Mastering Marketing Consistency: Strategies for Small Businesses with Kate McQuade, P360

Picture your business's voice echoing with unmistakable clarity across the digital expanse—this is the power of consistency in marketing that Kate McQuade, Senior Director of Marketing at P360, unpacks in the latest Dead Pixels Society podcast conversation with Gary Pageau. With her extensive background, McQuade illustrates why a solid, unified brand message is more than just a good idea; it's a fundamental pillar in carving out a memorable identity in the tech and healthcare sectors. She unravels the basics of marketing, where the durability of your brand's core message intertwines with the threads of creative campaigns that keep your audience captivated when introducing technological innovations.

McQuade reveals the metrics that pave the road to success, from the tangible terrain of sales figures to the abstract vistas of social media engagement. 

The discussion doesn't end at strategy—it continues into the very nexus of marketing operations: data management. She shares insights on CRM systems and integrated POS solutions that make sense of customer trends with the ease of a seasoned sailor charting familiar waters. McQuade also touches on the generational mosaic of consumer behavior, urging an adaptive approach to messaging that resonates whether your audience is loyal Boomers or trendsetting Gen Z. 

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Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:02

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau. The Dead Pixels Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Advertek Printing and Independent Photo Imagers.

Gary Pageau: 0:18

Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. I'm your host, gary Pegeau, and today we're joined by Kate McQuaid, who's the Senior Director of Marketing at P360, and Kate is coming to us from Maryland. Hi, kate, how are you today?

Kate McQuade: 0:32

I'm doing well. How are you, Gary?

Gary Pageau: 0:34

I'm doing great, so can you first tell us a little bit about what the heck a P360 is? It sounds like an exercise dieting program.

Kate McQuade: 0:44

Yeah, P360 is actually a small company. We're based in New Jersey, but we're global and we're a tech company and we cater to the pharma, biotech space, also a little bit of healthcare, and we create engagement. Software is basically what we do.

Gary Pageau: 1:00

So it's not like P90X or anything like that.

Kate McQuade: 1:03

No, no, although they do have a better brand awareness. I think we're just getting started as far as people recognizing who we are.

Gary Pageau: 1:11

Nice, nice. So tell me about your background. How much experience do you have in marketing and what is your passion? Why did you get into this?

Kate McQuade: 1:19

Sure. So I've been in marketing 19 years Actually, this summer I'll cross over that 20-year mark and I've been in marketing in all kinds of capacities in my career and I love it because it's never the same. Marketing, I always say, is a moving target. So what works today didn't work six months ago, and what works today might not work in six months from now. So I love that idea that you're constantly testing things, you're constantly thinking outside the boxes and you can try a lot of really creative things to get your brand out there and to get people to pay attention to you. So that excites me. I'm also specifically been trained in small and medium sized businesses. I've never, for better or for worse, never worked for a giant conglomerate.

Gary Pageau: 2:05

Which is kind of hard to do in the healthcare field.

Kate McQuade: 2:08

It is. It is, which is why, even though I'm in healthcare or in that market, that industry, I've really just been tech-based, so I've worked for companies that are tech-focused and that's really helped me to kind of grow from those small businesses up to those medium-sized businesses, which has been really fun.

Gary Pageau: 2:25

So we're not here really to talk about health, but we are here to talk about marketing. So we're going to talk a lot, because that's what I want to talk to you is kind of, you know, getting sort of a tech-focused market thing, because what I find in, like the photo imaging space, when there is a technology involved, it seems to they get very excited about features and you know this and that, and then it just misses the mark in terms of what consumers are actually. You know, responding to what are some of the ABCs of marketing a feature upgrade, for example from your standpoint.

Kate McQuade: 3:01

So I think the biggest thing to focus on when you're marketing is consistency.

Kate McQuade: 3:06

I really think that you need to be out there and talking about, let's say, as your example, a feature set that's coming. Really talking about that over and over again and having that one voice is what I like to call it. So if you're a team of three people or if you're a team of 30, all of them, if they're standing in line at Starbucks and they're asked what they do, should be saying basically the same thing. They should have that same talk track and it's not a memorization of rote thing but they should have that same couple bullet points that they're talking about.

