Advice On How to Start Building a Knockout Brand in 2024
2024 Guide: Build a knockout brand with expert tips & strategies. Start your branding journey today for success in the new year.
Ready to elevate your business with a knockout brand in 2024? Our engaging show provides step-by-step guidance on creating an unforgettable brand presence that captivates audiences and drives growth. Dive into the world of branding excellence as we share valuable insights and practical strategies for success.
More About Emma
Emma Schermer Tamir helps businesses in high-competition environments become unbeatable brands. Through her proven techniques and winning strategies, Emma has led her team at Marketing by Emma to help over 2,000 businesses boost their sales and build their brands online.
As a thought leader and trusted consultant in e-commerce and Amazon, Emma demystifies complex topics like marketing, e-commerce, and branding. Whether speaking on stages globally, leading her team, or guiding clients, she aims to empower everyone to tap into their curiosity to create more substantial conversions, loyal fans, and killer brands.
#1 – So, Emma, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see many people make when trying to build an online brand in 2024?
#2 – What are some things our audience can do that would get them on the right path to building a brand by the end of 2024?
#3 I recently watched one of your excellent videos titled ” Why these marketing gurus are WRONG… ” What were a couple of the key messages that you wanted people to get from this video?
Russell Brunson and Gary Vaynerchuk. ” Liquid Death”
#4 – What were a couple of the biggest mistakes you made on your journey connected to building your on online business brand that you like to share with the audience?
#5—How do you see AI changing online business, including your own, in the next 18 months?
#6—If you had your time machine (H. G. Wells) and could travel back to the beginning of you?
This Week Show’s Sponsors
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:00.000] -Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the WP Tonic Show. This is episode 922. We’ve got a great special guest. She’s a real marketing expert, on positioning your business, your online business. She’s got a lot of skills. I’ve watched quite a few of her videos and been quite impressed. We got Emma Shermer-Tameya with us for marketing by Emma. I love the name of the company, Emma. Would you like to give us a quick intro for me, Kirk, and the Tribe, before we go into the central part of the show, Emma?
[00:00:54.700] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Absolutely. Also, I am very impressed by 920 22 episodes. That is a lot of episodes, so I don’t have a hat, but if I did, I would take my hat off to salute you on that.
[00:01:10.940] -Jonathan Denwood
Thank you, Emma. It’s much appreciated.
[00:01:13.330] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I’m happy to be here today. As you mentioned, I run a business called Marketing by Emma with my husband and business partner, Ares. We started this in 2016, so we’re getting ready to celebrate our eighth year in business; what we sought to do from the get-go, and what we continue to strive to do today, is to help e-commerce businesses really find a way to connect with and convert their dream customers. And so that requires both an ability to understand who you are, who your customers are and then how to position yourself in the market to be able to do that in a way that’s going to stand out, attract eyeballs, motivate people to take action, to do whatever it is that you are wanting them to do. So That’s us in a very compact nutshell.
[00:02:04.560] -Jonathan Denwood
That was fantastic. Thank you for that. We’re going to be talking about branding and why it’s still really so important. It’s a word branded around, but getting down precisely what that really means in the middle of 2024, I think, is essential. Emma has made some great videos recently around that particular subject. I think it’s going to be a really relevant discussion. I’ve also got my great co-host,. Co-host, Kurt. With me, Kurt, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:02:47.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
Sure. My name is Kurt von Annen. I have a company called Manana Nomas, a podcast with the same name. I work with folks primarily in learning and membership-type websites, along with the WP-Tonic team and directly for Lifter LMS.
[00:03:01.590] -Jonathan Denwood
Great. Before we go into the meat potatoes of this great interview, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I also want to point out that the significant sponsors have some great special offers. Plus, we offer a created list of the best WordPress plugins and services for the WordPress professional,, You can get all these goodies on one page, but how do you get to that page? Well, you go over to Wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals, wp-tonic. Com. /deals, and you find all the goodies there, my beloved WordPress professionals. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’re going to get on that page, folks. Sorry, I’m disappointed. I’ve made a career of it. So let’s go straight in, Emma. I think you now have a feeling where the show is going to go, but you chose to come to it. So it’s all your responsibility, Emma. So there we go. So, Emma, you’ve got a ton of experience to run a marketing company, a small marketing company successfully for about eight years.
[00:04:26.930] -Jonathan Denwood
It’s like cat years, isn’t it, Emma? It’s like you’ve been in business for 30 years, haven’t it?
[00:04:32.660] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Cat years and cat ears and cat lies. There’s a lot that’s happened in that length of time and lots of things that you have no idea how to handle or solve, and you just figure it out.
