Welcome to mind your own marketing business podcast, where we explore marketing trends and technology, gaining insider knowledge from the industry's best, you're just proud to present mind your own marketing business with host Joe Barsness.

  Thanks for joining us on the mind, your own marketing business podcast. I'm Joe Barsanis from web and software development team Fjorge. And today on our show, we'll be talking with Emily Youngblood from Mercury creative. Welcome to the show, Emily.

Thanks for having me, Joe.

All right. Um, I, as always, I like to start off the show.

Talk to me a little bit about, uh, yourself, how long have you been with Mercury creative? What is your role and how did you get to be where you are?

Yeah, good question. So, uh, I've been at Mercury almost five years, about four and a half years, uh, came to Mercury from a previous agency. And my role here is multifaceted, of course, with every kind of smaller, uh, business or lots of hats. But, um, I always like to explain it as two parts. One part is working with directly with our clients on their projects.

Um, marketing and branding projects, uh, kind of as an account manager, project manager, um, helping make sure that communications, uh, the project is on time on budget. And then the other part of my role is really helping Justin, our founder, um, with kind of some operations, um, that if you're familiar with EOS, I am the integrator.

So I work on HR finance and other, um, business oriented things running the Mercury Creative Group business. So,

Wonderful. Yes. Um, I am familiar with EOS, um, and the book traction is where it all starts for those of you who don't know. Um, and I think the other thing to point out, Emily, is that, uh, it must've been. months ago when Justin was on the show as well. I've known Justin for a number of years. We finally did the podcast and here we are following up with you six months later.

Yeah, yeah, here we are. I'm happy to be here.

All right. And, and also, you know, diving into some topics that, that you're really in an expert on and kind of talking about that, but give us a little bit more about Mercury Creative. What you all specialize in, who you typically work with kind of at a, at a high level so that we can kind of set the stage there.

Yeah. So Mercury is a brand design and creative firm. Uh, we, we are a strategy first organization. So we have a method that we work with all of our clients on called the Mercury method.  All of our projects start with strategy and then we move into the design phase and marketing phase. A lot of our clients come to us with a brand problem that they don't know they have.  Their messaging isn't clear, they need an updated logo or design element.  they are looking for, um, some brand foundational items such as a value proposition or essential value, things that are going to be core to who they are for the next 8 to 10 years. Um, so our brand strategy starts off all of our projects and then we move into the design phase, which is, um, just how it sounds.

Uh, we layer in our design team and we bring, um, Um, those brand foundational items to life with, um, logo designs, brand identity information, and then web design. Um, and then the marketing phase is really when we work with clients on an ongoing basis, uh, to help them

Sure.

marketing. So we spend time on a monthly. in a monthly cadence with their team, um, to take that brand work, that strategy work that we set forth in the beginning and work with them monthly on, um, marketing strategies and tactical plans that help move their business forward. Um, we're about 50, 50, 50 percent of our work is with associations and 50 percent of our work is with non associations, but we love, uh, associations and nonprofits.  Organizations that have an added layer of governance. So typically have a, a city council or a board of directors that they're reporting into, um, that's a sweet spot for us. Um, when are we talk about, uh, non association work, we are typically in some sort of, um, financial services, attorney's offices, professional services, organizations, um, we do a lot of work in that space. Um, and then the AEC or space that, um, architecture, engineering, and construction.

Ah, wonderful. Yes, I'm familiar with some of those as we have shared a few clients in the past and and but it's good to hear about the different verticals that you serve, why you serve them and how it you can kind of become an expert in a certain situation. And I like the term with some sort of governance because that's a different experience when there's a decision making group versus a decision maker.

Or a, you know, a, a, a product company or something like that. So it's great that you have sort of that niche in a specialty in what you do. Um,  so, uh, you know, with kind of diving, you know, since this is a second show with, with Mercury and Fjorge, uh, we thought we would kind of dive into a little bit of, of our partnership and what.

What unique strengths brings, um, we bring to the table. Can you talk about how, uh, some of those things come together in terms of how you're supporting your clients?

Yeah. Um, so one of the things I didn't mention when I introduced myself was just, uh, the passion that I've had for a really long time around, um, technology and marketing and the powerful things that come when those two things are brought together. And so, uh, a long time ago in a, in a previous life, I helped with, uh, uh, a new, um, database system and online registration system for, uh, a previous employer and, um, finding out the, the power in that data structure and that data ecosystem. Um, and how much, um, we had to invest in that and how much time it took. Um, but then how powerful it was for our organization to move forward. Um, and now being in the brand foundation space and how powerful and, um, unique that is and how I've seen organizations transform from a brand perspective that, uh, the Fjord and Mercury, uh, creative group partnership really gets me excited.

