WordPress Product Branding: Why It Matters and How to Succeed

[00:00:00] Katie Keith: This is WP Product Talk, the place where every week we talk about the business and workings of owning, running, managing, succeeding, and even failing in the space of WordPress products and product ownership.

[00:01:13] I'm Katie. Keith, CEO at Tu plugins . Missed my line. .

[00:01:19] Matt Cromwell: And I'm Matt Cromwell, co-founder of Give WP, and now Senior Director of Customer Experience at Stellar, wp.

[00:01:26] Katie Keith: And today's topic is what makes for a great WordPress product brand and why you might want to rebrand now.

[00:01:33] Matt Cromwell: I've personally been looking forward to this one.

[00:01:35] Uh, it's honestly something that I don't feel like it's very much conversation in the WordPress product space. And yet it's really fundamental and really important. So looking forward to this.

[00:01:45] Katie Keith: And to introduce our guest today, we have a special appearance from Michelle Frechette.

[00:01:51] Michelle Frechette: Hi, I am Michelle Frache from podcasts like WP Coffee Talk, underrepresented in tech, WP Motivate In the new podcast series, WP Constellations, I'm introducing today's WP Product Talk Guest, Yos Deval.

[00:02:06] Yost is an internet entrepreneur, hailing from the Netherlands. He's the founder of Yost, the company. Which was sold to Newfold Digital in July 2021. He has an extensive background in digital marketing and WordPress. Joost is married to Marika, who previously held the position of CEO at Joost until the company's acquisition.

[00:02:26] The couple has four children together. Through their company, Amelia Capital, Yoast and Marika invest in businesses that operate, at least partially, within the digital realm. They also manage their own projects, such as Marika's Empower Women's initiative. It is my pleasure to get to know both Yoast and Marika through the WordPress community, and I've enjoyed following their initiatives that help make the community more accessible to underrepresented people.

[00:02:51] I'm excited to see what will come as Amelia Capital grows and wish them amazing success. And now here's Yoast! Enjoy the show.

[00:03:01] Matt Cromwell: Hey, welcome. Welcome.

[00:03:03] Joost de Valk: Thank you. That was a nice intro.

[00:03:07] Matt Cromwell: We try, we try to make people blush when they come on here.

[00:03:10] Joost de Valk: Yeah, I'm all blushing now. I'll have to thank Michelle for that. So Michelle, thank you. If you're watching.

[00:03:18] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely. Cool. Well, here we are. And like Katie said, talking about branding, I'm excited.

[00:03:25] Um, and, uh, how we always kick this off is, uh, we want to encourage everyone who's watching to, uh, use the chat. If you're here on YouTube, um, use the chat and give us your questions or your comments or your feedback or, uh, Throw tomatoes at Yost or whatever you like, um, uh, we can handle it. Um, if you're on Twitter, use the hashtag WP product talk and we'll be paying attention.

[00:03:48] Um, but, uh, the first things first is, uh, why this subject is so important. Um, Yost, this was actually your recommendation as a subject. And, uh, so you're, you're, you're on the, you're on the, on the platform here. Why is this so important? Why is this such a big deal?

[00:04:05] Joost de Valk: So in the end, I think everyone, when building a product, wants, wants people to buy that product.

[00:04:11] And a large part of that decision is do people trust you? Do people know you? Do they? So all of these things are important and a lot of that is, is always considered marketing. But, uh, A very important portion of that is branding and it's very important that people understand who you are but also have a feeling when they see your name.

[00:04:39] They have to have that positive connotation to your name. They have to trust you to actually fix their problem for you. So, Um, branding is indeed not talked about enough in the WordPress world. I think one of the reasons Yoast got as big as it was, was because we did our branding very well. And I would suggest that everybody who wants to build a product brand like that do the same and, and, and thinks about their brand and builds it.

[00:05:07] And that's more than just creating a logo. For

[00:05:10] Matt Cromwell: sure. I mean, I definitely have heard folks there's, I've, I've heard some mixed reviews on the aesthetic of Yoast. Honestly, some folks don't love it, but I think every single person finds it distinctive. Like you can't not remember it. That's the thing I think that's really interesting.

[00:05:28] Joost de Valk: I think that's more important than necessarily having everyone love the imagery of whatever it is you're using. Um, I. I, I think that the, well, it's one of the things that we did when we created Yoast, I literally, the second person we hired was a web designer or a designer in general. And the third person we hire was an illustrator and, uh, before we even hired any coders, so having that.

[00:06:03] That design and, and standing out from the crowd, which is what you're doing literally has always been very important.

[00:06:11] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:13] Katie Keith: I think it's really clever with the Yoast brand, how you've got kind of the right balance between a personal brand and also something that can stand away from you, which is obviously important as you step away more.

[00:06:24] Um, like you've got the real person. Entirely.

[00:06:27] Joost de Valk: Entirely now. I'm not involved anymore at all, which is weird, but it's what it's true.

[00:06:32] Katie Keith: And with your name, you'll always be part of it. Um, branding wise symbolically, and even right down to the little ghost Legos that people still have in their children's toy boxes and things, but it is a distinct brand that can continue without, which is really clever.

