IA Forward
The Independent Insurance Agency Playbook: The insurance business is all about playing an infinite game. Shane, Tonya, and Mike discuss how to play the long-term game of being a successful agent and creating a culture of freedom for yourself.
Learn more at www.integrapartnernetwork.com
IA Forward
Don't Put Your Logo on That: Why Cheap Marketing Can Cost You
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One of the most overlooked parts of building an insurance agency brand is the giveaways, promotional items, and marketing materials that represent your business long after you've left the room. We discuss why cheap giveaways can damage your brand, why most promotional items end up in the trash while a few stay on desks for years, and why "everyone is doing it" is a terrible marketing strategy.
Because sometimes the best branding advice is simple: Don't put your logo on that.
Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.
This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark are your hosts, Shane Tatum, Mike Basil, and Tanya Leed. Welcome to IAFord.
SPEAKER_05Shane, do you know what we're talking about today?
SPEAKER_01Talking about vanilla ice.
SPEAKER_05No, we are not talking about vanilla ice. We're talking about swag. And apparently, Mike Basil thinks that vanilla ice is the epitome of great swag.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, he had dated myself a little there. He he he had swag. You gotta admit that. So if we're gonna talk about swag, we got to talk about vanilla ice.
SPEAKER_05Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Well, one of the things that um made me think about this topic and sharing this topic is we have had we've had our integral partner network conference recently. I've attended a conference uh about two weeks ago with uh the cute boy, and that was a technology fiber conference, uh, looking at some award season, awards people are receiving. And I've seen some really great things, and I've also seen some swag that's just really made me think this is how you choose to represent your organization as it went into the garbage can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, this is gonna be tough for me because you know I'm probably thinking the same thing for me. I'm probably like, okay, well, you know, swag, like so let's define this from so that people understand, like, what what are we talking about? Like, let's let's maybe go through the Tanya definition of swag so that we can have some type of like level set on this topic. Sure.
SPEAKER_05And just to clarify, I am not the person on this call that started using the word swag. I am the person that refers to these as promotional items or tchotchkis or giveaways. Shane Tatum is the one that told me that in East Texas it is called swag. So I'm talking about things like this and my moleskin, um, my super fabulous integra leather notepad, all of these things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the previous one, what did you call that?
SPEAKER_05What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02The second thing you held up. What did you call that?
SPEAKER_05A pin.
SPEAKER_02Oh, third, sorry.
SPEAKER_05A moleskin?
SPEAKER_02Moleskin. You guys were talking about that earlier. I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah, the moleskin. Let me see if I can right there.
SPEAKER_05It's a notebook. Yeah. It's a brand of notebook.
SPEAKER_01That's right. It's a notebook. That's right. It's a brand. It's a brand. It's a brand. It and it's kind of like Kleenex, right? Like moleskin has become the brand that's synonymous with that type of notebook.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's not because I've never heard of it, but I understand the I understand the direction.
SPEAKER_01It hasn't made it to Buffalo yet. For sure. But y'all still talk, y'all still call uh Coke pop. So, you know, we're working. We're working on you. We're working on it.
SPEAKER_05Or soda. Like what's a soda.
SPEAKER_01Soda's more midwave.
SPEAKER_05Which by the way is one of the things I'm going to talk about today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, cool. Yeah. So I swag, I don't know. I guess that's where I guess yeah, that came out of my mouth way back. But um I don't know. I have a love-hate relationship with swag with slash promotional items. Most of it either you can't afford or you have to and you have to go so cheap that it doesn't work, which then it's like, oh, then it tarnishes your brand because it didn't work. And that's kind of a pet peeve of mine. Like the pen, the pen that doesn't work, right? I think Tanya has one uh for display person purposes for our YouTube viewers. Uh it's the old javelin style pen. That's what they call it, the javelin. Um, the javelin style pen is super cheap. This is why we bought them because we said we need to have some pens in our you know incredible um intelligence way, way back. We must have pens branded Integra. So let's see how many pins. And when you look at the cost of pins, it's mortifying. Like it's absolutely like holy cow, that's that's ridiculous. And so we went with the cheap pen, uh, to which every other pin javelin brand, the javelin style, every other pen basically doesn't work. Like it's got ink in it. It's you can break it apart, it has ink in it, but it's like the ink is dried on you, like it doesn't work. Like you go and so you get mad, you look at the pin, oh that's integra. Brand tarnishing swag. Yes, throw it in the garbage. Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_02Can we maybe start at the beginning and talk about where people might be displaying or using swag? I think that would be a good spot for us to start. Like, is this something that we just have on the counter for a counter at the office? Are people taking these things with them? If so, where? Just what is the the place of these particular items? I want to call them something else other than swag or all the other names you use, but I'm gonna keep that to myself.
SPEAKER_05No, go ahead and share.
SPEAKER_02No, it's junk. Uh that's that's the word I had.
SPEAKER_05I that is that is extremely valid. That is extremely valid.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna offend every marketer on the planet today. Um, but yes, junk is another good word.
