 Hey, I'm Stephen Rodriguez startup community manager at the global entrepreneurship network. Thank you for joining us I'll be your moderator for today's global innovation through science and technology or just tech connect Conversation on branding and marketing for startups now remember You can join our discussion by sending us your questions and comments through the chat space next to the video player or through Twitter at Hashtag just tech connect And if you're hosting a viewing group be sure to send us your questions and a live photo of your group for a chance to be Featured during our program using the hashtag just tech connect We're super excited to be talking about branding and marketing for startups today I had a global entrepreneurship week which will be held November 13th to 19th Where we're gonna be talking with serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban on what it takes to market your startup to an investor But today we're talking about getting your startup out there. So let me begin by welcoming our panel of experts I'm joined by Jane Tugi Yama. She is the marketing specialist for the University of Michigan Center for Entrepreneurship Technology acceleration programs She also oversees the digital marketing and communication at University of Michigan's M city a Public-private partnership to accelerate advanced mobility vehicles and technologies I'm also joined by Ray Sanchez. He is a managing partner and co-founder of ghost light creative a Marketing communications company based in El Paso, Texas Focused on creating the best strategy messaging and design for a company's marketing approach So thank you both for joining me today as we wait for viewers to send us their questions I like to kick off the discussion by asking you to tell us a little bit about your experience with a marketing in a Startup setting why is it important for startups to have a marketing and branding plan? So Ray, let's start with you. I'm happy to be here Thank you so much. I think this is a great opportunity. I think it is important for marketing For startups to have a marketing plan for a couple of reasons one You need to stay relevant to your audience and without a plan. You're gonna get Kind of introverted and focused on your day-to-day mission that you lose sight of What your product or service really means to the people you're trying to talk to so in order to stay relevant You're gonna have to have a plan when your idea is fresh and you're motivated And you're excited and you're not bogged down by day-to-day invoicing or problems with staffing or You know all of those objections and obstacles Second reason is to avoid pressure from yourself, you know, you you are gonna have overhead costs You'll be concentrating on product development Sourcing and vending and so all of that day-to-day work takes you away from Being able to deliver your product or service directly to your customers And it prevents you from being able to have immediate feedback from your customers or from your audience We like to use the word audience because you know, you might be Selling something something to somebody or you might be trying to convince them of an idea you know, there's a lot of things that that Different ways that you could be marketing your product or service to different types of audiences, but Having that pressure from yourself from just trying to run the business can keep you from keeping that perspective of that You need it's a marketing person and then third there's external pressures from external marketing sources Sometimes someone will come into your office or call you on the phone or you know, whatever and reach out to you and say We have a great marketing deal You're gonna have to sign by today But we're gonna get you on the radio or we're gonna put you on television at a really cheap cost and Go ahead and jump into this Deal that I'm offering and it's over by tomorrow and you may have not planned to spend any money on TV or radio But you're reactive to an external salesperson and if you don't have a marketing plan you're gonna be led astray by sales people that come on with Today only type of deals and they may not be the best for you in the long term And so to avoid being reactive to salespeople to avoid being reactive to your own problems or pressures especially financially from running your business and to Connecting to your audience on a day-to-day basis. You need a plan that'll keep you focused and tracked with relating to your audience Yep, better to be more proactive than reactive now Jane. Is there anything you want to add? Hi everyone, I'm super excited to be here as Stephen mentioned I'm the marketing and branding specialist at the University of Michigan So I actually see a lot more from the University of Perspective side and deal with a lot of faculty who are working on early-stage technologies The biggest thing that I would say of why it's important to have a branding and marketing plan is you have worked so hard to work on your baby technology that you think is ready for the market and it's important that you're marketing to the correct audience as Ray mentioned and that you're really hitting your customer segments So it's really important in order to get the messaging right So that you're actually selling selling what you've worked so hard for Yep, and ideally if you're selling to everyone then you're really selling to no one So how can you be the most effective by honing in on the person that's most likely to buy from you? Exactly. All right. So thank you still ahead We'll ask our panel of experts to tell us what elements of every good marketing or branding plan should include But first we want to ask our online viewers a question. What is your preferred marketing platform? Is it Facebook Twitter your web page? Please write it your answers in the chat space next to the video player will read your answers off later in the program So please let us know what country you're viewing from and again the question is what is your preferred marketing platform? Now, let's take some questions from our online viewers All right. So what is the difference between branding and marketing? Jay Sure, that's a great question. And I think we get often asked this a lot by people who aren't in the marketing realm And I like to split branding and marketing into two different segments for branding I like to think that as your why it's who you are what you do and who you serve So it's really at the core mission of you know, what your brand or what your product is that