what's going on guys John Santos and today I'm here with Summer Barry who is
the creative and marketing director for BELLA+CANVAS and as you guys may or may
not know BELLA+CANVAS is one of the largest wholesale distributors in
America they're really blowing up all over and marketing and advertising and
everything that it takes to really sell these product features the brand story
and everything that comes into it is something that takes a lot of
preparation a lot of planning and more importantly a lot of work so for one I
want to applaud you guys for everything that you do it's amazingly from the yeah
the photos online to the video content on YouTube to everything that you guys
produce so today guys on what I wrote what I really want to do is I want to
really speak with summer who's in charge of all of this operation and essentially
give you guys some insight into how they prepare their marketing campaigns
advertising campaigns and social media campaigns and how it all really comes
together to tell your brand story and really sell your brand's products
so to really start off and kind of dive deeper into what marketing consists of
with Bella Canvas or just with business in general would you like to
describe what what all that consists of marketing a broad sense is just about
creating demand so you know you have your sales team and then the science is
created the demand and marketing really is a support of that especially in our
business which is b2b but also it's really having their hands on anything
that customer facing so the website social media pages YouTube anything that
a customer sees and says that's Bella Canvas marketing's job is to make sure
that that image is positive and consistent across all channels so
anything from the catalog to the website to the packaging everything is involved
in kind of creating this ecosystem for the brand which a customer will then
look at and decide if they want to buy that product or not so that kind of all
falls under the marketing umbrella you guys are definitely not doing the
traditional approach of the catalogs and everything else that I mean you're still
doing that but on top of that you guys are doing something completely out of
the box and some of the things I've noticed about BELLA that you guys also
do events such as Coachella and YouTube live and you're really really out in the
digital world so how how do these kinds of events and how do you guys leverage
these kinds of events and your marketing initiatives to
continue growing the brand yeah well I think um as it used to be events were
kind of tricky in terms of ROI because you spent all this money and then it was
like a one-and-done you might have made this positive impression but um a lot of
money goes into a single day and now with video and with the ability to share
content across multiple channels we're really able to leverage events for a
much longer lifespan so we'll create we don't see an event as an event we see it
as an opportunity to create content and then we can create that content and push
it out on YouTube push it out on Instagram and Facebook and really kind
of touch consumers in a much broader sense because you know when you have an
event you're limited to space and time and with digital you can really reach
all people across the world at with one single piece of content so what we do
with Coachella or different events like that is piggyback on cool things that
our customers are doing and really create a piece of content around that
that helps other people buying our products see how that's used and other
spaces would you mind sharing a couple of the of the day-to-day tasks that you
guys do on social I mean you guys are very active on there so when somebody
will like either shout you guys out like sometimes I'll I'll post something and
then somebody will like reply right all right would you like to share some of
the processes or things that you guys put in place to be interactive with
customers on a mass level yeah sure so I mean we always for one check our hashtag
check our people that tag us and our direct messages and I would say on a
daily basis we have somebody that goes in every few hours make sure that
they're writing back to those people I'm also really involved because for me it
is a really good kind of feedback loop or the sorts of content that we're
putting out there so on YouTube when people kind of
comment on a video it's how I formed strategy for what videos to put out in the future
so I'm always on there commenting as well and I think it's really important
even for the leaders and a company to be involved in the day-to-day on social
media because that really is kind of like your chance to have your ear to the
ground and like your pulse on what customers are saying about you as your
marketing and advertisement what would you say is a campaign that took off that
you're like wow I would have never thought that that would have been as
successful as it was yeah you know um good question so a lot of times because
we're so close some of the content that I put out about BELLA+CANVAS I'm just
so used to it you know like I know about our USA manufacturing model because I'm
so close to it I was surprised to see how shared that piece of content was
because I realized that you know if you haven't been in for a tour or you know
you're buying our brands from New York across the country you might have no
idea about these practices that we have in place that I see just like on such a
day-to-day level so that was one I think seeing how well people respond to the
behind-the-scenes content is really cool because it means they want to know how