Kate McQuade: 3:36

Like hey, this new feature set is A, b, c and D. Or hey, that's really cool because we do X, y, z. And hey, that's really cool because we do X, Y, z and having that consistency in what that voice is is huge for people to be able to hear it. They used to say that you would need seven touch points for someone to remember who you are. And that can be an ad. They see, that can be somebody in the line at Starbucks, it can be an email they get, and at the seventh time they're like, oh hey, I remember that company. And now, with everything happening so fast with technology, they actually say that that's closer to 21 touch points.

Gary Pageau: 4:08

Oh, okay, so it's 3X, what it used to be.

Kate McQuade: 4:09

Exactly so. That's because we live in a culture of scrolling on your phones and Instagram messages popping up here and there, and that's mentioned the bombardment of emails. So really differentiating yourself really means having that consistent message and making sure that you're talking about it in the same manner over and over again. And that's consistent for branding too. There's a reason that Coca-Cola has changed their logo very little over the last you know a hundred years it's.

Kate McQuade: 4:36

You know. They might change a font here and there, but they're still red and white. Same with Pepsi still is red, white and blue. They, you know. They just change it slightly. You don't reinvent the wheel unless there's a reason for doing it. Usually that is a legal reason that you need to do it for one reason or another, but you just stay consistent and that's how people remember your branding.

Gary Pageau: 4:55

But you mentioned something earlier though marketing's always changing. So you're you're kind of throwing me a curve ball here with this consistency and always changing thing. So explain that. Because, again, I talk to a lot of marketing people and you know they want to be, they want to get those creative juices going and come up with a crazy tick tock or whatever, and what you're saying is hold the horses on that.

Kate McQuade: 5:21

Well, actually I feel like I'm saying the same thing and what I mean by that is you can be consistent and have the same logo out there. You can have the same branding out there, you could talk about it in the same talk track, but you could do it in different ways. So the emails that used to land that were just text. Maybe those aren't landing for you, so maybe you need to try it with a graphic upfront or a different tagline on it. If TikTok videos where you used to just show somebody you know doing flipping a bottle and that could, like advertise your company because your logo was on the bottle If that's not working anymore, maybe you do a cooking video that can bring that in there. Maybe you have, you know, a different location that you're going to that really grabs their attention, but the messaging at the core is still the same.

Kate McQuade: 6:02

I'm here for you, I've got great customer service, or we've got this great feature set, or whatever that message is should always be the same and be consistent, otherwise people aren't going to remember you.

Gary Pageau: 6:11

Right, because I think one of the things that small businesses in particular right, I mean an entrepreneur startup, a small shop, as opposed to like a more of a corporate environment. You know, they don't really know what their brand is. I mean, they think their logo is their brand, but they don't really know what the community thinks about them and how the community views them. What would be some things someone could do to kind of get a grasp on that?

Kate McQuade: 6:39

So that's actually a great question. I think that actually really dips over into persona-based marketing, right? So what that specifically is is you need to first of all when you're starting out. It's kind of like throwing spaghetti at a wall. You try a lot of different things and see what sticks Right. And once you kind of are out there and talking to people in the Starbucks line and you know writing those emails and seeing what's working and what's not, you can take that data and start to kind of really learn from that and do some self-reflection and business reflection as far as, hey, this is really working for me.

Kate McQuade: 7:10

I need to kind of, you know, pull that thread a little bit more, and this is what's not working for me. You can also start to see those personas Like I'm really getting through to more of the creative types, to the sales and marketing people, and I'm not getting through to the IT people. And why is that? Do I need to change my messaging? Do I need to change the platform that maybe the creative people are more interactive on Instagram instead?

Kate McQuade: 7:32

of like a TikTok, or maybe their IT are more responding to emails than they are on LinkedIn. I mean, you really just need to understand not only the messaging for who the persona is, but you also need to understand the platform and you need to meet them where they are, because not everybody's the same and, quite frankly, when you're advertising or marketing yourself, put yourself in their shoes.

Kate McQuade: 7:55

So people are selfish by nature and they're looking at things like what's in it for me? Is there a sale that's coming for me? Are they going to accommodate me? Do they have a fast turnaround for me? Like, what is that that you can talk to them about? It's not just about, wow, I have these, you know the latest tech. It's really like what are those feature sets that's in it for the other person?

