Moving Beyond E-E-A-T: Branding, Survival And The State Of SEO

Branding has never been more important. Online audiences continue to yearn for connection, and a strong brand identity can bridge the gap.

Katie Morton, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Journal, sits down with Mordy Oberstein, Founder of Unify Brand Marketing, to discuss why authenticity in branding and online content matters more than ever. They also discuss the need for genuine cross-functional collaboration.

For marketers rethinking how brand identity fits into their strategies, you may find this conversation insightful. It’s filled with practical tips and takeaways from the State of SEO: How to Survive report.

Watch the video or read the full transcript below.

Editor’s note: The following transcript has been edited for clarity, brevity, and adherence to our editorial guidelines.

Katie Morton: Hey, everybody. It’s Katie Morton, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Journal, and I’m sitting down today with Mordy Oberstein. Mordy, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Mordy Oberstein: I’m Mordy. I’m the founder of Unify Brand Marketing. I work on brand development, fractional marketing, and marketing strategy. But my main focus is brand development and how to integrate that into your actual marketing activities and your actual strategy.

Katie: Which is just becoming so crucial these days, especially with all of the changes we’ve seen over the last few years. Branding: I don’t want to say it’s everything, but it’s definitely up there.

Mordy: Quite the topic in the performance space, suddenly.

Katie: Yeah, I’m going to say more than ever, really.

Mordy: Which is kind of what we’re here to talk about.

Katie: We are also going to talk about branding within the scope of the State of SEO overall.

Branding And The State Of SEO

Katie: Every year, Search Engine Journal puts out a survey about the state of SEO. We ask questions to try and get our finger on the pulse of what people are doing. This year, we did a SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats,  to see how everybody’s doing and how they’re dealing with it.

The subtitle of this year’s ebook is How to Survive. And I would say, arguably, branding is one of those keys to survival.

Mordy: Yeah. And it keeps popping up. It came up in the survey a bunch of times. One of the questions was, “What are your most improved outcomes?” and 34.8% of people surveyed said brand visibility increased.

They were able to increase their brand visibility in search engines. And you can see it’s become way more of a focus.

One of the comments you pulled was from John Shehata, who’s brilliant. And his quote was: “Double down on experience. It’s the first E in E-E-A-T.”

For those unfamiliar, E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, which are part of Google’s quality rater guidelines. And what John said that really resonated with me was: “Authenticity builds trust, both with users and AI systems.”

That got me thinking about this whole brand conversation. Because you keep hearing brand, brand, brand. You see it in the survey results, John’s talking about it here. But my question is: how do you do that? How do you actually build authenticity?

I agree with John a million percent – you need authenticity. And people are clearly seeing the value in brand all of a sudden, which is great. Super happy about it.

For performance marketers, though, it’s definitely a different way of thinking, a different way of operating. And one of the things SEOs especially need to be conscious of, and maybe push through, is the old verbiage.

Verbiage is a real thing. Carolyn Shelby actually wrote an article on SEJ about this whole SEO vs. GEO and the “words matter” thing. And there were so many stats in the survey about E-E-A-T and building E-E-A-T.

Part of the problem is thinking about it as “E-E-A-T.” Because that’s the context of SEO, the context of trying to deal with an algorithm. But when you’re trying to build authenticity, that’s not really the context you’re working in.

Building real authenticity does translate into building search equity with algorithms. I don’t think they’re different things. But authenticity itself comes from knowing yourself, being in touch with your brand identity, having a very focused brand identity, and having one that’s actually true to yourself.

I was talking to, I think it was a client, maybe a potential client, and I said, “You know, you could do X, you could do Y. Y is not who you are and it won’t work no matter no matter how hard you want to work so do X because X is much more in line with who you are. ”

Authenticity Beyond Acronyms

Mordy: Having the ability to understand who you are and make authentic decisions from there builds authenticity.

So if you’re stuck using old acronyms, thinking about it from an algorithm point of view and not from an actual who are we, how do we showcase ourselves, how do we transmit value to our audience, and you can’t get beyond the acronyms, I think you’re going to have a little bit of a hard time.