I kind of geek out about it. Laura and I love to have lunch and talk about it, but like what. Can really catapult an organization forward is when they choose to invest in both of those things. And we've witnessed that with a couple of clients that, um, have really taken the time to invest both in their brand strategy work upfront and their digital ecosystem.

And so, um, yeah, we just thought that would be a great topic for our conversation today. Um, and I love talking about it. So, and I know you do too, Joe.

Yeah, absolutely. And I already get my, I I've already thought of my next question for you. Uh, well, during the middle of that conversation, so, or, uh, and so what I want to know is why do you think that there's such a cohesive opportunity to, uh, think about brand and digital, digital infrastructure together?

Why is it so critical for the success of an organization?

Yeah. So one of the things that we really work on with our clients in the brand strategy phase is identifying their ideal, uh, person. So whether it be a member based organization, there'd be their ideal audience would be their membership base or, um, for some  Ring is a really big deal. So their ideal audience is maybe a potential staff person.  when we're working with organizations that are looking at a larger database or larger ecosystem, making sure that that experience is anchored around that ideal audience, who it's for  then anchoring that experience. So once that person engages with your online digital experience, They feel that they're at the right place.

They recognize the brand language. They know the experience is designed for them. Sometimes organizations, um, the, the pitfall sort of is when you're trying to create a data ecosystem or some sort of technology platform, um, For many people,  one knows how to use it. It ends up getting lost. We say the same thing with marketing communications.

When you're talking to everybody, you're actually talking to nobody. Um, and so getting really clear on who's in the center of the bullseye, who are you anchoring your, um, website experience around or your new app or your database? Um, so the brand work really solidifies that for organizations. They're really clear.

About who that person is and what their value is, what they bring to the organization so that then they can move into that digital space and create that space around that person. And that's where the power comes in of, you know, really finding out, Oh, people know how to use our system and they know that it's made for them.

And it just creates a cohesive experience.

Yeah, and I mean, I, you said it so well,  even what our, you know, tagline is at our organization right now is building software and web products that people actually use. Um, So many people build something that isn't for anybody, or didn't think about who the user was going to be. They wanted to get things off of their minds and onto paper, but that doesn't necessarily resonate with the audience that well.

And that audience In our worlds, as you mentioned, it can be a website, but it can also be internal users. It can be a board of directors. It can be anybody. But if you're not building something or managing a brand in a way that people are going to actually respond to, then you're just running a fool's errand.

And so. You know, I know one of the things that you and and us at Fjord's deal with on a on a regular basis is  trying to help organizations understand. Um, what an investment in this area can do, and that doesn't always mean that we're necessarily pushing for them to invest in this area.

hmm.

are some of the things that, um, you know, decision makers or people?

that you tell them in, in, in what the true benefit of this is in driving their organization forward. Um, and, and thinking about these areas upfront versus on a like, Oh, I didn't think of that. Let's do that later. That kind of a thing. What, where are you with that? And how have you had those conversations with, with your clients?

Yeah, the investment thing is tricky, right? Cause I always say no organization has unlimited time and resources, so it's not, you know, we're not looking at pools of money sitting where they're usually waiting for, you know, a brand strategist to come along, but, um, we, our point of view on brand strategy work is that it needs to be refreshed 10 years.

So when you're investing in a new brand, new or refreshed brand with Mercury. Um, this isn't something you're looking at spending money on or investing in again, in two years, uh, it's foundational work. It's true to who you are and it should be, uh, something that should be able to last. Um, the other thing that we talk to our clients about is strategic planning.

So a lot of times a three year strategic plan can include an upcoming, um, refreshed. Uh, identity or an updated data system, or, um, we actually just had a call with a client that's in, uh, both. And they're sort of being forced out of their database system with a recent merger and acquisition. They have to find something else and their brand needs to be updated at the same time.

Now that's a heavy lift, right? We both know like that's both expensive and it's time consuming, but it will pay dividends and it shouldn't be something that they're investing in again. In two years, uh,

Right.

work will last them. The strategic planning piece of it is kind of tricky because a lot of associations run on a strategic plan, but a lot of non associations don't. So their business plan is usually a year long or maybe two years long. They sometimes, if they're on EOS, they usually have a three year. or a five year

Sure.

Uh, but if they, you know, just depending on where they're at and their maturation of their organization, they don't always have that. But strategic plans can really help set up board of directors and other governing bodies with an anticipated, here's where we're going to go.

