Got Marketing Introduction And The Importance Of Creating Your Own Clever Marketing Strategies
>> Mia Feilman: M. This is Got Marketing. We unpack the campaigns worth talking about, the marketing nonsense worth calling out and the strategy behind the ideas that stick. I'm Mia Feilman, strategic advisor to founder led brands and your campaign obsessed friend. You don't need to steal clever marketing. You can create it yourself.
Successfully Repositioning A Business For Strategic Advisory Leads And Desired Client Acquisition
Hello, friend, and welcome back to GotMy Marketing. I have repositioned my business and that repositioning is now complete. This is how I know that I have successfully repositioned my business. First of all, the leads that I am getting are, uh, for strategic advisory and not for marketing training, which is excellent. Also, I recently signed a new client and. And again, that is for advisory services rather than marketing training. Recently I ran a paid masterclass called Get Known and I had 35 people purchase that masterclass and the people on the whole who purchased that masterclass were the kind of brands that I want to work with, which is female founder led brands. In addition to all of that. Those are the big things. Anecdotally, when I speak to people now, they are no longer saying, so what are you doing now?
Repositioning Is A Crucial Marketing Objective That Must Be Met Before Sales Can Be Effective
Or asking me about whether I'm still running Marketing Circle. Everyone that I'm speaking to online and offline already knows about the village. They are saying things like, this makes perfect sense. This is such a natural evolution for you. The biggest thing I hear is this is the right move for you, which is great, right? And no one is confused. A lot of people, uh, are saying that they already know about the village, considering the village. So I feel like the job is now done. So let me tell you exactly what's changed and let's spend a little bit of time today talking about repositioning because this is one of those really annoying marketing objectives that has to be met before you can move to sales. And recently on this podcast I've spoken about retail brands who have failed, like Q and Witner and Beth's.
Why Brands Like Q And Witchery Failed By Not Repositioning And Maintaining Cultural Relevance
And the cold hard truth of the matter is that those brands should have invested in repositioning and they didn't. In order to maintain their relevance with the Australian consumers. They didn't embark on a repositioning strategy. And all they did was focus on product led marketing and sales and discounts and new collection, New collection, discount the old collection and they have failed. What Q needed to do was reposition. The Q is an Australian brand that has been around for 53 years, very well known for workwear. But what women wear to work and where women go to work has changed. And so Q needed to reposition their brand, but they didn't and so there's lots of theories about why Q failed. And there were definitely some systemic issues within their company and costs. They were actually manufacturing in Australia, which, you know, is so much more expensive than manufacturing in China. But as a brand strategist, and having commented on this very publicly, it's very clear that Q did not maintain cultural relevance for Australian women today. I mean, can you think of what Q even stands for today? And any sort of campaign that allowed you to understand the ethos of this brand? It just wasn't there. So repositioning is not a fluffy, wanky marketing objective.
Repositioning Influence Versus Control And The Three Month Journey To Recategorize Brand Perception
It is absolutely essential in terms of how your brand is perceived in the market. So repositioning or positioning is not really something that you get to have complete control over, because it exists in the minds of your audience. So you can influence it, and absolutely, you can try to change the narrative, but you don't ultimately get to control how people perceive you and how they categorise you. And so this is long work, because changing someone's mind, getting someone who has already made a decision about you and getting them to try to recategorize you is difficult. And so this for me took three months.
The Daily Grind Of Repositioning From Marketing Trainer To Strategic Advisor Through Multiple Channels
And it was every single day, five days a week, multiple channels, Instagram, LinkedIn, podcast, emails, you know, masterclass, blogs. Three months of really making that transition from someone who taught marketing that was my previous positioning, marketing trainer, marketing educator, marketing mentor, to now strategic advisor. As I said at the beginning, this positioning worked extremely well for me, and I'm, uh, now getting the leads and the customers for the work that I want to be doing. Repositioning isn't just changing your fonts, rewriting your bio, inventing a clever new tagline. It is deciding how you want to be perceived, what you want to be known for. And like I said, that takes a lot of time because people have to mentally recategorize you. The other thing that we need to consider in this is that there is obviously how you show up visually and in your messaging, but then there are, uh, more subconscious signals that people often overlook. For example, how you dress, what you wear in a lot of your content, how confident you are perceived, how much authority you show up in, how many opinions that are reasoned and well researched do you share? Because all of this is going to affect your positioning. And this is where the algorithms really screw us, right?
