How to leverage the science of branding with Stephanie Riel

Stephanie Riel (00:01.418)
Hi, I am Stephanie Reel. I am a brand strategist and marketing consultant and the founder of Real Deal Brands. I actually started my first business at the age of 22 before I had any idea what I was doing. And that has evolved into a lifetime of brand strategy work. I love helping business owners launch or relaunch their businesses using the science behind branding to build that with intention for the ideal target audience that my client is trying to hit. In my free time, I love trips to the beach, spending time with my dog,

keeping an eye on all the latest biohacking or wellness trends and trying them out too.

Karin Conroy (00:37.464)
I love that. I know that we’re going to kind of come back to the biohacking thing towards the end when we’re talking about the book because you mentioned that, but it really ties in with a lot of what we’re going to talk about today. And so before I get ahead of myself, the topic and the big question and the, actually today it’s not a question, it’s just a title of the show is how to leverage the science of branding. And so we’re going to get into the science and basically what is happening in your brain.

when it comes to branding, because I’ve had a handful of guests lately when we’ve been talking about design and branding and the value of it, but I think it gets really undervalued. And so I think it’s really important to talk about what’s happening inside your brain psychologically and why that works and why that’s important and valuable. So thank you for being here to begin with.

Stephanie Riel (01:33.398)
I’m so excited to be here and I’m so excited. This is my favorite topic to talk about because oftentimes a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, professional service providers that I work with are getting it a little wrong. So it’s good to provide the education and to give some intention and insight behind the why of why we choose or why we set up a brand the way that we do that it can maybe help everyone a little bit more. So.

Karin Conroy (01:46.538)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (01:59.768)
Let’s talk about getting it wrong. Cause I think I love, that’s one of my favorite topics. Like, you know, I love asking people about mistakes that people are making on a certain topic, but where, what’s the most common thing you see in terms of where people are getting it wrong?

Stephanie Riel (02:14.058)
You know, I think whenever I’m working with a solopreneur, someone who’s starting a business, the number one thing I hear is, well, I really like this color, so I chose this color. And then it’s a challenging, awkward conversation that I have to have with the individual then, but the reality is, if you’re not your ideal customer, it doesn’t matter if it’s your favorite color. And I think where that can really be layered when we’re talking about…

Karin Conroy (02:23.732)
Yes, yes.

Karin Conroy (02:36.129)
Right.

Stephanie Riel (02:41.866)
I mean, I’m sure all of you, if you’re thinking about your brand, I would venture to guess that the majority of you listening or maybe watching, you have blue somewhere on your logo because all lawyers use blue. I’m calling you out and there’s a reason behind that. We can get into that. But I think with marketing and specifically with branding, the way I look at it and over my 14 years in this industry, working with businesses of all sizes, whether it was a small mom and pop or Fortune 10 companies,

Karin Conroy (02:51.124)
Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, yes!

I want to, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (03:11.538)
I like to dig deeper than just a favorite color. And we find that when we’re building the brand, it works a lot better if we are able to build with intention, use psychology, color psychology, font psychology to build that brand and bring it together so that we can do it with your ideal customer in mind and how they wanna feel. And the brain is a really awesome tool that we get to build with to make that. So, I’m gonna go ahead and start with the brain.

Karin Conroy (03:20.245)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (03:25.103)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (03:34.212)
So I typically will say, I often feel like when people come to me and they talk about their favorite colors, it feels personal, obviously. So I have to kind of tread lightly when, you know, kind of as you were describing, um, that, you know, it’s not a bad idea to use that color, but we’re going to choose the color based on the reasons that support your brand and all that stuff. So if that ties in and if we can make that work, we’ll do that. But um, you know,

If you’re coming to me and saying my favorite color is fluorescent purple or something that’s so far outside anything that you would see that aligns with that brand, because I’m actually, the reason I paused is because there’s a lot of places where I’ve used really cool bright colors and they’ve worked, but you have to balance it out and do all that stuff. So let’s go back to this

Karin Conroy (04:32.088)
been a light bulb moment for a lot of attorneys like, oh my gosh, there is a lot of blue, especially navy blue.

Stephanie Riel (04:39.55)
Yeah, I was like, especially that beautiful navy shade that gives you kind of a nautical vibe. But yes, and there’s not necessarily, I say it in jest and I know we’re laughing and I don’t want anybody who is listening in on our conversation to.

Karin Conroy (04:42.216)
Yes!

Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (04:56.674)
feel like you’re doing something wrong. Because it makes a lot of sense that you chose blue and I’ll tell you why. Blue, our brains, it’s one of the most calming and receptive colors. It’s one of the most neutral colors. So a lot of people, some colors are really standoffish to certain people depending on their gender, their age, those different demographic identifiers. But blue is the most commonly accepted color. So it’s very welcoming, which is great.

Karin Conroy (04:58.326)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (05:27.17)
Lawyer as lawyers, you gotta be welcoming. Because maybe that piece of course, it’s kind of neutral. But I think the other thing and what’s deeper, you think about some of the other brands that use that blue, whether it’s a deep blue or a brighter blue. Yes, a lot of law firms, regardless of the portion of the industry that you’re serving in your firm, they use blue. But also think about brands like Facebook.

Karin Conroy (05:29.709)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (05:55.831)
or LinkedIn or Visa. What do they all have in common?