Here's what we're going to invest in. This is our roadmap moving forward in the next three to five years. And now we need to set budget aside for those things. Um, it's an investment for sure. So

Yeah,

I answer the question?

of course. I mean, it's all about, you know, kind of that return that, that, that folks are going to get and, and why they might do this. And some, you know, some folks have a, Oh, brand doesn't really matter. And then, you know, those sorts of things that, uh, some hoops to jump through there before, as you're talking to anybody in that world.

Um, With that said, I think, you know, one of the things that you and I hear about and I hear about it quite often. I know you do on the brand side, but sometimes we jump in when people are trying to do it on their own. Um, what are some of the common pitfalls that You've seen businesses face when they try to handle their brand and digital needs, um, with either internal resources that aren't maybe set up for success there or maybe inexperienced partners as well.

Yeah, good question. So I laugh because I think internal champions, both from a brand and a digital perspective are super important. I think back to that time that I, my previous role where I did do that updated brand work and a new database. And one of the guys on my team, Ryan was our digital expert. He was our database expert.

He's a CRM guy. I needed him right internally. So, um, And I needed myself from a brand perspective, but there's no way we could have facilitated the entire project without a partner. Um, the, the moving pieces, um, getting buy in from your team as an internal leader, um, is really hard. I think you can get really myopic as an internal staff person and an internal leadership team on what you think you know.

kind of guiding you, um, kind of guiding you, um, kind of guiding you, um, you, you can't really get very far. Um, and so we needed, um, Ryan and I needed the external partner to really push us to think about things, especially when it came to our digital database. I mean, there's so many intricacies that I don't think we would have ever come up with had we not had  partner walking us through that. Um, the pitfalls and I mean, I'm sure we can both come up with hilarious stories, but one of the things that I, from a brand perspective that I feel like we've seen is just  failed brand launch. So what I mean by that is you've come up with some sort of new brand internally, or you've renamed yourself or you've, you know, Done some sort of transformation and then you never really successfully launched that brand either internally to your own team or to external audiences and people are like still scratching their head. I mean, we've all seen public ones that are known, right? But like, people are scratching their head like, what happened there? Well, they used to be something else and now they're this, they're still telling the story five years later. That story should be well told from the beginning. We should be bringing people along on that transformation. Um, so from a, uh, whoopsie that didn't go so well. I think that's the other way,  uh, a brand strategist or a brand team like Mercury can really help think ahead and plan ahead for how do we, how do we roll this out so it's successful? Uh, similarly, you know, how do you roll out a digital space so that your internal team is trained and they know what they're looking at and they can answer questions.

And, um, yeah, there's a whole bunch of things that  launch is super important.

yeah, I mean,  I've been doing this long enough with Fjord to have early on failed at a few launches, and I always made sure, um, as I was managing projects that if I got bit once, I was never going to let that happen again.  And through lots of painful experiences, when you think you have it all covered, you still don't.

But, to be prepared for the unexpected, and, I think maybe just the key word there is, prepared. You know, it's  It's not one of those, if you build it, they will come sort of situations. It is,

right.

There is an awareness, you know, step and on our side in digital pieces, there's typically an internal training, uh, that is needed even for the simplest website.

How do you change. Content. How do you log in? How do you do this? And it's not one of those things that you just set and forget. Um, and so having a partner that has been there, done that and seeing all of those, uh, you know, mistakes firsthand or, and has a process and a checklist. Kind of a thing to make sure that all the big things that we can possibly think of are covered in that scenario

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the last thing you want to do is spend all that time and money on a project and then have it no, not go well. Right.

Yeah, yeah.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah  And, and that's why we like you so much, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaking of which let's, let's dive in, uh, dive into, you know, an example of, you know, work that we've collectively done together. Um, can you take us through at a high level, you know, uh, maybe your favorite project that you've worked with, uh, at Fjord's, you know, kind of give a little bit of background and kind of the synergy that, that brand and digital create through that.