Katie: Yeah, Mordy and I were talking about this offline, this concept of the human element, as opposed to the framing SEOs used to go for.

And we’d really like to move the vocabulary forward and away from E-E-A-T. As Mordy said, it’s very algorithm-focused, and that in itself is kind of inauthentic. It’s machine-focused instead of looking at human morals and values, and what makes us human, and what makes us appeal to one another.

And in a previous episode, we talked about those emotional connections: who you really are, and who you’re most gifted to serve. As opposed to just trying to build this concept of E-E-A-T that’s based on these rater guidelines.

Mordy: Sounds like R-A-I-D-E-R. Rater. It’s interesting because that’s what, if you want to put it in marketing terms, we’re really talking about: your ability to resonate.

And you can only resonate when you’re actually your authentic self. Imagine you went out there and did something that wasn’t really in line with who you are. People would pick up on that. It wouldn’t actually resonate.

So to create authenticity, you have to be authentic. And in order to be authentic, you have to know, well, who the heck are we, so that we can actually be ourselves, right?

It sounds easy, but it’s very complicated. Because there are a lot of mitigating factors that come in. You try to pigeonhole things. You want to get your messaging super catchy. There are a lot of things that make it complicated.

But at its core, if you look at it at a micro level, it’s not complicated.

Where it gets complicated is another statistic I wanted to address, your eighth question in the survey. That one was about structural changes within the organization.

And one of the replies was: cross-functional collaboration increased. Thirty-seven point seven percent of respondents said, “We started to focus on cross-functional operations.”

Which is, yay. Yes. Because leaving SEO aside, LLMs, visibility, rankings, performance, etc., that’s just how your organization should function in a healthy way. It’s good, inherently, for your organization to move forward.

But from an SEO/LLM point of view, if you’re not synced up, if you’re siloed, that’s a problem. Coming from a background in enterprise, where everything is very siloed, I can tell you: if you’re siloed, you can’t be consistent.

You can have one team writing one set of content, the LLM picking it up, and another team writing a different set of content, positioning the brand differently.

This is what I really want to get into. Often, teams don’t understand the same brand the same way.

Katie: And yeah, that creates this fractured, disjointed presentation out there in the world. It makes it harder for people to understand what you’re about.

Why Vision And Meaning Matter

Mordy: Those are for people, and in turn, it makes it harder for algorithms, LLMs, and all the machines.

If you’re telling me one thing, and then I ask somebody else on your team about you and they give me a different answer – well, I’m confused. Color me confused. And that’s because it is confusing.

And it happens a lot. More often than you would think. And the reason why it happens, I want to diagnose it, ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine percent of the time, the reason this happens is there’s a lack of confidence and actual vision coming down from up top.

That definition or vision of who we are, what we want to do, who we’re serving, why we’re doing it, what we’re trying to achieve, and why that’s meaningful, that has to be clear.

Because if you’re just telling your team internally, ‘We want to hit this KPI, we need seventy-five percent growth, and we need to achieve X metric,’ that doesn’t get people bought in.

What gets people bought in is knowing you’re trying to do something meaningful. You’re a cohesive group of people, individuals coming together in an organization, working toward one set thing.

People aren’t machines. They need something meaningful to attach to, just like your audience needs something meaningful in order to perceive you, connect with you, and resonate with you.

Fast-Moving SEO & The Need For Real Communication

So, the people who work for you? They’re your audience, too. And if you don’t have something clear, distinct, and meaningful that they can grab onto, you end up fractured situation. One team understands it one way. The head of marketing, another way. The head of social media, another way. The head of SEO, another way. And then, without realizing it, you’re completely siloed.

I think it’s one of the things I’d really like to see more of. I’m glad the survey touched on it, but I’d like to see more conversation around un-siloing your marketing teams. I don’t think that internal comms conversation is happening enough yet. And we need it.

Katie: Absolutely. And I’ll also say another landmine in all of this is how fast everything moves these days.

For example, before we got on here, we were talking about certain points that come up in SEO. Things change so quickly. If something’s untested, different people can have different ideas or opinions about how it works.