SPEAKER_02But but I get it because when this stuff comes out, when we're at an event and I see this stuff come out, people are like piranhas. I mean, they are just engulfing tables that have this type of stuff on it. So I understand, it's just not for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'll start here and then y'all can chime in and Tanya can add her expertise. That I think this is sort of a follower thing for me. Um, where agents go wrong. Here is I need something because everybody else has something, so I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna invest. Oh, but I don't really have enough money to invest well, so I'm gonna invest what I can and I'm gonna go with something, and then it ends up being something cheap or junk, it doesn't work, and it actually has the opposite effect for your brand. And that's what either trade show, they're gonna be at a trade show, so they got to have something to hand out because everybody has something to hand out, uh, or they want something to leave behind if they're prospecting, right? Commercial lines prospecting out in the field. Uh, if they're trying to build referral sources, they're working with their local real estate agents or mortgage brokers, and they want something, right? Uh leave behind, sells promotional materials. All of that I label under swag. Like all of that goes into my swag bucket. Stuff that we just leave behind so that people remember us, and maybe somewhere in there we create some brand awareness and become top of mind. Okay.
SPEAKER_02But when does that happen? Like, how many times have you gone to a fair or parade or something? People are hanging handing something out as they go by, and it finds the very first receptacle you pass afterwards.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't think it's the fair to really make this, you know, talk about supper and dinner, the fair, right? Uh, the county fair. So uh I'm thinking like I'm going to call on a referral partnership. I'm trying to prospect a referral partnership. I think that's where this becomes more prevalent. Or I'm gonna actually rent or are uh you know uh buy a trade show booth or whatever at the local realtor's association's monthly luncheon, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna have a a booth and I'm gonna I'm gonna hand out my my uh my stuff, right? I'm promoting my business. I I don't necessarily see it as the handouts as people are walking by the random people. I see it as target audience that you would use this for.
SPEAKER_05But I do want to go back to something that Mike said, talking about at the fair. Mike's from Buffalo, New York. It does not get hot there. Down in Louisiana, in Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, it gets really hot. And we have lots of fairs and festivals. So it may be a piece of swag that someone's not keeping for forever, and yes, it ends up in the garbage can. But um, I am a real believer in events like that of ordering the fans that are on chapsical sticks. They're they run somewhere around $1.27 a piece. Um, you have them printed in one color, on a color, or you or a two-color of your logo, and you've got thousands of people walking around with your logo. It's 107 degrees outside. They are on blacktop wandering around and seeing thousands of your logos being fanned about is a really fantastic two or three-day brand awareness item. Yes, does it end up in the trash at the end of the day? But it gave a brand awareness effect that was much longer lasting than this, that when it got home, it didn't work.
SPEAKER_02I like that. That's a really good example. I like that because let's be honest, nobody is like, you know, I just got my renewal, my insurance is going up 27%. I'm pretty sure I have a koozie somewhere from three years ago that has the logo of another insurance agency out of it. Let me go, let me go get that. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I this is real life for us um here in in East Texas. Like we we sponsor and have sponsored for a few years uh at our uh it's called the Forest Festival, which is kind of a version of a fair. We do have a county fair, but in the spring, but we have a forest festival in in September uh every year here locally, and we sponsor the cheer and dance competition where a lot of the schools, several schools across multiple counties come in to uh this competition that's uh attached to and a part of uh the forest festival. And we did the fan thing. Um, so we did the the the kind of throwaway version, and then we decided after kind of looking at it that we were gonna kind of go up a notch and see if we tell me with the pom-poms. It was not the pom-poms, it was a but it was a uh little foldable, it it folds up into uh about the size of a uh you know, as far as a round, like the size of a softball in circular, you know, it folds up, yeah. Like there you go. Um and it when it unfolds, you get this fan, right? It's an integra branded fan, and it's not throwaway material. It's like the material that you put up uh the sun shades on your car dash uh to keep the the in the windshield to keep your car cool. It's like that material folds up really, really easily. Um and it is a incredible view to look up and see two to three thousand people sitting in a uh in in bleachers in September, middle of September, which everybody in Texas knows is the beginning of second summer.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so it's not cooling off yet in September in East Texas, and you just have these fans blowing, you know, not blowing, but people are fanning themselves. And we give them away to everybody coming into the cheer and dance competition. Now, it's more expensive than the popsicle stick version uh that's the throwaway version, right? We started kind of in that realm, and then we decided, you know what? And this is kind of my my thing on swag, anything worth doing needs to be done well. If we, which is kind of back to the cheap stuff, like don't stuff that doesn't work. If you can't do it well, don't do it, is kind of my view on things, right? Which marketers out there are like, oh gosh, Ain, you got to do something, right? Well, not really. Like, there's other ways, right? There's other ways to do things. I think what we do is we do things cheaply to Mike's point. We don't think it through. It ends up actually hurting our brand instead of if you're gonna do it, do it really, really well so that it actually enhances your brand.
