Lucy Trewhitt Interview Transcript
Nancy Rush:
Well, welcome Lucy. It's awesome to have you here. I'm very excited to talk about our topic today, which is all about brand positioning. That's a topic that is near and dear to my heart as I love branding.
So before we jump into our questions though, let me read your bio so everybody kind of gets to know you a little bit more. With over 15 years of experience, Lucy guides brands through pivotal moments of change where uncertainty meets opportunity. An expert in brand storytelling and market adaptation, her background in fashion and luxury goods informs the way she anticipates and responds to evolving consumer needs with a focus on brand longevity and commercial relevance.
More than just tracking trends and behaviors, Lucy specializes in designing and executing smart, timely strategic pivots. Very cool. Helping brands adapt quickly and thrive in a shifting market. That's really lovely.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Thank you.
Nancy Rush:
So let's just start right in. You've got this very strong background in fashion and luxury. How has this shaped your approach to brand positioning compared to other industries?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, I actually left university, did the usual thing, did a business master's, and then jumped pretty much immediately into luxury - initially, it was very high-end interior designers that I was working for in London. Then that slowly pivoted into more luxury services, and from there into luxury goods and fashion. I ended up in Paris working for Louis Vuitton and then set up on my own.
So it's a mixed bag of different luxury goods and luxury services. But the common thread is really that I quite like that slightly gentler sell - we don't need to shout too loudly because actually, to some people, that deters them. When I say shout too loudly, it's very much that we wouldn't necessarily do a sale or you wouldn't necessarily do a hard sell. It's never a hard sell because the minute you start to hard sell, you start to look a little bit on the desperate side.
That's fine, but if you're just going to do that all the time, then you're always going to be competing on price. So essentially what that means is that your client is always going to be looking for a deal. You see it time and time again with high street brands that do that. Restaurants that do that.
There was - I remember in the UK, there's a restaurant pizza chain and they would have this thing where every Wednesday you'd get like a buy one, get one free pizza. But the result of that was no one would go any other day of the week because they thought they were being overcharged on those days. So it really cheapens the brand in that sense.
I think with luxury, yes, you can do things that are different and loud and noisy. You see a lot of noisy things happening at the moment in terms of things that make a splash or make impact. But there's always a reason for that thing. It's not just, "let's just create this event out of the blue for no reason whatsoever and it'll be really obscure and no one really gets it." There's always a thread that links it back and something that ties it to that brand message, those core brand values, and that's what people respond to.
They don't just respond to "I'm just going to throw this event because I just want to throw an event" or "I just want people to talk about me" because no one really cares about your brand.
It's so funny. I work with lots of clients from small, medium businesses to bigger ones. And the biggest hurdle I have with every single one is convincing them that no one cares about their brand. The only person that cares about your business or your brand is you. Your clients don't care. No one cares. What they care about is what you can do for them, the emotional way in which you do it for them, and that emotional connection. They do not care about your product.
You don't see Nike going, "okay, well we're going to talk about these laces and then when we're selling a shoe we're going to talk about the specifics of this exact fabric and it's got this cushioning." No, no, no, no. "Just do it." Really simple, easy. "We're going to get you to just do it. This shoe is going to help you just do it." Sold.
If you start talking about the nitty gritty of the product because you're really excited about it, your client does not care how you do it. They just want to just do it.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, first, let me just call out the elephant in the room, which is nobody cares about your brand except you. Other marketing agencies will tell you, first of all, it's all about the brand and what does it represent and which archetype is it and all that good stuff.
So I think it's kind of interesting just for me to interpret here. What I heard you say was that coming from the luxury industry, when we apply those same principles to our business, like you said, it's not about the loud sell. It's about more of a softer kind of approach. And then that positioned next to nobody cares about your brand except for you, really what they're buying is the resonance, right? They're buying the vibrational quality - to make it a little bit more woo - they're buying that vibrational quality, what it is that you're putting out there.
And so this is where I do think people get to be intentional about the brand in terms of what it's representing. Would you think that's the case?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, that's exactly it. And also I want to add - no one buys a Hermès bag because they want the specific bag. Let's be real about this. Hermès has two customers: the people that can afford to buy it and the people that never will. They need both customers. They feed off each other.
