The Power of Identify: Building Lifelong Customers

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Power of Identity: Building Lifelong Customers

Social Media Marketing Podcast Host: Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner
Guest: Veronica Romney
Release Date: July 24, 2025

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Introduction

In the July 24, 2025 episode of the Social Media Marketing Podcast, host Michael Stelzner delves into the transformative concept of Identity Marketing with expert Veronica Romney. This insightful discussion explores how understanding and leveraging the identities of customers can forge lifelong relationships, surpassing traditional transactional interactions.

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Guest Background: Veronica Romney

Veronica Romney, a seasoned marketer with nearly two decades of experience, shares her unexpected journey into the marketing realm. Initially a finance major, Veronica's pivot to marketing began out of necessity when finance internships were scarce. This "beautiful accident" led her to discover a passion for marketing, eventually founding her own marketing agency in October 2017. Veronica is also the author of "Identity Marketing: How to Create Loyal Lifelong Fans and a Legendary Brand No Matter What You Sell or the Size of Your Budget" and hosts the Rain Maker podcast.

Notable Quote:

“It was because of the lack of options that actually made me change my major. And now I've been a marketer for almost 20 years.” — Veronica Romney [02:30]

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Understanding Identity Marketing

Identity Marketing revolves around identifying the core identities of your target audience and tailoring your marketing strategies to align with these identities. Instead of focusing solely on brand identity, this approach emphasizes the customer's self-concept, aspirations, and how they perceive themselves or wish to evolve.

Key Insights:

• Beyond Transactions: Shifting from transactional marketing to building deep, meaningful relationships.
• Customer-Centric: Understanding the "why" behind customers' behaviors and purchases.
• Psychological Connection: Tapping into the psychological aspects of identity to foster loyalty.

Notable Quote:

“When you actually connect a brand to a consumer's identity, how they identify their self label, their self concept, you're no longer in the business of a transaction. Now you're building a lifelong relationship with somebody that goes way beyond just the sale.” — Veronica Romney [08:43]

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The Identity Code: A Four-Step Framework

Veronica outlines a four-step framework called the Identity Code, designed to implement Identity Marketing effectively:

1. Find It

   • Objective: Discover the true identities and aspirations of your target audience.
   • Method: Conduct a Secret Shopper Analysis focusing on the language customers use to describe themselves, not how they describe your brand.
   • Example: Talkbox Mom discovered that while mothers were the primary buyers, their real aspiration was to foster family fluency in languages, not personal vanity.

   Notable Quote:

   “You're looking for a voice of customer in regards to their self concept, their self label, who they desire to become.” — Veronica Romney [15:32]

2. Prove It

   • Objective: Validate the identified identities through feedback and engagement.
   • Method: Utilize surveys, social media polls, and direct feedback to confirm the resonance of the identified identity with the audience.
   • Example: Smash Army was validated when user-generated content and engagement confirmed the community’s alignment with the military-themed identity.

   Notable Quote:

   “We're at least getting validation. So same thing with Talkbox Mom, like when they actually went out and surveyed their people... they got pretty harsh feedback around the Talk Tribe concept.” — Veronica Romney [27:01]

3. Name It

   • Objective: Assign a meaningful and resonant name to the identified community or identity.
   • Method: Develop a name that carries deep contextual meaning and aligns with the group's values and aspirations.
   • Example: Harley Davidson's Hogs – a name that authentically represents the community's identity and passion for motorcycles.

   Notable Quote:

   “Give it deep, profound contextual meaning to what it means to be this. And you have to provide that narrative.” — Veronica Romney [34:23]

4. Dress It

   • Objective: Make the identity tangible through branded merchandise and symbols.
   • Method: Create apparel, accessories, or other tangible items that members can use to showcase their affiliation.
   • Example: Red Ants Pants not only provided workwear but also fostered a community where customers proudly wore the brand, symbolizing their strength and resilience.

   Notable Quote:

   “This is where we get to basically turn an intangible into a tangible.” — Veronica Romney [45:56]

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Real-World Examples

1. Talkbox Mom

   • Challenge: Initially assumed the identity was centered around "mom" purchasing for themselves.
   • Discovery: Moms were actually purchasing to enhance family fluency in languages, aiming to strengthen family bonds.
   • Outcome: Reframed marketing to target "Fluency Families," aligning with their true aspirations.