Big tech, banking, financial, security, but also trust. And so blue is this color that our brains, and the thing that I really love and what color psychology teaches us all about is before you even have words on a page that somebody’s reading, or maybe it’s a video, and before anybody’s even speaking, if they’re seeing your logo first and your colors, that subliminally is sending a message to your brain where

Karin Conroy (06:06.69)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (06:30.674)
It’s in our subconscious where our brain is already starting to form an opinion and make a judgment about the brand without even hearing anything else about it. And so why that’s really purposeful and important to know is the color you choose, while it’s not the only element of the brand and neither is your logo, your brand is so much more than that. It is something that’s going to be speaking to your customer before you’re even speaking to your customer. And that is huge.

Karin Conroy (06:35.64)
Yeah. Yep.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (06:55.032)
Yes. So tell me about a firm, kind of a really high level description of a firm where blue, even maybe that navy blue, would be appropriate, and then a firm where it would really not be a good fit.

Stephanie Riel (07:12.554)
You know, I think the one thing that I’ll say before I answer either of those questions is if everybody is doing it and if all your competition are using the same colors, you’re not going to stand out as easily. So I would say maybe, maybe we take blue off the table and look at another color altogether, which might be scary. But I think with the proper branding support and working with the branding team, you can really go beyond that, get deeper, understand your core values.

Karin Conroy (07:22.53)
right.

Karin Conroy (07:28.588)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (07:39.986)
And also look at your brand data. That’s one thing. Yes, I love the colors and I’m very creative. I’m very right-brained. I’m even left-handed, so my right brain is doing all the things. But I love to back that up with data. So a key part of the process that we take clients through when we’re doing a branding project is take a look at your data first. That could be your Google Analytics data from your website or if you’re using WordPress, they have native analytics as well, social media analytics.

Karin Conroy (07:48.046)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (08:09.682)
to really get a good idea of not only your audience and who you’re actually attracting online with your marketing efforts, because it might be different than who you’re wanting to attract, which oftentimes is the case if there’s a misalignment in the branding, messaging, colors, et cetera. But then also making sure that if that person that’s coming to the site isn’t aligned, we fix that. If it is aligned,

Karin Conroy (08:25.528)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (08:35.754)
what are they doing when they get to your website? Or are they opening your emails and clicking on them? Because when we, just like in life, when we follow the action, we can better understand the intention. And so if we’re really trying to connect with an audience member with your ideal customer, but they’re receiving your emails and they’re not clicking on anything, and you’re asking them to, well then something’s missing the mark with the messaging or maybe the overall connection with the brand. And that’s really what branding is all about. It’s about…

Karin Conroy (08:55.886)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:59.811)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (09:04.514)
building a human touch and a human connection point that is deployed through all of your marketing efforts, whether that’s a bus advertisement placement, a billboard, maybe if you’re a personal inter-attorney, you all seem to really love those a lot. Maybe it’s your online presence, your website, and so I think we have to have that intention behind it first, backed by data, and there’s very specific things that I look for, and we do too.

Karin Conroy (09:17.804)
Right. Yeah, totally.

Karin Conroy (09:24.793)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (09:34.462)
run through that process, but then you build from there. Because without the right foundation for your brand, you’re really not going to have the same results for marketing, regardless if you’re wrapping a bus or if you’re doing something a little bit more digital or strategic, like running Facebook ads or something like that.

Karin Conroy (09:43.799)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (09:52.704)
Right. I will often be working with either kind of a large firm that has some, let’s just say, established stakeholders at the top, but at the same time, working with someone who’s going out on their own, starting their own thing, and it’s really a solo person starting a new firm, and they’re doing something completely different. And so in those two cases,

A lot of times the conversations I’m having with the established firm is why can’t we use navy blue? I really like navy blue. And so what I’ll usually kind of come to this sort of mediation happy middle point is maybe if we just take a twist or a little left turn off of navy blue. So it’s still blue, but it’s a shade or a tint or add a little green.

or add something in there that makes it slightly different. And then the other thing that if they’re a little more flexible that we can do is add an accent color where all of a sudden that’s what stands out. And so the Navy is sitting there and providing it’s nice, safe, solid brand and feeling, but then you’ve got this nice little pop of, and I can’t stand it when people use this phrase pop, but

but you know some some other color that really stands out and kind of offers that um fresh different memorable experience so um i just wanted to add that in just because i know there’s people on in both of those buckets where they’re like but i really want the navy how can i do it and keep some version of blue

Stephanie Riel (11:41.154)
Yeah, and I think the other piece to add onto that is if you’re reaching out to somebody for branding or marketing support, it’s a lot of times probably because what you were doing before isn’t getting you the results that you wanted. You want a fresh perspective. And just like if I’m going to reach out to a lawyer and hire a lawyer for something, I would want to lean on that expertise. And so I think that a little bit of tough love, so to speak, it has to go both ways if you’re hiring an expert too.

Karin Conroy (11:53.12)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:06.945)
Yes.

Right. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (12:10.966)
But I think we can become very attached to colors. It happens to the best of us. It happens to me as well with the brands that I’ve built for my own personal brand over the years. But.

Karin Conroy (12:22.368)
Yeah. I wanted to come back to that because you mentioned that a little bit earlier too. You were talking about if you are feeling challenged with your brand or you feel like your website is misaligned with the kinds of clients and calls and people who are coming in, it could very well be something that is resonating wrong in terms of your brand. So how do you, what do you look for to know if that’s the case?

Stephanie Riel (12:25.976)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (12:49.002)
Well, brand is a lot of the touchy-feely things of the business, and I know that for the legal professional, that might be a little tough, but hang in there with me. I promise I’ll bring it back to data. It’s not only the colors and your logo, but also the words we choose, the fonts that you’re using, and…

Karin Conroy (12:53.869)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (13:05.008)
Yes! Yeah, okay, good!