So it’s not always just a top-down failure of leadership. Sometimes it’s simply that things are moving so fast. One team thinks one thing, another team thinks another, and they both put out mixed messages before anyone has even realized there’s a disconnect.

SEO and marketing can be as much art as science. Sometimes you need testing to bear things out over time. But in the interim, it’s like the Wild West of opinions. It’s hard to rein that in.

And it’s hard not to put out absolutes before something has been proven one way or another. And even then, it can change.

Mordy: What’s true for one website or brand might not be true for another, depending on their context.

So yeah, it’s hard now. Because you’re right. You hear different things from different places on the outside, you try to assimilate, and one team might latch onto one piece of advice while another acts on something else.

And then you end up with this idea of communication, but really it’s not. Teams say we have a monthly sync; our social team meets with the blog team to have a monthly sync…that’s not actually communicating. I know it feels like it is, but you need something a little bit different than that.

Katie: Yeah, I would say the real fluidity of communication between teams, whether that’s Slack or, you know, some people, [I’m] not a fan of the daily standup, but sometimes that can be helpful depending on the situation.

Mordy: By the way, it’s okay to get onto a daily standup and say, “I’ve got nothing new today.” That’s fine. “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

Katie: Right, right.

Mordy: That’s actually a valuable use of your time.

Final Thoughts

Katie: Yeah. It can be tough at Search Engine Journal, we’re very global. We have people across nearly every time zone. So a daily standup would be nearly impossible to accommodate. But we’re all on Slack all day, every day, and night. So the communication never stops.

Anyway, people need to figure out what works best for their team. But it’s definitely key these days, moving forward in SEO, and how to survive.

Mordy: Oh, and by the way, check out all the stats. I only picked those two, but there are tons more in there. So if you’re wondering, “Is that it?” No, there are a lot more. Those were just the two I harped on.

Katie: So, go to searchenginejournal.com/state-of-seo and you’ll see our latest ebook: State of SEO: How to Survive. Go ahead and click, sign up, and grab that.

And Mordy, what would you like to plug today?

Mordy: unifybrandmarketing.com.

Katie: Yes, book a consult with Mordy.

Alright. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today, Mordy. Always a pleasure.

Mordy: Yeah.

Katie: And we’ll catch you all next time. Bye.

Mordy: Bye.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

How To Measure Brand Marketing Efforts (And Prove Their ROI) via @sejournal, @AlliBerry3

Brand marketing is often the silent driver behind successful digital campaigns.

People are far more likely to read, watch, click, and ultimately buy from a brand they already know and trust. That’s why doing the harder, slower work of building a strong brand pays dividends when it comes to performance marketing efforts like SEO and PPC. We know this intuitively.

But proving the impact of brand marketing is much harder. Unlike SEO rankings or PPC conversions, brand-building results are not always immediately visible, which is why these efforts often get under-credited – or worse, neglected altogether – in favor of easier-to-measure tactics. This is a mistake.

Why Brand Marketing Matters More Than Ever

The irony is that large-scale studies repeatedly show brand-related factors at the forefront of digital visibility.

Semrush’s 2025 ranking factor study found that authority, traffic, and backlink signals – closely tied to brand strength – are still among the most important correlating factors for high search rankings.

Similarly, as AI Overviews and large language model (LLM)-powered search expand, brand strength is proving to be the key to visibility. In its 2025 study, Ahrefs found that branded mentions, branded anchors, and branded search volume are the top three factors correlated with AI Overview presence.

All of these point to one conclusion: Brand marketing is increasingly the engine that drives both human trust and algorithmic preference.

The challenge, however, is demonstrating its impact in a way that stakeholders can understand and value. That’s why it’s critical to learn how to measure your brand marketing efforts using both qualitative and quantitative metrics, tied back to clear key performance indicators (KPIs).

The Situation For Digital Marketing Leaders

Consider the role of an in-house SEO director. Your KPIs might look like this:

• Grow organic traffic by 25% year-over-year.
• Increase lead generation downloads by 40%.
• Drive 20% more sales from organic.

But with Google’s AI Overviews cutting click-through rates by more than 34% and users increasingly turning to LLMs for top-of-funnel research, traditional SEO tactics alone won’t get you there.

