Channel Mastery

Kristin Carpenter, host of the Channel Mastery podcast and CEO/Founder of Verde Brand Communications, is offering a second episode with current best practices (as in for today, 3-17-20), for specialty brands communicating in the throes of the novel coronavirus. We continue to get new information daily and a lot has changed since we were last together, just six days ago, when we released the first of the Channel Mastery episodes focused around COVID-19.

 

In this episode you’ll get comfortable with communicating more to your audiences: your primary audience of your employees, your external close stakeholders, and your brand fan community. As a specialty brand, you play a positive role in the lives of your audiences, and this episode is about how to show up for them in a way that feels authentic to you. Examples in our show notes below include exceptional social media and email marketing efforts. 

 

Keep checking Verdepr.com/blog and ChannelMastery.com for more resources and information as we continue to learn more about this global issue.

Kristin Carpenter is the host of the Channel Mastery podcast and the CEO and Founder of Verde Brand Communications. A former journalist, Kristin worked on staff for major consumer lifestyle magazines, business and trade titles. Now 19 years later, she continues to serve as Verde’s CEO and directs strategy for the agency. She launched Channel Mastery as Verde’s podcast in 2017. It’s her ‘beat’ to bring the best practices around serving today’s connected shopper to specialty business and brand leaders. Channel Mastery is the only resource of its kind, and it was created to help level the playing field for specialty brands as they compete for the attention spans, minds and hearts of today’s shopper with marketplaces, big retail and well funded direct-first brands.

In this episode of the Channel Mastery podcast, I’m sharing a brand-new framework that the Verde Brand Communications team and I created for our roster of specialty brands to support crisis communications for the COVID-19 virus crisis. 

 

We wanted to share this with you, Channel Masters, because we strongly share a collective opinion that specialty brands must take a communications strategy that’s, well, specialized. And in this podcast, I explain what that means and why it’s important, and offer our solution to you in a five-part framework created just for specialty brands.

 

Keep in mind, this was recorded Friday, March 6, 2020. We will be updating the content on the Verde Blog and on my LinkedIn profile. It’s being co-produced by SNEWS, BRAIN and SIA. Check back to these sites for additional up-to-date resources. 

 

Kristin Carpenter is Channel Mastery host and the CEO and Founder of Verde Brand Communications. A former journalist, Kristin worked on staff for major consumer lifestyle magazines, business and trade titles. Now 19 years later, she continues to serve as Verde’s CEO and directs strategy for the agency. She launched Channel Mastery in 2017. It’s her ‘beat’ to bring the absolute best practices around serving today’s connected shopper to specialty business and brand leaders. Channel Mastery is the only resource of its kind, and it was created to help level the playing field for specialty brands as they compete for the attention spans, minds and hearts of today’s shopper with marketplaces, big retail and well funded direct-first brands.

It wasn’t long ago that the only thing we knew about Bentonville was that it was home to Walmart’s headquarters. Now in 2020, this small Arkansas town has made a name for itself in the cycling community and is continuing to grow by the day - literally. The town welcomes an average of 34 people moving to the area every day!

 

Aimee Ross, Director of Bike Bentonville, is my guest on this episode and shares how collaboration is key. By structuring Bike Bentonville under the city’s tourism bureau, Visit Bentonville, the community has done something truly unique. Ross discusses how she came on board as Director, the structure of the organization, the relationship with Visit Bentonville, the collaboration with other towns such as Fayetteville and so much more. 

 

In this episode, you’ll learn how Aimee and her team are not only introducing cycling to more people, they’re creating meaningful economic growth through outdoor recreation. Also, we talk through one of the most important and impactful facets of Bike Bentonville’s success, how the growing ‘cycling destination’ is intentionally creating an inclusive community around making cycling accessible to all interested residents and tourists. 

 

Bike Bentonville is putting the small town of Bentonville on the map. Learn how Aimee continues to build the stoke and get the word out about his gem of a cycling destination through multiple channels on this episode. It’s a good thing we include the transcript - this interview is so good, you’ll want to listen to it more than once, and read the transcript!