Karin Conroy (13:11.256)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (13:18.806)
I’m sure if you’re a larger firm, you probably have your values pretty well dialed in or they’re at least on the website and you hire based on some of those parameters for your culture. The same thing is with your branding. And I think that you actually bring up a really amazing point with those two, the juxtaposition of an established firm versus maybe somebody who wants to do it different and who started on their own. There’s different values there for each of them. And so we can leverage different brand markers to…

Karin Conroy (13:38.104)
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (13:47.09)
establish that and communicate that to the audience. And I wanna give that caveat to start because if you are hiring a marketing team or even if you’re just looking internally at your marketing and being like, hey, it feels like something isn’t aligned, are the calls we’re getting or the leads we’re getting, they aren’t really who we wanna work with. Well, that’s a big red flag to you of either.

Karin Conroy (14:01.39)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (14:12.238)
hiring someone to dig into the data or looking at the data yourself to see what’s amiss. And so things that I look out for, this is assuming you have a website or some kind of a digital asset because that’s really where we can get the most clarity. I know that with a lot of the rules and regulations for lawyers and how you can advertise and market, there’s a lot of red tape, so to speak, for lack of a better phrase.

Karin Conroy (14:39.468)
Yes. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (14:41.822)
So I know that your hands are tied in a lot of ways on things that you can do online and the online space. And a lot of times it is more commonly accepted to just get a bus ad or a billboard or some of those pieces. But the thing that always pains me about just doing a bus ad or a billboard is there’s no real good way to track that unless they’re using a specific code on the billboard, but a billboard people are driving.

Karin Conroy (14:53.248)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (15:03.309)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (15:09.07)
Hopefully they’re not texting and driving. So how are they going to remember the code when they’re also being inundated with 10 other messages and if you’re in Arizona, like I am, you’re even getting messages at the pump when you’re pumping gas, like eight or 10 commercials are playing on a TV. So we are so inundated that it’s just not as in my opinion, it’s not as effective. Yes, it builds brand awareness, but you’re probably not going to get a lead from a billboard. It’s probably a combination of things. The billboard, your website.

Karin Conroy (15:09.272)
Right. Yeah, right. Right.

Karin Conroy (15:22.114)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (15:28.91)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (15:33.432)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (15:36.802)
them finding you on social media, looking on LinkedIn, doing a Google search and seeing what reviews come up. And so to get back to your question, now that I’ve spun around it, I’ll come back. Those are all pieces that we can look at in data. So assuming you have a website, Google Analytics, if you don’t already have it active on your site, it’s a free tool and it gives you amazing data. It tells you things like referral traffic and where your traffic is coming from.

Karin Conroy (15:46.136)
That’s okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (16:06.91)
so you can get that instant knee-jerk reaction. If you are running, say, a Google AdWords campaign or Facebook ads, you’re gonna be able to see and really clearly identify where that traffic is coming from. But I like to take it a level deeper than that too and really look at the user behavior, the visitor behavior on the website. So if somebody’s seeing one of your ads, say on Google, say they’re Googling legal help near me or something like that.

Karin Conroy (16:34.8)
truck accident lawyer in, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (16:36.49)
Right? Yeah. Accident lawyer near me, divorce lawyer near me, whatever it might be. And they’re coming to your site. You’re gonna see what keyword they came from, which is awesome. But also you’re gonna see how long they’ve stayed on your site. So is it three seconds? Is it 30 seconds? Is it a minute and 30 seconds? And then taking it even a level deeper from that, you can dig into the behavior flow and understand where they’re going. So if they’re on the site for a minute and a half, where did they go?

Karin Conroy (16:41.057)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:45.646)
Right.

Stephanie Riel (17:05.674)
Are they on the blog? Did they go on a page about divorce? And they came to you from the keyword, oh, then you know that they really are looking for help and information. Or maybe they went to a blog post about divorce and they read the whole thing. Did they click the action form that you hopefully have on the page for them to book a discovery call or a free consultation? I know that that’s the buzzy call to action and the legal side of things.

Karin Conroy (17:05.933)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (17:16.984)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:28.868)
That’s the big thing. Yeah, totally. Yes.

Stephanie Riel (17:33.198)
or download a free resource, maybe it’s an ebook or a checklist or whatever it might be, depending on your area of service and how you work with your clients. So I really like to get granular on that data and see. Yeah. So, I’m gonna go ahead and start with the data.

Karin Conroy (17:38.317)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:47.052)
Yeah. And I’m just going to jump in really quick on that because, um, I talk a lot about having these different calls to action. So you’ve got a primary call to action, which is what you were talking about with the kind of book, the free consultation, but then you have these secondary calls to action that I think are so also very undervalued, like we were talking about in the beginning, which was branding in general. But if you kind of follow the behavior of that person that you’re describing and

they go to that divorce page and then they don’t click on the call to action, but maybe they download that thing. This is telling you so much about that particular behavior person. Maybe they’re not quite ready. Maybe this divorce is like six months or a year down the road. So how are you going to nurture them and what is your plan for that person that so that they stick around and then in those six months when they’re ready they will remember you.