Instead, your future success depends on brand strength. Stronger brand signals lead to better visibility in AI-driven search results, higher trust with customers, and greater resilience in an evolving digital landscape. That means, even as an SEO professional, your path forward relies on executing and measuring brand marketing strategy effectively – and proving its business impact.

The good news is that as an SEO professional, you’ve likely already got quite a bit of the data you need. It may just require you to repackage some of your efforts. It may also require you to collaborate more with your fellow digital marketers, particularly those in PR, social media, and PPC, to show brand visibility growth more holistically.

Tying Metrics To The Sales Funnel

When it comes to your brand marketing, there are really four categories of efforts:

• Awareness.
• Consideration.
• Conversion.
• Loyalty & Advocacy.

Ultimately, you are looking to increase your brand strength in every area of the funnel.

You want more people to hear of your brand, which then drives them to search for it to learn more about it.

More brand familiarity and trust should then ultimately lead to more conversions.

And the more customers and followers of the brand you have, the more you would expect to see an increase in loyalty and advocacy.

All of your brand marketing tracking should tie back to one of those four categories. Therefore, the next sections of this article are broken down by stage of the funnel.

Brand Awareness Metrics

Brand awareness metrics help you measure whether your brand is becoming more recognizable in the right contexts. At the top level, awareness is measured by reach and visibility signals: metrics like impressions, social mentions, and share of voice across channels.

On the digital side, you can monitor branded search impressions and clicks in Google Search Console, track direct traffic growth in Google Analytics 4, and use SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to compare your brand’s share of voice against competitors.

These metrics reveal whether people are actively seeking you out and whether brand exposure is translating into traffic.

Equally important are perception-based metrics, which capture how audiences actually recall and recognize your brand.

Brand lift studies and recall surveys ask consumers whether your brand comes to mind within your category – both aided (i.e., Have you heard of [brand]?) and unaided (i.e., What brands come to mind for [category]?). These are especially powerful after large brand campaigns, such as a national TV spot or a major podcast sponsorship, to see if awareness efforts are resonating with the right audience.

Key Awareness Metrics

It is important that you’re measuring both the quantitative signals of awareness (search, traffic, mentions) and the qualitative signals (surveys, brand lift). Together, these provide a complete picture of how visible and memorable your brand really is.

Consideration Metrics

While awareness tells you whether people recognize your brand, consideration metrics show whether they are actively evaluating your brand as a viable option. This stage of the funnel is all about engagement and intent. We’re looking at signals that potential customers are digging deeper, comparing you against competitors, and gathering the information they need to make a decision.

On your website, key metrics include pages per session, time spent on product or service pages, and return visits to your site, which often indicate research and deeper evaluation. Growth in traffic to product-related pages and increases in branded product queries (i.e., “Brand X running shoes”) are also strong signals that awareness is moving into intent.

Beyond on-site behavior, content downloads such as case studies, whitepapers, or product comparison guides show that audiences are engaging with assets that help them evaluate their choices.

Similarly, a rise in third-party product reviews or mentions on industry forums and social media reflects growing consideration and social proof that others are weighing your brand seriously in the buying process.

Key Consideration Metrics

By tracking both behavioral signals on your owned channels (site engagement, return visits, content downloads) and external validation (third-party mentions), you build a clear picture of whether your brand is moving beyond recognition and into active consideration.

Conversion Metrics

Conversion metrics show how effectively brand strength translates into tangible business outcomes. At this stage, the focus shifts from evaluation to action.

We’re looking at whether people are requesting demos, signing up for free trials, or making purchases. Strong branding makes these conversions more likely by building the trust and credibility necessary to reduce friction at the decision point.

On your website, look for form fills, demo requests, trial sign-ups, and completed transactions as clear indicators of conversion. Tracking conversion rates from branded search campaigns in Google Ads or measuring pipeline influenced by brand-related traffic in your customer relationship management (CRM) also provides valuable insight.

Additionally, monitoring add-to-cart and checkout completions in GA4 can highlight how often brand equity is driving purchase intent to completion.