 

Aimee Ross is a 14-year cycling industry veteran with experience spanning from manufacturing, sales, marketing, event coordination, advocacy, development, and education. She is currently the Director of Bike Bentonville, the Visit Bentonville cycling brand created to promote and sell Bentonville, Arkansas as a destination.  Cycling is her passion, and she believes it should be available to all people. Aimee’s focus on a daily basis is to help create more and better cycling access in Northwest Arkansas, doing her part to help create opportunities for a larger culture of active and healthy community members. Aimee holds a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Applied Arts from Central Michigan University. 

Tyler Benedict, founder and publisher of Bikerumor.com, is my guest this week on Channel Mastery. Eleven-plus years ago, Tyler started Bikerumor.com and during that time, he's seen a lot of evolution in terms of how consumers use and share his content, and how his site factors into the consumer decision journey.     In this episode, Tyler gives his well informed take on what's working, and what's not, with endemic content today. You'll learn how his team approaches and optimizes content across multiple channels, including the Bikerumor.com website, blog, Youtube channel, newsletter, podcast, and through events. We also talk about the ongoing evolution of the media landscape as well as how brands can best serve super busy media covering events like Sea Otter and Outerbike. I'm fairly certain that Tyler is one of the hardest-working journalists in cycling today, and he keeps pushing into new frontiers. Check out his upcoming Peak Content Summit, a gathering of some of the brightest minds in content marketing today taking place in Ashville, NC., March 11-13, 2020. 

This episode of Channel Mastery is quite different than our usual episodes, but I was so impressed with the program my guest leads for Texas Tech University that I wanted to share it with all of you. Jerod Foster is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media Industries at Texas Tech University. He’s also an editorial commercial photographer focusing on outdoor and conservation.

 

Foster, along with a team of Professor’s of Practice, lead an adventure media course and program at Texas Tech University designed to take the students out of the classroom and ensure they understand there are career possibilities beyond of the 9-5 desk job. The programs connects students with actual clients in the outdoor industry and allows them to create media through bikepacking, camping and travel. Jerod walks us through how the program initially began, the relationships his students develop with their clients and each other, and shares stories from previous semesters.

As we continue to grow and evolve our multi channel strategies as businesses, this is a must listen episode that offers an insider’s look from someone on the ground with the next generation. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Jerod and hope you do too!

 

Jerod Foster is an editorial and commercial photographer focused on outdoor conservation and travel, as well as an associate professor of practice and assistant dean in the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech University. His teaching strongly centers on field-based, immersive visual storytelling instruction, and his award-winning Adventure Media course involves taking students on a week-long bikepacking expedition to locations in the southwest to create short-form documentary content for different outlets and organizations in the outdoor recreation and conservation fields. His latest book, Between Two Rivers: Photographs and Poems Between the Brazos and the Rio Grande, is a collaboration with poet John Poch that celebrates the waterways and land between the Rio Grande in Northern New Mexico and the Brazos River exiting into the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s solocast time, Channel Masters! In this show, we’re going to deep dive on three things you need to know for 2020 when it comes to successfully serving today’s connected shopper. 

 

An entirely new decade is here and in just the first month of that decade, Amazon, Starbucks,  Anthropologie, Target and Nordstroms have all announced new retail and brand experience concepts. Keep in mind, Channel Mastery does not advocate that you stop what you’re doing and shift tactics to respond to what the majors and marketplaces are doing. However, we must study what they are doing and how successful their strategies are to best understand how we can best serve our target shopper. 

 

I took the time to really drill into the three trends that are most relevant to specialty brands and retailers, and you can only find that here!

 

In our passion industries, we serve shoppers who literally align their identities with what they want to believe about themselves. We must continually up-level how we serve our target shoppers to ensure that our message and brand experience - and yes, our products - are becoming part of their identities, and their lives.