And that is a thing I feel like so many people get wrong and don’t pay attention to. They assume everyone is ready to buy today. And that’s just so not the case. Especially with, yeah, exactly. In certain practice areas, that could be yours. It could be in a state plan, oh, maybe I’ll do it in the next five years or… Exactly, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (18:50.134)
Yeah, especially not in the legal profession. Because, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (19:00.974)
Yeah, you kick it down the road, you kick the can down the road a little bit. Also, I think the thing that a lot of people forget in all industries, but I think that this is easily forgotten in the legal profession because as a lawyer, you can forget sometimes what it’s like to be a client and it can be really scary to contact a lawyer, whether it’s divorce or maybe it’s a estate plan, criminal, you know, even like a business attorney and like the old,

Karin Conroy (19:16.633)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (19:22.192)
Criminal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (19:30.03)
The process can be very overwhelming. You usually do a lot of planning and research first, and especially with something that’s a little bit more personal, maybe a family law matter, it’s probably more likely that they’re gonna look at a blog post or download a free resource before they give you a call, because they wanna know kind of what they’re getting into first, and talking to a lawyer makes it feel real, even if it’s not real yet.

Karin Conroy (19:32.269)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (19:55.875)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (19:56.23)
And so I think that that’s one thing we always have to remember when we’re talking about branding is everything that you’re doing as a brand needs to be with the feelings of your ideal customer in mind. So how are they going to feel? And I think when you’re talking about, if they download it on the, on the divorce page, I want you to have an email flow set up that they can get a nurture drip campaign over a six to 12 month process. Maybe you already have data in your office.

Karin Conroy (20:10.285)
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (20:26.314)
knowing from the time people start to research divorce to when they usually do it, maybe it’s about a six month process, then you can build out the flow that just stays top of mind every three months or so. And then when it comes time for them making the call, then they’re gonna call you because they’ve already built that no like and trust factor with your firm.

Karin Conroy (20:37.228)
Yeah, let’s dig into that one.

Karin Conroy (20:45.636)
Yes, exactly. I wanna dig into that a little bit more in detail because it’s not a place that is comfortable for a lot of my clients. This idea of having a download or drip campaign or whatever that might be, but figuring out a way to capture their email and then provide this slow kind of communication is critical at this point. They kind of want to hear from you and…

understand what you have to offer. So what, how can we tie this back to branding and how does that work in terms of, because branding, like we talked a lot about the colors and everything, but it’s, it’s not, like you said, it’s not just all the colors. So how can we tie that into like the branding and the messaging in order to kind of get that to work and, um, make that such a good idea.

Stephanie Riel (21:36.706)
Well, I think especially with legal information and some of the legal clients that I’ve had over the years, you all know the information and the law so well. That’s what you go to school for. That is what is your area of expertise. That is what we want your help for if we need it in those areas. But as a marketer, I often find myself asking, what…

Karin Conroy (21:49.635)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (21:56.034)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (22:03.926)
What does that mean in English? Or tell me like I’m a fifth grader or a five year old. You know, make it really simple that I can grasp what you’re saying. And I think where, like when I’m thinking about the Drip Campaign, I wanna make it as easy as possible, even if you are an established firm. Like be the established firm that made the process really easy to understand, set clear expectations, which are all things that.

Karin Conroy (22:05.804)
Yes. Yes.

Stephanie Riel (22:30.77)
if you’re a business owner of any kind, you wanna be setting those expectations and helping your clients understand what’s to come, but doing it without maybe all the legalese behind it, because that’s gonna be more intimidating. And so I think that’s where brand comes in. It comes in with your messaging and how you can still be very poised, collected, very professional, but speak to someone as they’re a human. And that can be the wording on your website, that can be the language that you’re sending out in your email campaigns.

Karin Conroy (22:41.538)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:53.945)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (22:59.83)
That can even be how your team answers the phone and talks to a client. Because I think, you know, branding, we get so caught up in the logo and the colors and the fonts, and that’s great. But I can build the most beautiful brand guidelines for you and give it all to you. And if somebody is calling on the phone and talking to somebody in your office and they have a bad experience, that’s going to resonate for your brand and the business more than the colors that are on the website. People aren’t going to remember the colors. They remember that they talk to somebody at the office that was a complete.

Karin Conroy (23:03.968)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:25.846)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (23:29.822)
like unhelpful person and they never want to talk to them again. And then they’re going to go on social media and say, Hey, don’t work with this law firm because they were not helpful. Go here instead. And so the brand is all of that. And that’s why I said, it’s a little touchy and feely. It’s not as data driven, but I think even lawyers are humans and brands help humanize a business. And so it’s all that.

Karin Conroy (23:31.352)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:37.826)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (23:43.393)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (23:49.741)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (23:57.534)
almost emotional IQ of connecting with your customer and your ideal client and allowing them to get a feel for the brand, but then make sure that when they call, they’re gonna have that same consistent feeling. Otherwise, that’s gonna cause confusion. And as I always say, confused customers don’t convert. They’re gonna run away. They’re gonna go to the next firm. Whenever it came up on the Google search next, they’re gonna be like, okay, that wasn’t a winner. I’ll go and see if I’m more aligned here.

Karin Conroy (24:14.336)
No, nope. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:21.54)
Well, exactly, and I can, I can, I could just count on my hand over the last couple weeks where I’ve been really close to buying something and then something made me pause. And whether it was like, I’m not quite sure if this is the best one, or there’s something in this description that’s confusing me, or whatever that might be, and then I just pull back and I’ll leave the tab open for a while, and then I usually close it because I’m like.