you're trying to sell For the marketing aspect, I like to think that as the how it's all of the planning and how you're going to advertise You know your consumers in order or to your audiences in order for them to get them to buy or get loyalty and buy into The product that you're trying to sell to them So think of branding as the why and the marketing as the how the actionable. So how you're gonna get that done Great great So next question the information resource center in Kigali asks in the early idea stages of a project How do I get my name out there? Are there steps on the marketing side that I can take to take my project from an idea to an actuality? Right Right. Well the first thing that you want to Think about is consistency You don't control what people think about you but you can control what they see when they see you and so if you can develop Branding elements that are consistent then that's the first thing and that's one thing that we see people have a hard time doing is that consistency and making your Branding readily available and always label everything that you do. These are basic Things that even experienced You know people in business sometimes can forget about so if you write a report Put that brand on there and make sure that that logo looks exactly like it does on your email And it looks exactly like it does on your business cards And if you use it consistently on all of your materials and reinforce it in all of your presentations That's the first basic step on getting your name out there so many times people put out material without that name on it and That's kind of working against you. So I would start there. Yeah now Ray You know Angel Lopez from Venezuela asks how can I market my business if I have limited financial resources? Due to a slow economy All right. Well, here's one thing that we That we think about the best form of advertising is word of mouth And it's not advertising that anyone can sell you and so when someone believes in you and they start telling their friends and and Relatives about you then that is advertising. It's just on a person-to-person basis. So my advice would be Write a list of a hundred names and these are people that would probably open the door to you at two in the morning If you really need it help now, I'm talking family neighbors friends from high school and you write those hundred names and you ask them to refer Your company to ten friends or people that they know so immediately you have a reach of about a thousand People and that's the first step now. It's very grassroots, but it's a way for them to Get your name out in front of a thousand people and if you have a branding element such as a business card Or a flyer or something that's related to your effort and you can go to those Hundred people and get them to disseminate that for you. Then you have kind of a quasi staff of marketers out there that are Preaching your name if you will and that's a great place to start and you can all you need is for a couple of those names to Hit and you scratch and claw your way to some business leads and that's a very first step I mean there are many other steps we can do but that's in a tough economy You always have friends and family who are willing to help you Awesome awesome now Sabrina is asking at what stage should you reach out to a specialized agency to help you with your startups marketing? Jane Yeah, this is always a good question So I deal a lot more with the early-stage companies and that is very far out of what they're thinking And it's always I guess a question of are you are you really ready to? At the business side ready to launch into a large scale So I would always say that it's important to look at your business model first and see whether or not That is something that is scalable. Are you on a timeline? Are you hitting your milestones that you said if you do have a lot of investors? Are you are you hitting those milestones so that you have a good solid business before you go off and are ready to Market and get more customers Because I think one of the biggest failures that we often see is that a lot of companies are taking to market too quickly So they haven't done their customer discovery. They don't have their business model They don't exactly know who their customer segment is and who they're going to talk to first and try to sell to first So I would say it's really important to get those down And once you're finally starting to get traction on your first customer markets and those segments Then you're probably ready to acquire a PR firm or talk to an agency about how to scale your company larger Again the biggest failure that we probably see is companies starting too fast and not being able to scale fast enough for their customers So you don't want to get trapped underneath that Yeah, and I'm a similar vein then there Jane a question from you and Haiti You know, I want to primarily use social media to do marketing for my business But 90% of the clients on targeting are not using social media. So what other methods can I use to reach this target audience? So that is a question that comes up a lot within you know, the university space, but also a space at large I Would say that a good example of that is within the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan We kind of had two different tracks We have a student track and we have a faculty track and as you can imagine the faculty are a much older demographic So they aren't on social media. So the question I'm often faced with is how do we engage them? So it's all about customer discovery. It's a little bit of trial and error. Like you said Your customers are not on social media So my my suggestion would to be go actually do some customer discovery interviews with your target market Audiences and ask them. How do they get in touch with the brands that they are loyal to most? Is it newsletters? Is it e-blasts? Is it more grassroots campaigns like Ray mentioned? It's really honing in on your audiences and asking them the questions of How do you get your news? How do you find out what brands that you like the most in order to be most effective? I think one of the challenges that a lot of companies face is that For Millennials these days, they're often inundated with too much news coming in at them So social media is a great way But I think a lot of companies actually are spending too much time on social media And not using that to the most effective way possible Because like I said people are just becoming inundated with too much information