My Favorite Brands and What We Can Learn From Them

Kirsten 0:00

Hey there, and welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. You might notice my voice is a little bit scratchy today. I am batch recording these episodes for the month. And of course, I had been sick the last couple of weeks, and just getting my voice back. So it's may sound a little bit scratchy. But we're gonna roll with the punches, because I still have some great content that I want to share with you. And I am just really glad that my voice is back to where it is it was much worse earlier this week. This episode is a fun one. I am going to tell you about a few of my favorite brands outside of the TPT world and give you some reasons why I love these brands and what we can learn from them to implement in our own TPT businesses. So let's just take a dive into some of my favorites.

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

All right. So here's how this episode is going to work. I'm going to share with you four different brands. And I'm going to share with you how I found these brands why I liked them so much and maybe a couple little stories thrown in. And I will tell you about a lesson about what we can learn from these brands based on my own experience as an audience member or a target audience for them.

All right. The first one you may not have heard of, or you may have heard of. If you like true crime, I definitely recommend this one. Her name is Bailey seryan. And I am so sorry if she's somehow listening, and I mispronounce her name. But it's Bailey Sarah, and she does something called Murder Mystery and makeup. But let me backtrack and to kind of tell you who she is. So she's basically a professional makeup artist. And she also talks about true crime as she's doing her makeup. I came across her one of her videos on Facebook, I was just scrolling. And it was like I don't even remember what story it was. But basically what she does is she like puts on her makeup. And, you know, she tells you she doesn't tell you about the product. She hasn't listed in the description, usually. But she goes into the stories that she you know, the true crime stories. I was kind of like, oh, this is kind of cool. She's like, you know, giving me some makeup tidbits. And like as she's like putting on her makeup and showing you like different ways to put on makeup. And she's also going into murder stories. So of course, me being a true crime junkie. I've always been this way since childhood, believe it or not. That's just kind of like how I roll. I really liked it. And I of course, you know, Facebook algorithm. They kept showing more of these videos. So anytime I like scrolled and I saw her video it was usually a short clip. Then I would watch it. I was like oh, that's pretty cool. Then I started following her and saw that she had full videos full episodes on YouTube and additionally she has a podcasts, it's all about, like the dark history of America and all that kind of stuff goes into some conspiracies that, you know, may or may not be known. But it's always really interesting to hear other people's perspectives on different stories. So even though I've heard many of these stories, some I have not heard of, which was pretty interesting. That's kind of what drew me in is like, she's like, kind of showing us like her makeup, she's putting on makeup, and then she's going into talking about these true crime stories. But what drew me also in was how she explained the stories. She's just kind of quirky, fun, just how she explains it's just really fun. She's very personable, and relatable, and all of that kind of stuff. But it's kind of cool watching her transform her face. And she'll do different things. Sometimes it's themed, she'll do Christmas themed holiday themed. So it's just really, really entertaining. But also interesting to hear the stories. So here is the lesson I have, I'm going somewhere with this. The lesson that I have for Bailey, Sarah and her brand is you do not need to try to reach everyone niche down. Think about who her target audience is, it's probably somebody who is really interested in, you know, makeup, or just different, you know, makeup looks and all that kind of stuff, but also happens to be interested in hearing true crime stories. That's her target audience. And plus, she's entertaining. She's relatable, she's funny. So this is a really great way to show that you do not need to try to you know, if if you're telling a true crime story, be yourself attract who you want to attract. If you're really good at makeup, and you're really good at telling true crime stories, Why not marry the two and attract you're going to find people who are interested in it. So this is just kind of one really great example of how it's okay to niche down because you're going to get your exact people coming to you whether they find you on a Facebook feed or going on to YouTube or anything like or listening to a podcast as a recommendation. I'll make sure to link my favorite brands so that if you're interested if you hear this and you're like, oh, this sounds pretty interesting. Then I will make sure to link those in the show notes so that you can also check out these brands.

The second brand that I really enjoy is someone called mommy labor nurse. She is an actual nurse, and she shares content on social media specifically, Instagram is where I first found her, but she also sells courses on natural birth lino C sections, epidurals like she does a whole gauntlet of courses for students to be moms dealing with postnatal care, all of that kind of stuff. And I, this was one of the first courses online that I've ever bought. And I was wanting to try nomads. And so I took one of her courses and you know, learn the information. And I was able to go med free, which was a story for another time. But I came across her platform, her brand on Instagram, I found that the a lot of the information that she has was super informative. There are some topics that I had no idea about, like different tips on going through labor, postnatal care, prenatal care, she's pretty much anything a future mom or mom to be, or, you know, anybody who's gone through having a kid would want to know, and the best part is, like how she talks about is always really fun. Something that's really memorable. I remember her doing this very recently, is, you know, I don't know if you know, but sometimes they always compare, you know, you're 20 weeks, and you are the size of a grapefruit or how, you know, this is completely inaccurate. But what she did was that was really cool is she took actual comparisons, like fruits or veggies, and put it on a plate and she took a real she did a reel of each week. So it went from like a sunflower seed to a blueberry and then it progresses for each week. And I thought that was pretty cool seeing the real life, you know, comparisons with how big the baby is, each week with the fruit or veggie. So that's just an example of what she does. She also does really funny reels of like what happens in the birthing room some funny things that dads might say, some like you know, random stuff. It's just really fun and makes it a little less daunting if you're a first time mom. Something that you could learn from mommy labor nurse is that brands can be informative and teach something about their audience. And you can do this in your own special way you can do this through real so you can do this through infographics. If you want most of your content on Instagram to be mostly informative, you can totally do that many people might just really enjoy or like learning information about a certain topic. Maybe it's like, you know, social studies or, you know, literacy strategies for sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, counseling, SEL there's so many different ways you can be informative on your platform, you don't always have to do some type of you know, fun little real about what it is if you're not comfortable with real you can always make it informative. So definitely don't stray from doing that as as a brand if that's what you want to be known for.