Roland Barthes was a literary critic, but wrote this brilliant essay called "The Language of Fashion" - well, I think it's a collection of essays called "The Language of Fashion." And essentially, it's all about how class impacted fashion. And it's fascinating. But essentially, that's where a brand like Hermès is important.
So you've got people that can afford it, people that can't afford it. The people that can afford it only want it because it's a status symbol. It differentiates them from the people that can't afford it. So if that collective audience of the people that want it but can't afford it go away, the people at the top that can afford it no longer want it. They're not buying a bag. They're buying an identity, essentially. They're buying status.
And status is - there's a really fascinating book by a guy called Will Storr called "The Status Game." And he did loads of research and it's phenomenal. If you're vaguely interested in marketing, really suggest you read it. It's all about how human psychology works essentially. His premise was the one thing that we can never get enough of is not power, it's not wealth, it's not all these things - as human beings, it's status. Because that is slightly different to everybody. But essentially your positioning within society is the one thing you will be constantly striving for as human beings. It's kind of just like a psychological rule, essentially, or given in the same way that human beings are inherently lazy. We always go for the line of least resistance, all of that sort of stuff. And that's what Hermès is selling. They're not selling a bag.
Nancy Rush:
So how does this translate into - I'm thinking of somebody like me where I have a brand and it's - but I'm not a luxury brand, obviously. Status really, truly isn't all that important to me. What's more important to me is to be in service, although you're probably going to contradict me and that's fine. But how does this translate into somebody like me that has a business that wants to do good in the world but isn't necessarily caught up in all the ego stuff?
Lucy Trewhitt:
So what you said was status isn't important to you, but your brand's not about you. It's about the client. It's always about that client. And status can mean slightly different things. It's not necessarily who's got the most Hermès bags. It's not necessarily who's going to the most fashion shows. It's not necessarily who's holidaying in the south of France.
It can be actually, "I want to be seen as really successful in the business world. I want to be seen as really successful as a mother." That's where I pin my status on potentially. I have children, but I've got a friend who that's where she definitely gets that sort of self-affirmation and sort of her sense of purpose from. And I think she puts a lot of stock in that.
So status means different things to different people and it'll be different to different client bases.
For example, if your client base is very much sort of seeing themselves as altruistic - and I say seeing themselves as altruistic because I personally don't think anyone is. Altruism physically can't exist because why do you want to be altruistic? If you dig deep enough there's always some other thread there and it's not a bad thing. They're still doing good. But if your client wants to be perceived as being altruistic, well why do they want to be perceived as being altruistic? Is that where they get their level of status from? Is that where they get their spot in society? Is it because they're the friend that helps everyone? They're the person that gives. Why are they giving so much? Why do they want to be seen as giving?
You can kind of look at it in that sense a little bit. But it feeds into the messages that you're giving them. So if that's who they are, that's fine, but you need to be - that's what you need to give them. You need to give them that sense that they feel altruistic, and they feel like, "yes, you're supporting them in business and yes, you're doing this and all of these things." That's the product. But actually the message is, "how can I help you help others?" That's the message because that's ultimately what they want.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah. I like the way that you pivoted that. I think initially I was thinking more of status in the egoic sense. That status implies for me would be like, "well, of course I'm not into status. Of course I'm into more altruistic perspective." But I see what you're saying is that the definition of status is what is important to you.
On the flip side as a consumer, you're right. When I look at somebody like my business mentor as an example, I want to see some aspects of that. She's an expertise in her field, which is a form of status, right? That she has created success in her own business as a mentor toward me and my own business. And so I can kind of see what you're talking about there from that perspective.
It's not necessarily ego driven, but you are adapting yourself to what it is that your people want. And so I think that the crux for me here is to really look at - if I really understand my client base, who my prospective clients are, what is it that they're looking for? Not to be a one size fits all, right? Because I don't think that that's the right approach. I think it is important to be unique, but at the same time to always be thinking of what is it that they're looking for. Is that kind of - am I capturing that right?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Absolutely. That's absolutely it. And I think that obviously everybody is looking for something slightly different, but it's usually how they perceive where they want their place in the world to be or how they want to be perceived essentially - that's what it boils down to for a lot of people.
