Episode #26: The Growing Importance Of Social Proof For Your Toy Ideas
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It's no secret that the toy industry is heavily influenced by popular media. Many people in toys compare it to the fashion industry because both are all about fast-moving trends. Traditionally, the most popular toy lines were created around popular network tv shows and blockbuster movies. But thanks to the growth of social media, and the disruption of the movie industry due to the coronavirus, the toy industry is seeing heavy influence arise from influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and streaming platform originals.
So in today's episode, The Toy Coach addresses the growing importance of establishing a brand identity and connecting with your target audience online. If you want a leg up on other inventors, then building a social following should be at the top of your to-do list. The value of social proof for your toy ideas has been building within the toy industry for years, and it will only continue to gain more importance. If you're ready to start building a social following around your toy brand then I've got a great starting point for you right here, in this episode.
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This episode is brought to you by thetoycoach.com
If you need help building your social media strategy, I want to encourage you to reach out to my dear friend and digital marketer, Nancy Bo.
Email Nancy: nancy_jb@icloud.com
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Azhelle 00:00
You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 26.
Intro/Outro + Jingle 00:07
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you. And now your host Azhelle.
Azhelle 00:17
Hey there Toy people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It in The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. Now if you follow me on social media, particularly on Instagram, you may already know what today's episode is all about. And if you're experiencing a little bit of FOMO right now, then I want to make sure that you follow the toy code on Instagram. I've just started going live weekly with a preview for upcoming podcast episodes. Being in the toy business, you have to stay up on trends, pattern trends. Material trends, toy trends and most importantly, media trends. Oftentimes, people compare the toy industry to the fashion industry. Because the toy industry is very trend based, heavily influenced by media and just as fast moving. The development schedules of toy products used to be almost entirely led by network programming and movie releases. parents and kids found out about new toy products from high ticket commercials with catchy jingles and fell in love with characters through things like Saturday morning cartoons and blockbuster movies. But today, there are so many more outlets for content, so many streaming services, influencers and podcasts vying for the attention of kids and parents. Today our consumer is used to controlling what they want And when they watch it, and they're used to being shown previews of shows that they might be interested in based on their viewing history. And with all of this change in the way that kids and parents consume media considering all of the change brought on by the Coronavirus and the quarantines, we're seeing a major shift in the kind of media that is influencing the design, development and placement of toy products. What is being made more difficult by this trend is the ability to make something big like the Power Rangers, a property that dominated the children's entertainment landscape and toy aisles for many years. But what it's allowing for is the growth of toy sales within really small niche categories. Now, if you can find your target market for your toy product online, then you can build a buzz without needing A huge TV show or a major ad budget. So for today's episode, we are going to talk about the growing importance of establishing a brand identity and building online social proof around either you as an inventor and your studio, or your toy product line. Now first, as always, I'm going to start with definitions. I'll define to you what a brand identity is and what social proof is. I'm going to teach you how to identify your brand, how to start establishing valuable social proof. And by the end of this episode, I want to inspire to start promoting your brand and start providing valuable content to get your intended audience to pay attention on social media. Are you ready? Alright, let's get started. Now first up, what is a brand identity now before Before you even try to implement the strategies from this episode, you have to understand exactly what you're utilizing these strategies to build. And what you're building is a brand identity. A brand identity refers to the visible elements that a brand creates in order to communicate to their intended customers. Now, a brand identity includes the name, the logo, but also the messaging and intention behind the brand. Now, before you do anything on social media, or you post any kind of content online, you want to get clear on what your identity is. Not being clear on this will have you wasting a whole lot of time engaging with the wrong people in the wrong ways and likely losing their attention as quickly as you grab it. Now what is social proof and social proof is anything that can be value, authority and respect for your brand. It can come in the form of likes on social media contributions to a crowdfunding campaign, engagement in email, open rate, or testimonials from a happy customer. utilizing social proof to market your product relies on the belief that customers, buyers, retailers and manufacturers are going to follow the actions of the masses and be more likely to trust engage with or purchase a product that other people deem as valuable and high in authority. So now that you understand brand identity, and social proof, the very