Gary Pageau: 8:38

Because I think you know a lot of people, especially in our industry, the photo industry. You know there's a lot of very established businesses, right, you got a camera store that's been in a community for 40 years and maybe it's passed on to the kids. Or you got a what used to be a one hour photo lab which is now a fully blown like digital printing center with. And sometimes when I, when I talk to those folks, they'll say you know, people kind of pigeonhole us in that old view but I'm doing all this other stuff, you know, and that's where they kind of pigeonhole us in that old view, but I'm doing all this other stuff, you know, and that's where they kind of have to, you know, figure out how to add on to that message and let people know that, hey, you know I'm, I'm doing.

Gary Pageau: 9:16

You know I can make photo t-shirts now. I can do mugs, I can do all these other things. I'm not just, you know, prints and whatnot, not that those aren't wonderful products which we all adore, but you know it's sort of. So that's where I think you know people struggle with. You know it's the 80-20 rule, right, most people are your profits and everything come from the 80% of the business, so they will focus on that. But they want to grow that 20% without losing sight of what brought you to the dance.

Kate McQuade: 9:46

Right yeah, and that's a tricky line to walk on, because if you stay with that 80% and you never grow or never innovate, then you're at a risk of becoming irrelevant at some point. So you really do want to nurture those other expanding parts of your business. But you need to be realistic. You can't dump all of your eggs into that 20% basket. You need to have that balance there. So catering still to that 80%, but making sure that you're talking about that 20% or things that are coming up there's there's definitely a way to do that.

Kate McQuade: 10:16

You just again need to be consistent in your messaging and say, hey, we have all these things. Hey, we can be customizable to you.

Kate McQuade: 10:22

Hey, we can do things that other places can't do, because we can scale with you if you have a giant job or a small job and we can really be there for you, and I think that resonates with a lot of people because, especially since things move so fastly and so quickly in today's world, you see people who really see the benefit of having that time savings, for you know that need for expansion.

Gary Pageau: 10:43

Because I think one of the things with you know, most small businesses now is, unlike you know, maybe 10 years ago, a lot of them, because of technology, can actually compete at a higher level with bigger people. Right, you know you're, for example, coffee shop. Right, they can offer many of the same types of coffee than a national chain can. Right, and very competitively. And you know, they can do the pumpkin spice latte or whatever, whatever the trendy thing is right. So, and in the imaging business it's the same way.

Kate McQuade: 11:20

So you've got this tension of having to, you know, match the big guys but also differentiate yourself Can you talk a little bit about differentiation against, like entrenched players pull on, which is that the what's in it. For me, that kind of adage, when you're talking about yourself and when you're kind of marketing yourself, is really important to look at what those differences are. That stands, that makes you stand out. Are you a faster turnaround Maybe?

Erin Manning: 11:51

do you?

Kate McQuade: 11:52

um are you right next door. So if there's a problem, you have better customer service than them. That's a huge one that people are losing in today's fast-paced world. You know, whatever those pieces are, really kind of even just sitting down and drawing a diagram like the pros and the cons for your business. Have a healthy eye on it. Ask your neighbor to look at it, have some fresh set of eyes, look at it and look at those differentiators and say does this make sense to you? Would this make? Would this make you pay attention to what my offerings are? Then get somebody else's opinion on it. You don't need to go out and hire a consultant for that.

Kate McQuade: 12:24

You can just have somebody you know who's not in the trenches with you and in the weeds and to take a take a fresh look at it and really focusing on those things that make you different and unique can can do wonders for that 20% of your business. Because if they're like, oh wow, not only are they tried and true with my 80% of business and I'll always go to them for this, but maybe I'll try them on this other piece, because that is something different. I didn't know I could do that all in one shop and they can turn it around in a week or whatever it is, and sometimes that's all you need to get that little bit of leg up and get those customer loyalty.

Gary Pageau: 12:58

So how often do you think a typical small business owner should be looking at this? Is this monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, yearly, whenever I'm panicking because my sales are dropping?

Kate McQuade: 13:15

So I think obviously it depends on the company, but really having this as a quarterly reflection I think is very fair and doable. It doesn't mean you have to do a deep dive. Probably annually you do a bigger deep dive, but every quarter you kind of look at it and say, okay, how are things going along, how am I doing with this? What happened with this campaign? What happened with my LinkedIn posts? What are the analytics on that? Did I do a good job with this? And then you can kind of tweak them up and down as you need to. But quarterly I think is doable for most people. If you are entrenched in a tech company, then you're doing it way more often than that and kind of taking a peek at it. But quarterly I think is pretty fair for a small business to look at.