And it's hard to sort through all of the weeds of everything that's coming at them Yep now Ray The viewing group from the embassy in Monrovia is asking What are the most common mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make when developing their marketing plan? Right. Okay. Well, I've in our experience. We've gathered five common mistakes that people make when they're just getting started and The first mistake that we see most often is unrealistic expectations So when people are You know not Knowing that they have a product that's at a certain price point. Let's say you're selling a lunch Special and that lunch special has a very low price point, but we see Customers come out and say this is the best lunch you'll ever eat Well, it's not the best lunch you'll ever eat It's the best lunch at that price point and so when people realize that Their product, you know where it stacks up in the whole marketplace And if it stacks up in the middle or stacks up near the top most often we see people make the mistake of Thinking everybody's going to rush in the door when they say We have our lunch special at this price point and when no one comes rushing in the door they figure the advertising must not be working and So they don't have a realistic expectation of their product or message or service in the marketplace That's the number one thing The second Common mistake that we see people make is having an inaccurate customer profile or customer segment and Jane mentioned it Very clearly. You've got to know who your customers are Okay, when you don't know what their demographics are then you're going to not create a good message or good promotions for them for example If you are millennial and your customers are an older set and they don't use social media as much You might ask them What's their what's on what kind of music do they listen to? And what are their favorite news stations or news sources? What are their favorite programs and so querying your audience Is and it takes time to do this But if you're just getting started you can have conversations with people and find out where it is that they get their information And it might not be the same place you get your information and that should be a big Clue as to where you need to place your advertising Okay, so having an inaccurate customer profile is the second biggest mistake that we see The third biggest mistake is not knowing what it costs you to Advertise and not knowing what you get in return So you'll know that you pay so much to have something printed Let's say and you go out into a street corner and hand these out Or you buy a radio commercial or you print posters or whatever it is You need to know how many people you need to have come in your door on your website or call your phone in order to retain some of those as sales to pay for that advertising So if you pay $500 for A billboard and you have 100 people call you and out of the hundred people you make a sale on 20 of those people Well, whatever it is that you're selling had to have paid for that $500 or exceed that $500 And many new startups don't go through the effort of measuring what they get From the advertising for what they invest in Okay, and we we call that not knowing your ad return on your investment or ROI The fourth one is not controlling your identity. We already talked about this making sure that your logo is consistent That your business cards are consistent and making sure that the person who made your shirts Makes your logo look the same as the person who made your business cards Or the or the nephew that you get to help you design your Online presentation Those all have to be the same because many times and we see this mistake all the time I got my nephew to do my website and Those branding elements are not consistent And I know it's cheap, but you can demand that everything look consistent and good quality And then the fifth and final mistake that we see most often is overestimating your time Um, someone says I know how to do facebook I can get in and manage a facebook campaign and while you might have the ability to manage it You have other pressing needs in your business that you need to focus on you need to focus on product development And delivery and customer service you need to focus on making sure that your staff represents your product as well as you do And before you know it All your day's gone. We all in the whole across the globe have about 24 hours each of us and no more No less when you know that You have a light bulb has to go off and say I do not have the time to do this properly so, um You know, you're gonna have to not overestimate your time Budget it and learn how to allocate that to people now facebook might be an area where your nephew might be able to Do a better job than you will You just just have to delegate appropriately Yep, and something for both of you. Um, one of the viewer asks, um, how has marketing for startups changed in the past 10 years? All right, well The phone everybody has a television and a radio station and a computer for websites and they have a credit card And all of those transactional and you know information sources funnel through one device and that's right here And because of that that is absolutely different from 10 years ago. And so now you can create um All types of media that you can focus and target direct to people's uh television screen that's in their pocket 10 years ago. That wasn't a thing You were buying Paper you were buying airtime And you know some banner ads on the web, you know, that what that was being done but the rate of change in technology and the access to technology across the world has Really changed in the last 10 years. And so marketers need to understand how to reach people with this And Jane any any other thoughts Yeah, I mean Ray Ray hit it right there Everything is at our fingertips these days and the market has changed. I think more towards marketing to the millennial generation And every other generation is slowly trying to catch up so that they are in touch on the fingertips of an iphone or an android device um, and I think the biggest challenge that marketers are faced with these days are How to cut through the noise and what is the secret sauce that is going to You know get in tap with the customers that they have as the customer is trying to sort through all the information that's being thrown at them so Yeah, we're definitely seeing a huge shift from you know the airtime all the way to everything being At the top of our fingertips the scroll the