041. Branding, Marketing & Messaging Walk Into a Bar, with Emelie Sanders

Branding, marketing, and messaging walk into a bar… and this whole episode turned out to be the punchline.

‘Cause if you’ve been spiralling down the “Do I need a rebrand? Do I need more marketing? Or is my messaging just… bleh?” rabbit hole, me & Emelie Sanders, aka Head Honcho of Pass The Queso, are here to explain who’s responsible for what… and probably tell you to get over yourself (sorry not sorry).

We hear all these terms thrown around the oNLine sPaCe, like everyone’s got a marketing degree tucked behind their Canva templates.

The reality is we’re all just winging it. And even if we do know what they mean, we rarely stop and ask ourselves:

“How do I make branding, messaging & marketing work together to grow my business?”

Ironically, this isn’t really an episode about copy (although yes, we do talk about sales pages & emails, and how to tell if your words are doing their job).

But the conversation got wayyy bigger, since we found ourselves coming back to clarity.

The point isn’t to sound clear OR clever. It’s to be relevant to those who matter, so you can get paid.

SPOTLIGHT MOMENTS

✦ Branding vs. Marketing vs. Messaging (vs. positioning too) finally explained

✦ Why “your theme is YOU” sounds cliché but it’s actually just about self-trust & self-awareness

✦ How going back to your foundations, strategy & messaging strengthens your brand

✦ What “good” sales copy actually looks like: relevance > pretty words

✦ Humour in your brand voice without forcing it (includes fart analogy)

✦ When to write copy yourself, when to outsource & when co-creation matters

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Mentioned in this episode:

✦ “ZAG: The #1 One Strategy of High-Performance Brands”, by Marty Neumeier

✦ STAND UP COPY: Cut your copywriting time in half — without sacrificing conversion.

✦ PRODUCTISE YOUR NEWSLETTER: Skip the freebies and position your newsletter for list growth with the best way to pre-qualify your subscribers.

✦ THE COLOUR CIRCLE: Bring the Canva design you’ve been (over)fiddling with for hours

Follow & Connect with Emelie:

✦ Follow her Threads

✦ Check out her Website

✦ Subscribe to The Big Melt

Follow & Connect with Eva:

✦ Say hey on Instagram

✦ Check out my Website

✦ Get my Uncaged emails

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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Welcome to The Freak Show

02:33 Emelie’s Freak Show Audition

09:35 Making your “multi-hyphenate” personality make sense as a personal brand

18:35 Branding vs. Marketing vs. Messaging (vs. positioning too)

22:39 Why you should be building messaging per offer, not per brand

25:55 How to tell if your sales copy is good before you get the data

31:28 Using humour without forcing yourself to become someone you’re not

42:34 When outsourcing copy works (and when it absolutely doesn’t)

59:03 Emelie’s Final Bow