So you could be talking to someone who's got a product-based business and it's like, "well, why are you so focused on this? Why do you want this to succeed?" And ultimately it might be because, "well, I want to provide a certain life for my family." Because yes, you might be passionate about what you do, but ultimately, we need to make money. And why are you - there's that why as well. Yes, there's the whys that you talk about as a business owner and you say, "oh, this is wonderful. And I do this because I want to help people and all of these things."
And I work in marketing because I'm absolutely fascinated with how the human brain works. I'm completely passionate about bio-behavior. But ultimately, I wouldn't do it if I wasn't being paid. I would do something that paid me because I need to eat.
Nancy Rush:
So I'm curious, how does somebody know whether their brand is in alignment or not? Are there telltale signs that essentially your brand needs some tweaking?
Lucy Trewhitt:
The biggest one, I think if it's a service-based business, the biggest one is people haggling on price. If you're getting loads of people come to you and they're all going, "oh well could you do this for less?" or "I've only got this budget" or if you're getting people that come to you and they do like a discovery call and then they just disappear off the face of the earth as soon as you send them the quote - that sort of stuff. That's your biggest issue. You're basically - your brand is pitched at a level that is lower than what you're charging. That's where I would say that's the biggest red flag for me.
Nancy Rush:
And then what's the strategy or what would be the solution? So let's just say there's a misalignment. Like you said, you're doing discovery calls, you're having these great conversations, but then people are not actually purchasing the program or the service that you're offering. What are some steps that somebody could do to kind of really, A, figure out what is it about the brand that's off? And then secondly, how do they refine that?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Very much depends on the business. As you said, one size fits all doesn't work, but I always start going back to the client. So who is your current client and who do you want your client to be?
So take your current pool of clients or the core audience, actually more than clients. So who are the people doing those discovery calls that then aren't falling off the face of the earth or whatever, and really deep dive into them and go, "actually, are these the people you want to be speaking to?" Because if that's the case, you need to lower your prices because they clearly can't afford it. Or is it that actually there's a certain demographic that you'd rather be speaking to that you're trying to speak to, but you're just missing that mark?
In which case I'd go, "Okay, well, who are they? Really deep dive into them, research, research, research." And that's the thing that people skimp on. It's not fun. It's not glamorous. It's not sexy. They avoid it. The more you know about your client, the better. You should know what they ate for breakfast on any given day. As far as I'm concerned, everything you could possibly find out about that person or that sort of - and I don't even like using archetypes. I think that's frankly nonsense. But anything you know about that sort of persona, all of the psychographics, I don't really care so much about the demographics apart from, can they afford it? But all of the psychographics around that, you should know inside out. And then you can adjust your messaging and your branding and everything else from that. But it all starts with the, "who's this person and who is my current audience?"
Nancy Rush:
So I think this is fantastic that you brought this up because one of the parts of my journey was figuring out that I was actually better off figuring out who I wanted to serve. And then, like you said, getting to know them, but then really holding firmly to that specific person, meaning that in the older days, I know I did, I've done this and many other people that I know have also done it is that we sort of try to speak to everybody and sort of like shotgun spatter approach that you just hope something sticks somewhere rather than being extremely precise about who you're speaking to and why.
And then from the psychographic perspective, let's just illuminate that just a little bit, because not everybody might be familiar with what psychographics are. So can you tell me a little bit about what that represents?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah. So psychographics, I think, are just amazing because they can bridge demographics. So you could have male aged 50, woman aged 25. I mean, this is very unusual, but it can happen. How do you appeal to both at the same time? If you just focus on the demographics, you can't. It's impossible.
But if you go through and you make really detailed profiles of these people and you go, "Okay, well, what is this person's biggest driver? What do they really want in life? What do they really care about? What keeps them up at three in the morning about this specific thing? What is it that they are completely driven mad by?" You might find that there'll be a simple answer. There'll be the easy answer, which is, "Well, it's X, Y, or Z," but why? Why is X, Y or Z important to them?
And then you'll see if you ask the same questions and you continuously ask why, ultimately you get down to that core thing which is inevitably either it's because they want to be perceived as X, Y in a certain way or they want a certain level of status or they want to feel secure and safe or they want - whatever it is. That's the core thing that you will get down to and it'll probably be the same for both of them.