click everything Everything is much more digital these days and happening so fast in now Yeah now an online viewer is asking do you have any suggestions for marketing and building traction for a mobile app startup? How can I break through the clutter and increase the number of downloads around the city? I'm launching in Who wants to take a time? I guess I can jump in here. You know the mobile apps space is Is crowded and you're you're you're gonna have to achieve a critical mass And if you don't have a large budget You see in these cases a multifaceted campaign Which uses commercials and in the television space and online You know that that's a way to achieve exposure through a mobile app, but we're not talking about huge budgets. I think I think we're talking about kind of a grassroots effort and for Friends and family to start downloading for for hitting that target market And giving people incentives for just trying it. You see it's It's difficult because people have now recognized that the space on their phone is a premium And one of the hardest things to do is to get someone to believe enough in A potential benefit to go ahead and use up space on your phone for an app That is difficult. It's a it's a hard ask to get in there and start Getting people to download your app. So there must be an immediate benefit that's recognized So the other thing are reviews and number of downloads when And a mobile app comes up if it has good reviews and there are many reviews And then there are quite a number of downloads then maybe Someone will consider possibly downloading that mobile app, but if you're jumping in with mobile app I'm going to say it it's without a budget I mean you're going to have to get some angel investors and in that case you're going to have to have an idea that is Investable, you know You're going to have to have an idea that that you can sell the people to That that wants to back you so that you can go ahead and market that app So it is definitely a challenge with no to little budget to To get a mobile app to to really hit big you're going to have to have a good product on it So right now for those of you just joining us you're watching the gist tech connect conversation on marketing and branding for startups And i'm joined by a panel of experts jane suyama and ray sanchez We are taking live questions from viewers So you can submit your questions through the chat space next to this video or on twitter using hashtag gist tech connect Now ray, how can you leverage your local community to strengthen your brand or raise awareness of your venture? Well, you know, it just depends on how you define community A lot of times in a big city the community is not the city. It's it's your neighborhood It's your friends and family. It's the circles that you you know That you interact with and sometimes your community is around the world, but it's 600 people that are in line with what you're doing. So Starting with your community is I think the absolute best place to start You know when you get your name out there it It's kind of going back to what I said about asking a hundred people to Spread your name out to 10 people that they know So I would say That you make a presentation to everyone in your community One of the things that we do sometimes is we we say, you know throw a party Everybody likes a party, you know host an event give something away and make it fun provide music And get the people in your community whether it's online or in your neighborhood Or at your college or wherever it is and say i'm going to host a grand opening for this we're providing You know refreshments or we're doing whatever it's going to be a party It's a celebration of the launch of my venture and you invite everyone give it enough lead time make sure you invite everyone with enough Enough time so that they can make save the date and go attend this party and then you launch and then you Make it a big deal now That doesn't mean you have all your questions answered. It doesn't mean you have a hundred percent of your funding in place It doesn't mean that you have all your Ducks in a row so to speak But it does mean that you're making a big splash with people who care about you who will attend an event Um and then have them bring a friend or two Yep, and have this big splash and so that kind of gets you started in your community where there's instant awareness and then Don't just leave it at that have a follow-up in a month say thank you for coming Here's what we're doing and make sure that everybody who attends this community can sign up to be updated And then remain engaged with them. Tell them where you're at You know, we've started this other service line And you continue to keep them informed as to what you're doing And that eventually you're going to gain some momentum And so you're going to leverage your little community into a greater market because you've already started with people who are Already your fans. Yep, and it's that engagement. That's so critical You know the global entrepreneurship week that happens every year, you know, it's a celebration of the entrepreneurial community So anybody who wants to get in that celebration This is a good opportunity to start engaging that local community through global entrepreneurship week And you know, you mentioned events, right? Um, we are actually we've been testing something out a model that started in the us But now it's more of an international thing is start a puddle. It's more of a program to help entrepreneurs Present who they are what they're about But more importantly, how do you get ideas from the community on some of the challenges that they're facing? so the presentation is key because When you present then you're giving some value to to the audience, but you're also collecting Value as well. You're getting to know them and they're getting to know you so you're building that trust And when you're more top of mind then they're more likely to remember you when you know, they may need your service that You know, you can provide So start a puddle is something that's uh unique and something that you should definitely check out in your local communities and if there's not a start a puddle then You can do an event test it out get together with your community and and see where that goes So jane, what are some elements that every good marketing or branding plan should include? So I'm going to try to keep it simple for you Um, and I like to think of it as the three C's of marketing Um, so they're pretty easy to remember. They're