The Zoomers to Boomers Business Show

Unlocking Revenue Growth via Brand Consistency for Home Businesses

• Hank Eder / Scott Humphries

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Ever wondered how to turn your home business website into a true revenue generator? Join us as we sit down with Scott Humphries, founder of Right Path Marketing, who shares his expert insights on achieving impeccable brand consistency and messaging. Scott uncovers the common pitfalls of brand inconsistency that many businesses face, from fluctuating tones across different platforms to the confusion it causes among customers. Learn how a unified brand voice and visual identity can build authenticity and trust, and discover the ripple effects it has on search engine optimization. This episode sets the stage for a deeper dive into how brand consistency can enhance your SEO in our next conversation.

Beyond logos, we'll explore the emotional connections that truly resonate with your audience. Scott explains how elements like color, typography, and carefully crafted messaging can elevate your brand, creating a compelling narrative that addresses customer needs and pain points. Highlighting the often-overlooked synergy between marketing and sales, we discuss how consistent and aligned messaging can transform a warm audience into loyal customers. Plus, we touch on the cautious use of AI to generate authentic social media content that reflects your brand's voice. Don’t miss out on these practical tips and strategies to ensure your home business stands out in a crowded market.

Website: https://therightpathmarketing.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RightPathMA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therightpathmarketing/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottahumphries/ 

Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.

Hank:

Welcome to the Home Business Success Show. Join us as we speak to home business entrepreneurs for tips, tricks, do's and even don'ts for running a successful home business.

Hank:

Welcome everyone. I'm Hank Eder, also known as Hank the PR Guy, host of the Home Business Success Show, and you're listening to bizradious all entrepreneurs all the time. Our guest today, Scott Humphries, owns the Right Path Marketing, a strategic digital marketing agency in the greater Boston area. Marketing agency in the greater Boston area. This agency assists trade and service providers in increasing sales by focusing on effective messaging. After observing that companies that focus their marketing purely on their marketing aesthetics, like logos and design, often struggle to meet their sales goals, scott founded the Right Path Marketing in 2022 and now steers brands toward sales success through a messaging-first strategy in digital marketing services. My interview with Scott will be done across two shows, because when two marketing guys get together, there's always a lot to talk about. In this first show, we'll discuss brand consistency and messaging. Targeted brand messaging is the guide that serves as a compass to bring new leads to your website and convert them into customers. Welcome to the show, scott, thank you.

Scott:

Can I call you MC Biz Boomer here, or do I have to go by Hank, the PR guy on the show?

Hank:

You could call me whatever you like, as long as it's PG rated and you don't call me late for lunch. I think most of my listeners know who MC Biz Boomer is. Yeah, if they don't, I'll explain it another time.

Scott:

Who doesn't nowadays?

Hank:

Yeah, who doesn't? It's in demand. So if you would please tell us a bit about what it is that you do, Sure.

Scott:

So I think you covered it pretty well in that intro that you gave me. So thank you for that. But yeah, I own the Right Path Marketing. We're based in New England. We help businesses turn their website into a revenue generating asset. So what really differentiates us from a lot of other players is that we really start with the messaging first. We really want to get clear on what that business's brand is all about, what their unique selling position, what their voice is, and then we craft all the copy for the site and build a custom design around it. So and in addition to website you know design and development we do also some monthly services as well to help generate the traffic. Now they have this great website that can convert for them, so we look to help them with paid advertising and with local search as well. So, as you pointed out, we work in the service area space with businesses in the trades and other small businesses here, not just in New England, but also across the United States.

Hank:

Right, that's an interesting thing, because we do like to try to focus on our local service area, but also we're in a world now where we could do this for really anybody.

Scott:

We could. It's interesting. There are certainly some folks that love to sit down and know that the person they're dealing with is nearby, and then there's others that are very comfortable in the space that we're operating in right now. Right, they just find it convenient to get on their computer and do a virtual meeting like we're doing right now. So I think it's interesting. I have a nice sort of split of clients, some very local here and then some over three time zones. So hey, I'll take it.

Hank:

I have them across all those time zones. I'm looking for some in Europe, but I haven't scored that yet. Yeah, I am the same.