the products made and they're interested in those things that's a major takeaway
because even whatever you're doing marketing and you're you're getting all
these new people coming on board that may have not I've seen the you know the
first or second video that you created and when you actually create that that
new piece where you're like well this is pretty clear cut and then you get that
engagement your like wow nobody knew about that so marketing is a lot of
repetition and over explaining you know like you have to kind of say the
same thing in five different ways and five different videos for people to be
able to really understand that piece of your brand DNA and what we do is you
know we have kind of a brand DNA document which is four points about BELLA
CANVAS with three supporting points under that and my goal is to make sure
that all of those messages are completely understood by the
customers and so you know we do that through a ton of different ways but
video is one and usually it's not just one video for every supporting point
it's multiple talking about the brand and then would you be able to share some of
those points with entrepreneurs too perhaps they could put something
together for the hombre sure so I think having a brand DNA document is so
critical because you can always go back to and say our customers taking away
these messages um and you have to look at every single channel that you have
and make sure that your brand DNA is pushed across all this channel so for us
it really we kind of narrowed it down to what we call four by three and so the
four we have four overarching points with three supporting points for each of
those so everything under our brand DNA kind of ties back to our motto to be
different so we asked ourselves so how are we different and then
we have four supporting points for that we have premium crafted tee's USA
strong production eco-friendly production and innovation so then we
look at each of those and say okay what facts do we have to support this so for
premium crafted tees you know the first thing is our airlume combed and ring-spun
cotton so our certain DNA of cotton is made to create the softest tee's so we
want to tell that story cause it's something that you really have to dive
in to really understand it's kind of technical and you know creating creating
that story in a way that customers can understand is you know a
challenge but important the next thing is that we never have tubular tees so
there's two types of tee's theres t-shirts with side seams and then tubular tees
which are cheaper to make so all of ours have side seams it's explaining that
it's important to look for a side seam because it's an indicator
how its going to fit and then the third thing under that is just our technical fitting
so we have one of the best technical designers in the world that basically
cross fits every size from extra small to four XL which is something that no
wholesale does they take a medium and then they take standard
grades to just go out from there and three inches four inches or whatever to
make your bigger sizes so the next part of that is the USA strong production
which is actually the video that I mentioned that was really well received
on Facebook and Instagram so with that we're just letting people know we're the
largest dyer and cutter of apparel in the USA which a lot of people have no idea about
you're able to do all of our dying here and our cutting here helping people know
what technology goes behind making sure that the medium they bought last month
will be the same than me as the medium that they buy a year from now and then the last
element of that is just creating an American jobs so you know we create as
many jobs in America as we can and then we also you know partner with factories
in Central America that are all wrapped certified meaning and you know fair
wages great working conditions and the last is energy reduction so we have
solar panels we're building a new solar farm on the new warehouse we have across
the street and we also just encourage employees to you know drive electric
cars by having an electric car charging stations and things like that to reduce
our ecological footprint you highlighting those points I now see
throughout the website social media yeah and it's all about being consistent and
showing that message across we've told the stories first on YouTube
and Instagram and now we need to push those out our website
for the kids I'm preaching on a day-to-day basis about how many people
are you in charge 11 people which it's actually pretty small for a brand
or size size because that does include design and graphics and the video team
so we're all really hands-on here people wear a lot of hats it's definitely not
your typical like hierarchical system with a lotta red tape we operate really
like this startup in a sense like we're very mobile and nimble and we can
make changes really quickly and I think that's something to like especially for
startups that are getting started you want to find people with that multiple
like multiple sets of skills so they can really help in more than one area um
specialization is really great for really big brands but you want somebody
that's not going to be afraid to get their hands dirty if you're starting out
they can wear all those different hats how did you guys decide the tone that
you wanted to take with the brand and what do you guys do to continuously
ensure that that tone stays consistent I mean a lot of it starts with our
photography where each year our season to season it's really about involving
more than rebranding so I think a mistake that a lot of people make is
trying to do something so drastically different from season to season and a