SPEAKER_02So, what about the difference? Or is there a difference? Is one better than the other sponsoring an event versus giving things away?
SPEAKER_01Well, this is another one of my areas of pet peeve um that is kind of like the more you do, the more you get called on to do. Okay, once you put yourself out there.
SPEAKER_05Um so let's let's table this one. Let's table this one and let's do an entire podcast on event marketing versus sponsorships versus buying tickets and tables. Let's do a whole episode about that because that one's one of those that it can become a huge expense for agencies and what is what is worth their their time and their money and kind of what is not and what's a donation and what's actual marketing. So let's let's table that one and we will put that on the um on the podcast for next week. How's that?
SPEAKER_01Sounds good.
SPEAKER_05So let's talk about the good Integra pens now that we have talked about the crappy Integra pens enough. For our newer podcast listeners, this is our current pen that were um yes, yes. Um there were a limited number of special editions of this that were our tertiary teal color, but this is our primary one. Um and Shane, you know.
SPEAKER_01For those on the audio version of our podcast, um they're red.
SPEAKER_05They're red, they're pretty. They have a stylus on the end. They're a red flat matte. They're they're very nice, they're not like crazy expensive, but they probably cost one and a half times what the ones that don't work. And let me tell y'all my story about these pins that don't work. I don't know how they keep popping up because every time somebody from Huntington brings them to an event, I throw the whole box away. And all I can figure is whoever is there comes back and takes the whole box out of the garbage. Because they're like, why are you throwing them away? And I'm like, because they don't work. And they're like, well, maybe we can fix them. I'm like, you cannot fix these pins throughout and I'm like throwing them away. And then I show up at the next event and there's another box of these white pins, and I throw them away. And so I have no idea how many of these white pens that don't work exist at the office, but I may like put Julie on the hunt for them and see if she can find all of them.
SPEAKER_01There's a storage shed in the back with about a hundred thousand of them. In the attic, there's there's uh there's a there's a big gigantic box, right? And they got put up there because we didn't want them out for that very purpose. But I have I have uh a suspicion that it's my brother, right? And he keeps going and grabbing those pins and uh because he's just grabbing whatever's available and he's bringing them to whatever, you know, the conference and so forth.
SPEAKER_02So I'm throwing him into the I'm throwing the text time we're down there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But yes, and temporary does have these really great pens that uh we procured during the Shane Tatum pin wars a few years ago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Any again, it's it's bad, it's it's kind of like again, it's it's this idea that anything's that's worth doing is worth doing well. It's a little bit more to buy those pins over those old javelin pins. Um, but not like I'm not talking about like we're not going to top-end stuff here, right? Um I don't even know that I would say they're middle ground. Like they're just they just work, right? They work well, pretty. Um and and they're easily recognizable. And I we didn't see a lot of those, and we kind of went that way. And and the reason that we went with the the stylist was we decided as a campaign one year, uh a few years ago, when we were really trying to hit uh our community relations uh launch, we decided to flood local restaurants with pins for their wait staff uh to use. And um we uh commun our community community relations director Melissa Roberts was tasked with basically just flooding the market. And uh we did, and we basically um really put some dollars behind it. I I I think we probably distributed over the course of about six months um close to 10,000 pins.
SPEAKER_05I mean, as I think it was more than that.
SPEAKER_01I think it maybe more than that.
SPEAKER_05I think it was more like 20 or 30,000 ish, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We just think it was a lot of pins. We put a lot of pins into the marketplace, and it was just an idea uh that it was like, okay, well, will this work? Well, the one thing that I missed was that when we dropped off the the pins at the restaurant, um, Melissa did it in a little small bucket, and at the bottom of that bucket, she put her a little sticker with her name and her phone number and said, When you run out, call me. Well, we thought, I thought, I shouldn't say we, I did not understand the rapid pace of how the pins, how fast the pins were gonna go. I thought, you know, you take 30 pins to a restaurant and they're gonna have those pins forever. And they were calling in like three weeks. Hey, I need more pins. And so our pin uh pace became uh rule really, really fast. And I did not understand that, which is what caused us to actually spend way more than originally we we intended. However, we got a lot of recognition for that. Our competitors started noticing it. Uh, there started to become a little bit of a squabble there was a penalty because I told Shane it was gonna happen and he's like ah we'll we'll see how long it takes it did take about six months for people so another local another local independent agency uh happened to write the insurance for two of the restaurants that we we took our pins into and they accepted our pins and they were using them and I went to eat at one of these restaurants and noticed our pins were gone and their pins were in our bucket. Our logo bucket our logo was still on the bucket but their pins were in the bucket and Melissa's name and number was was in the bucket and so what would happen is she would go in and she would take their pins out and put our pins in and then a week or two later someone from that agency would go in and take our pins out and put their pins in and there became therefore a pin war in in a couple of these uh eating establishments here locally and it really became fun and it really wasn't like you know a a a mean spirited thing and I actually think both of our organizations got a lot of really cool recognition out of that um which was kind of interesting because you know we're leaving the state farm and farmers and all state guys on the sidelines and the independent agency system is winning we're lifting each other up and so that was pretty cool and pretty fun to see.