Scott:

I have a couple of companies over there that I'm looking for some in Europe, but I haven't scored that yet. Yeah, I am the same. I have a couple of companies over there that I'm talking to, but those would be new feathers in the cap, we hear a lot of talk about brand consistency.

Hank:

What is brand consistency and why is it important for businesses?

Scott:

Well, hank, if you know me to be a kind of a jovial, fun-spirited guy, but you know your cousin I bumped into your cousin at the hardware store and I was in a grumpy, serious mood.

Scott:

That would be brand inconsistency right there, because he would have a whole different take on me than what you would. You see it a lot right. It's a very common thing for businesses, for their different social platforms and their website, to have very different messaging, very different branding on them. So, pulling that all together, having that similar voice without copying and pasting the exact same stuff onto each of those platforms, because they have all the different requirements, and then, of course, with the visuals as well, having the same guidelines apply to how they use their logos and their colors and their typography in different places you really want to create that strong, consistent brand footprint across multiple platforms for a variety of reasons, not just the impression you leave on your customers, but there are some components of that as well that factor into them, getting found through search too, too, which we can talk about, but that's a whole nother tangent.

Hank:

Right, I think that we're going to get into that. In part two of the show, we're going to talk about some of the more lesser known, the more lesser known, some of the lesser known aspects of SEO and things that people really ought to know. Yeah, so, brand consistency you want to present that same face. You want to have the same message. You want to be authentic, because if you're trying to be different things for different platforms, some of it's going to come across as phony and people can see through that a mile away.

Scott:

And if you don't lay the right foundation down with some kind of guidelines and that's something that we work with our clients a lot on brand messaging, getting sort of their foundation, their constitution for how they present themselves, different words that they use, what their unique selling position is, all these factors that they pull together, so now when they write something on a different platform, they have sort of this thing that they can look at and say, yeah, let me make sure I stick within these guard rails to make sure my brand's consistent.

Hank:

That makes a whole lot of sense. You know, speaking of branding, when I engage people in discussions about branding, quite often I get from them but I already have a logo.

Scott:

Well then, why would you do anything, right? Yeah, that's not. I hear you there and that's what you said earlier. It's the focus is on the sexier things, the visuals, right, and that's certainly important. But if you don't have a concept behind it and that doesn't and if that concept doesn't resonate in all the different ways you communicate, then it's really hard to stay consistent because you might put something different in a different space. You know different. I might you know, if I went to my LinkedIn page and wrote a description at you know at 5am and then did another description on my Facebook at nine o'clock at night, I think I'd be in a different mood and that might reflect if I'm not sticking to my guidelines.

Hank:

Right, so you have to have those guidelines Now. Branding is a lot more than a logo, and what are some of the components that you think make up a business's brand?

Scott:

A brand to me is really what's the emotion you feel, right, when you see it, when you hear it and of course, all the well-known brands bring out a certain feeling, right? So, and what gives you that feeling is sort of how they present themselves. Some of it's with the colors and typography and some of it's, and a really big part of it, is how they craft their words. So when you read them, if you're the ideal person to match up with them, they really resonate. They really resonate with you. So it's making that emotional connection with your right buyers. It's making that emotional connection with your right buyers.

Hank:

Yeah, because that emotional connection is what drives most buying decisions for customers. You know so many people that I come across. They want to put front and center this gigantic picture of themselves and a towering monument to their ego, with all of their degrees and certification.

Scott:

Oh, right, right yeah.

Hank:

Yeah, on their website and then all their processes, all their features, without really getting into benefits, without getting into who is their ideal target customer and what are the pain points, what are the needs of that customer. So if you don't do that, you're not going to make that emotional appeal.

Scott:

I agree. I think that it's a very common mistake. As a potential consumer, when I go to a business's website, I want to find out what's in it for me, whether it's a pain point or it's something that like some hidden gap that's going to help my business grow. And they're really oh yeah, so right If you're just simply telling me what your, you know, your credentials are or how many years your business has been open, you know, I mean, you see a lot of the family run businesses say we're family run. That that gives you a little bit of a brand, but it's still kind of puts you in a larger bucket. Right, the companies that stand out have the more unique brands and those are the ones that convert more of those people perusing through their marketing and convert those into actual buyers of what they offer. That's a fact.

