In this episode, Jill Kelly, owner of Red Bicycle Communications, takes us through her career journey, from her early days at a top advertising agency in Halifax to founding her own marketing firm in Lloydminster in 2014. Jill shares insights into how the marketing landscape has evolved, emphasizing the importance of building a strong brand identity, maintaining consistent messaging, and utilizing digital tools like social media and Google My Business. She underscores the value of SEO, a user-friendly website, and a solid online presence to help local businesses stand out. Jill also discusses the need for regular website updates, authentic branding, and a well-defined strategy to engage clients and boost business visibility.

Jill and host Sharon explore the essential elements of a strong brand, such as differentiation and emotional connection with customers. Jill explains how market research and brand strategy can help businesses navigate today’s competitive environment and highlights the significance of collaborating within the marketing industry and building community ties. She shares examples of how Red Bicycle has fostered partnerships with other marketing professionals to provide comprehensive support to clients. In closing, Jill offers actionable insights for businesses looking to enhance their brand strategy.

Jill Kelly is the brand strategist and owner of Red Bicycle, a creative marketing agency based in Lloydminster. Jill is a hometown girl, born and raised. While she has lived across Canada, she always finds her way back home. After obtaining her Bachelor of Management and Bachelor of Arts simultaneously through the University of Lethbridge, Jill started her career at a top advertising agency in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she fell in love with advertising, marketing, and design.

​

Jill returned to her hometown of Lloydminster in 2013 and soon opened Red Bicycle Communications, where she works with various local and provincial businesses and non-profits to build a better and stronger brand. You'll often find her giving back to the community, studying for her Masters in Marketing, or spending time at the lake with her family and friends when she's not at the office.

--

--

Sharon DeKoning: [00:00:16] Hello everyone, my name is Sharon DeKoning. I'm with the 'It's Time for Success: Business Insights' podcast. Today we're talking with Jill Kelly. Jill Kelly is from Red Bicycle here in Lloydminster. Jill has a Bachelor of management, a Bachelor of Arts, and she's worked at a top advertising agency in Halifax. Then you fell in love with advertising and marketing and came back to Lloyd. Tell us the story from there.

Jill Kelly: [00:00:45] I was getting my undergrads at the University of Lethbridge. They have a great program where I could take them simultaneously. Everyone in my graduating class was, I'm going to go work for this company or this industry, and they had it kind of all figured out and I did not. I thought, I am brilliant. What I'm going to do is not pick an industry, I'm going to go into the advertising world and try to get a job at an ad agency. In that case, knowing that they work with a variety of different industries. So I did that, and I worked for a power company, I worked for an alcohol company, I worked for a tourism company, I worked for a government organization, a lot of different industries and different experiences. My intention was that, I'll pick out from there. I'll say, I really like working for government, I'm going to go and do that as my career path. That was the intent at getting a job in an advertising agency. It turns out I actually really like working for all of them. I didn't want to choose, and I really loved the connection and the projects and helping people have their business or their organization, have that idea come to life and help them grow further. I fell in love with the whole agency side of things and never left. I left that agency just to move across the country, but once I got to Lloyd I started doing it again on my own. I moved back to Lloyd in 2013, and then I started working for one organization in the petroleum field, and it was wonderful. I was working on the rebranding and it was really exciting for me because I love it. As soon as the word got out that, there's somebody local who can actually do marketing and rebranding and branding in general, who has experience and education behind them, I got a lot of different contract job offers to say, come work for me. I just said yes to all of them and started Red Bicycle January 2014.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:03:05] Very exciting. Looking back from 2014, I feel that we're on a crazy climb for marketing. Maybe I'm wrong, but how has it evolved from 2014 to 2024? What are the differences that companies are needing? What's the main difference that companies need right now?