[00:04:46.070] -Jonathan Denwood
I bet you’ve dealt with a load of madness, to put it politely. Let’s get back on track. You got this ton of experience, but are there any patterns or things you observe on a regular basis, mistakes people make about their attempt to build a brand, which continues in 2024 that you’ve observed of which you like to share with the tribe?
[00:05:18.070] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah, great question. I think one of the biggest mistakes that I think will always be a mistake that people are making because there’s a lot of temptation involved with it, Which is that you see the big players in whatever space you’re competing in, and you say to yourself, They’re doing a great job. Why would I reinvent the wheel? I’m just going to do exactly what they’re doing. And that’s a mistake for a couple of reasons, which is, one, they’ve already carved out that space, and they’ve already established themselves as number one. So your ability to come in and to steal their number one spot when you’re doing exactly what they’re doing, but without the same awareness in the market and fandom and all of those things is going to be incredibly challenging, if not impossible. But also, you’re not really giving customers, especially those that perhaps are already shopping from your competitors, a compelling reason why they should choose you instead. And so copying the top players is a safe way to go, and you may be able to carve out a little bit of the market for yourself. But if you really want to be a presence and a strong competitor, then you need to figure out how to actually differentiate yourself from what everybody else is doing.
[00:06:53.930] – Emma Schermer Tamir
And so differentiation is not simply just for the sake of simplification, let’s say that you’re selling pens, which you’re probably not. But if everybody’s selling black pens and you say, I’m going to sell a pink pen, that in and of itself is not differentiation. Differentiation is really thinking about all of the layers of who you’re serving, what your brand is committed to, and figuring out how to position yourself in a unique way from the competition. And if you can do that in a compelling fashion, then you do have the ability to go head to head with the top competitors in your space to create your own community of people that are going to be really enthusiastic about what you’re doing, and to give them a compelling motivating reason why they should choose to go with you rather than whatever they were doing previously.
[00:07:51.040] -Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you’re so right about that. But I’ve always done that, well, in my own mind, I think I’m probably could delude myself. I’ve always tried to do a business analysis of the competitors and work out their strengths and weaknesses. But I think you’ve got to go a step further, really, haven’t you? You’ve got to work out. It doesn’t have to be jet science, but there has to be some reason, something that the market that you’re trying to compete in cares about that makes you slightly different. It doesn’t have to be enormous difference, but it has to also be communicated quite clearly, doesn’t it?
[00:08:39.530] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Absolutely. It’s so rare that you’re entering a true blue ocean where there are no competitors.
[00:08:47.470] -Jonathan Denwood
So whatever- Sorry to interrupt, but that could be a bit worrying because that means there could be no market for it, couldn’t it?
[00:08:54.760] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Well, it could, or you could just see that as, okay, I I mean, maybe you do have a Blue Ocean. If you are developing truly something unique that’s never been seen before, amazing. But most businesses, probably, even if they have an innovation, it’s an add-on to something that already exists. So it’s not a totally new thing. And so if we acknowledge that from the beginning, okay, we are going to have competitors, then thinking about what is it that is going to give people a reason to choose us? And that’s even harder to do in the current environment than we’re in because there’s such an ease at being able to generate a lot of content and make a lot of noise with the way that AI has exploded into the marketing world. And so people can be very easily overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content that it becomes even more integral to figure out a way to stand out beyond the noise and make people take pause and pay attention enough to even learn a little bit about what you’re doing and what you’re offering.
[00:10:22.340] -Jonathan Denwood
Fantastic. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:10:24.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, my question is more of like an extension of the first question, and that’s It was like, what is the biggest mistakes that we see people make? And I’m just curious because I’ve looked at your YouTube channel, I’ve looked at your website, your content’s great, but I’m wondering how much of your time is spent trying to educate customers, like the difference between branding, marketing, and sales? I feel like a lot of people go straight to the lead magnet, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, and they still haven’t educated their audience on who they even are or what they’re doing.
[00:11:00.480] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Totally. That’s a fantastic question, and particularly with the people that we work with, which we work with a lot of businesses that are selling on Amazon, which is the same but different in terms of ecosystems are concerned. And I think it’s what you’re saying of going immediately for the sale, but then also when there aren’t enough sales, the temptation is always, well, let’s just drive more more traffic. That’s the problem is we just don’t have enough people coming to our page, and if we had more, then people would be buying more. And so that’s where it’s always helpful for whatever it is that you’re trying to optimize for to take a step back and to really analyze all of these different components so that you’re not just throwing money at something and then not being able to get the full outcome of it. Because if your product page is just saying, We’re the best by now, then sending more traffic isn’t necessarily going to make you more profitable. But if you take the time to take a step back and say, Wait a minute, we’re not actually educating people on why our solution is so great for what they’re looking for and also a better alternative than the other options out there, that’s where we need to be investing some time.