So that's how your psychographics can basically bridge demographics and then that's where your messaging sits. Your messaging sits in the psychographics or you're speaking to the psychographics not the demographics because essentially then you - I don't really believe in niching. I think it's lazy marketing, if I dare say it. So that's how you can avoid having to niche down.
That said, I did have a client once that said, "oh, well, everybody buys our product." It was a short-lived client because they were a sort of cash cow family business for years. And he'd been handed down from whoever - "everybody buys our stuff." Now they were essentially a gifting company, nationwide gifting company. Target demographic, very clearly women over the age of 60. Very clearly. And I said to him, I said, "Would an 18-year-old boy be your typical client?" And he said, "Well, he might be buying stuff for his grandma." And I'm like, "Yeah, but how would he know that that's what she likes?" You know, if you start targeting him, it doesn't make sense. He'll know that she likes this brand because she goes and buys this brand, not because you're targeting him in an ad.
So there is a bit of - common sense needs to be applied. I mean the truth of the matter is that there's no - I don't think there's any company out there that everybody buys. I mean maybe an iPhone or something maybe, I don't know, but I think those are more of the exception rather than the rule.
Nancy Rush:
And so who buys iPhones?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Well, that's true. I actively don't buy iPhones. I don't know. My partner calls them a cult. I'm a firm iPhone user. So it's our main sort of point of contention is that I'm obsessed with Apple stuff because it's idiot-proof.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah, that's definitely. So what is the benefit then of somebody really diving into - I love what you talked about the psychographics because I agree it does help bridge when you're really - I think people want to be spoken to in a very genuine way. And for me, really understanding the state of mind of who it is that you're, for lack of a better term, targeting, but really who you're attracting in really helps that. Like you said, understanding the things that are keeping them up at three o'clock in the morning and what are their true heartfelt desires rather than just sort of the superficial stuff. But when somebody brings that level of precision into the mix of their marketing and how they represent the brand, what does that open up for them?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Well, I think it's the basis of all marketing. I would never dream of starting to work with a client without that knowledge. Because everything that they then do afterwards is essentially guesswork otherwise. So if you don't know all of those things, you may as well be blindfolded with a pin in your hand, pinning a tail on a donkey. You can't possibly know for sure that anything you're going to do is going to work.
So if you run ads, you're just throwing money away. If you're doing an event, you might risk - you run the risk of no one turning up. If you're launching a new product or a new offer or whatever it is, again, you could be putting loads of time and energy and effort into something and then just be launching to crickets. So everything after that would be guesswork if you hadn't done that first step.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah. The foundation. Yeah. That makes sense. I had a point early in my career as an entrepreneur where I was following the guidance of a then business mentor and they had me start running Facebook ads but I didn't really understand my audience very well. So what ended up happening was I attracted people and brought them in but they were not at all aligned with A, what I offered but B, who I wanted to work with. I know it was an expensive mistake for sure but I learned a lot from it from there.
Lucy Trewhitt:
So and then you kind of end up with an email list that has a low open rate as well because all of these people that you've attracted actually aren't really that interested in what you've got to say. So you end up with an email list full of people that actually aren't opening. That impacts your open rate which then - yeah. And it kind of pollutes all the data as well which no one talks about. No one talks about the importance of data in marketing and it makes me sad because it really is. It's just how you learn. Unless you look at the numbers, good God, people that don't look at the numbers.
Nancy Rush:
So when you talk about the numbers, in my mind, that's looking at things like open rates on your emails or bounce rates on a web page, as an example. Is that what you're referring to?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, all of those things. Look at where people are going on your website. Look at where people are coming from to your website. Look at your SEO. It's not rocket science. SEO is really easy, it's just mind-numbingly boring. So it's not hard, it's just dull. But all of those things you need to be looking at.
And silly things like - organic social media isn't great. Let's be honest. So it's less than 10% of most businesses sales. And that's businesses that have huge social media teams. So for smaller businesses, it's probably about less than 7%. But that said, it's a really good indicator of what your audience resonate with.