each one word. Um, the first one is clear The second one is consistent and the third one is competitive So let's dive deeper into those For clear you really need to hone in on your why you need to know your purpose and you need to know What drives your customer? Um, I think if a good example of this is go look up simon cynic on the internet His ted talk about how great leaders inspire others and his whole book if you want to buy it is about It starts with why? So we always know in marketing basically the what and the how But it's really the why of what drives your customers and why they're going to buy your product or your service So really you have to be clear about what you're really trying to sell and who you're really trying to tap into The second one is consistent So you have to be consistent like ray mentioned across all of your different platforms Whether it's your social media, whether it's your brand being printed on t-shirts Be consistent across the board and make sure that your messaging is also consistent. It's not just about your logo It's about your talking points when you're representing your company your business at different conferences at different trade shows To different investors you have to make sure that you're sending a consistent message for Your brand and for your company And the last one is competitive So it's always important when you first launch your business to know what you're doing But then also be aware of who your competitors are in the market and monitor them And how the market is constantly changing Like we just mentioned Marketing has changed drastically over the 10 over 10 years and us marketers have had to try to figure out how to adapt How to pivot so that we can get and most We can get the message across for the different companies or businesses that we're working with So monitor the market, you know, make a list of who your competitors are see what they're doing If some things that they're doing are working maybe adopt those Methods that they're doing But it doesn't always mean that you have to follow what your competitors are doing because it may not be the right answer You don't know what happens behind the walls of their office And if what they're doing is actually very successful But it's always a good idea to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening around you Because you don't just want to become stagnant and stale within the market Um, and then it just I think it's a circle. It goes back to your why So once you're competitive in the market and there are new methods that are happening And things like that go back to your why go back to your clear messaging and say If we are to pivot to this because our competitors are doing it doesn't really make sense for us So that we can stay competitive in the marketplace So again, the three C's of marketing and branding clear consistent and competitive and that should help you Three C's I love it So next we have a question from a viewer in Morocco Can you give us examples of cheap but very impactful marketing campaigns? Okay, I can here in the united states In the this time of year we like To go to corn mazes their farms where people can get lost in the fields of tall corn And we have a few in our city and some that have been around for a long time Well, I have a friend who started a brand new corn maze and he's only been around for three years And so he doesn't have much of a budget to start with Whereas the other Corn mazes or the other attractions can put out multiple commercials and have budgets to be on traditional media So what we said was you need to be where the other guys are not And you need to market Probably all year round and not just in the months leading up to the corn maze season when everybody is competing for your attention for corn mazes so We looked at Parades since corn mazes and attractions are about feeling good and spending money to go have fun there are several local parades in our community And my buddy's corn maze has a tractor and little carts and they're already decorated if he gets them out About four or five times around the year on different holidays And they participate in these parades with his brand out in space Then you have a lot of people lined up on the side of these parades with a lot of exposure on this corn maze So that when corn maze season comes around He's already top of mind on these For for all these families that attend parades, so he's hit his target market He's in a feel-good environment and many of these parades charge nothing for you to participate because they're looking for more Participants in the parade anyway, and he has a readily available Infrastructure to go ahead that's already decorated and ready for a parade. All he needs to do is mobilize and Put these vehicles in the parade all year round Uh similarly If you can be in the space where your competitors are not Sometimes no one's looking there and that can be very inexpensive space for you to advertise in You just have to have fun and connect with your audience and you know Just know who it's for and know what's important to them And if having fun is important to this to your business like it is in this example Then go to other places where people are having fun and make a presence there People will associate your business with having fun You just need to change the antidote for your business, but that's what I would recommend All right. Now a viewer from butan asks how do you collect customer information for marketing purposes? Jane I would say that this is very similar to the engineers or whomever is helping to build the business They've had to do a lot of customer discovery and interviews to figure out who even the customer segment is And how this product or technology that you have is going to function So it would be the same way for you as a marketing Branding specialists go out and interview your customer segments That's the only real way that you're going to get data And don't just interview the first 20 people that you think it takes a lot of data In fact, the national science foundation runs an icore program that was launched in 2013 And the faculty and researchers who have a product or technology that they think they want to launch into the market They have to go through a seven-week bootcamp Camp they have to do a hundred interviews a hundred interviews. I know it seems like a lot But that is the only way that you can get good solid data because Unlike people want to think people will lie to you So the first 20 interviews that you get