Do you know what your brand is communicating to your audience? It’s an important question to consider and knowing the answer can help you improve service and attract new customers. To explore this topic, we sat down with Krystle Kopacz, CEO of Revmade, an award-winning content marketing company guiding an array of clients on how to tell their brand stories while engaging meaningfully with their audiences. Her mix of tried and true innovative strategies can help you define and articulate your brand's voice so that you can develop relationships with happy and engaged customers for the long haul. Here’s how.
Tell me about your company, Revmade, and what it is that you do for brands.
My work has always focused on understanding and connecting with an audience from an editorial perspective. After working for several media companies, I realized it was time to become my own boss. I started Revmade, a small, woman-owned business, in 2016 and we have grown every year. I attribute most of our success to the unique way that we focus on our services, audience analysis and tailored content to meet audiences where they are. It’s really fun to have our hands on the data of what each audience wants. The special sauce is genuinely understanding the overlap of what audiences want to hear and what a brand wants to say. It’s nice waking up in the morning really loving what you do.
You are an expert in branding and content marketing. In this work, what does brand voice mean to you?
Every successful brand has a personality. It helps to think about your brand as a literal character. Ask yourself: Are they more serious or fun? Are they a professional or a friend? What motivates them? Those answers can help determine your brand voice and help guide how you communicate with the world.
Why is it important for travel advisors to articulate their brand to customers or clients?
Your brand is communicating with customers and prospects long before you realize it, teaching them how to perceive your company and what to expect. A strong brand makes it far easier to attract the right customers and retain talented employees, because it’s communicating a seal of quality, innovation, service or something else of value to them.
What are the business consequences of not properly articulating your brand?
Not having a strong identity and sticking to it can be costly for businesses, both financially and when it comes to retaining talent. You have to put a lot more effort into convincing without a strong brand behind you, and even if you are personally persuasive you still run the risk of losing potential customers and employees without a strong brand as a foundation.
How do you help companies understand what they should communicate to their target market?
We're always searching for the intersection of audience demand and company expertise—essentially the overlap of what your audience wants to hear and what you uniquely specialize in. We start with an in-depth audience behavior study to understand the information a specific audience wants or needs, and layer that with brand values, products, goals and even company culture. The magic is in identifying brand relevance and making sure it's in a space unoccupied by competition.
How can a brand unlock its core values and personality?
We start every one of our engagements by trying to figure out what the audience's media diet is: What is currently getting their attention? When are they freely giving it? When are they searching? When are they are on social, reading publications or listening to podcasts? Essentially, what are they doing, why are they doing it and where are the gaps? Once you answer those questions, you can then build a strategy to fill those in. It’s an effort in figuring out what that target customer wants then meshing that with what the brand’s personality is and what the brand’s goals are.
What are some ways for advisors who cannot do in-depth behavior analyses to learn about their customers?
Ideally this type of data would be analyzed on an ongoing basis (it's one of the services our company offers because it is so illuminating for marketing strategy). But, considering resource constraints, I would aim to be an active participant in the online communities where your prospects are. This does require considerable time and effort, but it will give your brand visibility and teach you a lot about how your prospects are communicating and what they value.
Is there anything that travel advisors should specifically focus on when doing their own brand work?
You need to start by knowing why what you offer is unique, and why your audience might want it. Aim to complete this sentence: I'm one of the few that provides _________ with the ultimate goal of making my customers feel _______. Make sure your sentence is unique from your competition, that it will matter to your audience and that you can (and do) deliver on it.
Are there any specific steps that fledgling travel advisors should take to start their brand journey?
Stay in lockstep with your target customers and focus specifically on knowing and solving at least one of their pain points. When you do, ask for testimonials and start to brand yourself as a problem solver in a specific area. It's a pragmatic approach that works in getting business and developing a strong reputation and referral base of business.
What steps should veteran companies take to ensure that their brand communication is on track?
I would focus obsessively on my target audience behavior to make sure my brand is present and successful in all the areas where my customers and prospects are. For example, is my brand appearing in Google when prospects are looking for travel advice? Am I getting positive engagement and seeing growth in social channels? A lot can be learned from consistently listening to your potential buyers.
What’s the best platform to communicate a brand’s value, personality and story?
You should always aim to be where your target audience is spending time, solving problems or getting inspired. Anywhere else is a distraction and not worth your time and money.
Finally, what is your advice on where to invest limited marketing resources? Would you suggest starting a newsletter, spending time posting on Instagram or TikTok or focusing on referrals? Maybe a mix of everything?
Don't try to do a bit of everything if you're tight on resources, start by reengineering your last 25 clients: Where did they come from? How did they find you? Use that information to develop a single channel you'll put resources into. Once you're seeing success through that channel, you can consider expanding into others.
Originally appeared in the spring 2022 issue of The Compass magazine.
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