[00:12:25.060] – Emma Schermer Tamir
And this is all relationship building. And I think it’s easy to forget that when it’s happening online because we assume, okay, we’re throwing a landing page up or we’re building a website, and then somebody is just going to look at that a little bit and then make a sale. But the fact is that we need to build trust. We need to help reinforce that this solution is aligned with what that person actually needs. So sometimes I get the question of, well, isn’t it obvious to state this particular detail about the product? And I say no, sometimes even the obvious things are really important to communicate because the absence of it can actually make people question whether it does that thing. So for example, if you’re selling a microphone and you don’t… And this is just all off the cuff. So I don’t know that this is actually something that would be an issue. But just for hypotheticals, I have a microphone in front of me. So this is the example that I’m using. You have a microphone and maybe it says what drive it has, that it’s a USB-C connector. Well, some people will understand enough that whether that fits their computer, but other people may not feel as confident technologically and want to be told, this will work with your MacBook, Air, M1 and M2 chip.
[00:14:05.330] – Emma Schermer Tamir
They want that specificity and that reassurance of the compatibility there, even though there would be the assumption that if it has that connector, then it’s going to be compatible. And so in the same way that if you’re wanting to meet somebody in real life, you’re not going to jump the gun and say, let’s be lifelong friends, or do you want to come home with me? And in the same way, you shouldn’t be doing that with a sale. You need to give people an opportunity to feel interested by you, to feel reassured by you, to feel excited by what you have to offer. And then asking for the sale is really just more of a natural transition rather than aggressively coming out of the gate and trying to be forceful or manipulative or overly aggressive in a way that can actually be off-putting.
[00:15:04.360] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I think that launches into the second question a bit, and that was for people listening to this show, what are just a couple of things the audience can do that gets them on the right track?
[00:15:17.520] – Emma Schermer Tamir
So if you don’t have a customer avatar, I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to go make one. For those that are not familiar with that term, A customer avatar is essentially a profile that you create about your target customer. And you can have a few of these if you sell to a few different segments. And this should be very, very, very detailed to the point where when you read it, you instantly conjure an image of who that person is. And what that’s going to do is that’s going to allow you when you’re sitting down to write your copy or reviewing the copy that somebody else wrote, or making decisions about other aspects of your business, you have that person in your mind, and you’re able to make choices based on how you think they will respond to it rather than just generally talking to a mass of undefined potential customers. So that’s going to really strengthen all of the choices that you make so that they are not just diluted by trying to appeal to everybody, but by speaking to a very specific person. And this is a great area also to integrate great AI into your process because you can use a tool like ChatGPT or or Claude or whatever your preferred AI chat tool is to help build out a customer avatar.
[00:16:50.580] – Emma Schermer Tamir
And you can even do that by feeding it the content of your website or of a competitor, having it read a bunch of reviews, giving it some other data that you might have on your customers and then asking it to build a profile around that. And of course, then making sure to validate all that information that it’s aligned and it makes sense and adding to it and building it out. But that can also take a little bit of the resistance that you might feel in the hurdle of doing that. So that is absolutely something that I would recommend. And then in tandem with that, actually turning that same exercise back onto yourself and building out a brand identity profile. And the exercise that I like to encourage people to do is to actually imagine if their brand were a person. So really, truly doing that exact same exercise for your customer avatar with your brand and building it out and thinking about what clothes would they wear, how old are they, what’s their sense of humor, what influencers do they follow? And so that is also going to give you clarity over the language that you use, the jokes that you make, the references that you have, the colors, all of those things, making them far more intentional and then also aligned, because then every single person that might be touching something that is going to be out in the world is able to do that through the frame of this is how our business-Yeah, I think you’re making some great points there, because as you were speaking, what was coming in my mind is In the startup world, there’s this term product fit, market fit.
[00:18:36.250] -Jonathan Denwood
I think what you’re talking about really is customer fit. I’ve struggled with this myself, as Kurt knows, with my main company, WP Tonic, who are our users? I think doing the research, it’s a bit like Ran Fishkin and his product, SparkToro, that particular I think there’s going to be a new group of tools. It’s one of the areas where AI might be more useful is in this market research, which traditionally to do it well costs a lot of money and time, and a lot of smaller people just can’t afford to do it, so they do it by hock, basically. But I think there’s going to be a number of tools coming on the market that can enable you to do this market research more effectively. Would you agree with that, Emma?