How Viral Content And Subconscious Signals Like Attire And Confidence Affect Brand Positioning
Because I can make a video where I'm wearing gym gear in my car, and that video can go viral and it reaches 200,000 people, and then I can make a hundred videos on brand for campaign Del Mar with my, you know, uh, vacation print, a little bit more elevated, elegant dressing, the way that I want to be perceived as someone that doesn't go to work in PT gear. But those videos only get 500 to a thousand views on mass. Most people will not have seen those hundred videos, but they might have seen the one time I went viral wearing PT gear to having a rant shooting my mouth off. So it's not even about how much content. It's about the reach of that content that can affect your positioning.
Negative Content's Rapid Spread And Its Impact On Brand Perception And Personal Reputation
One video, one piece of content that performs disproportionately well compared to everything else, can influence your positioning and change perceptions that people have about you. Because more people have just seen that video. And I've experienced this for myself, because negative content travels faster and further than positive content. So when I go on a MIA rant and I tear down osmompreneur and I call out the gurus, that's quite negative content. It travels really far.
Shifting From A Shade Thrower Reputation To Strategic Advisor For Larger Established Brands
And so I noticed that over time I was getting this reputation as a shade thrower, as a bit of a mean girl, as a bit nasty, as opposed to a really kind, thoughtful, reasoned strategic advisor. Now, there's nothing wrong with being a shade thrower, and I enjoyed that positioning for many years. But now I am changing how I want to be seen. I want to work with bigger clients. I want to work with a little bit more established brands, and they don't respond as well to my guru rants. And so I need to sort of smooth out my edges a little bit, and that's my choice to do that. And so you have to consider not just how much content, but which content is going to blow up and change how people perceive you. For me, I want to talk a little bit about why I wanted to make this change, what led me to this decision, because I know many of you are, uh, also hitting that sort of midlife perimenopause, you know, a 20, 26 dead Internet theory AI slope. And we are all questioning what we want to be when we grow up. And what led me to make this decision to move from marketing trainer to marketing strategic brand advisor.
The Decision To Become A Strategic Brand Advisor Driven By Life Stage And Desire For Deeper Impact
And I've spoken about this a little bit in previous episodes and I spoke about how a lot of this was influenced by my stage of life and being quite settled. But there's another piece that I haven't spoken about and as much, and that's what I want to focus on now. And it's this idea that when you are a marketing trainer, you're very limited in how much you can influence and affect someone's business. They come to you to learn new skills, learn how to do something that they couldn't do before, and to a certain degree, how to think a little bit differently than how they thought before. But I'm not in the business with them, um, making important decisions as they come up. I'm not embedded in that decision making. I'm not there when those decisions have big consequences and affect their revenue and affect their growth. And the truth is, I want to be. I can do much more than teach you the difference between a brand awareness and a lead generation campaign. And this was showing up for me inside my marketing training membership, where often my members would tell me after they had made the decision and they had to make that decision on their own.
Evolving From Marketing Trainer To Strategic Advisor By Taking Responsibility For Client Decisions
And they reported feeling quite lonely and torn and they agonised over this decision and they didn't need to. And then they were coming to me and saying, okay, I've now made this decision. And then we would talk about the, you know, marketing training that was left after that decision was made. And so I really wanted to change up my role in their businesses. And this means working with fewer clients who are making more important decisions, decisions with big consequences, and sharing the responsibility with them for making those decisions.