SPEAKER_05But the year of the pin war just so happened to be the year that we were chamber uh business of you know chamber business partner of the year so it was a and that was a layer pins were a layer of other things we did but it had a huge impact on the name recognition of integra in in our um in our home base for our our retail agency area I do want to share this pen with you guys. So we have the integra white pens that apparently Todd is bringing back and Mike is going to get rid of in his next trip we have our pretty red pins that we use now that all of our customers get um and then we have this pin which is a very very nice black it's got the integra logo in silver it's got a great grip to it it's heavier it is a wonderful wonderful business pen.
SPEAKER_01This is not the pen that everybody gets right this pin goes to our high-end commercial clients I would think that Brian would use this I don't know if he does or not but when he's having contracts signed I would think this would be the pen that he has in his hand that he hands over for contracts to be signed with but we also have a really really nice pen that is substantially more expensive than the red everyday pen right and people want people want these yes yeah I mean I yes they're there it's it's scarcity right or it's specialty it's it's like lay it's layering your uh I think the the the title of our podcast is you know does your swag fit who you are or something along those lines right and so I think that's part of it you want to put out you put out cheap swag you're going to be interpreted as being cheap insurance right which nobody or at least nobody that I really know wants to be labeled that you bring something of quality to the table you're you're getting something um you know obviously a lot of e-signatures so this is harder today right than it used to be but um you know if you go in and maybe make it a little bit of a practice in the commercial space or high net worth space where you are going to uh have an opportunity to kind of make that that that client that's spending six figures a year with you in insurance premium then you want to maybe make them feel a little more special right right and I think this is a a great point that Tanya's bringing out like uh I had forgotten that we do that and it's really cool to kind of see how how that layers within your your own clients um I have a few other pen options that I love that I think people have made you out on your desk right now oh I had I I gathered squat swag all over so I actually have a swag table set up for this podcast right but I'd impress that you have that much stuff on your desk that's that's what isn't that's that's where Mike's brain is is oh my gosh how much stuff do you have on your desk I I just I am I am I don't know where I'm at right now this conversation is is so far beyond me like I'm not I can't we're talking about pens that are going to show up on pawn stars like I don't I don't I have one of those I only have one of those but I do have one and I use them when I'm negotiating I have a very specific reason for doing it but uh the Geico pen this which is the this is the first one they've started using uh for the independent agency world and they say geico for your agency this is a gel pen that writes beautifully it has a great feel to it it's nice and heavy um just companies that have embraced their brand the jeweler's mutual pen has little crystals in it um I saw this one recently it's really different there is a boutique hotel in East Texas in Macados called the Redomia and I swear that like one of the reasons that I love to stay there is I get to take one of their pens home and it's just it's kind of a faux Mont Blanc pen that it just makes me happy when I use it um the little silver um you know so finding finding a pen finding something that is affordable but you don't want the throwaway you don't want to spend your money on the throwaway pin and we take a gallon baggie of pens to the team challenge thrift store once or twice three times a year because we get so many pens that come in swag or when we are at an event or they get you know sent to us in the mail whatever but we we will either throw pens away we will donate them or if a school is doing a pen drive or a pencil drive for their for their students right so if you decide to do something like pens make sure that there's some reason that someone would keep it um along those lines and and I would it's when I present this topic sometimes if I was speaking somewhere I'll call it by the yeti and and the reason I call it that is I take a box or two of these plain water cups to coffee cups whatever the fake yet to the thrift store two or three times a year.
SPEAKER_05I mean the amount of these that come through my household is stupid I've never seen a yeti at a thrift store and I go to two to three thrift stores a week there is a um a vendor that Daniel has that's called A I and they send me a yeti they send or let's guess they send him and then I use them a Yeti a year right and they always have a different top these stay with me.