[00:19:38.320] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Oh, absolutely. The way that AI is transforming our ability to really get meaningful insights from the data that we have is already impressive. I think we’re still just on the tip of the iceberg with all of this, especially as smaller businesses that don’t have… If you’re a large Corporation, you already have access to a lot of these things, even the AI capabilities. You have your own LLM, and all of your systems are honed in. But I think that the access for even the smaller businesses is…
[00:20:27.200] -Jonathan Denwood
I think our discussion so far, I think, and I don’t agree with this, but some people would say that this discussion is very nice, Jonathan, with Emma, but it’s strategy. It’s not really get into the brass tacks of actually getting customers. I need, my business needs customers. But what I think they miss is that if you’d really get customer fit, as I call it, if your landing page, if your key pages, really, the core messages really echo to the customer, it all works smooth When you see it actually happen, it’s quite malacrous, really. But mostly it doesn’t work because it takes a lot of effort. You don’t get it right the first time, the second time, the third time, the fourth time. It’s a consistent attempt to get that customer fit. Would you agree with that?
[00:21:42.290] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah. And also, it’s not just that it takes trial and error and making mistakes, but people change over time. So let’s say that you are selling something in the diet space, and maybe it’s something to do with low carb. So the reference points that you’re going to have when you’re talking about low carb, those are going to be evolving over time, because 10 years ago, the hot diet was the paleo diet. And then keto came into the wider knowledge base. And so if you’re stuck, just, okay, well, we’ve been doing this and it’s been working, you’re forgetting that But trends change, culture changes, people change, your business changes. And so there’s also just a natural evolution that needs to happen over time if you want to continue to stay relevant and if you want to continue to be successful as our needs change and the world changes.
[00:22:50.420] -Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. I think it’s time for us to go for our mid break. It’s gone quick this first half. I think we’ve covered some good Big subjects here, folks, but I can tell you that branding and customer fit and getting these things right will determine having the best theme, plugin, whatever business you’re trying to build, if you don’t get these things correct, it’s a bit like a leaky bucket. You can spend as much money on paid advertising as you like, but more it’s going to leak out that comes in the top of the bucket. But that’s my take on this. We’re going to go for our mid-break. We got a couple other messages from our great sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a great discussion with Emma. We’ve covered some big things. Before we go into the second half, I want to point out that if you’re looking for a great host, a great WordPress partner, we offer a great partner scheme for the WordPress professional. You get great hosting, great support. We specialize in big membership, learning management, buddy, boss, and wu, comma, websites.
[00:24:20.050] -Jonathan Denwood
We’ve got the 15 years of technical experience. If you’re looking for that partner, plus some great affiliate packages. You can find more by going over to wp-tonic. Com/partners, wp-tonic. Com/partners, and find out more on that page. So let’s go into one of your more controversial videos, Emma, which was really enjoyable, and I agreed with a lot of what you said in that video. So you did a I don’t know how to put it, but you had a look at a thing that Russell Branson and Gary Vanachek did, where they were talking about direct marketing against branding I think. I think Gary was the champion of branding, where Russell, it’s all about direct marketing. And what was the couple of the main things that you wanted to get across in that video? Because I’ve got my ideas, but I want you to express one or two quick of the main things that you wanted to get across to people in the video.
[00:25:43.140] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah, so I I wanted to make this video because I think it highlights a lot of times that people are not asking the right questions, and they’re looking at things in very binary ways. It’s either branding or direct marketing. It’s the same as when you see people on LinkedIn or anywhere else and they say, This is the one thing that will totally change your business. I just think that that can be a really problematic conversation that steers businesses in the wrong direction. So a few of my main points. One is that I felt like Gary, actually in the video that I was responding to, wasn’t really fully articulating what branding is. He was associating branding as really more of social media marketing and personal branding. So the things that you’re doing online, which that is a piece of branding. And in the same respect, Russell was trying to differentiate his success and saying the only reason that he was successful was because of direct marketing, totally discounting all of the brand that he’s built for 20 years or so now. I was trying to get down to this idea that branding is really happening alongside and underneath everything that you’re doing.
[00:27:28.360] – Emma Schermer Tamir
So even if you When you are putting together a direct response marketing campaign, all of the choices that you make about how you do that are going to be influenced by all of these things that we were talking about.
[00:27:45.830] -Jonathan Denwood
I think what you’re saying is you sense he’s putting the chicken before the egg, basically, aren’t you?
[00:27:52.440] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Essentially, and that he’s dismissing the fact that ClickFunnel is a very well-known company that even if people don’t have active experience with, if they’re at all in the digital marketing world, they work with it.