Jill Kelly: [00:03:20] I think Lloyd in particular is a bit of an anomaly. In the sense that, back in Halifax I was working for big organizations, they had big budgets, they understood the value of marketing, it wasn't a need to pitch them on that. Where Lloyd, especially in 2014, 2013 even, they didn't know. They thought, I do marketing, I put my logo on these pens. I'm like, that's promotions and a great piece of your marketing pie if that's where you want to spend your budget, that's great, but that's not actually marketing. That's where I had to do a lot of education. I had to do a lot of 'why', and a lot of it was around social media. People didn't really understand the value that social media could bring, people were having their receptionist or sometimes the owner on the side of their desk running the social media account. They'll get to it when they get to it, and they'll post those smiley faces that say, Happy Tuesday. Oh my gosh, what is your strategy with this? They're like, we just post. If I can run my own personal Facebook page, I can run a business page. I'm like, we need to have consistency in messaging, we need to have a strategy in play, we need to know what we're talking about. Because every time that you switch people, I can tell. I can tell when I watch your posts and read them that it's a different person talking, and that shouldn't be how it is.

Jill Kelly: [00:04:51] There's a lot of education that needed to go behind it in 2014, and don't get me wrong, I still have to do that with some businesses. I find now though, especially in Lloyd, people are starting to really understand how important these things are. It's a pay to play platform on anything. You can get so many good things for free, there's a reason they're free. If you don't have the understanding or the relationship or the knowledge or the time, it's not going to go as well as you think. By all means, give it a shot. We have a lot of clients where we'll work with them on a variety of different things. We have clients where we'll have a meeting with them once a year and say, here's the strategy, here's where we're going, here's where we're at. Now you go and you execute it, because that's what their budget will allow. Perfect, great, see you later. They'll come back in a year and check in and give us reports. Then we have clients where we are their marketing person. We'll connect with them on a, if not daily, every other day kind of relationship. It really depends on what's on the go, what type of client they are, if they're seasonality or something coming up. But people are starting to understand the importance of communication, and not just to communicate, but how to communicate, how to effectively communicate.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:06:20] So why is a strong brand identity important? You just talked about that a little bit, what helps your business stand out, and that's brand identity.

Jill Kelly: [00:06:31] I think one of the things that we can all agree on is, there's a lot in the marketplace. It's a saturation of whatever it is that you do, especially in a way where it didn't exist before. If you lived in your town, you typically had to get whatever product or service from your town. If it didn't exist in that space, it was unattainable to you. For Lloyd, we had seen a lot of people drive to Edmonton to get whatever, or drive to Saskatoon to get whatever. Where now, with online shopping being as prevalent as it is, with online relationships, even this podcast we're doing via the internet, video streaming. In theory, I could be anywhere in the world having this conversation with you. The limitations of being local as a requirement is no longer there. You have to start talking about what differentiates you from the next person that I can find, not just in your backyard, but in your global backyard. Building a strong identity really matters to help separate you from the crowd, differentiation like I said. Recognition, it helps you to know, without even looking at something, without looking at the logo, you can tell a McDonald's ad, for example, even if you took the logo out because typically it's yellow and red.

Jill Kelly: [00:07:59] That consistency in brand identification, it builds recognition in your customers, and that is so key today. Building a strong identity also can help improve that relationship and that loyalty and trust. If I'm continuously saying the same message, people will start to be like, she understands what she's talking about, she gets it. Where if I'm saying, green is the best color, no I like red, no blue, it's like, she's all over the place. She has no idea what color is the best color. There's a disconnect there, and trust tends to break down, then that emotional connection, too. Lots of times people, they'll come to us and they'll say, build me a brand. I'm like, I think you mean, let's build a brand together. Let's start to do that. We'll start with a logo development or something like that, and then we'll work into fonts and language and tone of voice and that kind of stuff. One of the things that I think a lot of people miss, which we're working with our clients on for sure, is that emotional connection. It's more about, your product, whatever it is, like I said, it has to be good, but there's a lot of products just like yours. What makes you stand out and what's the emotional connection I can tie back into? Why do I want to support you and how can I resonate with that on a deeper level?

Sharon DeKoning: [00:09:27] I'm trying to think of something clever to say right now, Jill, and I got nothing because you're so informative. I have so much stuff going on. For example, we have customers, first of all, you talked about how we do not have to shop local anymore. It's good and bad, of course, but you have to be present and you have to evolve to it, I believe. We have a customer base, we have customers ourselves. We have some in Toronto, right across Western Canada, all the way up to Alaska, which is super cool and we're very proud of that. All these people out there, they found us some way. How did they find us, Jill?