[00:06:48] Joost de Valk: And it is, we, we actually had a project at some point to taking your out of your Um, and, and our project was very much like, because in the very beginning and, and, uh, WordPress, uh, old people will remember this, uh, Katie's far too young for this to remember this, I think, but I, I was in the header of every page, like literally my avatar was in the header of every page.

[00:07:11] Every page on that site. And at some point we're like 25 people working at Yoast and we still had that. And I, I had talked to a, to a friend at a conference and he was like, dude, you need to get away from that. And I'm like, yeah, you're probably right. And, and then we did. So we, we had the taking Yoast out of Yoast project and now it happens sometimes that I'm introduced at conferences as this is juice from Yoast.

[00:07:38] Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, okay. Yep. Nice.

[00:07:46] Matt Cromwell: Katie, what about you?

[00:07:48] Katie Keith: Um, so yeah, definitely an important topic for all those reasons. It also makes you stand out from the competition and can help to justify a premium price tag. So if you just have kind of a really neutral brand that isn't very memorable, people will expect to pay kind of middly.

[00:08:05] Prices. If you've got a really distinct professional brand, then I think you can charge more for what is otherwise the same product because it's all about perception. And as Yost said a minute ago, it's not just about visuals because it cuts across all of your customer contact points, right down to things like the tone of voice that your support team use when they respond to technical support tickets.

[00:08:29] Uh, but, um, not enough WordPress companies put that. Emphasis into their brand. So we, we should be talking about it as the WordPress product talk podcast and whether it's worth putting that investment in to get a more distinctive brand.

[00:08:45] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely. Yeah, those are good considerations for sure. I mean, I think in some ways we should probably.

[00:08:50] Kind of distinguish for some folks that, uh, a brand is kind of like an umbrella term for a lot of different things. Like you have your brand name, you have your brand logo, you have your brand icon. Um, you kind of have often like a brand, um, voice, um, or tone or identity, um, uh, that you want to represent in different ways.

[00:09:10] Uh, we, we could talk about all those things. I'm not trying to limit the conversation, but, uh, in many ways, I think like starting with. Just the name itself, like starting with Yoast or starting with Barn2, uh, we'll get into our, our story talk a little bit later, um, about these things, but like those, that, that name by itself, regardless of the icon or the logo, I think is, is, uh, unique and different, um, and can be the premium thing all by itself, uh, depending on, uh, On what that, what that name is, especially if you combine it with like a really slick domain, if you're able to get away with like a really, uh, like a six letter domain in many ways, um, you know, nobody gets four letters anymore.

[00:09:52] Um, you know, things like that can really be a big deal. So sometimes

[00:09:56] Joost de Valk: they're surprisingly cheap. I mean, yes. com. I bought only Well, that's not true. It's like 18 years ago that I bought that, I think, but it was only two and a half thousand dollars at that point.

[00:10:08] Matt Cromwell: Nice. Uh, what about Yoast. nl? Do you have that one too?

[00:10:13] Joost de Valk: We have, yeah, we have a lot of the different versions. Yeah. So, um, the funny thing is there's more people named Yoast that, I used the same way of spelling it, so it took some time to, to get them all and also to use the power of a registered trademark, which you should do, by the way, if you're, if you have a product and you have a name that you can register, register that trademark, um, to, to actually get all the domain names and all the, the Twitter handles and everything like that.

[00:10:46] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yep. Really important. Um, for me, I think when it comes to branding, uh, the reason why this is such a big deal is it's really the very first impression of your product. Um, you know, they're going to see the name, they're going to hear it, uh, from a Friend, um, they're going to see it online in a social context or an ad or something like that.

[00:11:09] Um, that's going to be the very first interaction, um, that, um, they get in different ways in one way or another. Um, and, um, I, uh, I, I really think first impressions matter a ton when it comes to, um, customer, um, uh, trust in who you are and what they want to do and whether they want to spend money with you at all, um, Um, I, I think impressions, first impressions are a big deal.

[00:11:33] Uh, well, and

[00:11:34] Joost de Valk: it's also not just first impressions, right? A lot of this is people hearing about you multiple times before they buy from you. Uh, and, and getting onto your website probably a couple of times before they buy. We see, especially with 3M products, it, it, it sometimes takes more than a year for people to go from free to premium.

[00:11:57] And. Uh, and, and that is building up that brand recognition and that, well, that, that power that they attribute to your brand over time. So it's, that's also why consistency in these things is very important. You have to be consistent about how you, how you do all that.

[00:12:16] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. Good points. Um, who out there do you feel like is, um, some other really good examples of like a brand name and WordPress that really nailed it?

[00:12:29] Joost de Valk: Okay. So can I be highly critical? Yes, please. I think there's far too few companies doing it very, very good because it's, it's literally one of the things that Marieke and I talked to a lot of our investments about, like we need to, to improve on that branding. Um, so it's too easy maybe to shout out to some of our own investments, but I think Atarim is actually doing quite a good job with something that is also like Not just a logo, but also the Atrium Summit and everything around that it became a part of their brand and I, I, I think doing things like that, like we did with Yoast as well with YoastCon is super important to, um, To emphasize who you are and what you are, but then you also have to make sure that everything that that thing is really is a good representation of who you are as a company.