So it's a really good indicator of - well, if they're engaging, at least the message is resonating. They're probably not going to buy from you from organics because no one does, but at the same time, if they're commenting, that tells you something. So actually, what's your reach? How many impressions are you getting? What sort of engagement are you getting? Which platforms are you getting the most engagement on? That tells you where to put your time, your money and your effort.
So if you're not looking at those numbers, you should be. Because otherwise, again, if you don't look at the numbers, you are just stabbing in the dark.
Nancy Rush:
Yep, I can see that. I can see also, though, too, is that some people get paralyzed by the data, but it's almost like, so that's where having somebody like you as an example that can come in and be like, "yes, this is mind numbingly boring, but I totally get it." And you can be the catalyst for them, right?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, I think if you really hate that stuff, and there are people that do, you need to hire someone that gets the numbers and actually enjoys them and kind of goes, "okay, well, yes, the numbers themselves are a bit dull because numbers aren't the most exciting thing. But what do the numbers tell you?" It's what they tell you that's the interesting stuff. It's not necessarily that one plus one is whatever. It's, "Oh, well, why is that higher than this? How's that worked?"
Because if you, for example, share a post on - you adapt a post for LinkedIn and you adapt another one for Instagram, and then you go, "Huh, really high engagement over here, really low engagement there." It's not the content being bad. It's that you're posting on a platform where your audience is not.
Nancy Rush:
Oh, that's a really interesting distinction. Because I think people get very hung up on when they're not getting engagement or responses or likes or whatever on their content. And so I hadn't really thought of it that way, that it may not actually be the content, it's the platform.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, it's a lot of the time it's platform. And it's also silly stuff like - the lifespan of a post on Instagram is really short. So with that said, what time are you posting? Are you posting at the right time for your audience?
But to be perfectly honest, I mean, it depends on the business, but I personally don't overly use - I use Instagram stories a lot because I find them incredibly useful for polls and research and all of those things. In terms of an actual post, I think it's a time vampire. I think you can spend all the time in the world making it look pretty and creating a really cool reel. But unless you're a social media marketer - unless you're a social media manager, specifically manager, and you need to showcase your skills about how cool you are and how great you can make reels and how - look at all my video editing. Or you're a photographer. I kind of don't really see the point of Instagram unless - or you could be - I mean it works for some businesses, doesn't work for others.
So if it's product-based you've got to go for Instagram. If you're a Pilates instructor probably Instagram is going to be the way forward for you. But for service providers not always and I think we were told - well actually I mean I find it really funny. So Instagram essentially back when it first launched was great. You could just hashtag something and then you'd get a hundred followers that day. And it was fantastic. The glory days, essentially. Now it's incredibly hard work. And it's also really competitive, but also people aren't on there for that anymore. They're on there for entertainment. They want to be entertained. They don't want to be sold to.
So what type of content creator do you want to be? Or do you want to be a content creator? There's just lots of questions around that. I have no desire to be a content creator. It's not who I am. I'm a marketer so for me it makes zero sense to be showcasing lots of stuff on Instagram. So I'll put up the occasional post but realistically I'm - LinkedIn's more nuanced. My audience is on LinkedIn. It's where more business owners are. There's a higher spend power on LinkedIn as well which is important if you're trying to run a business. So that's where I sit in terms of my personal stuff.
So yeah it's just really knowing actually where's my audience and where do I want my audience - where do I want - how do I want to create if I want to create at all and where's my audience?
Nancy Rush:
So what's great about what you're saying here is it's actually, I think, giving people permission to be very strategic and selective about where they're putting their time and effort in social media. Because I know from - I've been advised by other people to be on all the platforms. You want to have a presence on Pinterest and LinkedIn and Facebook and Insta and et cetera, et cetera, and TikTok. Who is out there using Pinterest?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Who is out there using Pinterest? Anything other than interior design. Exactly.