2. Harley Davidson's Hogs

   • Challenge: Creating a devoted community for motorcycle enthusiasts.
   • Discovery: Harley Davidson recognized that riders identified strongly with the "hog" persona, leading to the creation of the Hogs community.
   • Outcome: Established a loyal customer base that proudly identifies as Hogs, fostering brand loyalty and advocacy.

3. Red Ants Pants

   • Challenge: Addressing the lack of durable workwear tailored for women.
   • Discovery: Identified the identity of strong, hardworking women needing functional and stylish workwear.
   • Outcome: Built a passionate community where customers proudly wear Red Ants Pants as a symbol of their strength.

4. Smash Army

   • Strategy: Nicole Wingard, an intern, created a viral Instagram campaign smashing expired beverages, fostering a sense of community and shared purpose.
   • Outcome: Gained 500,000 followers in 60 days, leading to significant brand awareness and engagement without a large marketing budget.

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Tools and Techniques for Identity Marketing

• Secret Shopper Analysis: Audit the internet to understand how customers describe themselves and their aspirations.
• Surveys and Polls: Directly ask your audience about their self-concept and aspirations to validate identified identities.
• Social Media Listening: Monitor comments, discussions, and user-generated content to glean insights into customer identities.
• AI Integration: Utilize AI tools to analyze large datasets of customer language, but with caution to preserve the authenticity of customer expressions.

Notable Quote:

“Be really, really careful. I want you to see their own language in its raw form, because that's oftentimes where you find the identity in plain sight.” — Veronica Romney [18:54]

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Common Pitfalls and Best Practices

• Avoid Brand-Centric Audits: Focus on customer self-descriptions rather than how they perceive your brand.
• Authenticity Over Creativity: Ensure that the identities you define are authentic reflections of your customers’ self-concepts.
• Continuous Validation: Regularly seek feedback to ensure that the identified identities remain relevant and resonant.
• Respect Cultural Sensitivities: Avoid terms or concepts that may be culturally appropriative or insensitive, as seen with the Talk Tribe backlash.

Notable Quote:

“Being careful that your customer data doesn't incorrectly point you in the wrong direction when it comes to prospect marketing.” — Veronica Romney [22:58]

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Conclusion: The Transformative Power of Identity Marketing

Implementing Identity Marketing allows brands to transcend traditional marketing strategies by fostering deep, meaningful connections with their customers. By understanding and aligning with the core identities and aspirations of their audience, businesses can cultivate lifelong loyalty and advocacy, ensuring sustained success in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Final Thought:

“The brands that can connect that narrative, who the brand's values with their consumer's identity and their aspirational pursuit of an identity, are the ones that actually can build lifelong customers.” — Veronica Romney [11:05]

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Connect with Veronica Romney

• Website: Veronicarami.com
• LinkedIn: V. Romney
• Instagram: V. Romney

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For more insights and strategies on modern marketing techniques, subscribe to the Social Media Marketing Podcast and stay ahead in the ever-evolving marketing landscape.

Transcript

[Michael Stelzner]

Hey there, it's Michael Stelzner. As a loyal podcast listener, you've been with us through major marketing shifts. That's why we want to make sure we're covering what matters most to you when it comes to AI. Your answers to our brand new AI survey will influence the AI topics we feature in future podcast episodes. So would you do me a favor and pause this podcast right now and Visit Social Media Examiner.com AI survey. The survey closes in just a few days. Thanks so much for helping us create AI content that serves you best. Now onto the show. Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzer, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales. Today's guest is going to talk about a concept that I think you're going to find really fascinating. It all involves identifying a common thread with a base of prospects that could be your future customers and determining deeply what the identity of those people are and then having your marketing wrap around that identity. It's known as identity marketing. And my guest today is Veronica Romney. Today we're going to unwrap all of the steps that are necessary to embrace this concept known as identity marketing. Also, if you're new to this podcast, be sure to follow this show so you don't miss any of our future content. Like, let's now transition over to this week's interview with Veronica Romney, helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Veronica Romney. If you don't know who Veronica is, she's the author of Identity Marketing how to create Loyal Lifelong fans and a Legendary Brand no matter what you sell or the size of your budget. She conducts workshops for marketing teams, helping them leverage the psychology of identity to build life lifelong customers. She's also host of the Rain Maker podcast. Veronica, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

[Veronica Romney]

I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

[Michael Stelzner]

I'm excited you're here. Today Veronica and I will explore a powerful technique to build really loyal customers. Before we go there, I would love to hear your story. How'd you get into marketing?