The third brand that I really enjoy is baby Frieda mom freedom. These are basically your baby essentials. They've got nail clippers, thermometers, the snot sucker, which is one of my favorite things. It's basically you know, basically you are sucking it's like a little nozzle, and you suck snot out of yours, you know, kids nose, and it works so well. It sounds gross, but it works really well look up the snot sucker if you need something to get those little buggers out that the reason why I'm drawn to this brand in particular is actually part of what drew me in at first was a clean packaging. Like it's just kind of cute. It's like a very minimalist packaging, and there's like a little picture of a baby and the mom, you know, it's showing different parts. There's one like the gap, you know, helps them pass gas, and it's like a little baby with the diaper. It's just really cute packaging. But also if you look on the box, the wording is really catchy. They have a lot of fun catchphrases and puns and play on words in their packaging. I took like a little look at their website. And on the very front page. At the time of this recording, it says fuss busters. We've got you covered from whatever baby throws your way. But not only that, I also bought the mom Frieda for my second one for postpartum care. They have this whole kit for moms, everything you need to take care of yourself after the baby's born that first couple of weeks. It was amazing and I loved of course the packaging is super super fun. Some of their some of their wording is tongue in cheek, but that's kind of my thing. I like tongue in cheek I like you know, I like I like fun brands like that. So that's why I'm always drawn to them. Check out the website if and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about. All right. So here's a lesson to learn from Baby Frieda and mom Freda brands with a unique voice and style stand out. I could not tell you off the top of my head, other brands that do what they do. There. It's a specific niche. Not only that, but they've also they have a specific voice. That gives you some feeling of like, okay, they understand this baby life, they understand this mom life of everything that happens, like I'm not trying to be all pissy about it. I'm not trying to be, you know, like, I'm a real mom, like this is real life, I need something that can help me get the job done, and is effective. And that's exactly what they do. They know how to be super relatable to you know, moms of today. And I think they are a perfect example of how they have a unique voice to attract a certain group of people that need their support. So definitely bring out your own unique voice in your brand. And whether that is through how you communicate to your followers on Facebook, how you communicate in your emails, the wording you use adding some fun gifts that are relatable related to what you sell, then that's a really great way to stand out.

All right, the last brand I'm going to mention is apple. I've always been a fan of Apple One of my first experiences with Apple This was actually thinking back this was pretty cool in my the middle school I went to for intermediate and middle school so sixth through eighth grade, whole entire district was had Apple products. These were Mac computers that had that fun color backing. One of my first experiences with MacBooks and Mac computers and products were would be that. What was specifically really cool is that I took a technology class in seventh grade and they had brand new IMAX like huge flat screen TVs And I thought it was the coolest thing, we got to do some different projects on it. This was my first real experience really, really getting to play around with different apps on Mac. Since at home, we had mostly had Windows software and all of that kind of stuff. And of course, fast forward to the age of the iPhone. I remember when I got my first iPhone was iPhone three. And it was amazing. I had gone with blackberries before that. And of course, I could not go back after having my first iPhone. And I love apple in general, because of the brand in itself. I love their products. It's beautiful, functional, minimalist, super stylish, it feet, the feeling that you get just opening up the new you know, a brand new Apple product is an experience of itself. So the lesson I have for Apple, what you can learn from them is that brands can evoke a feeling or emotion. It can be if your brand is mostly focusing on important issues in the teaching world in the education space for today, it could possibly evoke different feelings about how teachers are dealing through a pandemic, it could have feelings of anger, it can evoke different feelings, just depending on the topic. But if you also are trying to, you know, be a sense of comic relief in your brand and making it more funny, giving them more of a space to feel relief have after a really long day or hard day. And just being able to feel relaxed and feel like there's humor in even the most serious of things, there's just so many different ways you can go with it. But in general, something that's important in a brand is that brands can evoke some type of feeling, it could be a positive feeling, it could be a safe feeling. It could be a you know, getting people riled up to take action feeling. So that is just a really great example of how you can do that.

Alright, so I'm going to recap the lessons, the four different lessons that we shouldn't really think about and this will be your creative action tip.

Think about your brand right now. How are you utilizing these four lessons in your brand right now? Is there a way you can improve that so that's your creative action tip. I'm gonna go over the lessons again, lesson one, you do not need to try to reach everyone niche down. Lesson Two. brands can be informative and teach something to their audience. Lesson three brands with a unique voice and style will stand out. And Lesson four brands can evoke a feeling or emotion. Which one of those do you see in your brand right now, if you're not seeing one of them, but you want to make it more of a focus, think about different ways think of three ways you can make that happen. But that being said, I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. I will talk to you all again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.