Nancy Rush:
But my point is that I think we can get caught up in a little bit of that fear of missing out. It's like, "oh gosh, if we don't have a presence on every single platform." Whereas I know for us, being a lot more strategic about where we put our time and effort and really being clear about where our people are. Our people are on LinkedIn primarily, although there's - I would argue that many of them are still on Facebook because they're old school, like me, for example, and maybe a little bit on Insta. But you're right. We're not going to be Instagram influencers. You know, that's not what we're all about.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, it's so funny. I mean, I will say Instagram's fastest growing audience is women over 45. I personally don't use Facebook because I don't like Facebook. I really early on was like "I'll use Facebook ads. I'm not using Facebook." It's just not - it's not my bag. I don't like it. It annoys me every time I go on there and I think sometimes you have to just draw your line in the sand. I don't want to be irritated every day so that was my line in the sand.
The thing is, if you don't - I don't personally care for social media. I think it's a huge time suck but social media is still part of a marketing strategy so I would say you could do what I've done which is I have somebody else do all of the posting. I mean I'll create the content but I don't get on the platforms because they drive me batty. They all do. So yeah, the only one that doesn't really drive me nuts is LinkedIn. I will say that.
With Facebook, I just keep a Facebook presence with ads. So I just run lead generation ads. And then that's kind of it. Because I also, again, I think they're the only ads that - unless you're a product-based business, very different. For service-based businesses, maybe some products and some services, again, we're moving into the gray stuff, but for most service-based businesses, I would say that your best ad you're going to get in terms of low cost return on investment is going to be lead generation ads. Everything else, people don't buy instantly. So you've got to put a huge spend on them. Running ads for awareness is, if you're a small business, bullshit - am I allowed to say it? It's silly.
And yeah, I just think at least with lead generation ads, you've got them on an owned list because email marketing is probably the most important thing you can do. The return on investment is over - I think it's 3,600%, which is nuts. Far higher than anything else. So that's where you want people. You don't want followers unless again, maybe you're product-based. Product-based is slightly different to service-based. There's always a little bit of a - but for a service-based business, you don't want followers. You don't want a huge audience. You want an email list and you want it to be really solid and really highly engaged because that's where you're going to make money. You're not going to make money from someone seeing a post once on Instagram.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah, I think this is really great that you're talking about this because I've seen clients of mine that have put a lot of time and effort into social and they want the engagement, they want the likes and all of that, but they're not even cultivating their email list. And their email list is the single most valuable. These are people that have said, "please, yes, do communicate with me." They've given you permission to communicate with them. It's like, why wouldn't you want to take advantage of that?
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah, they're also further down the sales funnel. Instagram is top of funnel awareness, absolute top of your sales funnel. It's a - should be in theory, a wider audience. It doesn't always work for some people, but it should be in theory, a wider audience right at the top. It's like, you're not going to walk into someone in the street and go, "Hi, nice to meet you. Will you buy from me?" You'd look at them like they were mad. That's what you're doing by trying to sell on a platform where people are literally just getting to know you.
If you then give them something and you're like, "Here's this thing that you might be interested in. Do you want to try it? It's free." They try it, but they also give you something in return. There's that exchange, which is the email address. Obviously there's that exchange. So they've invested, even if it's just an email address, they've invested their email address in you. And I don't just give my email out to anyone. I'll put it that way because I don't want spam. So if I've given you my email address, I've essentially taken that next step into the sales funnel. I've gone, "Okay, yeah, I'm now beyond awareness, and we're going to just have a little note." I'm maybe then going to go, "Oh, I'm going to go check out their website." So I'm kind of in that consideration space, essentially, a little bit more, or maybe not quite, but I'm certainly moving in that direction.
Nancy Rush:
Well, I mean, it's a sign of a commitment, right? If somebody gives you their email address, they're basically saying what you're talking about, what you're marketing is aligned in some way for me, it resonates with me in some way. And so I know for us, we view our email list as - not to be dramatic about it, but it's somewhat sacred, meaning that these are people that have given us their trust that want us to communicate and to support them. And so that's our perspective on it. And I'm always amazed at people who just don't recognize the value of that. It's like you said, you're not going to sell somebody through social media and people aren't going to buy off of an email, but an email is a direct conduit into their inbox that you can show up and be visible and teach and share and have them get to know you.
Lucy Trewhitt
People always say to me, "but what if they don't open their emails?" And I'm like, even if they do not open your email, firstly, people take - 98% of the population take, I think it's up to 2 years to purchase a big purchase. So anything between a couple of months to 2 years. So you need to be showing up consistently and doing all those things. So there's that first and foremost, which is why email is important because they don't always see your posts because Instagram shows your post to less than seven percent of your audience which is not ideal.