Leveraging Extensive Background And Experience To Excel As A Strategic Business Advisor
And my background absolutely lends itself to being a strategic Advisor. I have two degrees, I have 22 years of marketing experience. I've been a small business owner, uh, for 13 years. I run two podcasts, I've had business partners, I've sold a business, I've run an agency, I've started a, uh, festival. I've spoken on stages.
Proven Track Record In Generating Revenue And Guiding Others Through Significant Business Decisions
I've done a lot. I've generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorship and partnerships. So I'm not someone that is saying they can do this before they can do it. I've done it. And I can help other people make big impactful decisions in their business because I've walked this path myself.
Introducing The Village For Female Founders Seeking Expert Guidance And Strategic Support
M Before we get back to the chat, I wanted to ask whether all those courses, digital products and lead magnets have actually helped you make better business decisions, or are you still making all the important ones inside your own head? I started the Village for female founders who want clever, kind, experienced women around them when the decision actually matters. People who will challenge your thinking, share what they know, make useful introductions and tell you what they really think. Plus me, obviously, reading the documents, reviewing the work, doing the research, and occasionally ruining an idea before you waste money on it. That's the Village.
Join The Village For Clever Kind Experienced Women Who Challenge Your Thinking And Share Knowledge
If that sounds like the kind of room you've been missing, you can find the village at Campe del Mar.
The Importance Of Making Tough Trade-Offs And Choosing Specific Language For Clear Brand Positioning
Now, what's really key, I think, about positioning and repositioning is making tough trade offs and choices. So in the online business space, you've got coaches, you've got strategists, you've got mentors, you've got advisors, you've got consultants. And these terms are used very much interchangeably. And the problem with that though is that, uh, the more we use a big range of terms to describe ourselves and to describe our work, the less clarity there is for the audience to be able to instantly categorise you in their minds and also explain what you do to other people. And so I avoid calling myself a marketing mentor and a marketing coach and a marketing advisor interchangeably because I need to bet on one thing. That's not to say that I don't do mentoring and coaching. Of course I do. In my work, sometimes I'm helping you make the decision, sometimes I'm just telling you what to do, sometimes I'm helping. I'm not at all going to advise you and give you the answer. I want you to come up with the answer yourself.
Strategic Advisor: The Best Fit For Guiding Important Business Decisions And Defining Your Known For
And so all of those terms have a role, but it's so important to bet on something. And the more we use particular language, the more our audience is going to use that same language and then there's going to be less confusion, less ambiguity. And so I picked advisory or advisor, strategic advisor. Because I looked at all of those different terms and that is the one that was the best fit. Someone in your business helping you make those important decisions. And so that's something that's really important for you to consider, especially if you are jumping on this new bandwagon of having a portfolio career where you are multi hyphenate and multi passionate. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm sorry, Certainly that too. But you need to balance that with also having something that you are known for. So it's okay to do multiple things, but when push comes to shove, what are you going to be known for?
Defining Your Primary Identity As A Strategic Brand Advisor While Embracing Campaign Expertise
And maybe for you that slightly changes depending on what room you're in. That if you are a fractional CMO in certain rooms, that's what you say. And if you are a content creator in certain rooms, that's what you say. But for me, even though I have two podcasts and Ripple Festival exists, I want to be known now as a strategic brand advisor to female founders and continue being known for campaigns. Those are really the two things that I want to be known for.
Consistent Reinforcement Of Positioning And Avoiding Contradictory Content During Repositioning
And if you look back at all of my content the last couple of months, it's really reinforcing that premise and trying to avoid as much as possible anything that's going to detract from that positioning. When you're going through a, ah, repositioning approach or you're running a repositioning campaign, you've got to hammer this home and be really consistent so that nothing ends up, uh, contradicting or detracting from that. So for me, this is what had to change. I had to change the offer. And this meant unfortunately, concluding Marketing Circle.