[Veronica Romney]

A beautiful accident. The lack of internship opportunities. I actually was a declared finance major in business school. Love math. Shout out to my math nerds loved AP calculus. But I couldn't secure a finance internship to save my life. The only thing that was available at the time was a marketing internship. And I'm like, well, close enough. So I jumped in and like very quickly realized like, oh wow, like this is really fun. And it's not as superficial or shallow or whatever the connotation or the perception that I had at the time. And then two months into my marketing internship, they found a spot for me in the finance department, which I was ecstatic about. Got in there in within 48 hours. Like, this is terrible. I'm in a cube. I can't do anything fun. I want to go back to marketing. So it was because of the lack of options that actually like made me change my major. And now I've been a marketer for almost 20 years.

[Michael Stelzner]

Well, tell us a little bit more about the journey.

[Veronica Romney]

See, I've been a witness to marketing in all of its colors. I started off in corporate [e-mail], then I worked at two agencies back to back where I got to be that was probably like I couldn't recommend agency life more for young professionals because for me I had to become a little expert in like 150 clients in my portfolio. Do you know what I mean? So I got such a, like exposure to so many different business models and business categories and different verticals and how marketing worked for each of them in its different ways. Then I worked at another software company before doing my own thing. And since kind of being on my own as an entrepreneur, I've, you know, I no stranger to the stage, I have my own courses and programs. And now recently, as of, you know, earlier this year, I can now say I am a book author of my first marketing book, which is wild.

[Michael Stelzner]

So when did you go off on your own and kind of talk to us a little bit about that journey leading up to the book?

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah, it was gosh, it was like Sophie's Choice. It was really hard. I was actually had a very great corporate experience. I've never been an anti corporate person. I was very much loved and I loved them. But that calling of the wild strikes whenever it wants. And I also was a recent mother. And so I think it was a combination of like my life was changing and I wanted more freedom and flexibility to be the mom that I desired to be. But still this wildly ambitious human being. And so I just. And my parents are Cuban immigrants. So let's just put that out there. Like I grew up front row to two entrepreneurs building something literally from nothing, with everything stacked against them. So I think it was always in my bloodstream. But it wasn't until a combination of like, having my first child, still having this ambition, watching my parents do it, that we basically started a marketing agency of our own and started becoming service providers and building our own portfolio of clients.

[Michael Stelzner]

How long ago was that?

[Veronica Romney]

2017. October 2017 is when I started doing all that, when I left corporate. Like, goodbye. Goodbye.

[Michael Stelzner]

So why write the book?

[Veronica Romney]

Well, it's always been on the bucket list, but this is a little bit personal. My little sister actually got diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer in October 2023. And so 2024 was a very difficult year. She is cancer free today, so nobody worry. But it was a very difficult year as a family to navigate this for somebody so young with something so aggressive. And so I got to witness her really ro wrestle with her identity now, having to, like, identify as a breast cancer patient victim, however, you know, different labels for different people. What I didn't realize was also going to simultaneously happen was that my own identity was going to be questioned because I've always identified as a fit person or a healthy individual. But, like, the root and the source of that identity was changing, and I didn't know that that was necessarily happening. But instead of trying to be fit or becoming this person to look a particular way, which is more vanity centric, now I could care less about vanity. And now I just desire to live to 100, never have cancer, never put my family through that. So a lot of my own identity was morphing. And so I remember writing identity on my actually in my bathroom mirror. I'm one of those people that have, like, markers. So I wrote the word identity on my mirror. And then it was being reflected in some of my work with my programs helping marketers become rainmakers. And so then I added the word marketing next to it after a couple weeks, and literally a couple weeks later, I was already working on the first draft of the manuscript. That is identity marketing, which is weird. Yeah.

[Michael Stelzner]

When did that drop the book?

[Veronica Romney]

Oh, it came out this year in January 2025.

[Michael Stelzner]

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing a little bit of your journey. It sounds like you have a fascinating bunch of stories in there we could explore. The question that I want to ask is, why should marketers focus on buyer aspirations? Said another way, if we follow what you're about to share with us today to the letter, what could it make possible? What's the upside?