It’s taking too much of my time. I don’t want to think this through. That shouldn’t have been that complicated of a decision or a purchase or whatever that thing was. Um, and so you don’t, you want to make sure that that doesn’t happen. And, uh, one of the things I wrote down from some of your blog posts and the stuff that you talk about is this idea of balancing brand feelings and facts. And I think that’s the perfect kind of description of everything you’re talking about here. Where

Stephanie Riel (24:59.124)
Oh yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:11.964)
Yes, there are feelings here and you know, I hate to break it to people who are so, so analytical, which I am very analytical as well. But, um, you have to take those feelings into account because that is what makes people buy and that is what makes people convert and, and support those feelings with all your facts, like you’re saying, like go into your analytics. So what, what are, where are some other places other than just analytics where you can kind of get the facts to understand what those feelings are?

Stephanie Riel (25:25.216)
Absolutely.

Stephanie Riel (25:31.598)
Absolutely.

Stephanie Riel (25:42.262)
You know, I think one of the things in a free tool, I love a free tool, but social media. You know, I think you likely, if you’re listening, your firm probably has a Facebook page, even if nobody posts to it. You probably have maybe an Instagram. I mean, if you’re really on the trends, you’re using TikTok right now and I applaud you, that’s amazing. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:48.366)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:58.028)
Yeah, right.

Karin Conroy (26:05.92)
Yeah, but they’re most likely in LinkedIn for sure. Like pretty much every firm is in LinkedIn and that’s where, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (26:12.414)
And absolutely in LinkedIn, I think though, when I’m thinking about like a family law matter or maybe something a little bit more personal, close to the vest, people aren’t, well, maybe nowadays they would, but traditionally speaking, and most typically over my 14 years of doing this, they’re not gonna be talking about that personal matter on LinkedIn as much as they might be talking about, hey, you know, I have this business issue going on. I…

Karin Conroy (26:33.398)
No.

Stephanie Riel (26:41.03)
I need a new legal resource, who do you know? So I think that we have to meet our customer where they are. Yes, a lot of times they’re on LinkedIn and I know that it’s a very common thing for your practice to be on LinkedIn, but if you’re in family law or maybe some of those more personal side of the law, maybe personal injury, your customer probably isn’t on LinkedIn as much as you think they are.

Karin Conroy (26:43.372)
Yeah, right.

Karin Conroy (27:10.67)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (27:11.01)
they’re gonna be probably on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook a lot more. If for no other reason, then they’re dealing with a lot of stress in their life and they wanna escape it by scrolling. So you should be showing up there. But I think the reason that that’s pertinent and where you can find the data is there are some amazing and I think, so I’ve been doing social media since Facebook was first around. So, and one of the things,

Karin Conroy (27:22.272)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (27:36.164)
The beginning. Yeah, same.

Stephanie Riel (27:40.77)
that I always work on with clients and we talk about is organic. Because yes, you can run paid ads and I have strategy for that all day and what has worked for law practices that I’ve worked with. But more importantly, to build that humanized touch and build your branding, organic engagement, jumping into conversations that are happening in real time. I love Instagram for this. You can do this on TikTok as well if you’re there. And it doesn’t need to be you.

partner in the firm, but whoever’s managing your social media should be doing engagement. And what I mean by that is you can jump into conversations by certain locations, depending if that’s pertinent for your firm, certain words and topics. Guess what? Entrepreneurship is a huge topic on social media. So is divorce. So is personal injury and getting into an accident.

Karin Conroy (28:13.528)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (28:31.184)
Totally. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

Stephanie Riel (28:36.982)
So you can jump into those conversations and meet your customer at the exact moment that they’re really looking for that support. There’s also a lot of accounts that maybe support people with those. Maybe they’re different, maybe they’re not law firms, but maybe they’re different counselors or complimentary services. Maybe even some of those services that have popped up for like mediation and things. Yes, I understand that they’re a competitor, but your audience is seeking out and gathering.

Karin Conroy (28:43.811)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (28:52.308)
Yeah, complimentary. Yeah.

Yes.

Stephanie Riel (29:05.542)
all the information possible before they make a decision of who to do business with. And so you can get a lot of information and jump into those conversations as the brand and start to build up that no like interest factor there too. And also sharing like you were saying with that email drip campaign example we were saying, adding value, educating your client on or potential client on what’s going on before they ever send the dotted line. And a great way to do that is blog content. And that’s actually.

Karin Conroy (29:25.644)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:31.758)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (29:34.754)
how the legal practices that I’ve worked over the years, that is the tried and true way that we have built leads over time to add value, give resources on what to do if you’ve been in an accident. Like what are the first things you should do if you’re in the personal injury space? Even something as simple as when to know it’s time to get a divorce. Now I know that that isn’t necessarily legal advice, but.

Karin Conroy (29:49.678)
Yep.

Karin Conroy (29:58.894)
Yeah.

Right.

Stephanie Riel (30:02.494)
It’s what your audience is Googling if they’re gonna maybe need a divorce lawyer. So you get into the brain of them and remember the human side and that’ll help connect you to the brand and connect you to your audience at the same time.

Karin Conroy (30:07.276)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (30:16.532)
Yeah, the one thing I was gonna add to in terms of social media, and you touched on kind of all the different platforms being different groups of people, and LinkedIn is such a different kind of animal. And so it’s so important for firms, and that’s where so much activity is happening, but I had a recent conversation with someone and they were talking about, LinkedIn is kind of step two. And so,

Don’t set it aside, clearly be present, do your thing there. And it’s very a professional audience, but where people are gonna land, the kind of clients you’re describing, a divorce client or a personal injury, they’re more likely to find you first on the TikTok, Instagram, wherever, because of the hashtags and the searching, whatever, and kind of check out some of your resources. But they’re gonna land on LinkedIn, but it may not be that first place that they go. So kind of recognize that

Stephanie Riel (31:08.494)
Totally.