Whereas at least even if they don't open those emails you're getting name recognition in their inbox. They're seeing your name week in week out and ultimately they're going to go, "Oh do you know what actually I was looking for this. I'm thinking about buying one of those. Someone keeps emailing me about it. Who is it?" And they're going to look and then they're going to open your emails and they're going to read them and they're going to read a few and then they're going to buy.
So even if they don't open them to start with, you've got name recognition, which is more than you get on Instagram these days because they show your post to less than seven percent of your audience of your followers. So if you've only got 200 followers, that's not many people. Versus 200 people on an email list. Now, that's a whole lot of value.
Nancy Rush:
Exactly. Exactly. Because all 200 of them are seeing that email as opposed to - I don't know what 7% - as opposed to like maximum 20 people seeing a post. Well, and plus, I mean, I'm somebody who will go days without getting on social because I just don't really enjoy it. So I mean, if you're putting stuff on social, it's a high probability that even if it showed up for me to see it, I'll miss it because I'm just not on social, whereas my inbox, that's a whole different equation. I'm on email every single day. And so you're right, that brand recognition, that name visibility, that's huge.
Lucy Trewhitt
Yeah. And repetition is so important because - a stat that I'm a little bit obsessed with is that as a human being, you see, depending on where you live, if you live in the countryside or the city, you see between 4,000 to 10,000 sales messages a day.
Nancy Rush:
Wow, that's a lot.
Lucy Trewhitt:
It's a lot. It's a terrifying amount, but that's like ad pop-ups, it's banners across the bottom of a screen when you're online, it's sales emails popping up in your inbox, it's - you walk down the street, you see a bus go past with a sales thing on or you walk past a coffee shop and they've got a little placard outside. I mean I challenge anyone to count them just wake up one day and say "I'm going to count today" because it'll be a lot.
So if you think about that, how does your one post a week actually hit? If I'm seeing 4,000 to 10,000 messages a day that are salesy, I've probably got a bit of blinkers on about that. I'm probably a bit like sales fatigue first and foremost or advert fatigue. And then if I'm only seeing that post once a week, but I'm also - some weeks I'm not seeing it because I'm not on social media that week or Instagram hasn't shown it to me that week. You're not really scratching the surface from a marketing perspective because marketing is all about repetition.
Now, at least that weekly email, and sometimes I would, depending on the business, say it should be at least twice a week, depending on the business. But at least they're seeing it. And repeatedly.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah. So... Yeah, that's awesome. There's one thing that kind of keeps coming up for me is something that you commented on in the interview preparation questions was about storytelling. So I'm curious where storytelling weaves into this, not to open up a whole huge new topic, but it feels relevant that there's purpose and that when we're speaking with our email audiences and really even posting on social, that there's this element of storytelling.
Lucy Trewhitt:
So what storytelling does is essentially when you hear a story or you read a story or whatever, it releases dopamine in the brain. So scientifically, it bonds you to a thing. We've all had that. I'm obsessed with books. So I love reading and I will binge read books. So like people do Netflix. I will be there with a book and I won't eat and I won't sleep and I'll be like done in six hours. And then I'll be like, "OK, I can move on now. I can get on with my day."
Nancy Rush:
So I'm right there with you.
Lucy Trewhitt:
But that's because it essentially gives you a dopamine hit. And then I'm a bit bereft when it's ended because I'm a bit sad. It really messes with my brain chemicals. But so it's that connection piece essentially.
So it is that - how do you connect with a brand? So 94% of consumers recommend brands that they have an emotional attachment to or an emotional connection to. So 71% will recommend brands that they have an emotional attachment to that they haven't bought from yet. And I've done it. I've loved a brand story and I've gone, "Oh my God, they're amazing. They'd be perfect for this brand." I do it all the time. I'm like, "Oh, have you heard of this brand? They're really cool." I'm like, I've never bought from them.