[Veronica Romney]

Well, I mean, honestly, think about my own story for a second, right? Like on the surface, right, I'm still the same buyer Persona. I'm still this woman in her 30s who identifies as a fit person. I still have inclinations where I have my purchases that like, reaffirm that identity. Like, on the surface, I'm the same. And you would target me as a marketing department the same. However, like I told you with my sister's story, the source, the power, the why behind who I am was changing very significantly. And so I, I mean, I'm not sharing anything that people don't already know. The economy is kind of crazy. We've been through a little bit of a cluster in the last recent couple years. And so as a marketing speaker, I go to all these conferences and everyone's talking about rebranding and making themselves more appealable to this more sensitive, price sensitive buyer, et cetera. But the person that no one's talking about that bothers me deeply isn't so much that the brand needs to go through a rebrand, but it's actually the consumer who's gone through their most significant rebrand of their personal lives. And I just find that when you actually connect a brand to a consumer's identity, how they identify their self label, their self concept, you're no longer in the business of a transaction. Now you're building a lifelong relationship with somebody that goes way beyond just the sale.

[Michael Stelzner]

And what happens when that's done?

[Veronica Romney]

Well, well, this is where like the stories of like, you know, the Harley Davidsons of the world, I mean, and I also want to make sure I make a point of this because I know that your listeners are super smart. And so when often I say the word identity with really smart humans, they will instantly think brand identity, which is so radically important. Right? Like we are in control of the identity of the brand. We get to determine its look, its feel like that's one of the gifts of a marketer and a brand marketer specifically. Right? But remember, brand identity is in my control as a brand. I get to dictate how I show up in the world, how I differentiate how I dress, our services, our products or offers. When I talk about identity marketing, it's not the brand's identity, it's the identity of the customer, the consumer. And so the story that I like to share to like really accentuate this point is that of Harley Davidson, because so many years ago there was an individual who was literally being buried in a custom made plexiglass coffin so that everybody outside could see him sitting taxidermy style, on top of his beloved 1967, Harley Davidson, because he wanted the world to witness him riding into heaven. So not only was he buried a Harley Davidson buyer, but more importantly, he was buried a Harley Davidson hog. His identity was a hog. And he wanted to be remembered for like time in a life, eternity as a hog. And that's just a great example of a brand who understands both not just their own brand identity, which is like, so American, but also the identity of the people that they service and serve and sell to, and these hogs that will literally be buried in the grave as such.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so back to my question, which is, if this is done well, what's the benefit to having this under. And let me reiterate what I heard you say so far. So far what I heard you say is, hey, rather than focusing on the way that your business is personified to your customers, understand how to understand the evolving identity of your customer. And when you can grok that. I'm just looking for another word for the word understanding. When you can grasp that something positive can come from it. And what is the upside? That's what I'm trying to get at. Like, what does this unlock in a.

[Veronica Romney]

Very tangible way for the underdog? Especially, like, there's so many examples in the book where small businesses were able to disrupt wildly saturated, uber competitive markets just because of the power and the psychology of identity of their consumers. I think more than anything, it also has the potential to like, redefine the relationship that you have with your buyers. Like, I, again, I think that the more that I get into marketing and the more hacks and tricks and strategies and things that are often taught from stage or in courses and curriculums, like, it's all for the sake of generating more transactions. But for me, I find that what people desire most or what will change them the most is really a relationship that speaks to who they are and who they wish to become. And I just find that the brands that can connect that narrative, who the brand's values with their consumer's identity and their aspirational pursuit of an identity, are the ones that actually can build lifelong customers, no matter what you're doing and in. In spite of the numerous resources that others might have in front of you.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, I think I understand it. What I'm hearing you say is that this concept, identity marketing is really figuring out some sort of identity that is the through line with your best customers and adjusting your marketing to truly be magnetic, right? To attract that person that aspires to have something that somehow your brand, your business stands for. And when that Happens. You don't have to struggle with the traditional things that marketers have to struggle with because word of mouth becomes natural and people evangelize for you and they keep coming back. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

[Veronica Romney]

All of the above. Literally all of the above. I just, gosh, I just find so many of us in marketing departments having to rely on, on the cheapest form of traffic, the most expensive form of traffic, when marketing messaging no longer resonate, when it doesn't connect. And it's just like this angry monster that has never fed, it's never enough, versus leveraging those that can speak on your behalf in every corner of the room that you're not a part of. Like, that's the force that is identity marketing. Resonating with somebody like that.