first step to establishing your own social proof is to figure out what your brand identity is. Now if you're an inventor or a toy entrepreneur, you can take two different routes as far as what brand identity you want to promote. So you might want to focus on a brand identity around your latest toy invention, your latest toy brand. Or you might choose to establish a brand identity around yourself as an inventor, maybe even your invention, studio or company. Now, this is the hardest part for most people figuring out what brand to create and really focus on. So I wanted to definitely address this part right off the bat and help you decide which path is best for you. So let's look at two options. If you're an inventor, and you regularly come up with new ideas, let's say like five to 20 ideas every month, maybe more. Now, let's say those ideas, most of them might live as sketches. Some of them you develop into prototypes and some of these ideas you've sold and they're on the market. If that description fits you or it fits where you aspire to be, then I want to suggest that you build a brand around yourself as an inventor, or your company or inventor studio. So this might be under your name, or something like, you know, Ashley invents LLC. Now, if you choose to go this route, you've really got to thoughtfully answer the following questions. Who are you? Who is your target audience for the products that you invent? And you need to also think deeply about this. I mean, you want to think about what is your target audience, gender, age? Are they parents? What's their income level? What are their struggles? And what are they looking to learn or experience by interacting with your product or purchasing your product? Why would they be interested in following Your journey. Now answering those questions are going to help you to find your brand messaging, your brand colors and the offers that you should give in your social media content. And it's going to direct what you share and why you share it. Alright, so I want to do a little example a full example. Let's use the same character Ashley invents LLC. So let's say Ashley invent LLC is run by a woman named Ashley and she invents eco friendly wood toy products. Alright, so Ashley LLC might have a brand identity where her colors are like let's say light blues like greens and light wood elements. And her fonts might be simple and san serif and her messaging will always be focused on things like saving the planet and being less than wasteful and making this planet a better place for children in the future. Ashley might share sketches of her toy inventions quotes about sustainability, or the benefits of wood toys. And she might even show shots of finished prototypes. But all of her messaging is going to have to tie back to a brand identity of creating eco friendly toy products for a better world. So I want you to take a look at that example and try to apply those those thought processes to your particular you know, invention studio, if that's the route you choose to go in. Now, if you're more of a toy entrepreneur, and let's say you've created one hero product, one hero invention, that you believe in 100%, and you plan to fully focus all of your efforts on manufacturing Producing, and maybe even licensing some versions of the same invention. So if that's your situation, then you might consider building a brand around that one particular product or invention. So let's use that same example. Ashley invents LLC, okay, now her brand identity, if she's coming at it from the perspective of one product would be something like eco wood Toys for Tots, which, hopefully in that case would be the brand, the name of the actual products brand right. Now, if you choose to go this route, you again, you're asking very similar questions. What is this product all about? You know, in that case, you're thinking about what your product stands for what it offers to consumers. It's different from other products. Who is the target audience for this product? What are their struggles? What are they looking to learn or experience and why would they be interested in following The journey of this product on social media or through blog posts or things like that. Now again, answering all those questions are going to help you define things like your brand messaging, your brand colors, your offers, and it's going to direct what you share and why you share it. Okay, I've got another example for you using the same fictional character Ashley as above. But now she's decided to focus all of her attention on one specific product. So in this scenario, she may do iterations of this product, but the essence of the inventions always going to remain the same. This is the product that she's going to sell. So again, now we're saying the name of this brand identity is eco wood Toys for Tots. After looking at her audience, Ashley may realize or recognize that her product is all about eco friendly wood toys and developmental learning. Therefore For her target consumer might be kids three plus, but the target audience for eco wood Toys for Tots is likely going to be the parents that are going to prefer wood toys and take sustainability into account when shopping for toys for their children. So when Ashley defines her brand identity and clarifies her messaging, she's going to end up posting imagery that's going to appeal to that target audience. And messaging that answers their worries or maybe reinforces their beliefs that wood toys are the best option for the planet and the highest quality for their kids. So I want you to again, take these examples and try to apply them if your situation similar to this fictional character, actually, where you're promoting one specific invention. Now let's move on to talking about valuable content. Once you decide What your brand identity is, and you get really clear on who your target audience is for that brand, then it's time for you to plan your content and start building that