Nancy Rush:
But you're recommending them.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Just recommending them to everyone I see. So that's where the storytelling, the emotional connection piece comes in. So storytelling itself makes people 83% more likely to buy. So I like those numbers as far as I'm concerned.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah, no, those are great numbers.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Pretty safe. And it is just - it's the emotional connection to a brand. It's essentially what differentiates you as a brand. It is storytelling based on real core deep values. And I don't just mean pluck a few words out of the sky and call them values and stick them on your about page to tick die. I mean values that are woven through your entire brand. Every piece of content they should be coming through. Everything you do, they should come through.
And I think that essentially the storytelling that's based in that enables you to do one of two things. Well, one thing that's actually just the most important thing in the world. It stops you from competing on price because people have that emotional connection to you. And that is what stops them from going to Joe Blogs down the street who's 5 to 10 pounds cheaper because they're connected.
So you either have to be - the first brand that comes to mind because you were first, the first person to do the thing, which is actually really hard to do. And no one will ever be the first again. So that's not going to happen for you. Sorry to burst the bubble. Or you have to be the best in the eye of the consumer. So what makes you the best? If we go back to that, it's not about the product. Being the best, I don't care about the technicality of Nike shoe. I care about the story they've told me, which is that I can just go and do it. And that connects me to the brand. That makes me feel strong. It makes me feel powerful. It makes me feel like anything is possible. That's what I'm buying, that story.
Nancy Rush:
And to that point, I think using Nike as that specific example, what's really interesting is that when they're speaking that message, that it comes through with conviction, right? It's not enough to just be like, "okay, we want to be this." It's like, you have to really embody and believe in your core values.
Like when I created the company, my company three years ago, that was one of the first things I did was create the core values for the company because I used that as the framework for everybody that came into the company. Anybody that we work with, there's always - those core values are always present in the background. But I think it brings authenticity, which people recognize. I mean, I don't know about you, but if somebody's coming across as a little bit shady or a little bit not authentic, I'm immediately turned off.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah. Yeah. And you can tell it's really obvious. It's really obvious if someone doesn't believe what they're saying, basically. You can - I could say, what could I - I could say Samsung's are my favorite phones. As we now know, I'm an iPhone user. So I could, you know, I'm not going to - it's going to seem weird. It doesn't quite fit with my personality because something's just off about it. You can tell when people are lying. We're wired to essentially have a gut intuition on these things because they are fundamentally what kept us safe in the past.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah, and if you have brand values that don't feel good to you, but you're using them because you feel like you should or that's what people want to hear. It's never going to gel. You're never going to - it's not going to make sense to you, so you can't make it then make sense to someone else.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Right. Yeah, there will always be, in my mind, there will always be a misalignment or a dissonance that will come through. And it's hard to communicate stuff if you don't believe it as well.
Nancy Rush:
True. Very true. Yeah.
This has been fantastic. We've gone over time but thank you. It was such a fascinating conversation. I would love for you to talk about your free gift if you don't mind.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yes. So it is a brand repositioning workbook. So it is essentially - it's got a little bit of diagnostics in there and then there's a little bit of support in terms of what you can do and where to start from and a lot of that - going back to the client stuff as well and those sort of trickier questions are in there as well.
Nancy Rush:
That sounds amazing. That sounds like something that'll be super useful for people, especially based on this conversation.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Yeah. It's good as a check-in as well. Even if you kind of think, "Okay, I've got it. I've got everything sorted." It's actually - I always go back to stuff like that because you do wander from that path from time to time. Or you'll get excited by a shiny object over there. We all do it. So yeah, it's good to kind of just reference point with it.
Nancy Rush:
Oh, that's great. Well, we are offering a 2 to 3 hour guided immersion into walking people through the 7 core pillars of a soul aligned, purpose driven business. And so in doing that, what we'll be tapping into is some of the ways to be in business that are through more avenues of like visionary leadership, intuitive knowledge, and that sort of thing. And then we're going to be bringing people into one-on-one conversations where we get to do a deep dive into what's going on with their business, what's aligned, what's not, what their brand looks like. Does it feel good? That's an example. And so that's what we're going to be offering as our free gift.
Well, cool. Lucy, thank you so much for this. It's been a fantastic conversation and I know everybody's going to get so much value from it.
Lucy Trewhitt:
Oh, thank you for having me.
Nancy Rush:
Yeah, of course. All right.