Hank:

Right. So the way that branding plays into messaging and content is really, then, to take that consistency and drive it right to the ones that you're trying to reach the most through. Like you mentioned, a gap of some kind, something that they're missing, that you're going to fill in Right or and for our audience I just want to say that pain points they've heard this before on my show, but pain points are really just the problems that your ideal target market has. If there's something that's keeping them awake at night and you can solve that for them, you're solving their pain point and that helps to drive conversions, or at least it helps to get them to go further than just looking at your website. They'll probably reach out and ask more about it.

Scott:

Yeah, I mean you want to create a couple of different invoke, a couple of different emotions, right. So you're talking about the pain point, right, and so getting away from that pain and kind of future, seeing yourself in a better position, is sort of how we want to craft, whether it's website messaging or copy in different areas. I would also say they might not know what their pain point is, but they know what the outcome they want is right, and so kind of sharing with them what it is that they want to be right. I mean you want to Hank, probably be a PR firm with some multiple of your business that you have right now. That's something for you to be right. I mean you want to Hank probably be a PR firm with some multiple of your business that you have right now.

Hank:

That's something for you to say, yeah.

Scott:

Yeah, so how am I, you know? So then you want to kind of say, okay, well, tell me more, right. And then that's where you kind of get in sort of like the points of like, we'll take this, we'll do this process with you. These are sort of the journey you'll be on, and that's very key in the messaging too, right. You want to kind of take that reader on a journey and, you know, give them a future vision and then tell them how you're going to fill that gap for them.

Hank:

I think that's very important because you're really making a contrast. I think even you lead with the ideal. You know, like the Garden of Eden, you know they'd be in paradise, and then you bring them back to where they feel they are right now and how you can lead them on that journey to get to that place that they really want to go.

Scott:

Let me spin a question back at you.

Hank:

Sure.

Scott:

What would you say is the difference between marketing and sales?

Hank:

Marketing and sales. Okay, Well, to me, marketing is when you put information out there that draws people to you, Whereas sales you actually have to get on with somebody. Make a pitch and make a sale.

Hank:

And you know, the reality of it is that all of us who are entrepreneurs basically are our sales. You know we do sales, we have to do sales, but it becomes so much easier when we're doing the right marketing. That's drawing the right target customers to us, because they're a very warm audience. If someone calls you or someone gets on your calendar, that's a very warm audience. There's something that they want and if you can then zoom in on that, you've got a customer.

Scott:

And if you're, you know, if you're doing this sales, don't you need sort of the marketing behind like they pull? They've been drawn to you through some marketing right and then you have the supporting marketing information. Wouldn't it be a lot easier sale if everything's aligned?

Hank:

That is correct, because they already know what it is that we do and they know what they want, and as long as they can make that connection between what they want and what we do and how we could be their guide to get them there, I think that makes the sale so much easier. It's almost a given in many cases.

Scott:

And so if you're selling something right and your website and your marketing doesn't do enough work to kind of differentiate you from all the other type of businesses that do what you do, it doesn't make the sale impossible because it is a person-to-person type of exchange at that point too, but there's still a gap there, right? I mean, what makes you different than everyone else in the industry? Well, you need to have talking points, and a lot of that is embedded in your marketing.

Hank:

True, true. I think that that goes back to consistency of messaging, because if your marketing has that message and then your sales, your sales pitch, has that same message and again it reaches out to just what the customer needs, I think then all the factors come together to make it a whole lot more likely that you're going to convert this inquiry into an actual customer.

Scott:

Would you agree, too, that someone who picks up the phone in your office is when they answer it? That's marketing too.

Hank:

Would I agree that that's marketing? Well, that is I'm trying to recall that could be order fulfillment. But when they answer that is I'm trying to recall that could be order fulfillment.

Scott:

But when they answer that call right hey, you've reached XYZ business, how can I help you? And they're in that sort of tone that is consistent with the company and that's you know that's important right. You talk about company values. Oftentimes it's embedded in a company's marketing right. You see on their website what their values are.

Hank:

So that's definitely important, too, when we talk to clients about their brand messaging. Now, I do have to agree with you wholeheartedly, in fact, you know.

Scott:

You should have been a lawyer.