[Michael Stelzner]

Perfect. Okay, so let's start unpacking how we actually do this. Right? Like where do we begin?

[Veronica Romney]

What's first step so fun in the book? When I wrote the book. That's a beautiful thing of having a book as opposed to a course or any other container. Like when you have 35,000 words, you can really unpack the how, the how to which is really fun. So for us, what we did in the book is outline at least four steps. I call it the identity code, but it's basically a four step framework process that helps you find your marketable identity, leverage it in your marketing messaging, and then obviously have all that generous benefit that we just disclosed. So the very first step of the identity code is you're going to find it oftentimes the word identity. And finding someone's identity, it's not a cutesy name. It's not like finding your swifties or finding your hogs. It's something much more profound. Sometimes it's actually finding the real thing, the real person or group of people that someone's buying for. And so when I say find it, like, yes, you're going to like audit yourself in the ecosystem that is the Internet. But most of the time when brands are auditing themselves online, they're doing it from like an egocentric point of view. Like, what do prospects or customers think about us? What are they saying about us? What are they highlighting? What are they telling their friends about us? Like, it's very us, us, us, us. What I have my workshop participants do is that they're going to do a secret shopper analysis of the Internet in regards to their brand, but not how they have done it in the past. They're looking for language, not about sentiment towards my brand. They're Looking around language about sentiment towards the user themselves. So what are they saying about themselves? Do they think they're a good mom, bad mom? Like what are they saying as far as who they are, who they wish to become, what they're struggling with? Like you're just looking for a voice of customer in regards to their self concept, their self label, who they desire to become. That is the pursuit of this identity lens secret shopper exercise that we have companies go through. And like I have some really fun stories where people thought that they were selling to X and then through this exercise they realized they were really selling for Y.

[Michael Stelzner]

So okay, let's give an example to help people wrap their head around this.

[Veronica Romney]

One of my favorite examples is a company called talkbox Mom. Literally the domain Mike is mom. They literally put the buyer in the domain name. So talkbox mom, it's a company, it's a small company that is self funded that teaches families how to speak foreign languages. So they recently had their whole team come to one of my workshops and we spent like 30 minutes where they kind of divided and conquered the Internet. One person did Reddit, the other person did Facebook groups. The other one was like in the comments, YouTube and all, all the things. And independently they came back and like shared all of the user sentiment words. And what kept on coming up as far as language was like fluency, fluent family, et cetera, et cetera. And so what we had discovered through this exercise, that was yes, in spite of the fact that mom is 95% of the time making the purchasing decision. It's not because mom is buying Spanish to learn Spanish to run off to Mexico with her Spanish lover. Mom is buying Spanish for her family to be fluent in Spanish. She's not buying for her aspirational development, she's actually buying for the family's aspirational up leveling so that they can draw closer to each other. They can experience the outside world with more unity and connection. Like, she's really doing it for her family. So what came out of the exercise with this concept? Instead of just targeting talkbox mom, you know, talkbox mom users, it was actually speaking to fluency families and families that wish to become fluent.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so how in the world did you get to the bottom of that? Let's give some tips for some people to at least be able to do some of this on their own. Because what I'm hearing you say, first of all, is this example of TalkBox Mom. And yes, mom is actual domain URL. Folks, I checked what you discovered through a series of some sort of process was that the mom is the buyer, and the mom isn't buying for her, she's buying for her kids and maybe her husband, and she's trying to get them to understand another language because she wants them to experience the world in a bigger way. Something along those lines, right? How in the world does someone get to the bottom of that? Like, what are some tips on how we could discern that?

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah, well, again, the hardest paradigm shift that my own clients will go through is like, they're so accustomed to do the identity, like, the auditing of their brand from that brand perspective, from the ego of, like, what are saying about us? Just that paradigm shift that when you're looking on the Internet and all these little corners, your own Instagram comments, your YouTube comments, your Facebook group, your customer survey responses, your inbox, just going through these channels and making sure that you block out what they say about you, and you're only hyper focusing on what they're saying about themselves. Good, bad, neutral, I don't care. You're just extracting sentiment language around them and how they perceive themselves and what they want or what they struggle with. It's just about them. If anybody listens to this podcast and just does that exercise tonight, I think you'd be surprised what you're finding interesting.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so is it possible that we could, believe it or not, take all this and throw it into an AI model and ask it to, like, help us? You got any tips on how to do that?