Painful Conclusion Of Marketing Circle To Solidify New Positioning As A Strategic Advisor
It was really painful and really difficult to do that. This was a membership that had generated half a million dollars in revenue over the last two and a half years. So this was not an easy decision to conclude it. But for me to really be perceived as no longer a marketing trainer, Marketing Circle needed to conclude. Because Marketing Circle was a training membership, the pricing had to change.
Adjusting Pricing Language And Target Audience To Align With Strategic Advisor Positioning
You can't call yourself a strategic advisor and still charge $600 a month. So that had to change. The language had to change. Who it's for had to change. Even though I've always worked with female founders, there are uh, female founders who can afford 4, 5, $600 a month and there are female founders who, who can afford 8, 9, 11 hundred dollars a month.
Shifting Focus Away From Online Coaching And Guru Rants To Align With New Professional Identity
And so I had to change who I was working for. I also had to stop doing certain things going on as many guru rants. I don't really operate as much in the online coaching, online membership space as I did before when I had online courses and a month to month membership. And so really focusing on online coaches and online mentors kind of means that I'm an online coach and an online mentor and I'm not. So even though that feels really natural for me, I love doing that.
Avoiding Old Positioning Habits By Sharing Thinking And Worldviews Instead Of Marketing Tips
That's the kind of content that performs really well for me. I had to balance that. And actually while I think about it, because I've created so much content over the last five years and it comes so naturally to me, I found myself falling back into patterns of creating posts on LinkedIn and Instagram that were old positioning, for example, sharing a lot of marketing tips or marketing lessons. That is what a marketing trainer would post. You know, five email subject lines reworked before and after.
Content Shift For Strategic Advisors: Showcasing Thinking And Decision Making Over Educational Training
That's old me. That would have been great content for Marketing Circle. But now as a strategic advisor, I need different content, less focused on education and training. What I need to focus on now and what I do focus on now is showing my thinking, showing my decision Making showing how I view the world so that people can say, uh, well, I view the world the same way. So we align and there's shared values and shared understanding.
Analyzing Campaigns Like Sydney Sweeney's To Demonstrate Strategic Advisory Approach And Thinking
But also I show how I would advise a brand. So I did a post recently about Sydney Sweeney's Novik campaign and I uh, showed very much my take on it and how I would advise brands if I was their strategic advisor. When you are going through a repositioning exercise, it's really important that you don't uh, just smash out content because you will fall into old habits. Old habits die hard. And ah, you will inadvertently fall into saying and doing things the way that you used to do them because those grooves are so well worn in your brain.
Creating New Paths In Repositioning By Consciously Reviewing Content To Align With New Goals
Like that path has been smoothed out for you after years of doing things that way. And now we need to go and create a new path and that is not clear and easy and well trodden. And so you need to stop and pause and read back over your post, your content, your blog, your emails, your podcasts and go, hang on, before I publish this or schedule this, let's just sense check that this aligns with my new positioning and not my old positioning and I haven't accidentally fallen back into old Mia. And I see this all the time with people who say they want to do one thing. I want to work with more corporates, I want to work with bigger brands, I want to be positioned as a marketing consultant.
Avoiding Old Habits By Sensing Checking Content For Alignment With New Positioning
But then they're running free training masterclasses and it's like uh, you know, you need someone like me to go, hang on, hang on, hang on. Does this reinforce your new positioning or are you doing this because this was right back when you did something else? Now you don't have to wait until your positioning is failing before changing it. And I certainly didn't wait. Lots of founders assume repositioning is something businesses do once the ship is on fire.
Repositioning Proactively Not Reactively When Business Is Failing Or Sales Have Tanked
Okay, we're already sinking. Sales have tanked. We're losing relevance. You do not want to wait until then. Okay.
The Role Of Strategists In Anticipating The Future And The Danger Of Waiting Until It's Too Late
Strategists should be able to see things in the future. That's kind of our job is to anticipate is to predict is to be thinking three moves in advance. So if you wait until the ship is already sinking, it's too late. And we've seen this with bets. So bets, the uh, shoe brand engaged Willow and Blake who uh, are oh my God, awesome.