it may not be the right customer segment The people may lie to you It just happens we're human we're human and we need to have hard data and good numbers in order for us to help market Uh, the right thing The other thing I will tell you is that don't use surveys surveys are probably the worst way to gather information If you really want to make impact Go and actually talk to the people who will be buying your product. That's the best way A phone call is okay But in order to actually get good solid data and get good customer discovery information You really need to be able to read the body language of the people who you're interviewing And that's really the only way that you're going to be able to get that data that you need to You know pivot or create a good brand marketing strategy Yeah, and and something I've learned is you know People are horrible at predicting their future actions. So you have to take If you ask them, oh, you know, do you think you would buy this any type of future action They might say yes, but we don't know until they have to take the actual action in real life Well, that's great. Stephen. I think you also bring up another point is just like these Engineers or the people building the product do these customer interviews It's even better not to sell your technology and say would you buy x? Try to figure out what their pain points are and what their day to day life is in order so that you can say Well, this product fits nicely into there But if you go off and just start saying would you buy x y or z? You know, you probably will skew their actual answer So try to figure out what their pain points are what their day to day life is and the different other products that they're using That might be competitors in your space as well Yep. All right. Thank you. Now I want to read off some of the results of the questions we asked earlier So what is your preferred marketing platform? A viewer in Ecuador says facebook and twitter Rasha from jordan says facebook Aiden from baku says facebook a viewer from a viewer from somewhere says facebook Wan Ping says facebook and instagram Safi from pakistan says facebook. Wow, lots of facebook Um, all right. Now, let's go back to some questions from our online participants A viewer is asking us So how much should a business change its marketing branding approach when the targeted audience is from a different country? What about when the audience is multinational? So I think this goes back to your initial customer discovery. Um I would say that you don't want to have too many customer segments when you're an early stage company Uh, and you don't want to go after too many different people So go back and look at your notes and try to figure out what really makes that specific customer segment tick If you are trying to sell to a global Uh, a global customer base or someone from a different country Then you need to focus most of your marketing efforts there before you become Everything to all people and I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of marketers run into Is that they try to be everything to everyone and unfortunately, that's not a good marketing or branding strategy You really need to figure out who your customer is Get a good handle on that before you can pivot and look at different markets that you want to go into Yeah, I would also You know agree with everything there. I would advise to get a mentor Uh, when I started in business, I did not start as a Advertising agency in one city. We're right on the border with mexico And we had someone in our team who I made into a partner and she had The registration in mexico and we operated in Juarez in northern mexico with her And I deferred to her on how I should handle marketing Business everything now She wasn't an expert, but she was more an expert in that community than I was and so With her as my mentor in that space And me kind of focusing on the market. I was familiar with I I don't know if I would have ventured out there without a Partner or with someone who was very savvy and from the area. I was marketing to Because you it can be very expensive to try to figure it out on your own And I have we have a mantra here. We ask on every project. Who is this for? And second what's important to them? third What's your budget? And fourth when's it do? And so if you know by when you need to have results and how much money you have against it Keep in mind your number one question is who is this for and secondly? What's important to them if you can't answer those questions don't go into that market Are good points now our viewers asking us how do you design great logos and slogans? Are there any tools that you'd recommend especially for people on a small budget? Well How do you design great logos and slogans? You know, I think Many of our logos and slogans are with pencil on a napkin You never know where an idea is going to Kind of arise and and and hit and when you need to sketch something out The software is just a finishing tool But a great logo and a slogan is in its form and it's what it's communicated by its by the words and the way it's crafted so You know a great logo and a slogan comes from the idea But in terms of the tools that are there you can I would say a vector based Software and there are many different kinds out there and there's probably freeware But it's got to be vector based a bitmap based or a pixel based Software is not not where you want to Design a logo vector based software is based on mathematical equations And you're able to scale large to small your logo without it losing quality and so That's a very basic answer there Yeah, and I'll jump in and say exactly what ray said All great ideas start from even just a pencil and a sketch Um I will give an example of Just last year we launched an early stage incubator in the autonomous vehicle space here at the university of michigan And that was something a project that I pioneered. Um, it's called tech lab at m city And so we basically had to build that brand from scratch Yes, we had the university as a guideline to help us through what the color scheme might be But we really had to discover and think of what the logo might look like So I actually sat down with one of the experts in the space And said, you know, what is something that would scream engineering and techie and cutting edge? in this space picture wise and We came up and we literally just sat down and doodled And now it is this beautiful logo that looks kind of like the inside of a An electric board and the t in the l for