[00:28:08.590] -Jonathan Denwood
The contradiction I’ve got from… I really liked your video, by the way. The contradiction is that we’ve clicked funnels and how they had these conferences and they were, We’re all in this community. Then he mercilessely attempts to upsell these people into very expensive coaching programs at these conferences. Because I’ve never been to one, but I’ve had a couple of friends that have gone to them. To say it’s high pressure would be the understatement of the century, basically. But they’re all marketing types, so they should know what they’re getting into. But it’s a great branding exercise, what you achieve. That’s That’s the contradiction, isn’t it? Exactly. You built a fabulous brand, didn’t he? Clickfunnel. Exactly.
[00:29:09.130] – Emma Schermer Tamir
And he has a strong personal brand. He has a number of books, and speaks at lots of other events and has his whole persona, which is directly supporting ClickFunnel and all of his other business ventures. And this isn’t specific just to Russell, I think that this is actually a common thing that we see across many of the business gurus out there is they Try to separate out all of the success that they’ve created already and then say, Oh, it’s just this tactic and it’s not these other things. And so if you’re going in and expecting like, Oh, I’m just going to have instant success and make all this money because I just follow these few things, there’s a high likelihood that you’re going to be very disappointed because there is more to it.
[00:30:09.300] -Jonathan Denwood
I tend not to follow a lot of these types, to be quite truthful with you, because I think they’ve got to a stage of market awareness that a lot you don’t know what their new insights really would be effective for somebody at my state level. The only person that I really listen to, and I want to agree with everything, but I get still more insight, really, is Professor Galloway of the Profology podcast. I don’t know if you listen, he’s a leading branding expert, but he still seems quite down to earth, even though he spends a lot of time counting his millions. But there we go. Good luck to him. But the reason why I bring him into the conversation is that with a lot of things, there’s a I’m struggling for the right word, sorry. There’s two sides of it, basically, because you’ve got Amazon, haven’t you? You specialize in e-commerce to some degree, not purely, but I think you’ll know it’s a Shopify. We’ll forgive you for that, actually, Emma. We know sometimes the darks, people are new to the dark side, But there we go. I’ll give you a break for that. But e-commerce is dominated by this squid-like creature called Amazon, this octopus.
[00:32:06.240] -Jonathan Denwood
They’re in the process, aren’t they? With their own branded products in totally destroying branding, aren’t they? They want you to go to Amazon and buy their own branded products that appear as suggestions whenever you’re looking for a branded product, aren’t you? So you got this duality.
[00:32:27.930] – Emma Schermer Tamir
That was the word. Yeah, they’re in legal hot water for some of that behavior in particular. It’s a really interesting space right now because I think anybody would say that Amazon, without a doubt, was just going to be an impossible to unseat presence in the e-commerce world. And TikTok and some of these other companies are creating some really interesting competition. Amazon Prime Day is next week. And so this week, Walmart, Target, and TikTok are all running their pre-Prime Day deals weeks. I don’t know if it’s to drain everybody’s pocket so that by the time it gets to Prime Day, people have spent all their money.
[00:33:26.560] -Jonathan Denwood
Suck, stuck to the marabout. Or maybe- Buy your weekly shopping in four monthly payments. Right.
[00:33:36.270] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah. So yeah, it’s a very interesting world right now of what’s happening there. I’m frankly a little bit surprised by… It feels like Amazon isn’t being quite as clever about how to try maintain its dominance as I would have thought.
[00:34:05.970] -Jonathan Denwood
Well, I forgot the offer. I forgot the action. But there’s this concept that companies go into three stages, don’t they? When they’re in the third stage, it’s no longer offering value. It’s sucking as much out of the existing customer base as possible through subscriptions, hidden charges, cutting cutting back on surface levels. It’s basically a continuous increase in costs and cutting costs process, don’t they? Because they’re no longer in a… I can’t really see apart from purchasing, I really can’t see how Amazon can grow much more legally or in market share. I don’t know if you share that view at Yeah, that’s an interesting…
[00:35:02.000] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I haven’t really given that particular point much thought to say whether I agree or disagree with that, but I do agree with what you were saying in regards to how their where they’re getting their profit from, because a lot of… They have continued to increase their fees for sellers on the platform. They’re advertising money that they from sellers is a very significant portion of their revenue.
[00:35:37.680] -Jonathan Denwood
That’s a nice little- Well, you know, Bayes only needs to buy another enormous yacht, so he needs the money, doesn’t he? That’s the humor that gets me into so much trouble. Kirt, over to you.
[00:35:52.830] – Kurt von Ahnen
She’s just got me thinking about if I need to buy that welder off the TikTok shop or not.
