GET BREWED ON BRANDING | EAST AUSTIN COFFEE

Nov 23

BRANDING + MARKETING

Coffees in hand, an engaged group of business owners and leaders gathered for DeLea Becker’s Bi-weekly East Austin Coffee to Get Brewed on Branding by branding expert Megan Coffey, founder of Coffey Fully Brewed Brand Development and co-host Beth Coffey.

IN TWO ENGAGING HOURS, HERE’S WHAT WE TOUCHED ON:

What a brand is and isn’t.
When to rebrand.
How to rebrand without sacrificing business growth and revenue goals.
And a few pitfalls to avoid along the way.

About **DeLea BeckeR**

While not formally trained in branding, DeLea Becker has built a formidable name in East Austin's commercial real estate sector through a decade of strategic marketing.
As the founder and owner of Beck-Reit Commercial Real Estate, she commands a team of seasoned brokers who are experts in leasing and sales. DeLea's portfolio is nothing short of impressive, boasting seven commercial real estate investment properties & three commercial developments underway.
She is not just a calculated businesswoman; she's a community builder and a zealous advocate for growth. Soon, she'll be channeling her extensive expertise into an upcoming YouTube podcast series focused on the ins and outs of growing, maintaining, and deploying wealth.

About Beth Coffey

Dancin Austin, proudly founded by Beth Coffey, Texas' Two-Step Ambassador of Dance, has been in marketing and business development in Austin for over two decades and recently joined Chicago Title as the AVP of Business Development.

About Megan Coffey
Megan has been brewing bold brands for over 20 years; clients like Amazon, Nestlé Waters, and UPS benefited from her keen ability to capture and express a company's story memorably. The launch of Coffey Brand Development has enabled Megan to offer her expertise to ambitious brands achieving rapid growth and selective Texas Gems like co-host Beth Coffey's brand, Dancin Austin.

5 Bold Takeaways:

Say it with me: branding is critical to business success.

It's why YOUR customers care about you, your service, your product, your stories. But so many companies, especially those in high growth, overlook this.

They have a logo and think they have a brand. Nope. A brand is more than visuals. It is about message and perception.
They’re running paid media and search ads without a clear target audience. Awesome, if you’re okay throwing money away.
They have a website slapped together with SEO best practices, but it does not reflect the brand's core messaging and speaks in a generic tone.

In its simplest form, the foundation of your brand should be summarized in 5 sentences

WHO you are (This is the type of company you are.)
WHAT you do (This is a high-level view of your services or products.)
For WHOM you do it (This identifies your target audience or customer base.)
…WHERE (This isn't just about geographical location; it can also refer to the industry or niche you operate in. It should be specific enough to be meaningful but broad enough not to be limiting.)
And most importantly, WHY (This is why your business exists beyond just making money. It's what sets you apart.)
This is referred to as your brand’s positioning. It starts as words on a page. It will become THE guide to shaping every aspect of your brand. Crafting these statements clearly and authentically will set your brand up for success. It's easy to know what you do, but WHY you do it in a way that resonates with customers is the key. Your WHY is often the most challenging but crucial to convey. This is why you hire a brand expert.

PITFALL: Don’t hire a logo designer to build your brand. They will make you a beautiful mark but don’t have the right experience to define the foundation of your brand.
REMINDER
Don’t end up looking and sounding like your competitors. Before beginning a rebrand, always observe your industry and market landscape. Take note of trends, visuals (colors, logos, fonts), and messaging. Read company about pages, SEO descriptions, and social profiles. Look across channels. Leverage data if you have it. Research if you can afford it. You’ll quickly understand how to stand out and what to avoid.

Rebranding your business should not sacrifice business growth and revenue goals.

Many business owners and growing companies need help with a brand they bought or built their business upon. One day, they look around and realize — what their brand is saying and showing no longer reflects where they want their business to go. This is a defining moment, an exciting moment. After you awkwardly pat yourself on the back, remember this — you MUST hire a brand expert who knows how to fly your plane while renovating its parts. A brand expert knows how to parallel path your objectives. They know how to think big picture yet plan for multi-channel execution. They understand teams, tools, and technology contribute (sometimes limiting) factors in execution. They know there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

PITFALL: A brand foundation is meaningless unless it is put into action. Make sure the brand you are building can be successfully implemented inside your business by your people.

A reel is not a marketing strategy.

So many brands jump on trends and channels. When you’re big and have the budget (and time) to play, more power to you. But for growth-minded business owners looking for high impact, these shiny tactics can derail your team's focus.

PITFALL: Much energy and business momentum can be wasted chasing a new format or channel. Even worse, it’s likely to confuse your audiences. Don’t buy into tactical distractions unless Ryan Reynolds tells you to.

Vendor hand-offs can wreak havoc on a brand.

You built your brand! You started with your foundation and went on to define your brand identity, messaging, and personality. Maybe you hired a brand expert who can take you to market, too (Coffey can), but often, you’re planning to onboard another team, an agency, an internal hire, a dev shop, etc. This is where all that hard brand-building work can crumble if you do not have a strategically built brand playbook. Think about the countless emails, working sessions, and conversations you’ve had with your brand-building team; if that is not crystalized in a useable, sharable document, you risk slowly eroding the brand, you just spent valuable resources and dollars building.

PITFALL: Don’t hand off your brand to a new vendor (or employee) without a strategic brand playbook. Remember, this is more than colors and fonts. This is your brand — your story, your identity, your personality, your system.

BONUS!

Biz cards with varnish and coatings smell better and feel better! Loving coined during the gathering as the “Sommelier of Print Marketing,” Coffey revealed her quirky obsession for smelling printed materials, in this case, business cards. Spraying fragrance on a business card is likely taking things too far, but choosing a soft touch® or spot UV coating when it makes sense for your brand, sure is appreciated. Note: Moo was the online vendor of choice for business card printing — most appreciated for their quality and trusted card thickness.

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