[00:13:29] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, Adorama is a good example in terms of like a brand, a relatively recent brand. That ditched the WP, like that's a good question to bring up here to barn to also no, no WP there. Yost no WP with give, like it's a four letter word. It's kind of like we, we, we had to kind of go with the WP in some way or another.

[00:13:52] Joost de Valk: And it's a beautiful brand.

[00:13:54] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:13:55] Katie Keith: Yeah. I was just going to give that as an example, actually, because you follow it, you follow through the charity caring thing in all mediums, even like communications with affiliates and things like that. It's almost the brand is indistinguishable from the values, which is unusual, but you could lose the WP.

[00:14:14] If you think about iconic, for example, they couldn't get the iconic. com domain, but they've never called themselves iconic WP really.

[00:14:23] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, same thing with us. Like we, there was no way we're going to get give. com. Um, and we can't trademark give as a term, um, but give WP we can and we have. So, um, that's kind of a little bit of the struggle, but like WP fusion, I like WP fusion a lot as a brand name in terms of somebody who chose the WP.

[00:14:43] Um, and it sounds like what it is. Like, I like the idea of using the word fusion for, You know, being a connector of things, like, I think they did a good job there, but like another one is LearnDash didn't choose the WP. I like LearnDash as a brand a lot personally, a little bit biased,

[00:14:59] Joost de Valk: slightly. I like LearnDash too, but we always used it too.

[00:15:03] So I, no, I, I agree, but at the same time, it's also like, you're not, By adding WP, you're limiting yourself to the WP platform

[00:15:14] Matt Cromwell: for

[00:15:14] Joost de Valk: basically for a long time. And for some companies that might not be a problem at all, but Yoast, for instance, this exists for Shopify as well. And if it had a WP in it, it, that would actually be problematic, problematic.

[00:15:30] So. Um, I mean, maybe Katie, I don't know how that is for burn two, but I can imagine you doing similar things for another platform. And I think you could actually use burn two there too.

[00:15:39] Katie Keith: Yeah, it would be an option. So let's say if the terrible happened and WordPress lost its market share or something, then we could pivot with our brand into more of a, I don't know, apps for other platforms.

[00:15:52] So while that's not on the roadmap now, it does give us that flexibility. And that's a really good point about how having WP or even Woo or something else, there's lots of variants like that in your brand does limit you because you never know what your future direction might be, however strong your business plan and goals.

[00:16:11] Joost de Valk: Yeah. And I think that it's important to realize that if you do it right, then your brand is bigger than a lot of these things. So, uh, one of the, so not everyone remembers this, but what the plugin that's now called Yoast SEO used to be called WordPress SEO in the beginning. And then we started rebranding it WordPress SEO by Yoast.

[00:16:31] And a couple of years later, we, we changed it to Yoast SEO for WordPress. And the funny thing is that over time you saw the Google trends. Searches change, and literally people started searching for Yoast SEO more than for WordPress SEO. So your brand at that point becomes bigger than what you were before that.

[00:16:52] And I think that that is actually, well, a very good indicator of a strong business. And I think that that's something that you have to try and build over time. A brand doesn't get built in two days. It really takes a bit of time. It also doesn't have to take two years, but it, but it is important that you're like, that you're consistently doing a thing for a while before people actually trust the brand.

[00:17:20] I think in the WordPress world, one of the examples that, that a lot of people might know is post status. It, it has actually become a brand for a community and, and with that has, has gathered, well, a lot of, um, trust from a lot of people and it's where we're all of us gather all the time. So it's, so it's something that that's very, like, very, at least very dear to my heart.

[00:17:43] Uh, and I think that that's the sort of connection that you want people to have to a brand.

[00:17:51] Matt Cromwell: Mm hmm. Yep. Nice. Uh, let's talk a little bit about our experiences. Um, in, um, this subject in particular, we all have, um, some experience here to, that we could talk about. Um, I, I'll kick it off today. Like, I think the big three that, uh, I've been directly involved in are.

[00:18:11] Our give WP of course, another brand that a lot of folks don't know that we also carry is called WP Business Reviews. Um, and then most recently we did a big rebrand in public of, uh, I, themes changing to solid wp. Um, and I think the, I'll, I'll zero in on Give and solid, like one of the real consistencies between the way we approach the give brand and the solid brand where we really wanted to focus in on like.

[00:18:39] a really recognizable term and word, um, a word mark essentially that folks would, would recognize, um, and would stick in their brain to one way or another. Um, of course these are like, uh, English terms. Um, and, um, that is one thing to, to keep in mind too, like we haven't, we might want to talk a little bit about internationalization of books.

[00:19:00] Brand names. Um, but, um, uh, and how that applies in different ways. But, um, I think English does have a little bit of an advantage, um, in being so widely, uh, uh, spoken, uh, as a second language for so many people. Um, but, um, GIVE in particular, we wanted it to really be a short, um, uh, four letter Brand as much as possible.

[00:19:24] Um, even though we knew we weren't going to get away with the. com of that. Um, and that was really helpful. Even our slug on wordpress. org is just give G I V E. Um, and, uh, things like that, I think were really useful, um, uh, when we first picked it, um, and it's helpful in the cases like ours, where we were kind of like first to market when it comes to like a big donation plugin, essentially.

[00:19:50] Uh, not exactly, but close to it. Um, so, and that same thing with solid, um, we really were looking for something that, um, people would recognize and be familiar, uh, right away. Um, that is one kind of downside I think to Adorama, um, is that sometimes it takes a little bit of a mental jump to, to really recognize what that term is and what it means and, or, or why you should remember it, things like that.

[00:20:14] Um, it pros and cons to both for sure. Um, but for us, we wanted something that really evoked like foundational, um, aspects, because we're really trying to do, you know, plugins that every WordPress website needs as the foundation of their site. So solid WP. Um, so, and, and, um, it's supposed to sound very, um, Premiere or elite in some ways, but also approachable and easy and straightforward too.

[00:20:42] So, um, uh, yeah,

[00:20:45] Joost de Valk: um, it's, it's very clear as you thought about it a lot more than we ever did.

[00:20:53] So for me, Yoast was literally, I had actually started my own business. I was in the shop with one of my kids and I got a call from my accountant saying, yeah, sorry, that name's already been taken by another company. That did the other name that I had. You need to come up with another name. And I literally was on the phone with Marika saying, okay, so what do I do?

[00:21:12] And she said, well, just call it Yoast, like your blog, you're not going to hire anyone anyway.

[00:21:19] Matt Cromwell: This is never going to go anywhere. Just call it after yourself.

[00:21:23] Joost de Valk: Yeah. And then you're stuck for, for a decade plus with a name that's constantly your own name, which is sort of annoying. No. Yeah. So, but it was a good brand in many ways because it was short and memorable, et cetera.

[00:21:39] So it has, it has some very good things, but it was, um, I want to say that we, we fought about all of this from the beginning, but of course we didn't. I mean, this is literally, we're talking about 2010.

[00:21:54] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:21:54] Joost de Valk: Uh, WordPress was gay big and yeah, no, we were nowhere close to, to what We were all doing it. Did you think about bond to I how did you get to bond to I now want to know Katie because

[00:22:09] Katie Keith: Very similar.

[00:22:10] It was our address. We lived in a converted barn at the time We now live somewhere completely different in Mallorca not in the Anywhere near the animals and things that we had in the old house, and we're stuck with it, and we talked earlier about internationalization. Apparently the word barn is something to do with a baby in Scandinavia.

[00:22:35] And so people in Denmark and things are like what's your company got to do with babies? So it's not

[00:22:40] Joost de Valk: in

[00:22:41] Katie Keith: good international english word And then you can never change it We also made the mistake of starting off as co. uk because the dot com wasn't available So then we had to spend a reasonable amount of money to get the dot com Once we realized we were an international company, which we'd never anticipated when we started designing wordpress websites in 2010 So that's another example of not really planning for your future growth.

[00:23:10] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yeah. That's such an interesting story. I love it. Um, and I, I do, I do have a real fond spot for like both of those stories in terms of like, we're just like hobbyists just kind of doing a thing on the weekend and we're just going to give it a name and then all of a sudden it becomes this big deal.

[00:23:26] It's like, it's really fun. I love it.

[00:23:29] Joost de Valk: Well, it's also, I think in the end, that's how a lot of WordPress companies started. And in general, how a lot of companies start is it just happens.

[00:23:41] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, and but like, I mean, that's, uh, the space is changing, you know, and that's, I think that's a little bit like where we all came from is like what we got away with, like, eight, 10 years ago, can't get away with as easily today.

[00:23:56] Um, and so that's what I like about where you're coming from, you know, now with Amelia Capital is like, you're, you're like, If somebody's like, I'm just going to name it after myself or after my first born kid. And you're like, no, no, don't do that. Like I did that and I wouldn't do it again.

[00:24:12] Joost de Valk: Right. So, so Amelia capitals actually has, has a fun story to it too, because we, our address is actually Amelia van Nassau street here in the Netherlands.

[00:24:22] And Amelia was a princess from the town that we, uh, that we are in, or actually it, she was a Dutch Royal princess that lived in this town for a while in the past. So we were like, Hey, that, that's a good name for our company, but it, I do like a name with a story, uh, to it. Uh, and, and, well, Emilia ticked all the boxes and we're, we're, well, that's actually probably the second time I get to build a brand like that, uh, uh, and, and with Marika again, and, and we'll play with it, create logos, do the whole thing again and think about, Hey, what, what, what do we want to be?

[00:25:00] What does that look like?

[00:25:01] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Well, it does definitely feel like, uh, Yeah. Very different approach to a brand than Yoast was, right?

[00:25:10] Joost de Valk: Yeah, but it's also a very different beast. Uh, so it's very much not a consumer brand. Um, it's, it's very much something that, um, it has two places to be in. I think once the WordPress community and, and, and the other thing is towards companies looking for investment, um, which is a very different way of, of looking at things, um, In some ways you want to look professional and like, you know, what you're doing when you, when you're investing in other companies.

[00:25:43] And of course we don't because nobody does. Um, yeah, so you need to portray that nicely. So it has a different role to play. And I think that Yoast is very, very much more a, a brand that talks to a very wide community of users. Um, where both of you probably play as well. I mean, Barn2 is a bit more towards the e commerce side and most of its plugins, I think, but I, I, um, You're talking to a much larger market of users than we are with Amelia.

[00:26:22] It has a very different approach. Well,

[00:26:25] Katie Keith: for you, it's more of a supportive tool, really, isn't it? So people will apply for investment or something, and then that adds credibility afterwards. It's not so much for getting that. Deal in the first place.

[00:26:39] Joost de Valk: I think most people want us as investors because it's Marika and me and not necessarily because we're called Amelia because nobody really cares.

[00:26:47] I think, uh, at the same time, once we start combining these investments and people look at it, at it more than maybe it might, it, it might be. It might become a bit more than that, but we'll see. I mean, we, um, we've got plenty of ideas for the next couple of years. And, uh, and well, it's, it's all just starting literally.

[00:27:06] Uh, so, uh, yeah, looking forward to build on that and see where we can take that. Maybe we'll do an Amelia con at some point, but then we'll have to come up with something better.

[00:27:17] Matt Cromwell: Nice.

[00:27:18] Katie Keith: Yeah. That's interesting, actually, combining multiple brands into a single brand. Cause that's something that Matt, you've been doing with Stellar, isn't it?

[00:27:26] Each of those was a brand in its own right, but you're bringing them together. Now they have this mutual support network. So I suppose an accelerator type program is similar.

[00:27:37] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. I think Umbrella Brands is like a whole nother conversation. Um, those are harder. Um, and even with Stellar, like. Um, Stellar works only because we're making it work, I think, in many ways.

[00:27:51] Um, it doesn't sound like a, like if it was like, uh, Michelle just launched, uh, WP Constellation, um, podcast, you know, Constellation sounds like a grouping of things, you know, it just automatically sounds that way. Stellar just sounds like awesome, you know, it's, uh, doing awesome things. Um, but. It's a whole nother conversation.

[00:28:13] I think

[00:28:15] Joost de Valk: it's also interesting because there's, you've made a very different choice there than for instance, I yet did with, with his, uh, plugins, because he's, it's all the WP beginner family, but it's, it's not really an umbrella brand and yet it is, and there, so there's, there's a lot of different ways you can go about that.

[00:28:33] And the only thing that I, I'm always a bit afraid of in these things is how not to confuse. The end customer, uh, which honestly with stellar is a bit like it's, it's a stellar, it's a liquid web brand. And there's like this free layers to that, which is quite a lot to, to comprehend. Um, but umbrella brands, I, well, if you get to that problem, it's a good problem to have.

[00:29:00] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, true. Delicious Brains is another good one. Um, well, that's not quite exactly an umbrella brand anymore, but like, um, uh, a holding brand for several different products. Um, and I, I, it's an interesting approach because like none of their products like, it. Names sound like delicious brains at all, and none of them sound related to each other in any way.

[00:29:22] Um, and delicious brains itself. Doesn't sound like an umbrella, uh, term in any way. Uh, but they just ran with it and they just made the website really reflect it really well. Um, so I love

[00:29:35] Joost de Valk: the brand name though. It's yeah, it's just very cool. All of their products are, or most of their products have WP in them though.

[00:29:42] I, if I recall correctly, but it is like, yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:47] Matt Cromwell: Migrate, well, MigrateDB Pro, not quite, but like, yeah, there's a couple of them. Yeah. And then they purchased ACF, which also doesn't have, yeah. They never really

[00:29:57] Katie Keith: co branded that, like, whereas with their other products, they had unique color schemes and logos even within the wider brand, which was quite nice.

[00:30:05] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, true, true. Katie, you have a note here about what you would do differently next time. I want to lean in on that a little bit.

[00:30:13] Katie Keith: Okay. Yeah. Our brand kind of just sort of happened. It's interesting. We did the opposite of Yost. You just said your, I think, was it your third Third and fourth hires were designers and illustrators and so on.

[00:30:26] We literally just hired our first designer a couple of months ago. Our first full time designer. We, um, our logo was designed by somebody on 99 designs. So was the homepage of our website, which is not the most professional way to get a brand. Uh, so I would definitely hire somebody proper, either an agency or in house that doesn't really matter, but it's about having an individual.

[00:30:52] You can build that relationship with. So I would do that differently. Uh, other things I would do differently, um, would be to aim higher. Our brand's fine, but really I would like it. I would aspire for it to be as. Professional as the best SaaS companies. I think we should be looking outside of WordPress in our aspirations for our brands, because beyond WordPress, the standard is the average standard is higher.

[00:31:21] So I'd like to, uh, up the level of our brand at some point, but we're kind of daunted about the size of that project. So we're trying to evolve our brand gradually and. Now we've got an in house designer and he's designing nice things like our t shirts for WordCamp Europe and all the swag and, um, all these things we've never had before.

[00:31:42] But I would definitely do that differently. And another note, it's interesting to think about uniqueness, um, because You never know, like for example, our t shirts last year were the same color as the volunteers at WordCamp U. S. And people kept asking us for directions. So, this year we've gone for That's

[00:32:04] Matt Cromwell: actually a good marketing ploy.

[00:32:06] Lots of people talking to you.

[00:32:08] Katie Keith: But for the wrong reason. And then this year we've gone for quite an unusual color of blue, and as you can see, Yoast has the same color. Same color t shirt. And I just got off a call with some other WordPress people and Jason Coleman had the same color t shirts as me. I thought it was unusual.

[00:32:27] So I think Yoast is quite clever because that kind of burgundy dark red and your t shirts always stand out at WordCamps as the only ones that color.

[00:32:38] Joost de Valk: Yeah, we, we, that we did on purpose, by the way, we actually were, because we were orange at first, which

[00:32:45] Matt Cromwell: I was going to say, yeah,

[00:32:46] Joost de Valk: it was quite typical for a Dutch company, but we were quite sick of it at some point.

[00:32:50] Uh, and, um, we literally did an exercise where we put all the logos of all the big WordPress companies. Uh, on a, uh, on a wall and just started throwing new combinations of colors into it. Like, what are we going to do?

[00:33:06] Matt Cromwell: And

[00:33:07] Joost de Valk: this one stood out the most.

[00:33:08] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely. That way, that's an ongoing joke in Stellar is that with Devin and I in particular, all of the brands are blue, except for give is green.

[00:33:18] And we're like, The next brand we acquire cannot be blue. That's it.

[00:33:22] Joost de Valk: But it honestly, at a WordPress conference, a lot of, a lot is blue, but it's even worse when you go to CloudFest, you'd think that all these hosting brands would have like very distinguished brands. And then all of them basically look the same.

[00:33:38] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I agree with

[00:33:40] Joost de Valk: Katie. It is like aspiring to, to be a bit more than, than what the average is in the WordPress world is important in these things. And I think that actually starts with something different than, than logos. And, um, Uh, and, and names, it starts more with like, what are your core principles?

[00:34:01] What, what is it that your company stands for? What besides making money is important to your company and thinking about those things and then translating that into a story is probably a much more important thing that, that a lot of companies should do a bit more exercise on, I think.

[00:34:20] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, yeah, that's going back to what I was saying about brand voice.

[00:34:24] I think in some ways, um, you know, when I want that, when people think of solid WB, they think of, um, the solid foundation for their whole website, um, that we're all about security and backups and maintenance. Like that's what I want them to hear every single time in one form or another. We'll see if that works,

[00:34:43] Joost de Valk: but

[00:34:44] Matt Cromwell: Katie, but are you actually doing kind of like a soft, like announcement that you're like considering a rebrand?

[00:34:50] Is that what you're doing right here? Are you telling us this breaking news now?

[00:34:54] Katie Keith: No, it's something Andy and I have been debating for years. He in particular thinks it's worth it. And I'm like, okay, you lead the project. And he hasn't chosen to. This was a problem with our last rebrand. Um, it's the biggest, um, the nearest we've ever come to falling out.

[00:35:13] Uh, you know, we've built lots of plugins and other aspects of the business together. And the branding was the thing that was the most sensitive. So we're a bit reluctant to get into it again. And I've been very clear that it has to be his project because I can't go there.

[00:35:29] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. So it's

[00:35:31] Katie Keith: more like a dream that we would click our fingers and have this magical new SaaS level brand, but there's no immediate plans to do it.

[00:35:41] Joost de Valk: Yeah. Yeah. I'll talk to Marika about this. We should probably just talk right about this a bit more. And she's done a lot of that, that brand story type work here. And it is something that we, that you've run into, uh, a lot with companies is that that is hard to do that. And it's actually, it's a lot of work and it takes time away from stuff that you, that, that seems like a lot more important in the short term.

[00:36:07] Um, but I do think it's actually good to go through that process and you become a better company for it.

[00:36:13] Katie Keith: Well, in terms of return on investment, when we first started selling plugins, we just put the plugins on our main agency website, which was fine, but it wasn't that professional, it was just average. We then did some work to just improve things like fonts and spacing and attention to detail and our conversion rate shot up and we really saw the difference after that mini rebrand.

[00:36:40] And then when we did the whole project to get our current brand, there was no measurable increase in conversion rates. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, no, not hundreds, tens of thousands of dollars, hours and hours, months of work, and we didn't measure an improved ROI. So I wonder if there's a law of diminishing returns where once you're professional, it's harder to quantify going to the next level.

[00:37:08] Joost de Valk: Yes, to some degree, but I also think that there's, that you just can't measure everything.

[00:37:13] Katie Keith: Yeah.

[00:37:14] Joost de Valk: And, uh, uh, this in particular is, is very hard to put a proper measure on. And that you're also selling yourself short by doing that a bit, it's, it, that brand is important for multiple things. It's not just important for who you sell to, but if you at some point want to sell your company, then that brand is actually.

[00:37:37] An asset that they, that they will look at, like, Hey, this is good. This is something we can use. Um, I think that there's, there's a lot of, a lot that you could do with that. And, um, it just in thinking about, Hey, who are we to whom and how do we, how do we portray that, um, and thinking that every one of these things can be measured is honestly, um, I think one of the fallacies of marketing in general, uh, in the, in the last decade, uh, and it's getting less and less true.

[00:38:11] So, yeah.

[00:38:14] Matt Cromwell: Or at least getting a lot more challenging to make your measure accurately. Um,

[00:38:19] Joost de Valk: yeah, we could do an entire episode on, on measurement and how you can do that. It's. The best way to get Marika, uh, mad is to say that you can measure everything precisely because you can't, um, but it, it is, yeah, all of these things tied together, um, I think good branding and, and knowing very well what your brand is and what you stand for also leads to easier decisions in marketing.

[00:38:48] And, and to quicker decisions in marketing. So it has a lot of these spinoff effects that are super important to growing your business.

[00:38:58] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you also, you have a note here too, about, uh, the importance of your own events. Um, as you get bigger, um, what's that about?

[00:39:07] Joost de Valk: Yeah. So for me, it's, uh, and for us, it's always been very important to.

[00:39:15] Well, to be more than just, uh, a WordPress company or just an SEO company. So we try to combine those things into YoastCon. Uh, Marika created that entire program and I, I think that it's super important once you reach a specific size and you have enough of an audience to be able to, to pull that off, that it's super helpful for everyone, not just the To the outside, but also to your team because you suddenly, so what we always did is we brought in what we thought were some of the best speakers in the WordPress space and in the, in the SEO space and combined them.

[00:39:55] And it's super energizing because you get all these ideas. So after that, a lot of things would always happen in the company. I think that's super cool to do. Um, and it doesn't have to be an event, right? It can be a, uh, Another thing as well, but I do think that it's important to make your brand be more than just a logo.

[00:40:16] It, it, it has to be an experience and it has, there has to be, if you can, if you can attach experiences to that and to that brand name, I think that's super powerful in the long run. Um, and it's also, um, Katie mentioned already, like the people recognize the Yoast college shirts and on word camps, et cetera, it's, it's always like, Yes, we're there.

[00:40:40] We're Derek usually with a lot of people as, as the host team. And you, and you talk to a lot of people and you have a lot of fun conversations. Um, and you make some rules about that. So one of the things that we, one of the first rules we always had was you don't get drunk in a year should, uh, because your brand perception is important.

[00:41:01] I still get mad when we have flags outside of our offices here in a couple of places. And if those, if those flags, uh, are ripped. That you don't do that to your brand. You make sure that you replace them in time. So it's, it's something that you take care of. And that is, uh, that is a bit more than, than just, um, the physical appearance of it, it's very much also like how those people interact on a worst camp is super important.

[00:41:28] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Simple application of that honestly is just when people try to put together brand guidelines and things like that for how others should be using the brand if they're going to promote you or if they're an affiliate, things like that. The truth is in the WordPress space, I often see that the brands don't even follow their own brand guidelines on their own website or in their own product.

[00:41:49] Like I often see people putting their, Their icon or their logo, like in these weird colors and shapes and all kinds of stuff. Um, but, um, uh, without, you know, without any real, uh, care for their own style guide, you know, um, I think, uh, I think that kind of thing is also really important. Um, uh, because if you don't do it yourself, you can't reach out to an affiliate and say, Hey, you made my logo look like crap on your website.

[00:42:17] Like help me out here. Um, it's like, well, you kind of do that yourself. So it's hard. You have to set the right standard. So, um, I like the way that, um, you know, again, I like the way that you're able to use the Y icon, um, and like, like recently I'm seeing it a lot with the rainbow behind it, for example. Um, I think that's really, really clever, um, the way that's, uh, been able to be used in a lot of different formats, um, and with different approaches to it, um, we've tried to do some fun things with the give G, uh, here and there, like we put a.

[00:42:50] A Santa hat on it sometimes during the Christmas season and things like that. But it's a little bit harder to get away with. I think, um, uh, with our give G, um,

[00:43:00] Joost de Valk: well, you need a level of brand recognition. That's pretty hard to achieve. I think before you can do weird stuff again with it. Uh, and that takes time and money, uh, and those sponsorships at WordCamps are pretty costly.

[00:43:16] So it is, I mean, it is that sort of thing that, that you need to do to also get that word out there. Um, but it's still like, Um, uh, I think it's worth it too. And I agree with you that that style of that is important, but it's also like, don't take yourself too seriously. Um, uh, if you, if you take your own brand seriously, but also not too seriously, I think that's the best way of being at it.

[00:43:44] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:43:45] Joost de Valk: And that's why I love the barn too. I mean, even if it's weird in some languages, what that, that, that it's, it is what it is, right. It has a history and, and that's a good thing.

[00:43:56] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we are coming to the end and we want to wrap up with some of our best advice. So, uh, if you are working on a new product or a new brand, um, we're going to come rapid fire with our best advice, uh, right now.

[00:44:13] So first up, uh, is Katie. Katie, what is Your best advice for folks who are building out a brand new brand.

[00:44:20] Katie Keith: Yeah, well, we need to think about people's different budgets and so on. So as an absolute minimum, create a simple brand that is highly professional and will build trust. And if possible, if budget allows, invest further in a more professional, unique brand identity that people will recognize much more.

[00:44:39] Matt Cromwell: Nice. That's really good. And

[00:44:42] Joost de Valk: I would add to that, that create just a few rules of what it is that you want to do in the world besides making money, because I assume that all of you want to make money, but what are the other things that you want to achieve and that you would like the world to see and write those down and discuss those with your company and see like, how, how do people react to this and then bring that into your brand?

[00:45:07] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. A couple of times in here, Yost, you also mentioned like the non physical aspects of your brand. Is that, that is, is that where you're touching on a little bit there? Yeah.

[00:45:15] Joost de Valk: Yeah. I think a brand is much more a, it's something that people can rally around. So it is, it is, uh, a flag, but it's also what that flag stands for.

[00:45:30] So the rainbow colors for Yoast is very much something that fits with the values, the core values of Yoast and having those core values and being being clear about what your company's core values are. It's super worthwhile.

[00:45:46] Matt Cromwell: Yep. Absolutely. That's definitely a guiding thing we did with give is like our tagline is democratizing generosity.

[00:45:52] And so everything that we do, um, with our brand and, uh, is all about how, um, we can encourage people to be more generous in one form or another. Um, I think my best advice, um, if you're just, you know, Just barely getting started is to really focus on, um, recognizable names that are easy. Um, especially internationally.

[00:46:15] Um, I don't want to throw this company under the bus, but I do have to mention like in, in the WordCamp Europe space right now, we have a media partner named WP. Um, and, uh, spelled with a G and it's a little bit unfortunate, honestly, uh, and it's caused a little bit of controversy around WordCamp Europe, um, a bit because the pronunciation is a bit unfortunate when it comes to English.

[00:46:39] Um, and, uh, but they're doing some really cool media work on it. Honestly, like I've been watching them closely. They're doing a really good job. Um, so really focused on international pronunciation as much as possible. Um, and develop a tone guide, um, specifically because I really think between having a really great term and then having a really strong and clear tone guide, Like logo, icon, colors, all of that starts to get a lot easier once you've really, uh, honed in on the word mark and honed in on a really good, uh, tone guide in particular.

[00:47:12] Uh, those two things just, um, make, uh, everything else a lot easy going forward. So cool. Well, that's all we've got. Any other last final comments? Uh, anything else? Um, special, do you want to call out any great reveals coming up this way from Amelia or Barn2?

[00:47:31] Katie Keith: I'd like to know more about what you're doing at WordCamp Europe.

[00:47:35] Joost de Valk: Oh, yes. So at WordCamp Europe, we have a couple of companies pitching us. So we're doing, uh, sort of like, uh, people have called it a mini shock tank. Uh, but yeah, people are pitching us their new products for investment. Uh, we still have a couple of spots open now because someone dropped out. So if, if someone wants to pitch us their company, we're still very happy to receive those pitches.

[00:48:00] Um, And we're also just going to be there and have fun and meet up with all our WordPress friends. So I'm really looking forward to getting to Athens.

[00:48:08] Matt Cromwell: That's awesome.

[00:48:09] Katie Keith: Sounds amazing. So when is it? Because I didn't see it on the schedule.

[00:48:13] Joost de Valk: Isn't it? Which schedule were you looking at? At our site?

[00:48:17] Katie Keith: WordCamp Europe one.

[00:48:19] Oh, the

[00:48:21] Joost de Valk: timings. We will publish the timings. Uh, later this week. So we will make sure to check, uh, follow, follow us on Twitter. Emilia Capital. It's very simple.

[00:48:30] Matt Cromwell: Um, and what do we got going next week? Um, we're bringing on Michelle, right?

[00:48:38] Katie Keith: Yep. So we've just had her for the introduction. She is our guest next week and that will be the last full week before WordCamp Europe, so we thought we should do a WordCamp for you.

[00:48:49] Focus WP product talk. She's, um, obviously amazing community leader, and we're going to talk to her about maximizing your WordCamp experience tips for specifically product owners in how to get the most out of WordCamp just right before we get to a lot of us put it into practice the following week.

[00:49:09] Matt Cromwell: Excellent. I'm always looking forward to talking with Michelle for sure. So thank you everybody for a great week for a great conversation. And, uh, we will see everybody next week, uh, with Michelle. Have a good one.