Gary Pageau: 14:01

And what are some of the metrics somebody would look at? For example, you said measuring things. I mean, you know there's a wide variety of metrics for different things. When you're judging marketing, right, I mean if you do a direct mailer, you know if you're a, if you're a snow removal business, for example, and you send out a direct mailer and you get a 2% return, that's awesome.

Kate McQuade: 14:17

Yeah great.

Gary Pageau: 14:18

It's a great return. You're doing great. If you're doing a social media campaign, that's not so great. What are some of the basic rules of thumb? I think would be decent metrics and I want to just pick things. Very obvious things that I think our audience would be using would be things like social YouTube. They are doing some TikTok and short videos and that kind of thing.

Kate McQuade: 14:42

Yeah, so, um, obviously, everybody talks about sales. So what are your sales doing in relation to what you're putting out? Um, and so that's, of course, one metric that's always at the backbone of the things that you look at, um, but I would argue that it's not just your sales or your lead gen but it's also going to be your brand awareness.

Kate McQuade: 15:00

So how much are you out there, how much are you getting those views or clicks or that type of traffic that's going to your website or to form fills and then you to measure those? There's a lot of tools that you pay for. So if you have a CRM that you're keeping track of your customers, and what's a CRM for the people who don't know? Well, what's a CRM for the people who don't know? Well, it's a tool.

Kate McQuade: 15:22

It's a customer relationship tool that you can keep track of. You know who those customers are. So you know Bob Jones came in and they bought, you know, four t-shirts for me and here's their address. And I've noticed that they come in every five months and order three t-shirts for me. So it helps you keep track of them not only their contact information, but a cadence with them.

Gary Pageau: 15:39

It's a great place and a lot of times what's interesting is I didn't mean to interrupt, but just real quick is because I think that's valuable, because some people don't look at their customer traffic that closely. They just look at sales, they don't look at who's doing it. This is often built into your POS system, even.

Kate McQuade: 15:54

Right, right, exactly. Nowadays especially, you know, if you use something like Square or any of those POS systems nowadays, you can keep good track of that or even have them tie into, if you have, you know, a HubSpot or Salesforce or another CRM system. But just kind of keeping track of those and seeing that will help you with the persona base also, because if you start keeping track of your customers that Bob Jones who came in and you know bought those t-shirts every five months, you can start keeping track. Well, hey, I noticed that Bob Jones is in. You know the trucking industry, so maybe if I'm having success with him.

Kate McQuade: 16:29

Maybe that's a target audience that I should start looking at and so you could tailor some of your ads or um or your outreach into that industry so that could help you with um, that front of it.

Kate McQuade: 16:37

Um but there's also free tools. If somebody's not using a CRM, there's, you know, google Analytics that you can put on your website or even tie into your POS, and those can help you to kind of look at your traffic and see, hey, there was a spike on these dates, or I seem to have spikes on the weekends but not during the week. And why is that?

Kate McQuade: 16:54

And you can start taking that data and kind of figuring out. If I'm getting more traffic on the weekends than during the week, then maybe that means that I should be scheduling my post to go out more on the weekends than during the week Cause that's when more people are going to see it, so you can start adjusting what you're doing based on what that data is. So there's no such thing as too much data, just the reverse.

Gary Pageau: 17:15

Well, there is. If you don't know how to, if you don't, if you can't interpret it right, Of course, and you know and and the photography industry that you know it's very much feast or famine, right Cause the fourth quarter is crazy because of all the gifting and all that kind of stuff that happens. You know, people buy cameras for gifts and all that other stuff and then the rest of the year they're trying to fill in the gaps run holidays and you know.

Kate McQuade: 17:42

So I would argue no, but I'm going to tell you why I'm going to tell you no.

Kate McQuade: 17:48

Because, personally, P360 actually has a product that deals with data management.