Karin Conroy (31:10.464)
when they land on LinkedIn, they’re looking for something different than when they are on those other platforms. And so just kind of recognize the difference there. I think that’s really important.

Stephanie Riel (31:15.959)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (31:19.326)
I love that too, content differentiation between platforms. So on LinkedIn, that’s where I typically wanna see you sharing awards that your firm has won. Maybe accolades that different partners or team members, different team building, because LinkedIn is an amazing recruiting tool and a beat-a-beat tool for you to showcase where you’re at, showcase some of those honors that you’re getting in your community or in your region. Maybe even…

Karin Conroy (31:27.85)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (31:45.63)
Some of the continuing education sharing some of that because it helps build that credibility, but you’re right for that general Like obviously your business clients and those people yes They are on LinkedIn and they likely are looking for those sources But that kind of content is gonna go a long way for them to to know that you’re receiving accolades and awards that You know that you’re keeping up on the latest trends and maybe talking about the legality of AI and IP rights there or those other

Karin Conroy (32:02.691)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:12.173)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (32:14.046)
more forefront topics that are coming up in business conversations over and over again versus that divorce client or personal injury client. They’re probably going to Google you and yes, your LinkedIn will likely come up, but they don’t care as much about the team or they probably do care about the accolades. They’re going to see those, but they want more about like what you can do for them. And also for those really personal things, maybe it’s a

Karin Conroy (32:35.342)
Right.

Yes.

Stephanie Riel (32:41.79)
a DUI case or something, you want resources to know what to expect in the process because you know the first thing you think if you’re in one of those situations is, oh my gosh, how much is this going to cost me? How long is it going to take? Is my life completely over? And so giving people the resources for those commonly asked questions and the other thing, and this ties into branding too, your FAQs are gold as far as content that you can use for your blog. Things you should be talking about on your email list.

Karin Conroy (32:51.704)
Yep. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:06.851)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (33:11.71)
And it also helps build that no like and trust factor, which is essential for branding. Because you can have the best colors in the world and use your navy blue with your accent color and still not be hitting the mark and not be speaking to your client’s needs. And that’s where the feelings come in. It’s their feelings. How are they feeling when they come to purchase from me? They’re probably feeling overwhelmed if they need to hire a lawyer because you’re like, oh gosh, how much is this gonna cost?

Karin Conroy (33:17.451)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (33:30.627)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:39.523)
Right.

Stephanie Riel (33:40.383)
and even the cost of the initial call. And so I think that those are all things where we can meet our customer where they’re at with the right value and alignment with the brand from the start.

Karin Conroy (33:52.496)
So what I love about this is just kind of thinking through that customer journey. And I know a lot of people talk about this customer journey, but we’re gonna get, we’re gonna segue into the book review in a minute. But the reason I wanted to mention this first is because if you think about that potential client once again, and they find you either on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, where they do that initial kind of search and they’re just initially thinking about it. It’s kind of like, you know, when you first meet a person,

Okay, I’m searching, I’m searching for a thing that I need. I’m thinking about me. And then they land on LinkedIn and you talk about your accolades and your rewards and the things that are those trust factors. If you led with those on Instagram and TikTok, that would be a misfire and that would not land well and it would feel super egotistical. And so once again, you have to kind of think through this sequence of not only their journey.

but, and this is the segue to the book review, but the psychology of what’s happening in their brain as they go through this process, right? Okay, so I love that I just like, I never have that smooth of a segue to the book review. It’s usually like, okay, we’re gonna pause and now we’re gonna talk about the book. So.

Stephanie Riel (34:59.562)
That’s amazing. I just.

I love it. Well, it’s so funny when we were starting to talk about this, I was like, man, you try to avoid the hard turn, but you nailed it. That was awesome.

Karin Conroy (35:10.7)
Yeah, that’s like the first time in like 90 some episodes that it’s been that smooth. But so it is now time for the book review. And if you haven’t already checked it out, we have a whole library on the website of all the books the guests have recommended. And it’s such a good resource for awesome books on the topics that we’re talking about. So Stephanie, what is the book that I just kind of nicely pitched and kind of, what’s the word I’m looking for? I kind of like…

set you up to introduce.

Stephanie Riel (35:40.28)
Yeah. Yeah. I like this is like the best, the best transition ever. I love it. I, I know we’ve hinted at it a little bit through our conversation today about the brain and about psychology. That’s always been such an area of fascination for me, specifically neuroscience and understanding our brains better understanding the brain body connection.

for just our overall health and wellness. But one of the topics that I’ve really dug deep into is our nervous system and our brain. And that’s been a part of my health and wellness journey. But I have been reading a lot of Dr. Joe Dispenza. He’s a neuroscientist. He teaches a lot on, truly, I mean, to put it really simply, the-

power to be able to heal ourselves through our brain and like the power of our thoughts and meditation. And so there’s a there one of his books is called evolve your brain and it’s all about and it’s kind of a I wasn’t thinking this before like we had this conversation today, but it’s a beautiful thread through my life of understanding that brain connection, you know, whether it’s the colors that we’re using for branding or

Karin Conroy (36:37.003)
Oh, cool.

Stephanie Riel (36:56.182)
the importance of getting sunlight in the morning and what that does for our dopamine receptors and all these different chemical reactions that are happening because of our brain. And so the thing that I love about Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work is it really does show us the deeper pieces of biology. And there’s so much data. I’m not even gonna try to quote any of the data from the book because he’s brilliant. He’s the expert, he’s the doctor and I’m just soaking all of it up.