Key Conversion Metrics

Loyalty And Advocacy Metrics

Loyalty and advocacy metrics reveal whether brand strength translates into long-term customer relationships. At this stage, the goal is not just to retain customers but to turn them into advocates who actively promote your brand.

Strong loyalty reduces churn, increases lifetime value, and builds a customer base that supports sustainable growth.

Key metrics here include customer retention rates, repeat purchase behavior, and customer lifetime value (CLV), which quantify how effectively you’re keeping customers over time.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer satisfaction surveys capture how likely customers are to recommend your brand. Monitoring referrals, user-generated content, and social sharing also provides qualitative proof of advocacy.

Review platforms and communities can be another strong signal. Growth in positive product reviews or customers organically defending your brand in forums shows that loyalty has translated into advocacy.

Key Loyalty & Advocacy Metrics

Turning Metrics Into A Compelling Data Story For Stakeholders

The real value of measuring brand marketing comes not just from tracking the right metrics, but from connecting them into a story that stakeholders can understand.

By aligning awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty metrics to the sales funnel, you create a framework that shows how brand-building efforts impact the entire customer journey.

A brand dashboard is one of the most effective tools for communicating this story. Tools like Looker Studio or Power BI will allow you to consolidate signals from multiple sources to present a holistic view of brand health.

Rather than overwhelming leadership with granular reports from different platforms, you’re providing them with a clear line of sight from brand activity to revenue impact. It can look something like: Google Search Console for branded queries, GA4 for site engagement, CRM data for conversions, and social listening tools for sentiment and share of voice.

When sharing results, keep in mind that executives often care less about the technical details and more about the outcomes. Frame your reporting around KPIs tied to growth:

• Did brand awareness lift lead to more traffic and higher-quality leads?
• Did stronger consideration metrics translate into more demo requests or trial sign-ups?
• Did higher loyalty scores reduce churn or drive referrals?

By mapping brand marketing metrics to outcomes stakeholders already value – pipeline growth, revenue impact, and customer retention – you position branding not as a “soft” investment, but as a measurable driver of business performance.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Master1305/Shutterstock

How to Build a Brand That Truly Connects

If your brand doesn’t resonate on a deep level with your target audience, then pouring time and energy into aesthetics and clever messaging is a waste of resources.

Real brand power is based on your brand’s identity: knowing who you are as a company, and how your ideal customer experiences life in relation to your offering.

Search Engine Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Katie Morton sits down with Mordy Oberstein, founder of Unify Brand Marketing, to go deeper on how to build a brand with a solid foundation.

Watch the video or read the full transcript below.

Start With Brand Identity

Katie Morton: Hello, everybody. It is I, Katie Morton, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Journal, and I’m here today with Mordy Oberstein, who is the founder of Unify Brand Marketing.

So, Mordy, what are we going to talk about today?

Mordy Oberstein: Hi there, everybody. Last time we spoke about what brand marketing is fundamentally and how to approach it. Today, I’m gonna talk about how to actually develop a brand and run through that process.

We’re gonna try to be jargon-free about what brand development actually looks like and what the stages are, and how they should all flow one into the other.

Katie: That sounds great. OK, so what’s the first concept?

Brand Therapy: Don’t Fear a Niche

Mordy: OK, this is where I think brands get really messed up. If you feel like you’ve lost traction, like you don’t have direction or you’re all over the place – whatever it is – most problems come down to this issue, which is… (I’m not going to say the jargon word) but it comes down to: Who are you?

And this is where you’re doing therapy for your brand. You’re trying to figure out who you are in a real, deep way. Kind of what we talked about last time – about building some meaning for yourself. You need to think about: Who are you? Where do you want to be? How do you want to be seen? How are you seen? How do you want to be seen going forward?

This is the part where it gets a little bit scary. I’m going to ask you: What scares you? Because this is where brands kind of feel like, “Maybe we’re going to pigeonhole ourselves.” But you’re not.

I’m not going to use the identity word – wait, I said identity – used jargon. Darn it!

This is where you kind of feel like maybe we’re going to pigeonhole ourselves if we have too much of a pigeonhole kind of audience. Don’t. It’s scary, but you have to do it.