Jill Kelly: [00:10:11] I can't speak for you specifically, I'd have to look at your analytics. The one thing that I find so important too, that people often overlook, is their website. People can find you a variety of ways, nothing beats word of mouth. But if you say to me, you should go check out 'It's Time', I'll have to hear it a couple times before I actually do anything. It's been a little bit since I've been out of school, but it used to be six times that I had to hear it before I took any action. That's not necessarily purchasing, that's an action towards that process. It's 12 now, and I'm sure it's actually increasing. People are bombarded with logos and products and names and information. Even looking at this screen, I have your podcast name on my screen, I have a Microsoft word open everything's branded. It's not just a document, it's Word documents a Microsoft documents. I'm getting all of these different brands presenting to me all the time, so it does take a lot longer to break through that mold there.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:11:27] If it's 12 right now, what are the avenues that your clients are doing to reach customers 12 times?

Jill Kelly: [00:11:34] That's the part we say to our clients is, they'll come to us and they'll say, we haven't got any sales directly off our website, so just shut it down, we'll be fine on Facebook. Or they'll say, Instagram's not really working for us, we're going to just stick to radio or vice versa. It doesn't matter what they say, that's the mentality. My big thing is, you need to understand who your audience is, how they're finding you and why they want you. Once you understand your audience, you can push in some of this information that makes more sense. A good example is, we had a client who came to us and they were, bless their hearts, so proud of themselves. They're like, we have an X account. I'm like, cool, who is your audience? They're like, and I'm making this next part up to protect them a little bit, we're selling shoes to Gen Z. I'm like, they're not on X.

Jill Kelly: [00:12:38] Thank you for doing that, but that's actually not helpful, and would not be a part of your strategy, but website for sure needs to be. We have some smaller clients come and they'll say, we have Facebook, we don't need a website, people will find us on there. Not everybody has Facebook, don't put all your eggs in one basket. You need to differentiate because, everybody's not going to walk into your building if you're a retail shop and find you by strolling down the street. Just like not everybody's going to be strolling down the Facebook street. You have to have social media for certain businesses, you have to have your physical storefront, again for certain businesses, you have to have your website for, I would say, 99% of businesses. I can meet you in different areas and you need to go where your customer lives. Don't make them chase you, make it easy for them to connect with you.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:13:34] A company is just starting up, they want to start their company January 1st, right now it's October. What are the key things that you think they should work on prior to this starting for them?

Jill Kelly: [00:13:46] I'm going to pick a retail company to make this a little bit more streamlined. Generally you could change it slightly, but for the ease of this conversation I'm going to pick retail. If you're opening a storefront January 1st, and what are some things that you can do ahead of time? Talk about it. Tell me that your opening soon, build that hype, start selling gift cards, start talking about 'we're coming'. Start learning about, you're too short a notice. You should be building this farther in advance than two months. You need to start planning your brand strategy and telling your story and talking about who you are. These are things that, again, will resonate with your customers. But you need to know, what are your values? What's your mission? What's your purpose of being in business? The one thing that I get a lot, what's your purpose of being a business? To make money. No, it is not. You cannot be in business for very long if you don't make money, it is important, but that's not the reason you're in business. You're in whatever business you're in to solve a problem. What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Jill Kelly: [00:15:07] For me, I just started a haircare company because all my hair kept falling out. I was trying to solve the problem of, I needed to have that stop, and I also needed it to be healthy for me. I found a lot of businesses out there who had hair oiling, which is where I'm focused right now. They were in cancer causing lawsuits, they were in hair loss lawsuits, their products were full of chemicals that were not healthy for your body, were not good for you. For me I was solving the problem of, I want something that's good for me, that's not going to cause me cancer from having oil put on my head. I need something that works and is safe and is healthy. That was the problem I was trying to solve, so that's the path I went down. If you're opening up soon, start building a brand strategy, start developing a brand positioning statement, start talking about, what's my personality, what's my tone of voice, so that if you have other people help you out with your social media, they can say, I need to sound like this.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:16:10] You're saying a few months, more than just two, to build up that hype.