So, uh, both of, well, a couple of the clients that I'm thinking of had kind of kind of come to Mercury with different problems that we were trying to solve. Right. Um, And both of them long term clients, but, um, one of the things that kind of rang true between both of them was. That mercury was really good at taking them through, um, ideal audience, value proposition, getting that brand foundation work done that I've talked about already. Um, but where our team has decided to not, you know, play, if you will, is in the digital space and the, and the, um, who can we, you know, proactively pass this client off to that

Okay.

the point of where we were able to help them. Um, we have other partners, not in the space that you all play, but, um, that is a huge deal, especially as a client services director for me that our clients are really cared for. Um, but the issue at the beginning for these clients that kind of was consistent was. This  this digital ecosystem runs our business. So if it goes down, if we have issues with it, like we need to be able to reach out to the team and be able to get help. And, um, and their brand was helping run their business, right? Like both of those things being

Yeah,

and updated for their team to be able to do their, what their work was, but also to attract new clients and new members. Um, they needed to stay relevant, otherwise they'll fall behind. Um, and so, you know, that working together on that and us making sure that we had found, um, or and partnered with you all, knowing that they'd be well taken care of. Um, but then also that you all are thinking ahead of on our clients, right?

You're coming up with solutions that they maybe can't think of. Similarly, Um, we're trying to do that from a marketing perspective. So, um, yeah, those are the ways it's really worked out really well. Um, and both clients, I would say that I'm thinking of have, uh, have invested, right, they've, they've spent, they've got internal team members working on these systems.

They've got, um, partnerships that help them kind of bring it forward. And so they're,  seeing the value or the ROI of spending that money because they know it's going to move their business forward. Because

yeah,  yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, and I want to follow that up with kind of a quick,  you know  Thought for those that are considering work like this, and I'll let you talk about this first, but how do people need to think about  the budget from a budget standpoint? And then also you mentioned this a time investment from their side as well.

Um, what do you see in the brand world with how how people need to think about the budget and how they need to think about what  involvement they're going to need?

Yeah. I mean, a full comprehensive rebrand is, um, you know, something that we advise our clients, you know, they either use, uh, reserve funds or some sort of capital fund that they've got set aside. It's, it's an expense that you aren't going to, you know, incur every year. Um, but our timeframe from a comprehensive rebrand, if we're doing like a full name, Uh, new identity, new website.

That's a one to two year, um, time frame. Um, we, you know, it's,  It's really a transformation. And so it does take time. Sometimes organizations are like, Oh, we, we, we're so overwhelmed. We have to redo everything. We take it  kind of piece by piece. That's why we've done the mercury method the way we have. So  strategy phase is first and that's, um, a manageable budget, eight to 10 weeks, and then we get into the design phase and that's where really, you know, the rubber hits the road.

Then we're, we've got more team members. We've got additional, um,  you know, Needs in terms of web development. We need writers. We need to get that naming updated and that kind of thing  But 18 months to two years is a typical comprehensive rebrand  And we bring partners like few origin when we get to that web space,

And I mean, I think I like to say this and I'm assuming it's for you as well. Like there's, there's work that can be done faster, but that's not the best strategic plan of, you know, of launching a brand or the internal resources. You know, people always go, well, can you go faster? And I'm like, we probably can, but can you, um, you know, You know, how fast can, Oh, Oh yeah, we can go super fast.

How about we meet tomorrow? Oh, I'm going on vacation. You know, that kind of a thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, and so I think it's, it's important and, and with us, you know, there's, and you mentioned this earlier, there's more, there's always more to do than time and money will allow. So there's always an exercise of, of, Hey, what's going to get them?

Let's get the. You know, 80 percent of the value with 20 percent of the work. If we can get to that stage, especially with, with, um, with digital projects, that's where we tend to focus. And, and that you, you just like you said, you know, a brand refresh. I mean, a lot of folks are thinking about refreshing their website or updating their digital tools.

And a lot of times. You know, blowing it up and starting from scratch is going to give you that better value and sometimes even a lower cost to, to be, to  be honest. And

it right with that ideal audience before you jump into it is key because then you're not creating something that's for everybody.

exactly. Of course.

And they're wanting to  attract younger staff and board members and all of that. And you can't do that when your brand is stuck in the nineties, you know, I mean, you really do have to invest in it to make your, help your organization grow. Um, attracting younger audiences is something we hear  every day,  every day.  Yeah,  wants the younger audience. Everybody wants somebody that's engaged, you know, somebody that's going to sign up for a class or take advantage of something. Um, and so, yeah, how do we  through the noise and make it so it's relevant?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Emily, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thanks so much for joining me and having this conversation.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Joe. It was really fun.

Yeah. All right. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have on today for, uh, All the time we have for today on mind your own marketing business. Uh, you can find Emily youngblood, uh, easily, uh, via mercury creative group. That is mercury creative group. com, but you can also just Google that. And thank you to our listeners for joining us.

You can download  📍 our episodes of our program and by going to fjords. com slash podcast, or by subscribing to the show on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Spotify.

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