Bets' Repositioning Attempt With Willow And Blake Came Too Late To Save The Brand
Like absolutely most incredible agency. Female founded for other female founded brands in Australia. They work predominantly with product, retail, beauty, lifestyle brands, fashion. Bets engaged Willow and Blake to start a repositioning exercise. And we've still started to see new branding, new imagery.
Stripping Down Product Lines And Focusing On Core Audience Was Too Little Too Late For Bets
They've stripped out half the products of Bets. They got rid of men's, they got rid of kids, really made it about women. But it was too late. Okay? The ship was already sinking.
Continuing A Viable Business Model Versus Pursuing Personal Growth And New Desired Work
And Bets, um, working with Willow and Blake came, I think, too late in the piece. So don't do that. Okay? In my case, my business was perfectly viable and there was nothing stopping me going out there and finding 10 new members of Marketing Circle and continuing Marketing Circle as we had for the last two and a half years. And, uh, I could have done that.
Graduating From Marketing Skills Training To Strategic Partnership For Advanced Business Needs
There is absolutely a market for female founders who want to upskill in marketing and think more strategically in their marketing. What changed was me and the work that I wanted to do. And I wanted to continue working with some of the members in Marketing Circle who had really kind of graduated from Marketing Circle and they were looking for the next thing, and I wanted to go with them. I didn't want to start over with a new cohort of, uh, fairly early stage business owners who did need to know the difference between lead generation and brand awareness campaigns and what's a welcome sequence versus a nurture sequence versus a, uh, post purchase sequence and what needs to go into all of those sequences. Okay, I did that for five years and was very rewarding.
Challenging Oneself With Bigger Decisions And Commercial Impact As The Next Career Move
But I want to challenge myself and I feel like being someone that is now responsible for making bigger decisions in businesses with real commercial impacts and consequences, that's really the next move for me. So I don't wait. And also, there doesn't have to be a problem in your business for you to reposition. You could simply decide that you want to work with a new audience or offer, uh, something new. Okay, we'll leave it there on repositioning.
Gurus In The Wild: Luna Bronze's Campaign Stolen By Body Blends Using AI Technology
Gurus in the wild. I can't believe this. So this is all over my Instagram. Luna Bronze is an Australian e commerce beauty brand and they invested in a campaign. They worked with a creative director, uh, they worked with a brand strategist and advisor.
Intellectual Property Theft: Body Blends Replaced Luna Bronze Products With Their Own Using AI
They had a whole team. They did a big shoot, a lot of planning, a lot of thinking, a lot of money went in to creating this campaign for Lunar Bronze. And then this other Australian brand called Body Blends took their imagery from the campaign, put it into AI and basically replaced their product for Luna Bronze's product and absolutely stole it. Like frame by frame, image by image. This was not an iteration.
Focusing On AI Regulation Misses The Core Issue Of Intellectual Property Theft
This was theft. And what's been interesting about the narrative around this is that there Seems to be a lot of emphasis on the fact that this was AI. And the brand strategist, Orange Juice Lane, who worked on this campaign, in her video talking about this theft, was saying, we need better regulation around AI and there needs to be, you know, government to step in. And I have to disagree a little bit that AI is the key thing here, because it's really not like, irrespective of whether they used AI or not, this is theft. It's intellectual property theft.
Body Blends Removed Images But Offered No Apology For Stealing Luna Bronze's Campaign Imagery
And I feel like by saying that it was AI, we're almost excusing it in a way, because we're scapegoating. We're like, well, the AI generated the image, but there was someone putting those prompts into AI. And so, yeah, I take issue with making this about AI and a conversation about AI when they could have done this in Canva, they could have done this in edits, they could have done this in Capcut. You know, using AI doesn't obfuscate them of any responsibility. This is theft.