Jill Kelly: [00:16:14] The longer that you can give to develop that, the more authentic it's going to be and the less it's going to change. We think about, you can have it quick, cheap or good, but you can only have two of those things. If it's quick and cheap, it's not going to be good. My biggest thing is, take the time that you need to identify what your business is going to do and why, and then start talking about building out that persona. Treat your business as if it's an entity. What are its values? What is it there for? What's its purpose? What are you doing for your audience? Who is your audience? How are you connecting to them? How are you talking to them? What language are you using? What does your product do? How are you discussing the features without it being like, it does all this boring stuff that no one's going to listen to, because I don't want a list of features shared with me. What story are you telling? How are you crafting that message?

Sharon DeKoning: [00:17:13] As a business person, I've realized that nobody wants to be sold to.

Jill Kelly: [00:17:18] Especially when it's straight boring sales. I want to buy something because I believe in you, I want to connect with you, I want to support you. 'My hair's falling out too, tell me more'. I want to learn about that story and resonate with the story versus, here's a product, just buy it.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:17:40] So you're saying start your story, create a story that somebody can resonate with.

Jill Kelly: [00:17:48] You'll have one. Lots of people will say, I don't have a story. Yes, you do. Write down how you started this. Write down your 'why'. Why are you doing this, and what are some of the benefits of you doing this? That's one of the things that we'll go through with our clients who find this process intimidating. They'll give us their story, they'll write down bullet points, or we'll ask them questions and sit down with them like an interview. We'll craft them a story and we'll make it so it's authentic. That's the best thing that you can do, is be authentic to who you are, who the company is, where the direction is that you want to take it in. As soon as you start playing make-believe, people can tell, and it's not going to go well.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:18:35] Coming to chat with you again, I find sometimes we fall into that imposter syndrome. We almost doubt ourselves, if that's the right word. Or maybe it's humble. I don't know what the wording is, but when they talk to you, you're able to pull out those things while you're there and you're able to pull it out of people, because sometimes we don't even know.

Jill Kelly: [00:18:55] I find that to be true, especially with people who are, if they're starting off and they've hit a few hiccups, which is perfectly normal, they'll go, I don't actually know if this is a good idea or not. For me, it's not my call if you continue with your business, if you think it's a good idea, but I'll have that conversation with you to say, how are you making money off this? How is this sustainable? What problem are you solving? Who's buying that solution and why are you solving it? Then we'll have the conversation deeper to say, tell me how you became interested in it, tell me how you became a part of it, tell me why it's important to you. There's always a reason, especially with entrepreneurs, especially with the founders, 99% of the time they're solving a problem that they themselves have run into. With Red Bicycle there wasn't, at the time, any marketing. There was a couple people who did freelance marketing. There was a couple people who had in-house marketing people. You also have to keep in mind that in Lloyd, and don't quote me on the year, but I'm pretty sure the city of Lloydminster only got a marketing department, which I believe was one person, in 2008. It's pretty new in our community, and now they have five people in their marketing department, so it has grown. When I first came back, it had been five years or so since they had somebody, I think at the time they had two people. It's a newer concept for a lot of smaller communities, especially oil based communities where it was the mentality of, build it and they'll come.

Jill Kelly: [00:20:45] You could trip over money in Lloyd before, because people were just, you open a shop, people will buy stuff from you. It's not that it's not true today, people will still buy stuff from you, but they need to, give me a reason why I should get off my couch or off my phone where I can just click a few buttons and order the same thing. Why do I want to support you? Why do I want to support your business? What are you doing to give back to your audience? Especially in Lloyd and smaller communities, what are you doing to give back to the community? I find that Lloydminster is very much a town that looks out for itself, and I mean that in the best way possible. We have a lot of amenities here that other cities of our size don't have because the community not only supports them by attending Bobcats games, for example, but they fundraise for them. They go to the events. When the Bobcats, or Blazers what they used to be called, was in danger of being dismantled, our community stepped up and said, we'll buy it, we'll hop it out, we'll give it back. Those kinds of things, I think, we as people from Lloydminster should be proud of, but it's also something that we recognize in corporate social responsibility is, for some, a moral obligation. For others, an advertising opportunity. For me, both.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:22:12] It should be both, I think. I have to backdate, I've been doing this business for a little bit too long, do you know my form of advertising when I started?