social proof. So the first thing that's important to understand is, what is valuable content? Like how do you describe that? so valuable content is content that actually answers a problem that your audience is having or fulfills a need that they currently have. When your ideal customer or your target audience sees your valuable content come up on their phone or in their inbox, they should feel like they just gained something. It might be support, inspiration, or information. Now delivering those three types of content regularly is going to help you find your audience with the use of hashtags. Of course, and build a relationship with them by giving them really valuable information. And I hope this is going to be a relationship in which they see you as some form of authority in, let's say, wooden eco friendly toys. So, let's get into how you deliver that content. Okay? Now, first things first, if you don't have it already, you need to have a website for your brand. It doesn't have to be fancy. It can be one page. They call it like a cover page when all you have is one page that just maybe has a static image that fills the entire page. And this website is going to start out as the hub for all of your content, you need to add in just your contact info. And this website can grow and evolve as your brand grows. And it might end up being a place where you post your content In blog post form, or it might turn into a, b to c, or B to be placed to make sales. Now, when you first start, like I said, it can just be a cover page, just a static image that fills the screen with a few buttons, linking to your social pages and your contact info. But let's get back and think about the ways that you can deliver those three forms of content that I mentioned, support, inspiration or information. Now I'm really big on brand continuity and marketing. So if I came up with a company or brand name, I would definitely grab up all the social channels that I can that are available, but don't feel the need to post on every single social channel right away because it can be entirely overwhelming. Okay, so back to the ways that you should deliver this content. You find where your target market is interacting the most, and you choose that platform. Could be a blog. It could be a YouTube channel, it could be a podcast, it could be an Instagram page, a Twitter feed a Facebook page, or I mean, even a Pinterest account if that's really where your target market is hanging out. You can run a few tests posts to see if your customers are really scrolling through YouTube regularly looking for videos, maybe on you know, eco friendly toys, or are they looking for information through Instagram? Are they looking for blog posts? After a little bit of research and testing, you can figure out what platform will get the highest engagement for you and from your intended audience. And once you get things rolling, if you really if you have a completed product, an excellent form of content is going to be to have images or videos of people using or playing with your product. This Be influencers that you reach out to friends and family that post really good high quality photos of your product in action. But also, text testimonial posts can be hugely impactful and important to improve your social proof. But now is going to come the tough part. When you do decide to release content, you have got to be consistent. And I mean, you have got to release content, either every day, if that's what the platform you're on requires like it might with Instagram, or more likely weekly. That means every week you need to show up and give some sort of value that relates back to your product or yourself as an inventor with an inventor studio and give some value to the people that are really Interested in the product or products that you are creating. Now, the next thing that I want to talk about is called lead generation. And this isn't something that most toy inventors or toy entrepreneurs really consider right now, it's not really a traditional first thought for independent toy people. But I hope after Today you'll learn what it is, and it's going to start to stick in your mind. So to start off what is lead generation, lead generation is simply the process of collecting emails from people that are genuinely interested in your toy or game product. As you are creating your valuable content, you're going to see that there are opportunities to talk about your game or talk about your product or talk about your personal brand which might be your inventor studio. When you do that, You want to try to invite your followers to join your email list. And an email is the equivalent of a lead. It's the same thing. Now, I know you may be thinking, what how am I gonna collect emails? I'm just trying to make a toy product like how am I Where am I? How am I going to start doing this. But if you have a website, a lot of websites already have a tool built in. That will allow you to set up and easy pop up or a collection box for emails on your website. So you can pull and store people's email information. Normally, it's really simple to create, you can Google it and find out maybe if you have Squarespace maybe if you have a Wix website or WordPress, there are different clients and they're all gonna have different tools to collect email information from your visitors. Now, usually people are going to want a reason to stop Sign up and be on your email list. So you have to offer something. But for that offer, you really have to keep in mind what your audience wants. And that should hopefully be your product or your products. Or maybe to know a little bit more about you as an inventor or more about your inventor studio. So I'm going to give you an example of three things that you can offer really simple things to setup. Number one, if you're selling your product directly on your site, you can easily offer a discount code for your product in exchange for an email. So you could say something