Kate McQuade: 17:54

So I think if you have data and you're not processing it properly or you don't know what to do with it, then you end up with something that they call siloed data. So you have, you know, say, you're getting your T-shirt sales here, you're getting your traffic here, and they're not talking to each other, and then that is considered too much data because it's useless, you're not doing anything with it, it doesn't mean anything. But there's so many tools nowadays that you can take that data and actually make it make sense. You can say, you can correlate a sale from somebody who was on your website and you can figure out how long they were there or they came from a LinkedIn ad that you posted. And you can start connecting those dots behind the scenes and really get some insights about where your marketing is working and where your brand awareness is landing not only those personas, but also where your efforts are making sense. And then you can, you know, kind of pull that thread a little bit more and put some more effort into that, that bucket.

Gary Pageau: 18:45

Okay, cause that's one of the things I think where you know, because people are awash in data, right, I mean I'm thinking of the person who's you know they're coming into their, their you know photo lab and it's they've got six employees and the fit. The one of them didn't show up today and you know, and the other one called in sick and and the printer's out of paper and this vendor. So I mean you're putting out fires a lot during the day, right, so you know I could see where someone would have to have a challenge with this. Are there a lot? And when you said about, when you talk about tools, are there reasonable tools? Or someone could just like lump this into a dashboard to look at this kind of stuff to always get an idea of what they should be looking at.

Kate McQuade: 19:29

Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. There's a lot of tools out there and if somebody is just starting out a small business, Google has free access and tools for you to use to take that data and to put it into a dashboard.

Kate McQuade: 19:41

So I mean, the first thing you do is even just Google Analytics helps you to kind of figure out traffic and flow and thankfully there's a lot of free sources online that you can learn how to use it and learn how to digest that data. If you are growing your business and you're getting to be larger and you need something more, there's a lot of tools out there to evaluate. You know what you need to do and make it talk to each other. The biggest, the largest thing about data that you need to remember is that bad data goes in and bad data comes out, or good data goes in and good data comes out. So when you're looking for a data solution, you really want to make sure that there's something in there that's going to help clean that data, going to make sure that it's up to date, make sure that there's, you know, get rid of duplicates.

Kate McQuade: 20:23

There's some sort of cleaning mechanism inside your data programs that you know what you're using is valuable. So, like in the same the example I made, that Bob Jones, who's buying t-shirts if you have the wrong email address to him and his email keeps bouncing every time that you're trying to send him. You know, a sale that you're having on t-shirts, then it's kind of useless, right? That's bad data. So you want to know that the next time he places an order you want to say hey, bob, thank you so much for your order. I just want to confirm the email address we have on file here so you can clean that up and you can make sure that it makes sense and can be useful in the future.

Gary Pageau: 20:56

And a typical organization. Who should have access to that? Should it just be the owner, or who should be looking at the data?

Kate McQuade: 21:07

So that's a trick question. So you know there's always a fear of there's too many chefs in the kitchen, right? So say you have an organization of 20 people. You don't want all 20 people going in there and changing things and messing up somebody else. That's the fear. So thankfully, with a lot of these tools and actually every single one that I know about, with data not just from P360, but even Google you can have different permissions so that the owners or a CEO or somebody who's running it or somebody who's head of data they can have the highest access and they can change anything they want.

Kate McQuade: 21:38

And then maybe there's other people but they can't delete anything out, so hopefully they can only do minimal damage as far as anything that's in there.

Gary Pageau: 21:53

Hopefully they're inputting it correctly, right?

Kate McQuade: 21:55

Correct, correct. So you kind of want that, a little bit of hierarchy, so that not all 20 people in this example are trying to do something in a different manner. Example are trying to do something in a different manner. But also, along with that is when you do implement something to do with your data, or even a CRM, if you're using data for just that facet, you want to make sure that there's some sort of internal, you know good best practices, like, hey, when I get a new customer and you know Susie Q is coming in to buy a t-shirt, this is my normal thing that I do. I do an intake form or something and I'm going to get her basic information and I'm going to put it into this specific place in the CRM.

Kate McQuade: 22:31

And as long as everybody else in the company knows what that best practices is, then usually things flow by pretty smoothly. It's just when you start getting a little bit more complicated in marketing automations it can get a little bit a little hairy in there if you have too many chefs in the kitchen and you don't want to do like a sit down interview with every customer right, Give me your home address your mother's maiden name, and I mean you can get by.