Jill Kelly: [00:22:22] Newspaper?

Sharon DeKoning: [00:22:23] Yeah, newspaper.

Jill Kelly: [00:22:25] I've run straight campaigns with clients on nothing but traditional media. Newspaper, radio, benches. That's all they wanted to do, and we found success with that. It's not to say that those platforms aren't good, they're not as well-read or well-listened to as they once were, because there's more competition in the marketplace.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:22:51] It evolves, everything evolves.

Jill Kelly: [00:22:54] Depending on the budget, depending on the client, depending on their audience, we may still include a lot of traditional media in our ad buy. But again, it just depends on, who am I talking to and why?

Sharon DeKoning: [00:23:05] As a business owner, it's not in our forte. We're coming in to analyze all that kind of stuff. That's where you guys come in. We don't know that kind of stuff, and I'm not going to take the time to learn it. I just know I'm not.

Jill Kelly: [00:23:21] That's just the thing, too. We do have clients who really want to know where their money is going. How can we choose that? Why did do we do that? That's fabulous. We're here to answer all your questions, we're here to build this relationship with you so that you're comfortable where your money is going. Not to say you can't ask questions, we love it, but we also have clients where they're busy running their actual business, trying to bring money in for that. They don't have capacity, don't have the time, energy, education, whatever it is, they either don't have it or they don't want to. They want to focus on running the business, let us help you with that. You don't need to spend your marketing dollars by just throwing it at a wall and seeing what sticks. We'll help you to identify, these things are probably going to stick, so let's put more money behind that.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:24:14] Like I said, it evolves so fast. I've been doing it for almost 20 years, and the way that the marketing strategies have changed in 20 years is astronomical. Let's go back to 'website' if we could, because there's a lot of stuff that goes behind the website. We got SEOs, we got so much stuff behind the website. Why and how can a person create a badass website?

Jill Kelly: [00:24:43] There's lots of different platforms now. Whether you want to do WordPress or Wix, there's lots of templates out there that you could use. My big thing, the reason I don't do templates is, the same reason I think anyone in marketing, anyone in business shouldn't do templates is, the whole purpose behind you going through the branding process is to be authentic to who you are and who your business is. If I can just take one person's logo off, put your logo on and change the colors, it's not authentic. It defeats the purpose of branding. The nice thing with, why should you build a strong website is, you can have full control over the branding, over the content, over the look, over the style, over everything. It's another way for which your community to engage with you, to learn about you, to see who you are and how they could connect with you. It's also a great way for people to say, this isn't for me. A lot of times we find businesses will say, I think everyone should buy 'whatever product'. I'm like, no. You're not going to get 100% of people.

Jill Kelly: [00:25:59] Just like everybody you meet isn't your best friend, that is okay. Everybody you meet is not going to shop or patron with you. Think about how you're going to connect with somebody, or how you're going to not connect with somebody, that helps you find your authentic audience, the people who truly care. Websites are great for branding that way, for communicating your message, for having control over that. A well designed website, and this is where we've really thrived, is that we look at the user experience, the end user. Oftentimes where marketing people might get tripped up on is, they want to please the client. Don't get me wrong, if a client hates your work, it's not going to be a long lasting relationship. We want the client to be happy, but we look at it further and say, our client will be happy when they have clients who are happy. So if your end user is on that website and they hate it, they're going to jump off and go to the competition real quick.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:27:03] What would be an example of something on a website that people hate?