Body Blends' History Of Image Theft And Lack Of Accountability For Luna Bronze Campaign
Straight up and down. Now, Body Blends has removed the offending images. And by the way, this is not the first time they did this. They have done this before with a, uh, Sun Care brand, I believe, in Australia as well. And same deal.
Audience Attempts To Hold Body Blends Accountable For Theft, But Comments Are Being Deleted
They basically just took down the images, but they didn't apologise, they just removed the offending images. And, um, what's really interesting to me is that when something like this happens, audiences like me, we run to bodyblends account and we try to hold them accountable. And even though they've deleted the offending images, we'll go to any of their posts and we'll say, hey, are you going to acknowledge what you did to Luna Bronze? And so I did that this morning and I went and had a look and I can't see anyone having done that. So my strong prediction is that they are deleting comments off their Instagram.
Body Blends Deleting Comments Holding Them Accountable For Stealing Luna Bronze's Campaign
Anyone that is going there and saying, hey, are, uh, you going to take accountability for this? They're deleting those comments. Uh, so. Absolutely shameful. The big swing.
Nara Smith's Campaign With Bobbie Formula: The Ultimate Endorsement From A From-Scratch Maker
Okay, so this is probably one of the biggest campaigns to have launched in the last couple of weeks. It is Nara Smith, the influencer with several million followers, doing a campaign with Bobby who make infant formula. And I kind of love this campaign because Nara Smith is best known for making everything from scratch. She has made toothpaste from scratch, she has made doughnuts from scratch. Her kids want cereal, she makes cereal from scratch.
Bobbie Formula Gains Credibility As Nara Smith Chooses Their Product Over Making Her Own
But actually, Nara Smith is using Bobby to feed her newborn child her latest child. And, um, so there's lots to unpack here. First of all, this is great for Bobbi that the woman who makes everything from scratch is willing to buy their product. That's a huge authority credibility stab of approval for their product. So I really like the strategy behind that, because I wouldn't put it past Nara Smith to make her own infant formula.
Nara Smith's Rigorous Positioning Aligns With Bobbie's Quality, Boosting Brand Credibility
And that is actually the, uh, the plot of the campaign is that she looked at doing it, it was really complicated, and then discovered that Bobbi had done all the hard work for her. And so why wouldn't she choose Bobbi, who were just as rigorous as Nara Smith? So when we think about Nara Smith's positioning, she's the person that is super rigorous. Uh, she wants to know what's in her food. She wants to control what she feeds her family.
Advocating For Formula From Scratch Highlights Rigor And Trust In Bobbie's Product
And so getting her to advocate for your food is a huge boost in credibility. This morning, my baby woke up hungry. So I decided to make a formula from scratch. Organic, of course. Course, the other thing that makes this campaign really interesting and shows us the difference between creator culture and brand ambassadors is that Nara Smith is actually using Bobby.
Evolution From Brand Ambassadors To Creators Who Authentically Use And Advocate For Products
So when I started my career in marketing, we would have brand ambassadors, and they were like, home and away actresses and neighbours actresses and Miranda Kerr, and they were the face of a brand. But we didn't care or know whether they actually used those products. We just slapped their face on them. Right. Like, we don't know if Miranda Kerr shops at David Jones.
Authenticity In Creator Marketing: Consumers Expect Creators To Be Genuine Users Of Products
She was just a pretty face. But times have changed, and now we expect that these creators, like Nara Smith, they are actually users of the product. We're not okay with them just having a casual relationship. And so this story that she's using this product with her, uh, newborn gives this campaign authenticity. All right, that's a wrap.
Podcast Outro: Encouraging Feedback Subscriptions And Sharing Future Episode Topics
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Supporting Small Businesses Through Podcast Reviews And Connecting With Mia Feilman
Podcast reviews are like warm hugs and one of the best ways to support a small business. You can connect with me, mia Feilman, on LinkedIn and Instagram, and I always welcome your feedback and questions for future episodes.