[00:35:57.950] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Well, and so that’s one of the things that I was saying. So I have some friends who are also influencers. And so it’s interesting because I see a lot of different sides of the e-commerce space. And so Amazon, in particular, they’re really losing favor with a lot of brands that are selling on their platform because of increased fees and how expensive it is to advertise, and it’s just hard to be profitable. And then on the influencer side of things, which we know they’re massive drivers of sales, they are getting almost nothing through their affiliate links with Amazon. And so if they have their choice of linking to an Amazon product or something on TikTok shop, they’re business people, and there is just more to be had with that. So why wouldn’t they do that? And so I Just across the board, there just seems to be a little bit of reshuffling right now. And obviously, there are a lot of dynamics and questions of what’s going to happen to TikTok. But it’s definitely an interesting thing to be observing and watching over this next few years.
[00:37:21.580] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. If we were to switch gears and get more personal, the question I’ve got for you is, eight years now. So what were a couple of the biggest mistakes on your journey in growing this online business that you could share with an audience? I mean, obviously, don’t tell us what your bank numbers are, but what are a couple of biggest mistakes besides having a Shopify website instead of WordPress?
[00:37:49.620] -Jonathan Denwood
Can I add, Emma? We’ll forgive you. Can I add, Eimear? For somebody that’s been in eight years in the online marketing space, you look remarkably calm, Emma. Because most people, if they’re in the marketing, running a marketing agency, I know quite a few of them. To be true for women, a lot of them are totally bonkers. 8 or 10 years into it. I mean, they’re gone. They’re gone totally wacko. Sorry, I just thought I’d say that.
[00:38:27.260] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I mean, it really depends on the day. We’ve definitely… There have been bumpy patches or things have not been easy. But I think one of the things that I’ve also always optimized for as a business owner, long term. In the short term, it’s impossible. Things happen, and you just have to fix them because it’s your business. But long term, one of the things that’s always been really important to me is lifestyle and being able to be a real human outside of just being a vessel of my business. And so I walk every morning, and I journal, and I read, and those are must-have parts of my day. And I think that if you’re not really intentional about carving those out, and I haven’t in the past, and that’s honestly one of the mistakes that I’ve made, is losing myself to this business.
[00:39:20.790] -Jonathan Denwood
And- Come on, Emma. We want to know, give us a couple of the big shit shows, and how you got out of it. Give us some insights, Emma, if you want to. Oh, God. Come on, give us a real disaster, and how you got out of it.
[00:39:35.960] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Well, let’s see here.
[00:39:38.430] -Jonathan Denwood
There must be a couple. You’ll be eight years in the marketing space.
[00:39:43.660] – Emma Schermer Tamir
There must be- I think Honestly, we haven’t had any major disasters, and that’s partially one of the mistakes that I would also say, which is that I play safe, and I have a perfectionist side of me. And so I think I could have achieved certain things that I would have liked to achieve earlier or done things. An example, you’ve mentioned that I have a YouTube channel, which I started really actively publishing in November of last year. And that was something that five years ago, I thought about starting, and I didn’t. And And I didn’t for a variety of reasons. But one of the things that happens in business is you have a lot of excuses for why you shouldn’t do the hard and scary things because you can just say, I’m just so busy with all this other stuff, which is if you find yourself saying that, that might be a moment to pause and reflect and answer if that’s really true or not. But I think from a lack of confidence, I and fear of putting myself out there in that way. And who was I to say that I had something worth saying?
[00:41:07.270] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I really resisted that, and I regret that massively because I would be five years ahead. The space was different. I think it was easier to grow there at that time. And who knows what kinds of opportunities and doors that would have opened had I done that. So I knew that it was something that I wanted to do, and I convinced myself over and over again that it wasn’t the right time. And I would say that that is my biggest mistake with this business. Covid was even a perfect opportunity to do that when I was home and definitely had time.
[00:41:45.170] -Jonathan Denwood
And I know you’ve consistently gone on a lot of podcasts. Has that been a major strategy in getting your message over and building your own personal brands? And has it been reasonably effective? I’m just interested.
[00:42:02.380] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah. I find, first of all, podcasting is great to get over any hesitations and hurdles you have about being on camera. So I used to, it was so painful for me to have to watch myself and hear myself talk.
[00:42:21.080] -Jonathan Denwood
I can’t. I don’t watch. Actually, I don’t watch these shows. I can only stand about five minutes of myself, actually, Emma.
[00:42:29.060] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah, I’m not putting myself on in the evenings and relaxing and watching my own videos, but I have learned to be able to listen without utter revulsion. And so it’s been really great for that. I love podcasting because it’s very evergreen. I still have people that reach out about podcasts that I recorded four or five years ago, which is amazing. It’s a great way to grow your network.
[00:42:55.630] -Jonathan Denwood
I mean, going on other people’s podcast. I noticed that you’re going on a lot.