Jill Kelly: [00:27:10] A lot of information that they don't care about. If it's a dated site, I have had clients where it looks like their website was built in the 90s, and they just did it. I'm like, why? If it's slow, if it lags, if you're telling me all about, if you're telling me about your leadership team, it had better be because that leadership team matters and they're involved. If you're telling me about your staff, and you have 100 people, I am not scrolling through every single person to get down to what you're about, what products you sell. Your website is helping you to sell something, whether you have a business that's a service based business or retail based business, you're still selling something. I'm still selling Jill. I'm still selling Red Bicycle service based. We're still selling our product, our work, our experience, us. So while it is important, you have to figure out where in the grand scheme of things it falls.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:28:13] 'It's Time' has a WordPress one, it is one of those forms that we filled out. I'll tell you why, and maybe you can help our listeners with this. We did that one, we changed it up, I forget how many years ago now, it's been a while, because we like the idea that we can go in and change it ourselves. We can update it whenever without having to wait, because back, now remember I've been doing this for 20 years, of having somebody to do it for us was really painful. It waited and you just didn't do it, so it was never updated. So what's the difference between one of those platforms and what you create from scratch?

Jill Kelly: [00:28:46] I think, I should clarify, that WordPress, Wix, all those things are back ends. It can be done where, regardless of the platform that you're on, we can design it and you can still edit it. We have clients that are very much hands-on, where they're like, I want you to build it, but then once you're done, I'm editing. I'm uploading photos, I'm doing whatever. Awesome, great, good on you. Here's the keys, let us know if you need help, and away you go. Some of them have amazing websites, they're good at it and they can do it. Some clients, in the most loving way, can't. They come back and they're like, we wrecked our website. I'm like, yeah, I figured. That's okay, we'll fix it, we'll help you. Then we have clients where they're like, I don't want to touch it. I will send you that information, you can update it. We're there as much or as little as our clients need us to be, so if you've got it, good on you, here's the keys. If you don't, then we can help you.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:29:51] Back in the day, as well, and maybe it's different now because of WordPress or all these platforms, but coding on the back end is really important to be found on Google search engine. Is that still a thing, when you're creating a website for people, how important is that? Versus somebody just plunking things in on their own?

Jill Kelly: [00:30:09] You need it, but it's not as hard-coded as it once was. I took computer programming in school. I took my, what they called new media, but it's graphic design and website design and that kind of stuff. We used to use Dreamweaver, which is still a program that's still around, it's just not needed as much. Now we use Adobe XD. Some of those things that we took, not super relevant anymore.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:30:37] Back when 'It's Time' evolved, it started as 'It's Time Web Designs'. I used to do web pages before promotional products, and I only used Dreamweaver, so when you use that word 'Dreamweaver' it's like, oh my goodness, is that even still a thing? That was a hundred years ago, I feel like. It was all hard-coding, it was very important to get those codes in there. So I'm just wondering how it populates onto Google and how important those are.

Jill Kelly: [00:31:02] You'll need SEO, search engine optimization is what SEO stands for. Regardless of what platform you build your site on, what hosting platform you have, you need SEO. You can put some of that basic stuff in on the back end yourself as the builder, as the business owner. If you know how you can figure it out. There's different tiers for everything. You can probably do the baseline, and then the next is paid. You want to upgrade, you have to pay to play, kind of thing. We'll have clients, too, where they'll either build their website themselves and we'll go through and edit it which, to be honest, takes often more time than just letting us do it from scratch. Or they'll have a website already in play and they're like, can you just run diagnostics on it? Can you check our SEO? Depending on how the back end is set up, sometimes it's super easy. Sometimes, depending on who built the site, we find more and more the new way is very collaborative, but probably about ten years ago, or even more, it was very territorial. Where, that's my client, that's my website, don't touch it. They'll lock the back end, so we can't look at it. For us of being in the community for over a decade now, we have really good relationships with probably 99% of the people who, we don't say our 'competition' because they're in the same industry as us. We work really well together and we try to build a relationship with them. There's only so many clients. Let's be honest, if I got 100% of the clients in town, I could not handle that.

Jill Kelly: [00:32:55] Just like I said before where, we might not click, they they might not like me, I might not like them, and that is okay. I don't need 100% of the clients, I couldn't handle it. We need to spread things out and we all need to work together. There's lots of times where we'll get clients who come in, I should say potential clients who come in, they want help from us. We'll have a competing client already on our roster and we'll say, you know what? We can't really take you on at this level, but here's three other names that I think would be amazing for you. That's the way that we can help build collaboration and that kind of stuff. The SEO is really important, the mobile friendly version is really important. I can't remember what the stats are, but it's something like 65% or 70% of websites are mobile first sites, because people don't tend to have a desktop as they once did. It kind of blows my mind because I still have a desktop, but I have to remember that, if I look at my friend group, or my parents even, they don't. My parents have a desktop that, mine is a laptop to be fair, but they have a desktop that I think only my mom really uses.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:34:12] Even my husband doesn't. He's scrolling all the time, so you got to make it user friendly for that as well.

Jill Kelly: [00:34:20] You don't need a desktop anymore, because I have a little computer in my hand. I don't need it like I used to.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:34:28] So work with it. I was at something, I think it was part of my WPO group, and they had a lady there that did a social audit. She ran my name and my company, and this was really something that stood out to me. Legally, my name is De Koning, that's the legal way of spelling it. I hate it, so I just make it one word. On all the platforms, it's two different ways. They're not able to find me on Google for the different platforms. That's something to be mindful of. I was dumbfounded when I saw that. She goes, you're not even showing up. I'm like, what do you mean? I have a website. The little things like that you have to watch for. How important is Google and 'Google My Business'?

Jill Kelly: [00:35:21] It's free, get it. The two main platforms to search on are Google and Bing, Google by far is where majority of people are going. If you Google 'my business', you can register your business right there. It is free to use, it's super easy, it can become another social platform where you can post on it, you can put updates on it. You probably don't need to do it as frequently as Instagram or Facebook or what have you, but I would recommend any of our companies, any of our clients to just get it. The one tricky part is, it's really great if you have a physical storefront or physical business. The tricky part is if you don't and you're working from your home, for example, but you don't really want everyone to know where you live, which is very valid. Then it becomes hard to hide that. This a couple of years ago, to be fair, but we had a client who didn't want to be found, per se, because it was their home, and they didn't want their home address on the internet, which is fair. They asked if they could put our address and we were like, yeah sure. Then we would get a lot of people coming in and trying to drop off checks or meet with them and talk to them about another project that they wanted them to work on. We had to explain we're not them, and it got super confusing. So I would avoid that.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:36:54] So it works, but easier if you have a storefront, brick and mortar. What about Google reviews?

Jill Kelly: [00:37:03] Oh yeah, do it. You have to think of it, Google, Facebook, any of those things that you can review on, they want those reviews because they're trying to be helpful. If you think about it like, you're looking up marketing companies in Lloydminster. If you look up specifically, you Google 'Red Bicycle Communications', we should hopefully show up. If you were just looking for generic marketing companies, we should show up too, but it depends on where in the roster. Everyone always wants to be number one, and you can pay for that, but if you want to get there organically, it's through Google reviews. It's how many people, and what is the quality of your review. Quantity and quality. If you and I are showing up in the same Google search, and you have 300 reviews and I have 5, they're going to say your business is more authentic. If my reviews are all five stars, and we have the same amount of reviews now, but mine are all five star and yours are a variety, they're going to say both are authentic, but Jill's is better because more people like hers. They're going to try to be helpful, and then that's why they put, in this example, mine on top. Quantity and quality, so the more you can get that are good, the better.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:38:25] If you have a business, ask for those Google reviews. I have another comment here, and it's called 'Planning your Brand Strategy'. How market research and strategy help businesses reach their right audience. So that's basically what you guys do in a nutshell?