Karin Conroy (36:58.54)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (37:25.214)
but what I love about it, oh yeah.

Karin Conroy (37:25.668)
So what’s one cool, sorry to interrupt, but what’s one cool thing in terms of, because I love that kind of stuff as well, but what’s one cool kind of piece of that that you can think of in terms of like how it ties into how we make those decisions and, because we were talking before about making the conversion happen and making people purchase, whatever that means for you, whether it’s picking up the phone or whatever.

How does that work for our brains and how does kind of branding and all that tie in?

Stephanie Riel (37:57.61)
Well, from a very amateurish opinion from my own of digesting all of these different resources and putting my own spin on it, there’s a reward factor in that dopamine hit when even something as simple as a freebie on your website, which if you’re fighting it, I would urge you to reconsider. There’s a way to give value. And the cool thing about it is,

Karin Conroy (38:05.474)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (38:26.942)
It almost gamifies it for our brains where we make the download and it feels good. You think about it like you get a coupon on a site and you’re going to use it. It feels good. There’s that immediate dopamine receptor that’s activated and it’s really, really cool how you can find those different dopamine spikes to keep your customer engaged and connected to you through your customer journey. And so that’s really on a deep neuro.

scientific level what I’m doing with customer journey and the branding and the marketing plans that we put together because we’re trying to find ways that the ideal customer for our clients feels rewarded and wants to continue to learn more because that know, like, and trust that you probably hear a lot when you’re thinking about marketing, it’s all built by consistency, by giving value first, right? Not being egotistical and saying, oh, look at all these accolades and awards that I.

Karin Conroy (39:08.056)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (39:23.402)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (39:24.306)
I’ve achieved and received. That’s great, but what’s in it for me? And that’s just our human need to know what’s in it for us. The other thing, our brains are always just trying to keep us alive. It’s a survival skill. And so it’s interesting though, because marketers are just trying to tell you that you need to buy something all the time. And so it’s very different than how the brain works. And that’s why it’s so important to give little kernels and little crumbs of

Karin Conroy (39:42.561)
Yeah, right.

Stephanie Riel (39:53.426)
rewards for the pleasure center of our brain so that people want to keep on coming back. They’re going to look forward to your social media content. They’re going to want to subscribe to your newsletter because they learned something and not just about whatever award your firm just won, but actually something about

Karin Conroy (40:04.334)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (40:11.288)
your practice area. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (40:12.118)
the practice area and what you actually can offer them and teaching them something new. Maybe it’s most recent data from traffic surveys in your region of like what’s happening on the roads. People wanna know that. Summer’s coming up and depending on when you’re listening to that episode, swap out your favorite season. But there’s a lot of relevant content for those too, especially in the personal injury space,

Karin Conroy (40:28.172)
Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Riel (40:41.314)
different travel destinations, different things like that that people are looking for and they’re already searching for. If they’re on the roadway and you’re a personal injury attorney, you’re likely gonna, they’re gonna need you at some point or another or know somebody who is. So why not create valuable content where they can stay top of mind? It’s gonna trigger something in their brain. And the other thing, when I was in school, they used to say you’d have to hear about a brand seven times to even be able to recall it.

Karin Conroy (40:43.022)
Yep.

Karin Conroy (41:06.944)
Yeah. Oh, it’s like 50 now. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (41:08.686)
I’ve been saying for a while, it was like, it was like it’s gotta be. And recent data has come out and it’s like 47 or something real close to 50. But you think about the marketing messages or the different content that people are coming into contact with every day. That was a tongue twister. But you have to stand out among the crowd. And the best way to do that is staying top of mind, being consistent and showing up on multiple channels, not just LinkedIn, not just Instagram, not just Facebook.

Karin Conroy (41:15.917)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (41:23.724)
Yeah, that wasn’t complicated.

Karin Conroy (41:29.634)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (41:34.607)
Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (41:38.146)
but a lot of different channels. Maybe it’s even Google AdWords. And then also, it could also just be developing a referral program for your clients or just asking for the review online. It is so simple and I know that there’s a lot of, a lot of red tape around what you can give for review, things like that, but even just asking, saying, hey, we’d love for you to give us a review. It would mean a lot to us, helps other people that need our services find us, and here’s where to go. And giving them…

Karin Conroy (41:38.169)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (41:50.7)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (42:07.962)
one place to go. Maybe it’s Google, hopefully it’s Google because that’s gonna serve you the best. But I mean, running one direction at the time, not saying we’d love a review and then here’s our Google, here’s our Facebook, here’s our Yelp, here’s our whatever. Don’t do that to people. Give them one call to action because that overwhelming opportunity of choice is gonna make the brain shut down. And it really all comes back to a lot of those neuroscience basics that I nerd out on in my free time.

Karin Conroy (42:09.024)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Karin Conroy (42:19.22)
Yes, no, yeah, no.

Karin Conroy (42:28.31)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (42:35.212)
Yes, yes.

Stephanie Riel (42:36.29)
from very much like an understanding my body. I think our bodies are so cool from that level, but having this conversation today really made it click for me that it also helps me so much in my career and serving my clients too, so.

Karin Conroy (42:48.64)
Yeah. Yeah. And I do think, um, earlier, a few minutes ago, you mentioned like, you know, why not have this great, um, freebie or download? And I can almost hear in the minds of a lot of my clients and the people who are listening is they’re thinking, why not? Because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what it for, what to have it be. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what that should be. And so this is the key is don’t let that be the hurdle that

that stops your progress because that is the tricky part. And I’m not here to try to pretend like I have the answer across all practice areas and locations because I don’t. And that is gonna be different for every firm and every audience and every practice area. And that is the key is finding what thing answers their question and really gets them. Getting that real good hook in there.

and getting the right people to put that message. And that’s the key. That’s what it all comes down to. And that’s not easy. That’s where the work is.