tech lab is disguised in there So really it just starts with a lot of brainstorming And I think the You don't want to get too many people because too many hands in the marketing pot can always become dangerous But I definitely think that it's important to bring in experts from the space and say, you know What would scream and strike you? For this brand so that you can market it correctly And then Ray said it, you know vector based software. That's that's the finishing touch and how you Actually make the brand or the logo come to life One more tidbit on logos We tell people if a 12 year old can sketch your logo, it's probably a good logo If a 12 year old cannot do it from memory very well It's probably too complicated All right, awesome stuff now start up in keto is asking i'm currently investing in advertising and pop the point of purchase and facebook How can I measure the impact or return of investment of these? Specifically in facebook. Yeah, so facebook ads Point of purchase facebook ads is is is the way to go the analytics For organic are not too robust. I mean, they're fine, but they're not amazing on facebook But facebook is designed so that when you buy an ad campaign, you're going to have extensive analytics facebook campaigns are very affordable because you control the spend yourself and I would say Lead people to the point of purchase through an ad and you will be very satisfied about the analytics or the Statistics that you're getting so if you want to measure anything on facebook It's completely doable. Just make sure you start with a with an ad campaign and design ads that that That are relevant and facebook allows you to kind of measure your relevance as you go forward So they really made it to where if you're a startup you can use facebook To run ads and then measure your results that there are probably no stones Um Unturned in facebook when it comes to measuring your audience and their activity So the answer is yes, you absolutely can do it. Just just buy ads. Don't the organic is a little harder to measure Yeah, and I know if you are building an email list as you're thinking through facebook advertising You can create I guess target audiences people who are likely to buy from you because you've been building this list and facebook has just goes an extra feature where Um, they'll analyze your email list and they'll create look-alike audiences So people that you don't have access to through your email list But facebook does and facebook knows based off your email list who would be the people likely to buy from you So it may be uh one of the best bang for your buck type of systems Now a viewer is asking how do you remain consistent in your brand while pivoting to different market segments? Right, so this goes back to the the three C's of marketing and branding. Um So like I said, it kind of is like a circular wheel Start with your why and know your clear messaging then remain consistent and then If the market is changing and becoming more competitive You have to figure out how to a little bit finagle your messaging because you don't want to just change your entire brand Because that will cause confusion among your customers and that will make them question your question your loyalty So I would say that you have to make sure that also when you're looking to pivot and change Your messaging that it's actually the right thing So just because your competitors are doing doesn't mean that that's something that you should formulate into your messaging Um, but I would say there are ways to adapt And make it correct That doesn't mean you have to change your mission. It doesn't mean that you have to change Um, what is at the core of your business model? It may just be changing the look and maybe changing the feel It may be adding a new feature um But make sure that the core business model of what you're trying to sell Remains the same and don't jeopardize that because otherwise your customers will begin to question your loyalty Now the jib I was just gonna just say also You're doing you have one or two things you have a Unique service or product if it is truly unique in the marketplace do not forget to say what the other guys can't And say it consistently I had a physical therapist that had this new innovative machine in their office And I said what the heck is that and they said it's an anti-gravity machine There's only one of two in our community and I said well Why aren't you saying anything about that because that sounds totally awesome And so if it's unique make sure you're consistent in saying that you have that unique angle But if you're selling a commodity if you're selling a food item that many other people sell Then the trick is you're going to have to be light Uh more than others and in order to be liked Finagle is the right word You're going to have to finesse the way you deliver your message so that people genuinely like you and Unfortunately, many people fall to being louder instead of being liked And so then you have commercials that are in your face blowing it up and no one really likes it But you just kind of do the salesman thing versus doing the comedian thing You know people like certain comedians and they like certain artists and they engage them But it's hard to engage somebody who's Yelling at you all the time So you must be liked Now the just i-hub ad berry tech in beirut is asking us Is mass emailing worth it when we're on a tight budget? What's the convert conversion rate using that method? Hmm, so that's going to be a trial and error basis. I think I mean try it and if it works it works But that will be a good way to gauge Maybe who your customer segments are and who you want to target first Mass emailing depending on the Software that you're using most of them will use relatively the same you can track open rates You can track bounce rates. You can track click-throughs So make sure you're looking at the data and the analytics So that you can see whether or not that's where you should be spending your money Because some of those marketing campaigns Via mailchimp or content contacts depending on how many subscribers you put into the system can become rather expensive So I would say you know at the university of michigan center for entrepreneurship We always encourage our entrepreneurs and a mantra that we live by to try risk fail and then do it and if it doesn't work Rework the wheel try the process over again pivot a little bit But I would say if if you're on a tight budget That might not be a bad way to get your name out there