All about Branding with Christine Myer Noiseaware

Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 8 Episode 32. This is a recap of my interview with Christine Myer of Noiseaware
where we talked about branding

Here's the audio for this episode:

Here's the video for this episode:

Timestamp

02:00 About Christine
03:40 What target audience means
06:00 Advice from Christine
07:50 Your WHY
09:00 Additional tips about discovering your brand
10:30 Why hosts should look to stand out
12:20 Christine's advice on taglines
14:00 Some mistakes that people make when posting online
19:00 Quickfire questions

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Transcript from the Episode

Christine works with Noiseaware as Head of Growth and located in Dallas, Texas. She's been working in Noiseware for about four years now. She worked for only startups, which has been a lot different than most people's paths. Before Noiseaware, she was actually working in two different startups, one kind of right out of college, and both of them were education technology.

Christine ended up getting into the vacation rental industry, and short term rentals in general, because she started actually managing a few properties in Costa Rica, she had a friend who was living there. She was kind of helping her the marketing and the branding and got a little taste of what it's like to actually be a property manager. She cleaned toilets, she has done it all. She checked in guests and had a lot of nightmare stories and good stories.

That had her stumble across Noiseaware She got started once she met both the co-founders at a networking event, which was actually the same place that they met to start the company. So it's kind of like a place of, of magic, because it brought them all together.

Noiseaware is basically a noise monitoring solution for short term rental hosts and managers. It allows them to know if there's anyone doing any sort of mysterious things that their property may be, throwing a loud party or just getting a little too loud in the evening, and they're able to get an alert, and then and then deal with it before it escalates.

What target audience means

Christine said we could market to anybody who has a short term rental, but we have to figure out who the ideal customer is. There are certain characteristics that sort of make up the type of people that you're looking to actually target. So yes, you may have, you know, an Airbnb or a short term rental that's in a specific location. But it's it may not be fit for every single person. So once you sort of identify what are those characteristics, who are those people, and honestly kind of comes from when you first start marketing and you first start doing things, you start to sort of find these characteristics, once you go out in the market and you interact with guests.

The biggest thing that Noiseaware did was they actually ended up doing an exercise where they had a bunch of sticky notes, they grabbed a whiteboard and like a big wall and they had one member of our team actually take us through this and they actually do it ever so often because the landscape of where they're at in the world and travel in the short term rental industry has changed so much.

There are so many new brands that are kind of popping up and people are changing. So what Noiseaware did was figure out like what are those characteristics, and just write them down on sticky notes.

Then they see where there are groupings that kind of come out of it, everybody's very different. But once you kind of figure that out, you're really then learning like as much as possible about those people and how you can specifically market to them and find them on the internet, which, you know, can prove to be difficult at times. But once you've identified it, you know exactly how to talk to them, you know, what they like, what they don't like, and you can really kind of nail down some of your, your brand and your marketing and it can be huge.

Advice from Christine

Start to find out like some similarities of some of the people who have shown interest in your property, because they probably have more people that are somewhat similar to them that are going to show interest. In the beginning days, like asking some questions like, how did they find out about you? Why were they interested in the property or even bigger? Like, what was their type of stay?

When you're in a city center, if you start to find that you're getting more business travel, folks, then you're going to want to start to focus towards, like, how can I make sure that, you know, I'm saying it's a quiet place, you know, or it's a it's near a subway or, you know, kind of public transportation for somebody who's traveling there? How can you add more to your guidebook, there's sort of different things that you can kind of do once you learn exactly like either the type of travel or what was kind of their main purpose.

Noiseaware learned in the beginning days that there was a lot of vacation rental companies that were kind of a husband and wife duo. They kept hearing like, Oh, hey, I'm, you know, my husband, and I will talk this over, and then we'll come back, and we'll talk to you. These people are running their businesses as a kind of a family unit. Noiseaware wanted to talk to them about how like, you know, they can get better sleep, and they don't have to work 12 hour or 24 hour days when they have noiseaware installed and stuff like that.

They thought about ways that they could look into any of the problems that they were dealing with, or the things that they were sort of seeking. They think the same things as somebody who's seeking a specific property, like they have a reason that they chose yours, once you kind of find that, that niche that you're a part of, then start to, you know, kind of layer that marketing.

Your WHY

The biggest thing, in the beginning, is figuring out really kind of what your core purposes and what drives you to, you know, build what you're building either something there. So there's kind of two things, there's the core value, like, what do you want to provide? You know, you're providing some sort of space that's providing an unforgettable travel memory for your specific traveller and that kind of like customer avatar.

But the other part of the Why is just like how do you want people to feel when they interact with you? Like, how do you want them to remember their stay with you and their interactions throughout that because specifically with the short term rental industry, Noiseaware realized that their brand was so much the people and how they interacted with people.

