In this episode we’re joined by Gina Cook, a Partner at advisory firm, BDO Auckland, who shares more about sustainability - or ESG - reporting. ESG stands for environmental, social issues and governance, and is all about how an organisation can understand, and manage, its environmental and social impacts.

Sometimes reporting like this can be hard to start, because we’re not actually sure where or how to begin. Gina shares some simple first steps that we can do as businesses to actually make a start when it comes to measuring and understanding our impact.

Helpful tools mentioned in this episode:

Cogo

Carbon Trail

Sumday

Spotlight Sustain

Find out more about BDO’s sustainability and ESG services and learn about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We’ve heard horror stories and picked up the pieces of clients who have been burnt by bad experiences or paid high fees for inadequate results. It happens everywhere, not just in marketing. In every industry, there are people who do what they do well and others who let their clients and the industry down.

Paying for creative skills for your brand is an investment. How can you be sure you’re getting a good return for your business? In this episode we’re talking about red flags and green flags to look out for when it comes to choosing a creative or marketing agency to work with, and also, the part that you play in ensuring you get the best results.

If you’re interested in accessing the briefing document mentioned in this episode, you’ll find it alongside a bunch of other free resources at www.themarketingcollective.co.nz/resources

Greenwashing, woke washing and virtue signalling— there are plenty of ways that brands can embellish the true results or impact of their products or processes to mislead consumers. So, are certifications and standards the solution to keeping brands accountable to their claims?

Certifications and standards are more than just marketing tools, in fact they take some serious commitment to operational KPIs, but they can become a helpful tool to leverage when it comes to sharing your story and differentiating your brand. But ‘labels’ can also be misleading when they are simply self-certified and less-than transparent!

This week we’re taking a look at how third-party validations and commitments can potentially boost a brand’s credibility and build trust with increasingly-savvy consumers.

We know that not everyone feels comfortable showing up on social media, and that depending on your business, social media channels are not always the most effective means of reaching the right audience.

Social media can be an incredibly powerful tactic within your marketing strategy, but the pressure to show up a certain way can stop you from showing up at all.

In this episode we consider the answers to these questions (and more):

• Does your business NEED to be on social media?
• What’s the deal with faceless accounts?
• How do you build confidence about showing up on social media?
• What does ‘success’ look like on social media?

Is it possible to grow your brand while being anti-social? Have a listen!

Cause marketing is about aligning your business with a cause, charity or community group and giving back by donating profits, resource or time—and then meaningfully communicating and demonstrating why supporting the cause is important to you.

Perhaps there’s an organisation whose work resonates with you and you’d like to support their impact in some way. Or maybe, starting your own cause connected to your business is something you’ve considered. Either way, how can you be transparent and authentic with how you talk about your partnership, ensuring that it’s a genuine part of your story, and not just a campaign or a trend?

In this episode we explore cause marketing: what it is, whether it’s right for your business and what to consider when it comes to aligning your brand with a cause, and how to avoid any pitfalls.