and then hone in on more specifics if that's not working correctly All right. Yeah, I'll just jump in and say, you know, I I spent some time as a in an it department for a For a government entity here locally and mail servers are getting more sophisticated So just just know that a lot of what you're sending if it's not immediately relevant You can get blacklisted pretty quick pretty quickly and so You're going to have to keep an eye on that on what it is that you're offering And what your open rate is I think if it's If you're ready to return, you know, if you only need a few customers to make a successful business model Then that might be fine. But if you need a lot of customers Um, you're going to have to supplement your email strategy quite a bit Don't sell burgers by email All right, it looks like we have time for one more question from our viewing audience So what percentage of a business's total budget should be dedicated to marketing? It's a lot more to start up, but I I I've heard around three percent it varies on what it is that you are selling and who your audience is And how big and how many markets? Starting up costs your percentage is going to be high for the first Several months to a year to 18 months. But once it stabilizes out, I I tend to say I've heard around between three and five percent Again, these are small business numbers. I you know, larger businesses would Maybe have a different it might slide back a little bit from there because of leverage Now I know that yeah, that's more percentage of sales. Any other methods out there or Or would that be the main one? Well, you know, it's it's going to be individualized if you You need to know what your Margin is on each one of the items that you're selling And then you need to know how many people you need to contact In order to convert whatever percentage that is So if you're the salesperson and you know you can convert half of the people that that contact you And and you know that your Your profit margin on each unit is so much Well, then you know what you should spend on your advertising because you know, you're going to have to get 100 people In your door by the weekend and half of them are going to buy something And so if your profit is So much money per item Then don't spend more in marketing than you're going to be able to recoup in People in a month span. So it is kind of an individualized number, but it goes back to the Number three marketing mistake that I mentioned is not knowing your rate of return on your investment. So that question In terms of general, I tell you it's a three percent But why don't we get to specifics you need to look at your business and how many people you need You're going to have a magic number on what you need Uh to spend in marketing in order to get all your bills paid for that month And then once you do the percentage, that's your magic number But generally speaking, I'd say it's three percent. Otherwise find out how many people you need to come in and buy and um And how many people Are going to contact you from the advertising and how many of those people can you convert If you have an employee who's doing all your sales on your phone and they're not very motivated You're going to need a lot of people to call your phone in order to get just a few sales Because your sales person is not going to be very efficient. Yeah, so that means your advertising budget needs to go up So i'm afraid uh, we're almost out of time now before we conclude I would like to ask each of our panelists. Uh, what would you say is the most important takeaway for our viewers? Jane, I would say the most important takeaway Uh goes back to the three seas of marketing and it's the very very first one You have to be clear about Who you're trying to sell to and what you're trying to market Um, so it all goes back to that core center of why why are you doing what you're doing and why? Why is your product or service more unique than someone else's in the market? Um, so I would really encourage everyone to go watch simon cynic's talk. Um, you can just google uh Simon cynic why um and watch his ted talk on youtube. Uh, I think that's the most important right And then on on my end, I would just say Make sure that Your customer's experience Uh equals or exceeds the promise of your advertising So if you're going to make a promise out there by the time they engage you and purchase your product Make sure that their experience is everything that you Promised or more because their takeaway is going to be the strength of your brand They're either going to love you and talk to you About you to their friends and family or they're going to be disappointed and they'll never come back again So thank you both For joining us today to chat about branding and marketing for startups and a special thanks to everyone viewing today particularly To the hosts of the viewing groups from around the globe for mobilizing your entrepreneurial communities So we had audiences at the centro cultural San pedrano and san Pedro Sula Honduras Binational center cba de las Mercedes in caracas, venezuela Binational center cba del centro in caracas, venezuela national center cvam in merida, venezuela The binational center cvac in valencia venezuela. Wow venezuelans are going strong Cvac in Maracaibo venezuela The american corner ifiza in legeria lecheria venezuela The us embassy in guatemala city guatemala The u.s embassy in san joseco starrica american center, moscow in moscow russia The american center beshek in beshek kyrgyzstan The irc in kegali yuganda American corner baku in baku azerbaijan The irc in tunis tunisia the irc manrovia liberia And we also want to recognize some local organizations concrete in Haiti utek ventures in peru berri tech in lebanon yoner liberia in liberia Our viewing group in cotono venin And the cluster solar in maraco So that wraps up our program for today. Remember to join us for our next tech connect live chat on november 14th A premiere event of global entrepreneurship week We will be chatting with serial entrepreneur mark cuban about marketing yourself to maximize your investment You can celebrate global entrepreneurship week with us by tuning in on the 14th Or joining any number of ge w events which run from november 13th through the 19th Also, please continue to send in questions in the chat and on twitter at hashtag Just tech connect as our panelists will stick around for a few more minutes to answer those questions Now, I hope you enjoyed our discussion today and thanks again for joining us Goodbye