like, save 20% or 10% if you sign up today. Number two, if you're advertising your studio, you know, Ashley invents LLC, you know, you could offer a fun behind the scenes video of a day in the life at your inventor studio. Now the third thing you can offer is some form have weekly content. So the same weekly content that we talked about earlier, you can expand on it and offer it as a weekly email offering to people that join your list, I would definitely recommend doing one of these three things, you do not need to do all of them. Obviously, our focus here is our toy or a game product. We're just trying to find a way to connect with people that are really, really interested in that product. Okay, so let's get into building a visible and engaged following and the importance of it. Now it's gonna take some time, it's going to definitely take time to build this following and creating the content might seem overwhelming at first, but I don't want you to worry I have got some tools to help you along the way. Now I am not an expert in this area. I fully believe when you are looking to expand Your business and you're looking to grow, you should hire the right people to help you along the way. So if you need help with social media, you should definitely be open to getting some strategy help or having a Social Media Manager help you along the way. But today, my dear friend, Nancy bow has put together an incredible checklists and resource sheet just for you guys to help develop your presence on social media. Now, the checklist she put together is going to make sure that you set goals that you do the right kind of research and that you make a posting schedule. She also gives a full list of incredible free resources, free resources that you can use to auto post your content, get free images to post and just so much more. So to grab this incredible freebie, and more information about my friend Nancy Just head over to thetoycoach.com forward slash 26. So now let's talk about why I even want you to create any kind of following like, what is the value of this? And why are we learning about this on this podcast. So, not every toy or game idea is going to be easy to build a strong social following around. But if you manage to build a social following, and more importantly, an email list, what you're going to have is a bank of interested followers of your brand. And your goal should be to fill your list with people who are excited about your product and engaged with the content that you deliver. And why is that? Well, that's because if you ever choose to sell directly to consumers, or you decide to launch a crowdfunding campaign, or I mean even if you just need to run a quick Product survey and see what people think about a new idea you have going, you're going to have a bank of interested people waiting to hear from you, and listening when you reach out to them. Not to mention, how helpful will it be if you are getting ready to pitch your product idea, and you have numbers of people that are interested in what you're selling, and you can prove with sales data that is supported by your engaged email list, or you can show proof of a successful crowdfunding campaign, which you boosted by contacting your engaged email list. Now, there's another way to build your products online credibility that I just want to mention really quickly before we close out, and that's to connect with Instagram influencers. Now, there there are all kinds of influencers there are major influencers, but there are also micro influencers and if you can Find micro influencers, which usually have like five to 10,000 followers that really connect with your product, and they're interested in working with you, then they can help drive a lot of traffic to your product, a lot of traffic to your pages, and help you collect more emails to market your product to now with a history of valuable content in your back pocket, say a few months of consistently posting useful information around your products category, connecting and partnering with these influencers, even micro influencers is going to get a whole lot easier. So I want to conclude what we learned today. We learned the definition of a brand identity, the definition of social proof and we talked about how over the years, and especially now, since the delay of new movie releases That the toy industry is being influenced by more than just traditional media. We're seeing a rise of Instagram influencers, kid YouTubers, and even bloggers that still provide really relevant traffic. And you might be able to get a piece of that traffic if you do the work to establish yourself or your product as a point of authority within your toy category. And just remember to set up a simple pop up form on your website to collect those email addresses of anyone interested in your product or your products. You want to build and stay connected to the people who believe in you and who are interested in what you have to offer and make sure you stay connected by giving them valuable content. So let's recap what that valuable content could be. That's either going to Be an insight to you and your inventor studio, or information about your product or the category in which your product thrives. Now don't forget to grab your freebie from Nancy bow at thetoycoach.com forward slash 26. And that freebie is going to help you set up your content calendar, figure out your target market and make a strategy plan for social media. And don't forget to join me on it live on Friday for a sneak peek into next week's episode. As always, thank you so much for joining me. I know that there are so many podcasts out there so it means a lot to me that you tuned into this one. Until next week. I'll see you later. Bye people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle 27:50
Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to thetoycoach.com for more information tips and advice.
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