Gary Pageau: 22:53

I'm thinking of like a POS type environment, right, where, if you can, come in someone's transacting over the counter they bought you know a photo, mug or something and say, hey, can you sign, can we sign you up for our newsletter? Boom, and you input in the newsletter and you make sure you got their phone because, hey, we want to call you next time your order's ready. We want to make sure your phone number's correct. So these are all natural ways to get the data without conducting a full-blown marketing thing, because, again, you don't need to know everything.

Kate McQuade: 23:21

Right, right, exactly. And then another good thing to note, too, is that you know when people want to hear from you various based on the person and that it's not just a persona based marketing. This is just people in life, because their life gets busy, so you always want to give them an opportunity to opt out of any of those emails, if they're getting them too often, so you want to make sure that you're respecting those boundaries.

Kate McQuade: 23:45

We don't quite have as strict rules here in the U? S as they do in Europe with GDPR, but they have a lot of very strict opt in, opt out rules. But we still have them here too, if you're doing the steady marketing in there.

Gary Pageau: 23:56

Yeah, cause that's. That's one of the things I mean. You definitely want to maintain contact, but you know, you and I have all been on you know lists where, oh goodness, do I need to hear from them three times a week?

Kate McQuade: 24:07

Yeah or more. Or sometimes you know you hear from every day and you're like I don't need tips about my gutter cleaning every single day. Like I don't, it's just too much, so I'm going to opt out of that one right now, right Exactly.

Kate McQuade: 24:30

But I think there is sort of a belief that you know, send them an email, you know whatever, and it's just like well, no, you want to be effective, Exactly, Exactly. And I think that's the trick, too is kind of figuring out what, what is getting your message out there and what is being effective without bombarding them. Because you know, even though this 21 number sounds giant for a touch point, but it doesn't mean that you send them 21 emails. That means that you're showing up on their, their social media, that means maybe there's an advertisement that goes to their house. I mean, there's all different ways to actually have those touchpoints there.

Gary Pageau: 24:53

Yeah, I mean they may see your. You know, if you've got a banner outside your store, drive past it. That's a touchpoint too right.

Kate McQuade: 25:01

Right, exactly.

Gary Pageau: 25:01

Yeah. So there's all kinds of ways to skin that cat. Now, the other thing that's a challenge is in consumer marketing. You've got different markets Right. So, for example, in photography, you know there's a lot of people who are, you know, traditional, you know boomer types, if you will. And then there's the millennials who have the kids and they want stuff. And then you got the whole Gen Z thing happening now, where they're shooting film.

Kate McQuade: 25:27

Yeah.

Gary Pageau: 25:28

And processing film. They're like the big film users. Are these Gen Z's and early and late millennials Right? You know you can't talk the same way to all these people, so that's a challenge too.

Kate McQuade: 25:49

Yeah, well, yeah and I think that's kind been that have come out about buying habits and spending trends and, specifically, when you talk about the boomer generation, they are very big on loyalty. So they are very huge on I know you, I know this company ABC and I love that company ABC and they've always been good to me and they are going to be loyal. I love that company ABC and they've always been good to me and they are going to be loyal. Even when there's a hiccup, even if their prices spike slightly, they're going to be very loyal to a specific brand that they know and trust. So that is that market. So that's really that consistency.

Kate McQuade: 26:21

You know me, that type of language in there, a millennial, is a little bit different. They are more influenced on influencer marketing. So somebody told them or they see those ads on social media and they're going to be influenced on those. So that's a little bit slightly different. That's not really trustworthy to a specific person. They know it could be somebody more in an ad based and Gen Z those are they're actually pretty cost conscious when it comes down to it. So they are starting to be more and more effective, as if there's a sale on something and somebody told them that, hey, there's a promotion that they can get, or it's a buy one, get one free, or there's a 5% discount if they're going to give somebody a referral.

Kate McQuade: 27:00

So you're starting to see these little shifts in marketing that if you're paying attention to who your audience base is, you can start catering your your talk.

Gary Pageau: 27:08

Well, that's interesting, so you know, because I've heard different things with different people where again they're, you know, let's say, they've inherited their parents' camera store and they're running it and they're maybe, you know, late millennial or boomer or something like that, and they delegate kind of some of this social stuff to the younger members of the staff. Right, Right, but you still have to provide a framework for that person. Like, going back to our original discussion point consistency, right, Right. So do you have any advice for people who are in that situation to try and keep the youth of today on track when it comes to the marketing message? Because I think they may see something on a Tik TOK or you know video, YouTube short or something, and they want to do it like that, but they may not. That may not be consistent with the brand.