Jill Kelly: [00:38:44] We do brand strategy, we do logos, like I said, we're there as much or as little as our clients need us to be. My favorite thing is when we become, either the marketing department, or work so tightly with their existing marketing department, that we feel like we're part of the team. My goal with any of our clients is that we get invited to their Christmas party. When you start planning your brand strategy, it can't be a, hey Jill, plan this for me, go away, do it, it is a partnership. We do it a couple different ways, but we start by defining your purpose, defining your mission. Why are you in business? If you haven't already conducted some market research, that would be a good time to do that. Developing a brand positioning statement, what's your tagline? Why should people care about you? What's your tone of voice? What's the overall personality? Are you chipper and happy to help? Are you the cool, laid back person? Where are you as a persona? Then setting clear goals, objectives. What's your purpose, what's your mission, that kind of stuff. Then, consistency. How are we doing this strategically? Setting those guidelines out. It's one of those things that you have to constantly update and constantly keep improving on.

Jill Kelly: [00:40:02] What's the visual identity? How often are we doing it? Consistency for anything is key. We always look at going to the gym, for example, intensity versus consistency. If you worked out for two days straight, 48 hours, you're going to die and you're not going to get the gym bod that you want, the health that you want. But if you worked out instead, 48 hours over the course of a month or two months, you're going to see a lot more improvement than the other way, so consistency is key. We always say, there's so many different platforms that you can be on, and we just say choose one and then add to it. It's like learning to juggle. If you threw ten balls at me, I'm going to drop all of them. Maybe I'll catch one. Start with one, learn how to catch that ball, and then when you're comfortable, add in a second. I'd rather you be consistent in your message and strong on your platforms and strong in your communication, than you trying to be all things everywhere. You're just going to burn out.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:41:16] I think that is probably a wrap for that. I'm just going to go over a couple things, and usually I take notes, Jill, but I couldn't because I was absorbing it all so you might have to help me with this. Usually I try to summarize it at the end. A couple things I wrote down here is, start with a story, write down your 'why', write down the benefits, and I know there was more to that because you just topped on that already. Websites, I have written down here, are hugely important, you need your SEO. Communication of a message, you need that on there properly, proper communication of what you're trying to implement. Incorporate, of course, your Google reviews and your Google businesses and stuff. So what am I missing as a quick lowdown of what we just chatted on?

Jill Kelly: [00:42:00] Consistency is key. Websites are not only essential for all the reasons that we've talked about, but websites help differentiate you from, 'my cousin does that' to 'this is a legit business'.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:42:15] Also if you do, like you talked about, your website properly, they get to know you.

Jill Kelly: [00:42:20] Update it. Don't get me wrong, we are needing an update of our website, and it is on our list for 2025 to do. Think of it like this. When was the last time you got a new phone, and how frequently do you get a new phone? Do you get a new phone every year? Do you get a new phone every couple of years? I guarantee you have got a new phone more than one time in the last ten years. Technology changes, the reason that you have your site changes, the functionality of your site changes. The hard wiring, coding, whatever, that builds that physical phone changes, so is true with your website. You need to update your website on a semi-regular basis, and you need to likely get a new website every so often as well.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:43:12] That's interesting, I would not have thought of that. I just thought, always update it. That's very interesting, that really resonated with me.

Jill Kelly: [00:43:18] So let me know when you're ready to update your website.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:43:20] Yeah, I'll call you. Actually, Amber and I were just talking about that. So that's really cool. Okay, I think that's it, that's all.

Jill Kelly: [00:43:27] The other thing that I will say, that I think is a really good tip for any business is, get to know your 'competition'. I put that in air quotes because nobody will do what you do like you do it and that is your superpower. But you should be able to refer people and be helpful to people if they don't align with your business or your brand. It just creates a better community.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:43:54] Yeah, 100%. Before I sign off, one thing talking to you too, I'd like to get you back on again, Jill. I'd like to talk solely on branding, because you talked about colors of brand, you talked about personality, and I know that those are important. What colors portray something in a personality? The fonts mimic something in a personality. There's so much more behind just branding, I think.

Jill Kelly: [00:44:20] Yeah, we can go down many rabbit holes.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:44:23] We just touched on it very briefly today, but I know that's another one in itself, for sure. So if anybody needs a brand to reach out to you, what's your website, Jill?

Jill Kelly: [00:44:33] Redbicycle.com.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:44:35] Perfect, they'll put that in the notes for us. I appreciate you joining me today, it's always a pleasure, thank you so much Jill.