They think too as a host like their entire state and how they interact with you and the house and everything is sort of like a part of of your brand. And so if you know how you want them to feel and then what drives you then those two things kind of come together and can really have you feel like you're explaining to people like hey, this is why I'm doing it.

Additional tips about discovering your brand

The biggest thing is there's always something you're striving for you always want are striving to be better and get your place better, whether it be your listing or or anything.

When Christine was managing properties in Costa Rica, she was looking at you know, lots of different property management companies and she was looking for ones that she was striving for not ones that she thought she could be better than but ones she was striving to be and they probably had more money. They probably had a more specific group of portfolios, they probably had already gone through a lot of their branding experience. But once you kind of learn, like, Hey, I really love what they're doing here. Like, it's gonna spark creativity for you to figure out like, How can I do that for how it fits me. You know, a lot of people may think of it as like copying.

In the beginning, Christine felt like she's copying other people. But she's like, no, they're doing something right. Like, you know, there's always big companies and big brands out there, there's something that they've already figured out, like, use that concept. And then, you know, kind of figure out how it fits into what you're trying to do. And obviously, like back to kind of your why and your customer like how it doesn't fit into those other two pieces on you don't have to do exactly what they're doing. But there's going to be something there that kind of sparks.

Why hosts should look to stand out

Find things that people are not already doing that you could do that are unique in the beginning. At the beginning of Noiseaware, like, they're not this like super cool. When they're going to conferences are kind of like we're noise monitoring, they have these noise sensors, and they're breaking down parties, and they're making sure that people, you know, don't destroy your place.

They felt like they had to go in and kind of be professional, the vacation rental market conferences and trade shows. She realized they want to be fun and cool. Like the people in this industry are so fun. So they would send out emails and be like, Hey, we will buy you a drink at the bar, if you just meet us at the bar, we're going to be wearing these super neon bright shirts, they've got florals all over them, because they were coming out with a new sensor that could work outdoors.

Noiseaware was like, how can they be different and stand out at these conferences. So people kind of say, Hey, I take notice of that. And they're not like everyone else who's kind of standing at their booth handing out pens, just sort of chatter some of them are sitting there talking on their phones or being on their computer and not really engaging and, and they tried to actually go out in the crowd and talk to people be like, come over hang out with us. Like we're going to the party later you can we buy you a drink, like nobody's gonna say no to that.

Christine's advice on taglines

There's always time to find to be creative. From research, you're going to find things that you kind of like. Christine likes following so many different things for whatever she's sort of trying to figure out. The second thing is kind of like words and phrases that you like, you'll never know how they will sort of pull together. So stop trying to like write out the full thing or the, like putting home At home like think of two other words that can replace that.

Think about those things and those words that people loved about your place. Someone may use a really great adjective to describe your place in your listing reviews. So reading those reviews and pulling words out. Pit stuff in a doc or writing it on a whiteboard, and then kind of keeping it there and in front of you is huge.

Some mistakes that people make when posting online

Being short, like long-winded thing and so few letters and words. Noiseaware alwayss write down copy on the marketing side, and it's always long and then we just cut it down and it seems like you're making the sentences seem like you're sort of speaking poor English, but you're not you're making it quick and easy for someone to digest rather than them feeling like they have to read a lot because the world has become so quick and so fast like people just don't have time.

The other thing is ship it fast. Don't wait to make something perfect. Get it out there as quickly as possible because within 48 hours, that post is way down in the feed, nobody's going to see it, you've got to you got to kind of be quick. And that's where you can also be short.

The last thing is we always say, right, like you're writing to your friend, not your grandmother. Christine is talking to other people out there that are very similar to her friends and her family. And that's just like the world has kind of become that way. And especially in social media, things are just more like, Hey, we're all friends, and we're all talking to each other. And we're all communicating, especially during this time. People are sort of being way more real with content and way more specific online, and they're not writing some formal story about, you know, COVID, they're just kind of talking in realistic terms, like do the same thing for people that are looking to travel just be a little bit more real.

Quickfire questions

If you could be isolated with one celebrity or famous figure, it could be dead or alive. who would it be?

Will Ferrell

If there has been a movie or a TV series that's been placed on that watch list and you've taken full advantage of it and lockdown, what is it?

Tiger King

What is the the one thing the one thing that you've missed the most been able to do since being on lockdown?

Going to an office with our team.

What has been your favorite purchase in the last six to 12 months that's been under $100?

Milk frother

Do you have a favourite podcast or YouTube channel?

Murder mysteries

What is your number one piece of advice that you would pass on to a hospitality owner who would like to increase direct bookings?

Market your place and think of creative ways of like what are people going to want most.

Know more about Christine on NoiseAware Facebook

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