Kate McQuade: 28:01

Yeah, so an exercise that I do for every company that I have worked for, um is to create a brand guidelines. So what this is is it doesn't have to be overly complicated, it can be. You know, for our p360 it's we always use that purple um. This is the way that that it looks. This is how you put the p in front of the. It's simple like that. Um the font that you can use um inside documents, that official documents, um.

Gary Pageau: 28:25

So things like that, I think, are important but I think nowadays also, like language and appearance are important too.

Kate McQuade: 28:32

Agreed, agreed. So part of that that concept of having a brand that you follow and having that those brand guidelines is there's also a description in there, so that description of what P360 is or what our products are, those we revisit those every so often. And so if you talk to the people in your company in this example, let's say, it's the 20 person company we mentioned earlier If you talk to every person and ask them hey, describe our company, what does it mean to you? I'm in line at Starbucks and somebody asks you what that is, what, what, what would you say? You collect that data and you say, ok, everybody said these three bullet points, but this one is way off. We need to stop saying that.

Kate McQuade: 29:10

And then you can create this kind of basically an internal cheat sheet to give to your employees. I think that that's really valuable, because then everybody would hopefully be saying very similar things when you're talking to them and having that consistent message, which is what you want.

Gary Pageau: 29:24

Yeah, you know, I can see that. I constantly see where you might get some pushback from folks who are like you know. You know maybe they're not a fit for your company or to be talking about your company in public right, If they're not willing to go buy that, because that's really part of the job. But with, specifically, some younger folks who are influenced by influencers, right, they're used to that sort of authenticity where maybe dropping an F-bomb is cool and edgy and commonplace but not appropriate for Bob's camera.

Kate McQuade: 29:56

Right, exactly, and actually part of that exercise to kind of learn what your brand identity is and how you talk about your brand. You need to make a decision about how you're going to handle your marketing. So for us personally, we only talk positively, like if we have a direct competitor and we we're not going to say, oh, they're, they're not good and we're great. We're going to say we're great it might.

Kate McQuade: 30:20

It might be the case, but we're not going to say that from a marketing standpoint because it's not who we are as an identity. So Bob's camera shop would have to understand who they are and maybe they're they're in a position where they can have those kind of cheeky. You know, maybe they're a little bit more edgy in the way that they do their marketing. That is a decision that should be made behind the scenes and then you can present that to the world and your social and your outreach and your emails if you, if you take that edge. But it's really a tone and tenor question about how you're going to brand yourself.

Gary Pageau: 30:48

Right. So, cause it's cause you want to have that consistency right, cause that's where I, you know, I've heard a couple of cases where you know, people are at a conference and we're saying, oh, we did, we had a TikTok and it was great. So we got a ton of views and it was great. And so somebody goes back home and says, well, I'm going to do some TikToks then. And they, let you know, the person behind the counter do some TikToks, but it may not be brand appropriate.

Kate McQuade: 31:12

Right, right, exactly so. You know that kind of circles back to the same thing we're talking about, which is, you know you really need to understand who your audience is and who that persona is. So if, if, maybe, that TikTok that you're talking about, maybe that really is there they can sink in with what their brand identity is. But sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't.

Gary Pageau: 31:32

Yeah.

Kate McQuade: 31:32

So I mean, if you're going to do that plan, to do that I guess Right, right, and have some transparency inside your company so that you know at the end of the day, you know whoever owns the company really should be making those decisions about. Okay, let's move a little more edgy or let's be a little more conservative or just kind of understanding what that market is and being respectful of that, I think is important.

Gary Pageau: 31:50

Because planning and marketing is key. Well listen, kate, it's been great talking to you. Where can people go for more information on you and P360?

Kate McQuade: 32:01

Sure, I mean you can find us on all social media, especially LinkedIn. Our website's wwwp360.com, nice and easy.

Gary Pageau: 32:10

Well, that sounds great. Listen, Kate, it was great to meet you. I appreciate the advice. I love the consistency message.

Kate McQuade: 32:19

That was awesome and you have a great week Thanks.

Erin Manning: 32:20

Great. Thank you so much, Gary, for having me. Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.