[00:43:00.190] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. So for me, I feel like when you ask to get personal. So when people were inviting me onto their podcast or to contribute to their courses, I felt like that was them saying, Okay, you have something worth saying, validating that I was an authority and had an opinion worth hearing. But being able to do that for myself, that was something that felt so ridiculous and brazen and crazy. And so it really took a lot of time before I realized, Okay, I don’t actually need the permission of anybody to say the things that I want to say.
[00:43:47.530] -Jonathan Denwood
It never stopped me. The other thing I’ve been quite surprised because I’ve been trying to get on other people’s podcast, but I’ve been a bit laxed out, I might ask you for some tips there after the show, actually. But when I’ve been on others, I’m not having a go. Hopefully you would agree that there is an onboarding process for coming on this podcast, and we send you a broad outline of some of the areas that we’re going to cover, and you give us the okay with those areas. And there’s some structure to the madness, even though if you’re listening to this, folks, there seems to be none. But I was surprised When I’ve gone on others, they send you the link 10 minutes before you come on the show, and there’s no outline, and you have no idea of the format of the show unless you do it yourself. I’ve been amazed. Would you agree with that?
[00:44:47.420] – Emma Schermer Tamir
It’s a wide spectrum. There’s some that it’s the time we’re supposed to be recording, and I don’t even have the link yet. I’m emailing five minutes after, Hey, we’re still on. Then there are also others that we do an onboarding call before- It’s like three onboarding calls.
[00:45:10.150] -Jonathan Denwood
It’s like a job interview, isn’t it? Yeah. Without It’s a paycheck.
[00:45:16.030] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah. I mean, for me, the main thing I think is, it’s without question that there needs to be some preparation on both sides if there’s going to be something valuable to listen to. There’s, of course, the temptation like, We are professionals, we can just wing it. But that leads to a really disjointed, disorganized podcast. I would say the other thing is that you’re both actively listening and having a conversation. And that’s actually my biggest pet peeve with being on other people’s channels or podcasts is Cool.
[00:46:00.960] -Jonathan Denwood
Next question..
[00:46:07.880] – Emma Schermer Tamir
You’re just like, Okay.
[00:46:11.620] -Jonathan Denwood
This is not dialog.
[00:46:12.420] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I’ll do some…
[00:46:13.770] -Jonathan Denwood
When you were talking to Kurt, but I was doing some research on Russell for my question, but when they so obviously are doing their office work as you’re trying to have a discussion, to say that slightly discourage us would be a slight understatement, wouldn’t it?
[00:46:29.910] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Well, and even from putting that aside, just being able to create good content, it’s when people are listening and engaged, and thinking, and curious. And that’s really true of anything that you’re creating, not just a podcast. Just to circle back to the beginning of the conversation is it’s when you are intentional and thoughtful, and wanting to really understand the through line, that’s where the value comes from.
[00:47:04.360] -Jonathan Denwood
All right. Back over to you, Kurt.
[00:47:07.070] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I’m just going to change the subject again because that seems to be my skill set today. You’ve already mentioned AI, and you’ve You mentioned you could do a brand avatar or it’s things like that. By the way, I put my brand avatar in the comments on YouTube. I’m just a gregarious old bald guy with a beard. That’s my brand avatar. Where do you see the eye really going, like the next year and a half in relation to marketing and branding? People are looking for an easy button, but I don’t think it’s as easy as people are thinking what they hear on the news is.
[00:47:41.170] – Emma Schermer Tamir
No. And I think a year and a half For us, it’s a really long time in the course of technological developments. We see how rapidly all of these things are changing. Chatgpt only came out a year and a half a half ago or so, and look at all that’s changed.
[00:48:03.620] -Jonathan Denwood
It’s bonkers, really, when you say that. It is bonkers when you say that, really.
[00:48:08.280] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Yeah, it is. I will say this is what I imagine. However, I also recognize that that’s such a long time that I’m just not able to see the bigger picture as clearly as I should be yet. But what I do see is that we’re able, what earlier we were talking about, being able to use data from customer behavior to start to get more defined information about who they are and then what you can do with all of that. And so essentially what AI is doing in all of these different areas, be it with using it to create a customer avatar or what have you, is it’s leveling the playing field. It’s not actually giving people meaningful-I think that’s a fantastic insight, actually. It’s not actually giving people meaningful ways to stand out. It’s actually just making it harder for everyone because we all have access to the same capabilities. We can all generate tons of videos, tons of blog posts. And so it’s not really about volume. I think that’s one reason why I’ve been so passionate in talking about branding In contrast to all that’s happening with AI, because to me, that’s actually really where the opportunities lie, and will actually just continue to get even bigger.