SPEAKER_01Now do they give them to every single client on the planet no you know but to me I would rather have 50 really great items that a person is going to keep and use than have two thousand of something that ends up at the drift store or gets thrown away well and I think the why behind that is really important right like you can spend the same amount of money um in either of those scenarios right however it it's like what is the impact like is the impact which way is the impact going to be better and which which matches who you are as a brand and in most of our independent agencies cases that brand is generally a reflection of the agency owner the founder and so you want that to match um I I uh had a a company rep and in this so you know this doesn't have to be pen specific doesn't have to be it's any type of thing right and and um what just popped into my brain is I have uh there's this company rep who loves knives he's a knife a knife collector right and um it's just something he does and uh it you know he's he's a rep down in the Texas area and you know having a pocket knife is cultural in our in our area um pretty normal to have a pocket knife and he at a trade show that I was at you know he pulled me aside to Tanya's point and he reached underneath the table at the trade show and he said hey I've got something for you and it was a pocket knife now he didn't have it out on the table he had it below the table he pulled it out it was special to him um he knows I'm from East Texas and while I'm not a knife collector I'm not someone that you know is gonna you know do something special with I do have pocket knife I it's pretty normal for me every day and he wanted me to know hey I got this for you right yeah I have something and he you know he had like I think he had like 10 for the whole trade show um it was company branded but it was a little higher end thing and it matched both the company and who he was as a person and in his personality and he was connecting with people that were in his circle right I mean that's that's who I am and and so it was long lasting like I'm gonna remember that I have no idea who handed me junk going to remember that because somebody pulled a knife on you oh he didn't pull a knife he gave me a pocket knife you know I don't know if this is a northern northeast versus south thing when someone tells me I got something for you goes up under the table pulls a knife out it I don't know what reaction you're gonna knife wasn't open it wasn't like you know it was a pocket knife that you you you know anyway um I knew I know who not to ask by the way Tanya if does anybody have a knife we know we're not asking it's not gonna be Mike question right it's not gonna be Mike hey I've got to open something Mike can you hand me your knife out of your pocket no no he can't yeah that would be a car key those don't really exist anymore anywhere so now you got nothing yeah um but it was special like he he made it special wanting me to know and it it was really connected to matching the brand uh little dog marketing who does social media for independent insurance agents they do such a great job with that um I love anytime they're at a trade show you know they're always giving away the little um the little dog waste bag holders that has their their logo on it I have had one of theirs for like four years and it finally broke recently but I have kept up with a pizza swag for four years because it was specifically something that represented their brand that was very very useful.
SPEAKER_05In addition to that they always do the little baked dog biscuits that say iHeart insurance and so when I got home from that particular event I actually took a picture of Mary Bell eating the iHeart insurance doggy bone and sent it to them and they were able to use that in some of some of their marketing and so finding something that connects with your brand like they did is is really fantastic. This is something that Safeco did about five years ago and they were the first company that I ever saw do this from an insurance perspective. So it was a you know you could plug it in and then you had three different kinds of chargers. And I think and it was a high-end cable and Safeco did a really great job of that I got a new one recently while we were at a conference that is the same thing but it is a higher end version of it was accompanied by ATX. At the same conference another company that I won't use because I don't know did the same thing except they put them on a keychain and it was like this really icky cheap version of this multi-use charger core. Now I'm sure these weren't extremely cheap but I am never going to use a keychain that's got three different chargers on it. Like this is not something that's useful but it was cheaper. But I'm sure gonna keep this one from ATX and this one from Safico because I use them in every room of my house right so the people that did this little dangly icky one thought they were doing something really good but they did something really cheap and like I have no desire to ever buy from this organization because if this is how they chose to represent their brand it's probably not for me.
SPEAKER_02I do like all kidding aside I I do think there is some validity to being specific or targeted with it. You know we talk about the pens obviously everyone knows I'm not into the pens. By the way I did Google obsession with pens so if you want to talk later I can tell you what the condition you have is and what it entails.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um but you know in past in a past episode maybe more than one we've talked about finding your your people finding like a group of people that have common interests to you tennis golf whatever it is if you go that direction I think there's some viability to it you know if you're into tennis and you're going to a tennis club and you have and you get your logo on a tennis ball right hand those out okay I mean I think you're accomplishing something or you golf balls or you put your logo on the golf ball put your logo on good golf balls though do not put your logo on crappy golf balls.
SPEAKER_01Yeah the glow in the dark ones yeah so or or you know uh you can also go down the deal of getting a stamp for golf a golf ball stamp of your logo right you can also go down that that way people can put the stamp and oh I'm using my that the integral ball yeah that's my integral ball right um but it's on their good golf balls right so you don't have to buy the golf balls you buy the stamp right so these things like that you can kind of be creative with yes um I I you know obviously the theme of all this is is is there's really crappy stuff and there's there's really good stuff. Right and as an agency owner I I do want our our our folks to understand that this can be a trap. Like you you have to be don't just like turn this over to whoever and say yeah whatever right like you have to kind of be involved in this and you need to you need to somewhat make sure to Tanya's point that it matches who you are and if it's not matching who you are and it's not connecting to your audience just like the really icky keychain charger thing like somebody just in the marketing department for that company is just like what can we do? Oh this looks cool oh it's within budget click buy a hundred of them and there's no real thought being put into it there's no intentionality and I think that's where agency owners uh go wrong is that they don't put this intentional nature towards this promotional stuff they just like we need something get it and then they don't really think about that it could actually do damage to your brand.
SPEAKER_05So I have a sticky note on my desk right here that actually has and I know I know I know I'm like am I still gonna have a job but I've had the same sticky note for like seven years. So I haven't gone through more but I mean like I know like I have a note that tells me what color I read is like it is C8102E. Right? I know what color integral brown is so what when I go to order something and they'll tell me like what color and that way I'm not saying oh no it's just red. Well there are thousands of reds right so if you're able to tell your swag person or if you're ordering swag online if you have someone local that you use know what color your logos are like that's just a super simple easy thing to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah this is this part of the conversation is so far beyond me like there's three versions of every color there's the color the color in dark and the color in light this drives my wife crazy she says she'll come up with some nonsensical well to me nonsensical word about hey that thing over there is you know whatever color I'm like I don't even know what you're talking about light or dark of what color I will find it. So to that point this is not something you should just get into and yeah I'm just gonna I got it I'll figure it out I got this and I'll put it together in about 15 minutes. This does require some thought and getting it all right and then going after whatever you're gonna try to get after like this goes down the line of of like foremost get what you pay for.