This is where brands get off the rails. You have to understand who you are in a real way, because who you are rolls right into who you’re for.

Know Your Core Audience

Mordy: If I was dating my wife back in the day and my wife didn’t like sports at all, I’d be like, “Oh, my wife’s not for me. I’m a sports nut,” which is not true. That’s not how dating actually works.

Knowing who you are rolls right into: Who are you for?

Once you know who you are, the next step is: Who’s actually interested in you? Who’s your core audience? And this is a direct outcome of who you are, which is why it’s important.

The next stage in brand development – once you know who you are and who you’re for (that doesn’t mean you have to be only for them, but they’re your core) – is what problems does that audience have?

And by problems, I don’t mean USPs (which I know is a jargon word, but I’m going to use it so we know what we’re talking about). I’m not talking about pain points.

I’m talking about: What’s going on in their lives as it generally relates to your product or service?

Let me give you an example: Minivans. Why do I always use minivans? If I was making minivans, I would want to know: What’s the context? What’s the life situation of the parent or guardian driving and schlepping these kids around? What’s happening in their lives around the product?

It’s not a pain point. It’s not a USP. It’s what’s happening in the life of your audience, as it relates to generally speaking about the product/service, whatever you do.

Now that you know that, the next step in brand development is: How do you fit those needs?

This is where your “USP stuff” kind of comes in. And by the way, everything here should align from who you are to your audience, to what their problems are, to how do you fit those needs (because you know who you are now, obviously)?

Build From The Ground Up, Messaging Comes Last

Mordy: Because of who you are, how do you now solve those problems that your audience or people or consumers are dealing with in their lives? Now, once you know that, stage five would be, how do you actually communicate that? Or rather, what’s important about that to communicate?

We now know who we are. We now know who we’re for. We now know what the problems and the life situation is of the people we’re for. And we know how we solve and deal with those situations with who we are as a product, as a service, as an offering.

What’s important to tell the audience about who we are and how we solve their problems?

Don’t try to refine it here. Don’t try to have it snappy and snippy. Nothing catchy. No taglines. Just what’s important conceptually as a framework to communicate to your audience.

What’s conceptually important – what should the audience understand?

And the last step is to refine that. It’s not going to come in one shot. It’ll take multiple iterations to do it. It’s not going to be perfect, and you’ll never be 100% happy with it. It’s better that it’s honest and genuine than it is perfect.

If we want to zoom out and use the jargon, we just ran through:

• Creating brand identity.
• Using identity to define the target audience.
• Understanding the audience’s life context.
• Positioning the offering.
• Developing key messaging.
• And then refining the message.

Katie: I like it.

Mordy: No jargon, I almost got through it!

SaaS Doesn’t Have To Mean Utility

Katie: I think it speaks to our audience to use a little bit of jargon in there. And speaking of that, I’m sure a lot of people you talk to and a lot of people in the Search Engine Journal universe are SaaS, software as a service.

I like the minivan example because it’s easy to wrap your head around. It’s an obvious life circumstance. You just say that word ‘minivan’ and it’s giving you a picture of being married with a bunch of kids, driving them around. You say one word, and it paints this whole picture. With SaaS, it’s so different.

And what would it be like, as a thought exercise to go through this, if you invent a software that’s a rabbit food feeding timer?

Mordy: Okay. A set that feeds your rabbit on a timer.

Katie: Something that’s life-oriented, right? Like, think about our universe, which is really kind of abstract, right? In terms of people’s day-to-day. And they’re really using software, probably in a professional sense, and probably not in their home life for the most part, let’s say like a marketing software or, you know, ads like PPC.

Mordy: I consult for a marketing software, so I’m not going to use a marketing software because I’m biased. Let’s say I use like a video editor tool – does that work?

Katie: Yeah, that works.

Mordy: All right, cool.

Brand Identity is the Foundation

Mordy: First of all, the most important thing is where I think brands get everything wrong. It’s not like one stage, and you go from stage one, which is brand identity to messaging refinement, which is, what, stage six?

Don’t think of it as a line. I did one, and now I go to the next one, then I go to the next one. Think of it like you’re stacking a building. You’re building a building.