[00:49:44.790] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Is is people still want real connection with brands and other people. Neil Patel does a lot of really interesting research because he has access to so much data. And so he did a really interesting report on people were given blog posts that they were told was written by AI, and just being told that it was written by AI made the engagement rate way less. So it’s not just that we want real engagement, it’s that we, as people, are also skeptical of this technology, and we don’t want to feel.
[00:50:33.190] -Jonathan Denwood
I think you’re finishing strong, Emma. And I’m not being patronizing there because I think you’ve made some really fantastic couple observations, the first one and then the last one. It’s another duality situation. We love this AI, yet we’re very cynical about it. We don’t like it in the same breath, do we?
[00:50:59.150] – Emma Schermer Tamir
It’s a strange When I listen to podcasts and I hear an advertisement, and I’m like, Oh, this was an AI-generated advertisement, that voice isn’t… That’s not a real human voice.
[00:51:11.640] -Jonathan Denwood
I’m not real, actually. I’m just made for my eye. Thank God. If I was real, that would be awful, would it ever? Stop it. That would be disgusting, wouldn’t it? Let’s get on with this because Kurt’s got to go, and I know you’ve got better things to as well as wherever. So let’s go on to the last question. But you’re finishing strong, Emma. So if you had a time machine, H. G. Wells or Doctor Who, obviously of English, come on, England, you can win the European on Sunday, you can win. You can win. If you had your own time machine, Wells or TARDIS, and If you could go back the beginning of your eight-year journey in online marketing. Is there any tips, insights? It doesn’t have to be enormous, life-changing thing, but if there’s one or two minor things you wish you had known at the beginning, what would you tell yourself?
[00:52:17.970] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I would tell myself to hire faster, especially because my husband, as I mentioned at the beginning of this This conversation is my business partner. And in the very early days-How does that work, Pia? Well, in the very early days, it was really challenging because we had too much overlap in our roles. And so it created a lot of friction. And once we hired somebody that was like, he could go to that person, and then I could go to that person, not even about because it’s the same thing, but if he needs something from me, and I hate being told what to do, then that’s not healthy. So once we hired somebody to be more of an often- You both could then tell that person what to do. Well, it’s just he needs support for things and I need support for things. And if we’re going to each other for that, then it’s also not a good use of either of our time. And it makes things run smoother. So that would absolutely be something I think in the early days, I had this impression, I think also because my name is on the business, and my face is on the business, that, well, I need to be doing all of it because this is my standard, and it’s a reflection of me.
[00:53:42.780] – Emma Schermer Tamir
I would also name the business something different. So, I may have so much of a personal attachment to it. I think it’s overall, but I don’t. I have to be honest with you.
[00:53:57.480] -Jonathan Denwood
When you first approached me, I thought you were connected with Emma, the email marketing person. Then I did my research, and I realized you didn’t. But yeah, that might be… Well, I don’t know. They say, Emma, the email people got a pretty good reputation in. Not as you’d be confused with somebody who’s got a better reputation. It’s not a problem.
[00:54:23.190] – Emma Schermer Tamir
No. But I think I saw somewhere that brands that have one of the owner’s names in the name are perceived as more trustworthy. So there is that on that side. I’m happy with the brand that I’ve built, but as somebody who is a perfectionist, I think it’s probably added a lot of unnecessary stress to my life to be that close.
[00:54:54.340] -Jonathan Denwood
Well, you seem pretty calm, as I said earlier in the show. So I think it’s time to to end this conversation. You’ve been up for it. You’ve had some great insights. As a marketing professional, you’ve dealt with my so-called humor with ease and should be able to do so, in my opinion. So, Emma, what’s the And it’s an excellent way for people to learn more about you, your company, and your thoughts, Emma.
[00:55:19.430] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Absolutely. You can go to our website, marketingbyemma.com. You can also if you just want to dive in a little bit deeper into some of these topics that we’ve discussed, you can check out my YouTube channel @marketingbyemma. But our website has all the contact details that you could want or need, everything from email to WhatsApp phone. We’re very accessible and available and we love connecting with people and exploring how we can help them.
[00:55:51.100] -Jonathan Denwood
And, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you before you disappear into the Eva?
[00:55:57.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
I am the only Kurt von Ahnen on LinkedIn. So if you’d like to connect on LinkedIn, I’m easy to find.
[00:56:02.900] -Jonathan Denwood
That’s fine. He’s got to go off quickly to an online forum that he manages. Thanks, folks, for listening. It’s been a great discussion. If you want to support the show, please share this podcast and YouTube interview on your favorite social media platforms. That would be really appreciated. We’ll be back next week with another fabulous gas, some insights, and a laugh. You got to laugh at life, folks. Like I say, friend more, love more, tribe. We’ll see you next week, folks. Bye.
[00:56:37.400] – Emma Schermer Tamir
Bye. So.
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