SPEAKER_01Has the blue right and there's the white on their blue that's one of my favorites from from this year is the foremost and has the four a double with this you know to Mike's point get some help like you know get some professional help pay for the help um I'm pretty sure and correct me if I'm wrong Tanya I think this is right like once you have your style guide like you can plug that into Canva and if you're using Canva like like our people um that are using Canva like they know automatically these are the colors. Yes and these are the real color like by the what do y'all call that in the marketer's world the number the number the hex number yes that relates to that color and you will never get the fonts you will never get it wrong to reproduce it because we do a lot of digital stuff and a lot of digital stuff gets um gets kind of handed down to who's ever available within an agency and you know you just need some some guardrails some buffers and you know it's really cool that the technology has reached a point where you can just plug the numbers in right you can say okay this is what it's supposed to be and boom the creation you know goes with the right colors.
SPEAKER_02Yes so let me ask this I know we're starting to get long here but in your opinions does color matter in terms of what colors you decide to use because here's why I asked that question for me and I it's just me but if I go somewhere if I go by a business and I see that their logo is in some loud neon color I'm out I'm out I'm out yeah I think it's fair absolutely it matters
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, I I I I um I'm gonna pick on the vaping industry for a minute. Like I don't understand why the vaping industry, why every store has to be neoned out and look like I'm never if you want to convince me to become a vapor, uh you gotta build your stores better. Like you gotta give me a more attractive thing. But you're not their target demographic. I know I'm not their target demographic. I get it. I'm just saying, like, I'm just picking on that part of the that part of the world. If you want to represent yourself as cheap, non-standard insurance, maybe you want to neon yourself up. But if you want to represent yourself as, you know, risk manager, risk advisor, I think Mike likes that one, risk advisor or agent advisor, then you need to be representing your colors, you need to represent that professionalism. And I think it absolutely matters. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Um, run that. I mean, you can Google that, you can run that on any AI program that you're using, but Google it. Like, there's a reason that uh people use blues for anything to do with financial blue is calming, it is a trustworthy color. There's a reason that Burger King and McDonald's use red and yellow. They make you hungry, they make you anxious, they make you want to eat, they make you um want to move. So you go in their store, you get something to eat, and you leave, right? And so all of these different colors have have meanings and they create feelings. And um the comp the company that um I I I went and stole this off the cute boys desk. Um, this is an award that he received. It was the bright the bright speed epic award, right? That he that he won.
SPEAKER_01And bright yellow.
SPEAKER_05It is bright yellow, bright, bright yellow. They use bright yellow and bright orange. Um, their marketing people had this brilliant idea of uh when they started the company that they were gonna have this big giant um mascot who was dressed in blue and green plaid. Now their logo is yellow and orange, and their swag is yellow and orange, but they have this random guy in dark blue and green plaid, and no one ever identified their mascot with their logo and their their their product, and they spent thousands of dollars on on things that had this this guy on there, and I can't even remember his name, but but I mentioned it to the cute boy when he first went to work for them. I'm like, that makes no sense. That's never gonna work, and it didn't make sense, and and it didn't work, and so they came back out and they created a mascot that were actually their colors, and people know what it is, right? But I brought this one in as an award for um an employee, and he has kept his. They only did the Yeti one time because they decided they were too expensive, and so then they went to a cheaper cup for the oaks after that, and people will see Daniel with his and they're like, dude, that's not fair. You got a Yeti. Like, I threw mine away, and I bring it up just because you would be so shocked how many people will use your swag if it's just a bit higher level, right? Like, this is a company called Calix, they gave away actual real moleskin notebooks, which I use, which Shane uses. Mike didn't know what it was, bless his heart. But like, it's a real moleskin notebook. Um, steadily this year at our conference, uh, which is landlord insurance, right? They did a real moleskin. This is my genius.
SPEAKER_02Is someone out there picking off moles to make these? Like, what is the what does that even mean?
SPEAKER_05It's their brand.
SPEAKER_02I don't actually I've never brand, right?
SPEAKER_05And so they're you know, every I think pretty much every single insurance carrier at our conference had notebooks of some kind. But this is the only one that I picked up and used was the one from Stadley. And now their logo is going to be on my desk in front of my face for the next five months, right? Yeah, make the investment in your brand and in your products if you want people to have a lasting impression of you versus them going in the garbage, seriously.
SPEAKER_01And if you can't afford to do that yet, then don't. Then don't like won't do it yet and make a cheap version of who you are, right? And I think that's the main thing that I want people to hear is it's okay not to be ready to spend those those dollars. Like don't get caught in the spending trap like you gotta do it because everybody else is doing it, but you're not ready. Like that's okay. It's okay. You know, you don't have to do that, do it differently, right? Um, you know, it it's you anyone can create, especially in the world of AI, can create an infographic that you can either email out or leave behind if you're going uh physically in person to to prospect, and that's good enough from that referral partnership development. Uh and if you're not ready for swag, then don't go there yet. Wait until you can do it well.
SPEAKER_05I love this one. Yeah, you could white label pretty much anything. This is a can. I live in Pensacola. This is a can of Pensacola, right? And so they the they took the name of our city and made a really fun, fun, fun swag piece. I actually went and talked with these people last weekend to find out how much it cost to white label a soda. And I mean, they're like a dollar and 27 cents a piece to white label a soda. I mean, how cute would that be to give away to a client that comes in to visit? You can do that with water bottles, but I loved this concept. And yeah, I mean, it wasn't an expensive, it wasn't an expensive white label swag, but it was something that really stood out. Now, are they heavy? That will they take up space? Yes, but I mean you could do this. I think they said like for 120 of them. Like you didn't have to order large numbers of cases, but I thought it was just such a unique idea. Take the time, find something unique, like Mike said, something that's within your wheelhouse, right? Something that's within your world, you know. If you are a high school football fan, then invest in the pom-poms, give them out at games. If you are, you know, a basketball fan, then invest in the little basketball for the cheerleaders to throw into the stance. Find what works for you and represents you and make that investment, right? It doesn't have to be things that are super expensive. Um I mean, I don't I didn't think a dollar and twenty-seven cents for a can of Zacola was that big of an investment, but it was something super unique.
SPEAKER_01I think what's hard for people is just measuring brand, right? And uh I've had these conversations with Tanya off and on, and it's just hard. Like it's really hard to measure that engagement and measure that brand engagement. Um, but you know, there are ways to do it. Uh, and I that would also be the other side of the intentional, uh, intentional aspect. Um I I heard a really great say saying uh the other day. I saw it and it was uh it kind of kind of caught my attention. It was, you know, um, don't try to spin your way out of a problem.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01I thought that was a very interesting kind of take. And I think a lot of agency owners, we do that, and we then we end up getting frustrated, right? And marketing, branding, swag, um, if not done with full clarity and expectations, can become a very, very frustrating endeavor for agency owners.
SPEAKER_05Um, I wanted to share this one because it was such a cute idea. This was post-it notes. And they decided to do every single page of the post-it note with a different quotation. Like this one says the move that you're afraid to make could be the one that changes everything, and then it has their Instagram handle on it. Except they placed that in the middle of the post-it note, which makes the post-it note completely unusable, right? That's exactly what it is. They did it on every page, with and I don't even know how much it would cost to do post-it notes with different quotes on every single page, right? But like this was a great idea, but it was not executed in a way that makes their swag usable. And I actually knew we were going to be doing this podcast, and so I have been keeping weird swag stuff specifically to break out for this, but like notepads. You know, we had some Integra notepads a while back that the logo, whoever printed these, the the logo was not scaled properly, like right. But the they were it was gigantic. It was a white notepad and had this gigantic red Integra logo on it. It was too tall for the ratio width. And um another thing that I keep somehow trying to get rid of and they keep popping back up. Um, but then we had these printed and they have lines on them. They have our integra logo printed in the proper ratio. It has integral partner network.com on the bottom. If you have notepads printed, people use notepads with lines on them more than they use notepads without lines on them. Like I love these from IA Blueprint. Um, they have lines, they say independent agents do it better. Then they have the little IA Blueprint logo on them. Um, you know, I we have our conference events at the St. Lee Resort a lot of times, and like if people leave these behind, I will grab these because I use them. So figure out like what you're gonna do. You're gonna do notepads, do really nice notepads, like with lines on them. People are gonna use them. If they don't have lines on them, people can't blame.
SPEAKER_02Everything you saw today will be available on eBay in about 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_01Well, what I'm sitting here thinking is you everyone is probably noticing that Mike and I are not doing any show and tell of swag. Um, that is because we threw everything in the trash and we do not have any swag left. And so Tanya is the swag uh hoarder, evidently, and retains swag for both um uh let's call it use and ridicule. How about that? Use and ridicule. There we go.
SPEAKER_00There we go.
SPEAKER_05There we go. Um make your brand memorable. Uh still one of my favorite business cards that I that he cannot believe that I I you know I probably still have this because we sold adjacent, what, like four or five years ago now? But like our adjacent business cards were very specifically designed. They're square. Uh Shane didn't know why we needed square business cards, but like when you have a stack of business cards, this one sticks out, right? Um they were thicker, they don't bend, they're not easily, you know. If you have a stack of them, you're gonna find this one faster than you're gonna find anything else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Now I guess we're talking about the refrigerator magnet.