The foundation is a brand identity, and then you build the next floor, the next floor, the next – and the top floor, the roof is the refinement that everybody can see from the helicopter.

But they’re not—if you imagine they’re in a helicopter looking down on this roof – they can’t see all of the other layers, but you can. And you have to start with brand identity.

And this – particularly for a SaaS tool – because SaaS, it’s really easy to get stuck in being a utility. “We’re just a utility.”

The problem with being a utility is that there’s no actual connection. And as soon as somebody else finds another utility that’s better, cheaper, or whatever, they’ll move. There’s no loyalty, which is literally what I did… I used another tool. I found it a little bit cumbersome. The pricing wasn’t super clear, so I moved to this one.

Now, I don’t love this one, by the way. If something else came along, I would totally move to the other one.

There’s no identity. I don’t know what separates CapCut from the other one I was using.

I don’t use Camtasia anymore only because I have an old license. I don’t want to pay for a new one. So if I’m going to pay for a new one, I find it a little bit cumbersome.

I have no actual loyalty to any of these platforms because I don’t know who they are and what makes them different.

You know why I don’t know who they are and what makes them different? Because they don’t know who they are.

A Connection With Your Audience Gains Customer Loyalty

Katie: If they worked on connecting with you as a brand and developed that emotional bond, you’d be more likely to stick with them, even if something better came out, a better feature.

Mordy: Because it’d be more for me. Right. They have to ask themselves – and I can’t do this for them – I don’t even know anything about it other than the tool. Someone recommended it to me and I use it.

They have to figure out: Why are you doing this? Why do you want to do this outside of making money? Why do you find this meaningful?

“Oh, because…” Let’s just say, “Because we help. Because we are into the idea of being able to do X, Y, and Z.”

Oh, okay, CapCut. Let’s just say their big thing is (because I use this part of their tool, so I like it—they automatically remove my background and put a new one):

“We’re all about people who don’t have a professional setup feeling like they have a professional setup.”

That’s just really important because we see the value in that. “We want to democratize video content,” etc. That would be an actual brand identity.

So now I know who I’m for. I’m not for a professional. I’m a big brand, I have a whole studio, I’m Coca-Cola, I have a whole in-house studio on site. [I’m not for them.] I’m for this audience.

Now, what are their problems, and what’s going on with them, and what’s happening with them?

Now it’s kind of easier to see.

“I really want to create professional-level content, but I don’t have the skills to do it.” I’m also not an idiot, either. So I kind of know what it’s supposed to look like. I kind of know what it’s supposed to be. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the technical know-how. I don’t want to pay anybody to do it.

These are my problems. How do you come in and solve that?

Katie: So it’s like the entire market proposition is tied into that.

Mordy: But they only realize to talk to me about my problems, and how they solve my problems, once they figure out who they were first.

But everybody skips that step. Everyone goes right to the roof—because that’s the only thing you can see.

Katie: That’s fascinating, Mordy. Brick by brick – you’ve got to stack it up before you get to the helicopter view.

Mordy: Gotcha. It’ll all come crumbling down at a certain point. The messaging won’t work. It’ll all fall apart. That sounds really doomsday-ish.

Katie: It does. But I do think that I will be checking out CapCut’s branding – to see what are they doing over there?

All I know is their little logo that I see frequently at the end of some of my favorite creators.

Mordy: So that’s good branding. It’s not great branding, but better than nothing.

Katie: Exactly. Better than nothing.

Wrapping Up: Shout Brand From The Rooftops

Well, Mordy, this has been very enlightening, and I want to thank you for coming on and sharing with me today.

What’s next?

Mordy: I was going to shout “brand!” from the rooftops. That was so like a dad joke.

Next time, we’re going to dive deeper into Stage One, which is building brand identity, and what that actually looks like, and how you do it.

Katie: That’d be fantastic. All right, everybody, thanks for joining us. And check us out: searchenginejournal.com.

Mordy, what’s your website?…

Mordy: Oh, I should know this – good branding! unifybrandmarketing.com.

Katie: Awesome. All right. See you next time, everybody.

Katie & Mordy: Bye!

More Resources:

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal