Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, the ultimate resource for business leaders eager to skyrocket your company's growth!

In this episode, “Startup Marketing Essentials: Transforming Passion into Profit,” host Kerry Curran is joined by Caitlin Miranda, marketing expert and visionary founder of Rise and Roar Creative. Caitlin shares her expertise on how early-stage and small to medium-sized businesses can build holistic branding strategies that go beyond traditional marketing confines.

Discover how to develop an effective social strategy, manage the overwhelming demands of trending platforms, and build a brand that evolves with your business. Caitlin provides expert insights on overcoming common startup challenges, maximizing your marketing efforts, and driving meaningful revenue growth.

Get ready for actionable strategies to transform your passion into profit. Let’s go!

Podcast transcript

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.756)

And welcome Caitlin. I'd love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your company.

Caitlin Miranda (00:08.432)

Thank you so much for having me. I'm Caitlin Miranda. I'm the founder of Rise and Roar Creative. We work with early stage and small and medium stage businesses, primarily with female founders. And we do a lot of branding work. So going a little bit beyond the confines of traditional marketing or what you might think of it, looking at everything holistically from, you know, what is on your social media platforms, what's, being spoken about with your employees, the whole nine yards.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:40.924)

Great, and I know you've worked with and spoken with a variety of different companies and company sizes. So what are some of the common pain points or trends that you're hearing from brands these days?

Caitlin Miranda (00:54.416)

I honestly think being overwhelmed is the biggest thing that I'm seeing with all of my clients. You know, there's this idea of like Instagram and Tik Tok have a new song every week and you have to have some sort of social asset that comes out for that song that week. And if you're doing it a week late, like you're too late. And it's just so overwhelming. And it gets such a hold on people by saying, I have to jump in, I have to jump in. And, you know, especially for folks who are just starting out or folks who are really building their empire.

They don't have those kinds of resources to be completely, you know, stuck to trying to create a ton of content at the moment. They need to be able to plan. And the biggest piece of advice I have for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially, is you don't have to be beholden to those trends. You don't need to be beholden to going viral. If you've got a strong marketing strategy and a strong social strategy that really sits on the pillars that traditionally have made people successful, you are in a safe place so that your foundation is built. You are living in a world in which you're turning out content that's still gonna convert your consumer. And maybe if there's something that's happening that is in the trend world and it's a really relevant fit, you can jump on it. But the goal isn't to go viral, it's to build a sustainable strategy.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:15.228)

And TikTok, the goal of TikTok isn't just to be on TikTok.

Caitlin Miranda (02:20.464)

Absolutely not. And you know, it's one of those things where there are so many, so many brands are just completely overwhelmed by the idea that you have to be on every platform all the time. And it's like, at the end of the day, if it's not converting for you, if your audience isn't there, if it's not something that actually shows, you know, you can get a million views. Does that mean that you're gonna get even 10 sales? Probably not. So it's really more about tying to what your goals are, where you're driving revenue to be able to decide how and when you're pursuing a lot of that content work.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:57.756)

Yeah, and I know you do a lot of work with both the internal and external brand touch points. So what are you seeing that companies should be encompassing or are doing well?

Caitlin Miranda (03:09.488)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really and truly when we think about a brand and why I like to use the word brand in terms instead of marketing sometimes is because it is really all encompassing. Your brand is how people perceive you based on a whole bunch of things that come into play. So, you know, some, if you have a brick and mortar, someone walking into your brick and mortar, their experience.

What someone says to them when they enter. If it's a yoga class, what's the interaction with the person checking in? What's your experience with the instructor? Every single piece of that puzzle is going to be something that provides a perception for your consumer. And you can control that or you can't. So you can either choose to break that apart and make that a part of your experience, and then you can control how that goes and what your perception or what the… customer's perception of you is, or you can let that sort of go fly and you know, it really, you have no control over it. 

And so the brands that are doing things really, really well that I've been seeing and been working with, we really break down every piece of both the consumer experience and the employee experience to understand what are the different touch points. How do we… impact the perception of that brand every single moment so that at least at the very least there's some intention put behind it and in the most it's something that creates a really positive experience for whoever is interacting with the brand.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:45.68) 

And one of the points you made that I loved was that there are really 175 touch points that brands need to be thinking about.

Caitlin Miranda (04:54.96)

Absolutely. I mean, it's everything from, you know, your paid campaign. So what somebody who is super top of funnel and hasn't necessarily seen, you know, your brand before and what their impression is of that to where does that, you know, where does that learn more link take them and what then how do they get into the funnel and going through but then if you even break it down more clearly, it's, you know, that messaging that they're using or the people who are in your content, the influencers or micro influencers or you know.The content that you're creating, that that's something that they feel like they can identify with, all the way into your discount codes and how you're creating that and what's the experience for checkout like. And I mean, every single touch point that we might generally think about actually probably has 10 to 15 behind them. And so it kind of gets into it and really breaks down exactly.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:46.044)

Mm -hmm.

Caitlin Miranda (05:59.024)

What is all encompassing in the experience of your brand? Cause we also get to decide when that ends, when that start and when that ends, you know, it's, you could have somebody who you could own a bakery and traditionally we might think that like the bakery experience starts when somebody walks in the door and it ends when they walk out the door, but you can continue that.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:05.603)

Right, right.

Caitlin Miranda (06:21.168)

You can continue that long before they come in, your branding, your marketing, how you bring them into the store, your sidewalk experience, all the way through to what you follow up with in your email sequence.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:36.028)

No, that's great, Caitlin. And it makes so much sense to your point of like the consistency, you're building that experience, especially for B2B brands that the buying cycle could be a lot longer. You want to make sure that they're getting more familiar and you're building that relationship through all of those touch points. And I think that's so important. And I think it's easy to forget or dismiss when leaders might treat marketing as order takers or just the ones that edit the PowerPoint. So it's so spot on that it needs to be consistent. So, and another aspect of branding that you've talked about that I found so, that resonated with me so well was that it's foundational work, but it's not just who we are today. So talk a bit about how you kind of guide your clients through to think about how they need to be thinking about their brand today and for future market evolution.

Caitlin Miranda (07:36.656)

Absolutely. I mean, especially when you're, you know, whether you are a company that is in its conception phase and you know, you're two, three, four months in, or, you know, some of my clients are one to three years in. It's one of those things where generally a lot of companies come from a single insight or a problem that they're trying to solve. It's coming from something and that's why someone decides to start a company. And so you're going through and you have this initial idea, but oftentimes, even if you're an expert in that field, you may not really have an idea of exactly what it's going to take to get from here to there.

You know, going into that process, a lot of times product market fit comes into it. And so you continue to evolve your product and your product changes over time. And a lot of times, you know, I was on the phone with a client yesterday who said, you know, when we started this company four years ago, we wrote for one consumer. And now we're finding that we're actually much more of a B2B company. And so all of our messaging has changed and how do we address that? And a lot of it is about sitting and thinking at the onset of where are you right now? Where do you want to be in a year? Where do you want to be in five years? Where do you want to be in 10 years? Starting a company or even two if you're 10, 15 years in, you're in the middle of it. You're in the thick of it every single moment. And so it gets really hard to actually sit down and take time.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:56.54)

All right.

Caitlin Miranda (09:12.976)

But I think that it's so critical to come up with the vision of where you wanna go so that when you're talking about your brand and when you're making decisions for your brand, you can have the future in mind as well. And you're really planning for it so that your brand has a through line. Because if you know today that, well, in 15 years or 10 to 15 years, I want to ...

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:30.94)

Okay.

Caitlin Miranda (09:36.304)

… you know, right now I'm a national company and in 10 to 15 years, I want to be an international company and I want to be selling in all of these different markets. Well, you need to be thinking about how to brand yourselves as a global company now or else you're going to have to completely reinvent your brand in a couple of years in order to actually achieve those goals.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:50.46)

Right, right. Mm -hmm.

Right. Now that I think that's so critically important and not something that all companies think about, especially when it's, you know, a startup just trying to get going and just trying to make the first, you know, the cash register ring for the first time. And I know you do work with a lot of startups. So what are some of the challenges that you see when kind of presenting brand strategy or an important brand strategy with two startups?

Caitlin Miranda (10:26.544)

Absolutely. I mean, you know, especially when we're talking about startups, they're, they're in the fire. And it's one of those things where, you know, usually it's a small team of people, if not just one person, and they're wearing 17 different hats and they don't have time for all of these things. And they're significantly overwhelmed and they have something that they're really passionate about and they want to get it out there. And a lot of times people think one,

Marketing, not super necessary. I've got a whole product I need to develop. I've got to get it to market. You know, we've got to do a whole bunch of other things. Marketing, like that, can take a backseat.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:01.18)

Yeah. But wait, how are you going to get it to market if you're not going to invest in marketing? But yeah.

Caitlin Miranda (11:05.104)

Right, exactly. But a lot of people are like, no, no, no, no, no, like I can build a website, I can, you know, just social media, like that's, that's something we can post on easily. I post personally. So of course, I can, you know, post on social media. And it's one of those things where it's like, you've got to, you know, bring people in who can help support that short, you can post on social media, is it going to be one, the most effective use of your time? Probably not. And two, is it actually going to convert?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:17.852)

It's that easy.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:24.284)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Caitlin Miranda (11:33.84)

Because the problem that I see a lot with my clients is that they are running themselves ragged, trying to do absolutely everything. And could you do a lot of these things? Sure. Is that going to be the best market strategy for your company? Probably not.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:52.604)

Right.

Caitlin Miranda (11:53.328)

And so that's why, you know, I always encourage people to look at what are the things that you are the only person that can do this. And then what are the things that you can bring in as an expert to really help because at the end of the day, your return is going to be tenfold.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:09.148)

Right. Right. And they probably can't afford a full-time resource that has the expertise that they need and which is where you come into play. And where do you tend, and you've talked about them, a lot of startups tend to or need to have two big focuses. Like, where do you see that?

Caitlin Miranda (12:28.272)

Yeah, so I mean, I think when you're talking about your focus, it's all about being able to understand one, you know who you are, how you want to show up in the world, and then the second being your interactions and what people's perceptions are of you. And so really making sure that you have a plan, you know.

Building that foundation so that you have the foundational element, you have got the plan, you've got the strategy. Even if you're a person leading a team of 10 or 15, oftentimes, if there's not that strategy put in place, people are running in different directions and you're just wasting resources. And so those foundational elements, to be able to say, every single brand should have a brand book.

If you don't have a brand book that says, you know, this is our point of view, this is how we talk about ourselves, this is how we talk to our clients, this is what we look like visually when we show up. You know, if you don't have that, that is critical. Because that then goes on because, you know, say you don't have a brand book and you've just brought in someone who's gonna help you with social media and take that off your plate. Well, how are they supposed to talk about your brand in the way that you wanna be represented if, you know.

They don't understand what that is. And so I think the foundation is so core and then bringing in people who are able to really help you step your game up, you know, bringing in that circle of trusted advisors who are truly treated like advisors, not just, you know, executors.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:07.132)

Yeah, no, that's so important. And I know it's a challenge to get the founders or leadership to buy in, and especially when they're kind of so, their budgets are tight. And so are there ways you've kind of successfully convinced them that this is something they need to invest in?

Caitlin Miranda (14:27.056)

Absolutely. I mean, I think across the board, you know, a lot of it comes down to having control because they, you know, one, it's precious resources to bring in someone. They don't have a ton of budget and they need to be able to understand where the ROI is and then they still need to have some level of control. And so,you know, the first part of being able to prove out that ROI is when you're in that strategy phase, being able to put together some KPIs to show them that you look, this is where we're going. This is the progress. But then also, you know, the R the buy in piece is really about being able to create moments and build them through a process. So having a process, being able to talk through, this is how we're going to approach something. This is, you know, I'm in the driver's seat, don't worry, you're here. I'm going to bring you in for alignment as we go through this process, but we're gonna get buy -in, we're gonna get alignment, but I know where we're going. And I know the direction that we need to take this.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:34.812)

Yeah, no, definitely. And I think you're right. It is a challenge, especially for founders when this startup is their baby and they are very passionate about what they believe to be the best solution. And it's just getting the right narrative and story out there. So, I know we talked a bit too about like, once you have the brand and brand strategy, there's still a lot of steps in process to put into place to kind of invest …

Caitlin Miranda (15:52.24)

Absolutely.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:02.908)

… to drive that revenue growth. So talk about how you kind of coach your clients through what they need to be thinking about for increasing their revenue through marketing strategies.

Caitlin Miranda (16:12.624)

Absolutely. I mean, you know, what's really positive for us working with clients these days is that measurement and metrics are in abundance. You know, it is something that we can go and look at, you know, what are our numbers in our email, like what are our social numbers, like how are we converting and being able to pull out of those metrics, which then allows us to say, okay, what levers do we need to pull to be successful? Do we need to be focusing our energies in our social campaigns? Do we need to make content that is more general brand awareness? Do we wanna be focusing on retargeting through our email campaigns, whatever it is, but …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:32.284)

Okay.

Caitlin Miranda (16:57.648)

I think really focusing on metrics and being able to say, you know, this is where our target is. This is where the industry is. And being able to pull those different levers to say, okay, how do we actually move the needle here?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:14.076)

No, it's so important that there's measurement and optimization and to your point of like identifying what should be optimized. And the other side of it though, and I keep talking about this, is the fact that not all strong marketing activations can be measured to the ROI that your last click, very trackable conversion can come into play. So I've been having this argument that it should be a rising tide, but I know that doesn't always fly with those that need to be measured. So talk about how you talk your clients through, or what's your POV on how do we measure those brand activations and really important upper funnel activities that can't necessarily be measured like a last click.

Caitlin Miranda (18:04.592)

Absolutely. I mean, you know, here's the thing is, you know, when we're talking about general brand awareness, there are a number of different things that go into it. So we have to break it down. Brand sentiment comes into it, reviews, customer satisfaction, how easily your sales team can convert. Like all of those are pieces of a broader funnel and they all come back to this idea of branding and the perception of the brand. 

And so I think part of it is really drilling down on exactly what it is that you're doing inside of your strategy to move the needle and how you're measuring that. And, you know, it agreed with you that, you know, rising tides raise all ships. And I think part of that is, is having a conversation with your client and being very upfront with, look, yes, we can't tell you how many people who attended this event have now gone and bought product. But … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:46.684)

Yep.

Caitlin Miranda (19:02.448)

… there are probably different ways in which we can get from A to Z. And let's just say that like this, you know, piece, you know, the article in Kondy and Ass Traveler has made people come to stay at your hotel, even though we can't have that direct line for the conversion, it's much more of walking them through why something can't, you know, be exactly tracked, but letting them.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:29.276)

Interesting, yeah.

Caitlin Miranda (19:30.416)

But breaking down those different things, you know, it does impact the general sentiment and awareness of your campaign. Just like, you know, the joy of your employees and how much they like, you know, employee satisfaction isn't something you can necessarily attract and it's, you know, implications on your brand. But we all know if you've read Glassdoor, there are implications on your brand. So, you know, it's part of that general conversation and really educating your clients.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:58.172)

Yeah, yeah, no, this is great, Caitlin. So any other recommendations or observations that you think marketers or any marketing executives or company executives should be hearing?

Caitlin Miranda (20:13.488)

Absolutely. I mean, I would say that, you know, again, one of the biggest things, two of the biggest things that it always comes down to are intention and people. So always looking at how you are approaching a situation? How is your brand going to be perceived? You know, what are the intentions from every single part of the interaction that someone will have with your people? And then, you know, the second part being people and how you treat people and remembering that at the end of the day, you know, people just want to connect with other people. That's what drives us as humans. And so if you're thinking from a people first perspective, that is going to help you largely in having the perspective of being able to actually move the needle and convert for your brand.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:00.508)

That's awesome. Thank you, Caitlin. Well, thank you so much for joining today and I hope we can have you on again sometime in the future.

So Caitlin, what is your number one recommendation for startups as they prioritize their marketing investment?

Caitlin Miranda (00:07.679)

So I think one of the most important things is to actually have a strategy. Whether you're working with an expert, whether you've brought someone in-house, whatever it is, you need to have a strategy. A lot of times, especially when you're a startup, you are looking at two things. Product market fit and the ability to grow and scale. And having those two different things, a lot of times, you know, the startup founder is the person that came out of this with having some sort of an insight or a problem that they wanted to solve. And so they built this product and you're evolving what the product market fit is as you're going through the process. And a lot of times people say, well my go-to-market strategy, I know the product, I know the problem that I'm solving, and I can speak to that.

And so they think that it's something that, you know, just sort of comes together. But that's one of the biggest challenges. If you don't have an actual strategy for how not only are you going to lodge, but how are you going to grow and scale? It's kind of, it's kind of like you going to the market, but you have nobody to talk to. So it doesn't really matter what your product market fit is or what your product is because there's nobody that really can speak to or understand what it is that you've got to say.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:22.778)

Mm -hmm. No, that's super helpful. Well, thank you and thanks for your insight.

Caitlin Miranda (21:08.592)

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kerry.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:10.588)

Thank you. Alright, that was awesome.