Hank:

There you go. You know your company's culture has to be such that, yeah, whoever answers the phone has been trained on how to present that branded image. I have certain requirements that I like in. So much is that I don't like if someone's calling the phone, I don't like it to ring more than three times. I like to pick it up within three rings and make that person understand that I really do care about why they're calling and what they need. Yeah, so that is marketing as well, and that goes back again to brand consistency.

Scott:

Brand consistency, sticking to the vision, sticking to the tone. Exactly, it resonates across every way you interact with people.

Hank:

Yeah, well, we know that customers buying decisions we mentioned a few minutes ago are based upon emotion. You know you don't want to come right out and make somebody cry. I mean, you know their emotions, of course. I know you've told me 80 million times not to exaggerate, so that'd be well, you know? Yeah, well, no, I'm just being facetious.

Scott:

I mean, I'm getting old, I might forget things.

Hank:

No, I'm exaggerating by saying 80 million times. There you go. So yeah, but are there some subtle ways that we can appeal to those emotions without having to come right out crashing into their pain point?

Scott:

Yeah, that's a great question. I think you often hear marketers talk about how only 5% of your market is in its buying phase right now, and so that's where brand awareness comes in, and to me that's a little bit more subtle, right. You're kind of staying on their radar screen and you're building a bit of a vision, and so, yeah, that's how I kind of spitball my answer based on what you asked me there.

Hank:

There you go. The one thing I do recommend to people as far as branding across social media is to be careful about what goes out on social media and to make it value, not value.

Hank:

Yeah, give it massive value so that when you post things, your audience is learning from you and you're sharing things. You know there really are no trade secrets. You know you're not jealously guarding trade secrets, but you're sharing this information that is making the customer realize not only that you know your stuff, but it engages them and gives them more than they had going in.

Scott:

So when that Can I just take two seconds and ask AI to put something out there that's relevant, so I can get my daily post?

Hank:

done. That's a double-edged sword there. No, you really can't just take two seconds and use AI for that. Ai has its purpose. I mean, I don't totally eschew I love that word I don't totally eschew AI, but AI for me is a jumping off point. If I need six bullet points on something I want to talk about, I'll ask AI for that. But then I'll look at those bullet points and I'll make sure that what I'm putting out there is, in my own words, right. It's authentic to me and my brand. I think that people can spot AI a mile away if they just know a few of the signals.

Scott:

Sure, sure. I think what it's done is it's made, I think I heard I don't know who the person was, so if you're out there, I'm not trying to steal from you but what AI is is in terms of like copying content. I mean, there's a lot of uses for it and it actually can, you know, reduce processes quite a bit, which is, I think, great for businesses. But what it's done is it's made mediocre copy or good copy. I'll say good, decent to good copy. A big commodity, now right, and so to really stand out, that's where your human brain needs to come in and that's where you add the value to what you do. Now, I think it's going to continue to get better, the AI, and I think the real skill is knowing how to ask it things, knowing how to prompt it to get what you want. That is sort of the new skill, I believe.

Hank:

Right. The other thing I will say, too, about the messages that we put out if they don't have value, are the ones who just have a buy, buy, buy, buy message. Every time you see a message from them, it's like my product is the greatest, come out and buy it, you know, you'll smell better, you'll have lots of girlfriends, that kind of thing, and people get really tired of that very quickly. You know, the time is just flying by for part one. Yeah, I've had such a good time that it's just really flown by.

Scott:

So I'd like to ask, I'd say we do this again.

Hank:

Yeah, we're going to do it for one more show and we're going to talk about some of the hidden secrets of SEO. But, that being said, how can our what's SEO? Silly enneagrams often? Yeah, yeah, there you go. That being said, tell our listeners the best way to get in touch with you.

Scott:

Sure, so I would go to therightpathmarketingcom. All my contact information is there. You can grab time on my calendar if you want a complimentary consultation or fill out my contact form. And I'm across all the socials too. But if you go to the website you'll find all the all the icons where you can check us, check us out in any way that you please.

Hank:

All the icons and more. Thanks for being here with us today, Scott.

Scott:

And to our icons. It's great to be with you.

Hank:

Yeah, there you go To our listeners. Don't miss part two of this interview with Scott Humphreys next Wednesday on the Home Business Success Show right here on bizradious. Remember you can achieve success, freedom and independence in your own home business. I've done it, scott has done it. You can too. Until next week. This is Hank Eder, wishing all of you a fabulous day of home business success.