This solocast is about 30 min., and will deliver solid insights to you, and the links in the show notes will support further learning. I hope that this show inspires you to go big in terms of how you’re serving your absolute bullseye target shopper in 2020!

 

Kristin Carpenter is Channel Mastery host and the CEO and Founder of Verde Brand Communications. A former journalist, Kristin worked on staff for major consumer lifestyle magazines, business and trade titles. Now 19 years later, she continues to serve as Verde’s CEO and directs strategy for the agency. She launched Channel Mastery in 2017 and is happy to be masquerading around as a journalist again through her hosting of the podcast. It’s her ‘beat’ to bring the absolute best practices around serving today’s connected shopper to specialty business and brand leaders. Channel Mastery is the only resource of its kind, and it was created to help level the playing field for specialty brands as they compete for the attention spans, minds and hearts of today’s shopper with marketplaces, big retail and well funded direct-first brands.

My guest today, Rick Saez, is host of The Outdoor Biz Podcast, and the author of a new book entitled, Trails to the Top: Outdoor Adventure Insider Stories and Advice to Manage Business and Grow Careers, which took form using the content from his first 65 episodes podcast episodes. 

 

Obviously, I’m a huge proponent of podcasts as a messaging, discovery, engagement and even conversion channel for consumers today. That’s become Rick’s specialty - helping brands use podcasts to do just that.

 

In this episode, Rick and I explore the benefits and reach of podcasts, and how to best use one to amplify your brand message and create unique brand experiences for your target shoppers. 

 

Yes, a podcast about podcasting is meta, but what better medium to learn what’s working best today for this fast-growing marketing medium? Podcasts are evolving and growing faster than we realize and the most exciting thing about them is how much content can be pushed across multiple platforms from each episode. 

 

Listen in to hear how Rick and his team are expanding their reach and offer resources to help you get your podcast off to a great start. 

 

Rick Saez is an avid Outdoor Adventurer a 30+ year career in the outdoor industry. He’s held leadership roles with iconic brands such as Montbell, Eagle Creek, JanSport Dana Design and Lowepro. He is Founder, producer and host of the Outdoor Biz Podcast and author of Trails to the Top: Outdoor Adventure Insider Stories and Advice to Manage Business and Grow Careers.

Machines for Freedom Founder, Jennifer Kriske is my guest today on this episode of the Channel Mastery podcast. Kriske discovered cycling, like so many of us do, when she was working a job that entailed super long-hours, where she was always on. Cycling gave her the window to shut off work and re-invigorate.

 

She was a beginner cyclist, and that gave her a very clear view into the experience - meaning, there wasn’t anyone telling her what she should, or should not do. She noticed that she was not the only woman on her rides who was uncomfortable in the ‘kit.’ She also knew that, like her, other women riders were not feeling super fashionable in what was available to them to ride in. 

 

Rather than being complacent, she decided she needed to do something about it and launched the company, Machines for Freedom. She has a fantastic entrepreneurial story, and you’ll get to hear it first hand here today on this week’s show.

 

Although the brand is primarily digitally native, Jennifer’s methods for getting it started were geared more in the direction of relationship building through community rides and open conversations with cyclists. This made for a very authentic, organic channel strategy to build an audience and continually engage them.

 

Her strategy has always been driven by the relationships she built on her group rides, and in her region. Slowly that branched out to a much wider reach, and a very loyal following. In 2018, Specialized Bicycle Components invested in Machines for Freedom with the intention of keeping the companies separate, but thriving together. Like I said, Kriske’s story is interesting, on so many levels! 

 

Throughout the episode, Jennifer and I discuss the why behind founding the brand, how she was able to build the loyal following, apparel in independent bike shops and the relationship between Specialized and Machines for Freedom. She’s holding fast and true to her vision of creating high-performing, super stylish kits that are built with a very specific rider in mind, and Specialized backs this vision today. I also know you’re going to love the part of the interview where Jennifer talks about her 2020 IRL (In Real Life) campaign, focusing on gravel. I hope you learn as much from Jennifer as I have researching this and interviewing her for the Channel Mastery podcast! 