SPEAKER_05I'm not big on refrigerator magnet unless a specific purpose for them.
SPEAKER_01Hey, you would, you know, depending on your audience, back to that a little bit. Absolutely. There are, if you are, for instance, we have an office in a retirement community area, and we get asked for calendars all the time. Like calendars that that are magnetized to uh to to the refrigerator. Like hey, it it might work for you as an agency depending on where you're at.
SPEAKER_05Like you know, uh I think that's the whole point of this entire I have the attorney that does the magnetic football schedule for LSU. I have the other attorney that does the magnetic baseball schedule for LSU. Those are on the side of my refrigerator. I'm not telling you that they're not. Um, you know, the in East Texas, y'all are big basketball fans. Like, you know, for integra to do the magnetic Huntington basketball schedule, that makes perfect sense, right? Or it makes sense to do it, you know, um for the Lufkin office. I know it makes sense to do it in the Atlanta office or the Rabbits. Um, yes, aren't you impressed that I know that they're the Rabbits? I mean, you know, but yeah, I mean, like if you're doing something that embraces who you are, what you represent, like we have our logo at if the integra logo is in the middle of the basketball court at Huntington High School, which is where our home office is. It would make sense for us to do the magnetic basketball schedule to go on people's refrigerators. That all has a purpose, right? So figure out what it is that you love to do. Um and I think Adam Bamford, um, who has Bamford insurance out in Cyprus, Texas, he's the best at this. He is uh say that again.
SPEAKER_01Say that again. Start over Prosper, Texas.
SPEAKER_05Prosper, okay. So um Adam Bamford, Bamford Insurance in Prosper, Texas, he is a graduate of Baylor, right? The the high school there where the high school there in Prosper uses that great green color. It made sense for Adam to use his logo in that Baylor green, in the green of his high school, because that is that's his market, right? And he's done a great job. Now, did we tell Adam that he couldn't make the integral logo be Baylor green? Yes, yes, but he could create his own logo in that green, and it's worked really well for him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, it it and it it's it's been an evolution of process for us as an organization. And um, you know, we haven't always gotten it right. We've tried a lot of different things, and and again, I I I really I really think that kind of back to if you're not ready, you're not ready, it's okay. Like that's okay. I think where I made my mistake going back 25 years ago is we changed a lot of stuff and we changed it again and we changed it again. We never could get settled. Um we never could get settled on colors, we couldn't get settled on logos, like there was just a lot that we went through, and all of it centered around just kind of trying to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. Like everybody else has this, we should do it too. And that's my place of experience that I'm that's what I'm speaking from is making mistakes, right? I'm I'm I'm not saying, hey, you know, don't try stuff. I'm just saying, hey, I made a lot of mistakes around this topic. And if I had to go back, if I could go back and do it over again, it would be to be more intentional, like Tanya's saying, match it with who we are and not do things that we weren't ready to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's a great point. I was just gonna make a similar point in that, you know, we've we've spent a lot of time saying, don't do this, don't do that, don't do this if you're not ready. But the bottom line is Integra has done these things, and there's definitely been swings and misses, and Integra turned out fine. If you have a couple swings and misses at the front end of this while you're dialing it in, it's not the end of the world as long as you don't spend a ton of money. So do it, do something, see how it goes, and adjust from there. But you can also can't just be, you know, you can't just be stuck in fear that I'm gonna make this mistake and it's gonna go badly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05One of the greatest marketing errors that were ever made was the Savannah bananas. And if you are familiar with the Savannah bananas at all, they are an absolute sensation. Um, their CEO is a marketing genius. And when they ordered their first 10,000 t-shirts, they misspelled the word banana.
SPEAKER_01That one hurts.
SPEAKER_05That one hurts. 10,000 t-shirts of spelling the word misspelling the word banana, right? And so they threw them away and ordered 10,000 more. And, you know, looking back, he talks about, you know, I should have kept those as like the limited edition. You only give them out every once in a while, the original Savannah Banana t-shirt that had the word banana spelled wrong. So yeah, I mean, like there's fear there that you can you can do things and um it can go out, it can it can be wrong, right? It it happens. Um uh I worked for a group of radio stations one time, and the t-shirt printer was used to the brand being a certain group of numbers, and we decided to use the same brand um in the uh keys, the Florida Keys market that we were using in Monroe, Louisiana. Except the t-shirt printer thought that when we sent the logo in, it was a mistake because it had the wrong number on it. So they printed a thousand t-shirts with the wrong radio station frequency on it because they thought we had made a mistake. Well, okay, so now we've got more t-shirts for the Monroe market, and they had to reprint the ones for the Florida keys, right? So things happen. Things make people make mistakes. Usually you can figure something out. But if you've got, if you're printing swag, like just let somebody else look at it. Say, hey, like, is there anything misspelled on this? Is there like, is this readable? I am obsessed with you know, people that decide to use weird, unique fonts. And then like when things get printed, it looks like it says something else than what you intended it to say. I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Bobby Unser. How you do anything is how you do everything.
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