customer doesn't know what to expect from you when that happens and it's hard
for them to know if they can really trust your brand and if they're really
gonna like the end result because you might look so like schizophrenic on your
social channels or on your website so having that consistent through line
season to season is really important for us um you know really it boiled down to
photography and model selection I don't think that those things can be
underrated so for us you know our goal is to really show people that we are the
high-end fashion wholesale blank so you know we want to choose models
that kind of portray that effortlessly cool look while being super natural so
you know we want it's its t-shirts you know we want them to look like they
threw on a t-shirt and just look great so everything from styling to the makeup
and hair all of that kind of goes to kind of create that like effortless cool
vibe and I really think that that's kind of the distinguishing factor that we
carry through season to season is does this feel on brand does this feel like
Bella Canvas is that your Bella canvas girl is that your bella canvas guy you
know the world the word on brand gets thrown out a lot in marketing but that's
really what it is it just is is this a reflection of who we are who we want to
be so for entrepreneurs that are that are just getting into the market or
perhaps their shift in the direction to to obtain a different market do you have
any tips or suggestions for how they should enter and start that process to
really be able to be successful yeah sure so um I think you want to start by
focusing on one thing so it's a little overwhelming to think about like all of
marketing as a whole all the things that you have to do so if you can just find
that one thing that you can do different and you can be really successful at
that's where your time is gonna be best spent and you know when you're starting
out you might have a bunch of different ideas so throw ten ideas out there and
once you start going down each road you can quickly see if this is going to pan
out for you or if it just doesn't work in your space so for example for us it
was video you know we tried different things for one like the influencers
space while that's successful for a lot of brands it's not what really kind of
pan to be like our thing so then we got into
video and the reason I think video was more successful than any other social
channel or anything that we've done so far is just because of the nature of our
business so we're in a place where we can provide a lot of educational value
to other businesses that are using our products let's have you figured out what
that area was that's where we focused on and you know being strategic and being
really focused and where you spend your time and energy on and I think is
important don't waste time just checking boxes
because you think that those are boxes that you need to check and don't just do
what everyone else is doing you know find an area where you can be doing
something different because that's the only way that you're gonna get noticed
out there one final question that I think people can really take away from
is for everyone that's starting up their brand or is already in their brand what
would you say is a major marketing lesson that you've learned over the
course of your career that you could share with them I think it would be to
just try stuff so I think earlier in my career a lot of my ideas were a lot more
complicated and I wanted to get them just perfect before executing and now I
realize like some of the best ideas are really thrown together kind of at the
last minute kind of on a whim and you're just trying something unique and new so
I think it's almost not to overthink things a little bit too much you know
you don't want to make mistakes but at the same time like doing things as your
way of learning so if you have an idea just do it don't wait on it don't
overthink don't make it too complicated and then if that does provide it if that
does prove to it to be successful the idea can evolve yeah
that's a superkey with a lot of creatives especially like people that
really want to put together these master initiatives no more like oh you
have to have to get this a lot of this yeah you know when you think of
everything on such a big scale so it's just you can just start it and I
actually really learned that from our owner sometimes you'd be like these
ideas are complicated just be simple just do it and then you know just saying
just do it like you're like okay and it always worked out so you know I'm
gonna learn from experience being forced to just do things before I felt totally
ready to do them awesome guys I hope you guys enjoyed this video as you could see
Summer is doing amazing things in with bella canvas and that there's some
amazing gold tips that you guys will definitely be able to apply so make sure
you guys ask any questions that you may have about marketing or or building your
brand down below this video and make sure that you check out the playlist
that we have with Bella canvas which is located right up on this side as soon as
the video starts to end and more specifically make sure you guys go check
out their channel which is located at the it's actually link down below as
well you guys will be able to get tips on customizing your apparel really dive
deeper into topics such as these into social media and all kinds of other
things to continue helping you grow your brand alright so if you guys have any
questions leave them down below follow us on Instagram and more importantly
we'll see you guys on the next video