Stephanie Riel (43:51.422)
No. And I know we say it so simply, like it’s this easy thing, and I know that there’s a lot that goes into that, but I think the thing that I just wanna remind everyone listening is, I know we oftentimes we say we don’t know when we actually do know, the reality is, you’ve been practicing law for however long you’ve been practicing, you know a lot, you know more than your clients, and you have years upon years of frequently asked questions which are what?

Karin Conroy (43:56.301)
Right.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (44:06.893)
Right.

Karin Conroy (44:11.788)
Yeah. Yes.

Stephanie Riel (44:21.206)
those freebies need to be about. If you’re answering the same question five times in a week, put a freebie on your website. People will stop asking the question. If for no other reason, selfishly, they’ll download your freebie instead and then you have their email address. Wonderful. Ha ha ha.

Karin Conroy (44:22.933)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (44:33.096)
Exactly. Yes, exactly. And then you’ve got your, you’ve got your drip campaign and you can slowly just be top of mind reminding. And, and then all of a sudden you are 10 steps ahead of everybody else around you because you know, as, as common as you see this in every industry for lawyers, it is pretty, it’s not as common. I guess I’ll, I’ll put it that way. It’s just not as common, but it’s, it’s an easy way to do some great marketing and

The last thing I’ll say about that is that email marketing has such a huge return. So Stephanie, what is the one big takeaway that you’d like people to get from this episode? Because we talked about a lot of different stuff. We talked about colors, navy blue.

Stephanie Riel (45:10.186)
Oh my gosh, we were all over the place.

Stephanie Riel (45:15.37)
If you know what my biggest takeaway, if Navy blue is in your brand, it’s okay. But I think you asked earlier and I actually don’t know if I answered or not. I just, this just came to me talking about that experienced firm versus a new firm or cases where maybe the blue makes sense where it doesn’t. And I think blue does have a feeling of tradition. Also your fonts, which I know we didn’t talk about at all but those give your audience a very clear picture of who you are. And

Karin Conroy (45:19.98)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (45:33.357)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (45:43.949)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (45:44.222)
Every firm’s gonna be a little bit different. If you’ve been in business and practicing for decades, it will probably come out of left field and turn off your ideal customers or your existing customers that might wanna hire you again if you’re trying to come out and be, you know, a little bit more modern with your fonts and your messaging and change your colors so drastically. So I understand that and I feel that pain. I think where you can, even in that…

Karin Conroy (46:04.815)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (46:12.774)
established firm perspective where you can start to experiment is maybe bringing in a secondary color and and but not just trying it and picking a color out of a hat but doing it with the data as your guide because I know as legal professionals you want that data and I think the biggest takeaway is yes branding is it’s a feeling it’s a little bit touchy feely and creative and it probably makes

Stephanie Riel (46:42.43)
and there is so much data behind it that we can get really comfortable on your data, help you understand the why behind the decision or the recommendation that’s being presented and work on it slowly. Even if it is like you were saying, the navy blue to a different shade of blue, that transition’s probably gonna happen over time. Or if you’re a brand new firm, you’re stepping out on your own and you wanna do things differently, then I would urge you to not use the same color palette as your competitors.

Karin Conroy (47:10.188)
Yes. Yeah.

Stephanie Riel (47:10.942)
step out in a different color, but have intention behind it. Don’t just pick red because you think it stands out. Red actually like alerts danger and being unsafe. And it probably reminds you of grade school and getting marks off on your paper or a stop sign. None of those things are feelings you want your audience to feel, but there’s a way to be really intentional. Maybe it’s picking a different shade of a blue. Maybe it’s a more modern color. Maybe it’s a green, but it depends. And it’s such a unique approach. So I can’t sit here and say,

Karin Conroy (47:18.976)
Yes. Yep.

Karin Conroy (47:25.698)
Yes.

Stephanie Riel (47:39.97)
Don’t use blue, use a different color altogether because it’s so personal. But once you dive into what your firm is all about and who your ideal customer is, you can let the data be your guide to build a really beautiful brand that’s aligned, that’s gonna give your ideal customer that true feeling that you want for them to build that trust with you and ultimately do business with you.

Karin Conroy (48:02.68)
Yes. Oh, that is, that was the perfect summary. I feel like that was, that just nailed it right there. Like at the end of the day, you know, you have to kind of tap into those touchy feely feelings and all of that stuff, but use the data. And that’s what is going to make it work. And that’s going to be the difference between those firms who have tried to do branding and they didn’t do database branding and it didn’t work. And so they thought the whole thing was just a bunch of BS and it wasn’t really, you know, it doesn’t work. And that’s, that makes all the difference is knowing.

you know, having those purposeful reasons for all the choices that you make. I love that. Awesome. Stephanie Reel. Thank you so much for being here today. We will link to your website, your, um, all of the things you mentioned as well as the, that book, which sounds amazing. I can’t wait to pick that one up. I love all the brain science stuff. It’s like such a cool, uh, thing to read. So I’ll link to that, put that on the show notes as, and all of your, um, social media links as well. But thank you so much for being here. That was an awesome conversation.

Stephanie Riel (48:59.874)
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great to be here and always fun talking about branding, so I appreciate it so much. Thank you.