 

Jennifer Kriske is Founder of Machines for Freedom, a high quality, high performance, women’s cycling apparel company. Prior to Machines for Freedom, she held positions ranging from entertainment media and hotel and restaurant design. In the midst of designing restaurants, she took up cycling and realized the need for kits that were more specifically designed for women.

 

Machines for Freedom launched in 2014 and immediately created palpable changes in the cycling world which has led to an industry-wide shift in the way cycling apparel is designed and marketed. Machines For Freedom not only proved to the industry that an entire market exists, but the company innovated and elevated cycling apparel for women in a way no other brand has, while building a strong and organic community riders who support each other, challenge themselves, and spread good vibes. 

 

I had the opportunity to sit down with Sutton Bacon and Darren Bush, the founders of Paddlesports Retailer and now, the Big Gear Show. This episode is co-produced by Verde Brand Communications, the leading source of multi-channel specialty brand communications, and SNEWS, the source for outdoor active lifestyle industry news. 

This show is positioned for “Main Street, not Wall Street,” and invites hardgoods manufacturers (no apparel), from outdoor, bike and paddlesports for the first time ever. It makes sense, all of these categories of outdoor active lifestyle do share a shopper. But the Big Gear Show is disruptive and is - not surprisingly - inspiring a lot of direct conversation in the outdoor active lifestyle communities. 

In this episode, you’ll get to hear straight from the founders why they believe so much in this audacious launch, why they’ve brought together outdoor and bike, why they’ve hired on two past trade show directors in bike and outdoor to lead the charge, and their take on the opportunity for specialty hardgoods manufacturers to endear today’s connected shopper. We also get into why Sutton and Darren believe that adding another trade show to an already-clogged calendar of regional shows, the Grassroots Outdoor Alliance shows, Eurobike, and the Outdoor Retailer show makes complete sense.

The Big Gear Show is slated to launch this July in Salt Lake City and offers a chance for retailers, inventors, dreamers, big and small to connect with the north star, the shopper. 

We invite you to listen to this episode with an open mind, and also, to please share it to build the conversation online. You can weigh in at the LinkedIn pages of SNEWS and Kristin Carpenter, the host of the Channel Mastery podcast and the founder/CEO of Verde Brand Communications. 

Sutton Bacon is the former leader of the Natahala Outdoor Center, and the co-founder of Paddlesports Retailer with Darren Bush, who is the creator of the successful paddling-specific consumer event, Canoecopia, and the owner of specialty paddlesports retailer, Rutabaga.

My guest today is a well-known thought leader in the evolution of retail, more specifically, marketplaces. In this episode, you’ll meet Kiri Masters, the Founder of Bobsled Marketing, The Marketplace Institute and a Forbes contributor. As Amazon continues to change on a monthly, weekly (and sometimes daily) basis, it is Kiri’s mission to help specialty brands and businesses navigate the Amazon marketplace. 

Kiri began her Amazon quest in the early days of the platform in 2012/2013. Needless to say, there were few, if any, resources available to support a specialty brand presence on the Amazon marketplace. She quickly realized that there was a very real need for a tailored solution for smaller brands and Amazon consulting. In 2015, she launched Bobsled Marketing, which helps brands to manage their Amazon sales channel with operational support, brand protection, marketing and advertising. Four years later, in 2019, she launched the brand-new Marketplace Institute, which was designed to enable smaller businesses to have a self-serve model for through a private membership program.

For many of Verde’s clients, it’s just not possible to have an in-house Amazon expert or marketplace manager. Kiri has learned a tremendous amount through her businesses, and in this episode, she shares a wealth of knowledge and current tips on how to put your brand positioning forward 

It was an honor to sit down with Kiri on this episode and I am so looking forward to see what she does next and have her on the show again.

Kiri Masters is Founder of Bobsled Marketing and The Marketplace Institute. She is also a Forbes contributor.