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah, I actually love AI. I'm a very pro AI. And when you go through the workshop, we actually give you all of our AI prompts that we've used. So, yes. Can you do that? Can you use AI to analyze external resources? For sure. However, be careful with AI, because AIs will summarize or rephrase user sentiment and user language. I don't want you to do that. Be really, really careful. I want you to see their own language in its raw form, because that's oftentimes where you find the identity in plain sight. But if you have it summarized and put in a summary, it just won't work as well. So just be careful with that.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay? So I think that the magic to all this is to have really good data at the front of what we're talking about, 100%. But what's really good about what Veronica said is you can go and look in comments, right? My guess is you can look in comments on other people's YouTube videos also. Right? You can look in comments on other People's posts. I mean, is it possible that you could, especially if you're new, right? If you don't even have these customers yet, you could go seek these out? Or is that really much better for people that are already your existing customers? What's your thoughts on that?

[Veronica Romney]

Most of the time, identity work is done for you. In the absence of you providing an identity, your people, if you've been in business for a minute, will do the work on your behalf. Hogs was not created by Harley Davidson. That was self appointed by a group that would actually tie Hogs to the back of their bike when they would win tournaments.

[Michael Stelzner]

Oh, literally. Okay, wow. Okay, really?

[Veronica Romney]

And then like 10, 20 years later, Harley Davidson, the brand was like, oh, we should take this and have this mean something. So now it means the Harley owners group. But it was just Hogs and Swifties. Taylor Swift never called them Swifties. First it was they called themselves Swifties. And then she acknowledged it in an interview like years later. So oftentimes, if you're already in business and in practice, the identity work is done for you. You just have to literally find it. In the absence of that, because you are a brand new business, you're going through a major rebrand or pivot, your buyer is going to be completely different or you have like literally nothing to work off of. To then Mike's point, then we would advise you to look at other providers who are targeting the same buyer because they're not doing identity marketing work. So you can probably be secure in that.

[Michael Stelzner]

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[Veronica Romney]

Yeah. Prove it.

[Michael Stelzner]

How do we do something with it? How do we know it's the right thing?

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah. And I also want to just make a quick Surgeon General warning like and I mentioned in the book, be very, very, very careful. And this goes for the savviest of marketers. We're probably the most guilty of this. Be very careful that your customer data doesn't incorrectly point you in the wrong direction when it comes to prospect marketing. So to me, those who have never purchased from me will have different language and different levels of understanding versus the language of customer. So yes, I love a great customer testimonial treasure trove, but oftentimes customer testimonials will also include language that was adopted after the purchase wall. So just be really careful. I really actually care most about what prospect language, which is why I like Instagram comments and things like that, because they haven't necessarily bought from you yet.

[Michael Stelzner]

Ah, okay, well, that's important. So let's, let's just put a big pin in that, folks. If you have a newsletter with non customers on there, I would imagine that could be a really great source because they've been just like being nurtured in your newsletter.

[Veronica Romney]

Correct.

[Michael Stelzner]

If you have a lot of people on the social channels, YouTube, Instagram, whatever, these are all great places for you to mine for this information. Right. And look for that. Because the dangerous thing is that the language that they adopt could be influenced by you once they become a customer is what you're saying. And you want to make sure you use their natural language before they ever come a customer? Is that what I'm hearing you say?

[Veronica Romney]

Nailed it. I couldn't have explained it better than that. That was perfect.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so what's the next part of your process once you think you found it?

[Veronica Romney]

So let's say in our identity secret shopper experience, we find something juicy. We find fluency families, we find talk Tribe, we find bilingual bun. I mean, there's so many different directions that maybe talkbox mom could have taken, because all of those were very popular. But we have to validate. We have to prove it. Like, there are very big brands who spend a ton of money trying to force feed an identity to its buyer base. And the buyer was like, no, thanks. Like, my favorite is, like, the Pepsi generation. Like, I'm not your generation. No, thanks. Like, hard pass. So even big brands do this incorrectly. So, like, like, we want to go through a step. I call it the Prove it, but we want to go through an adoption or early signals of adoption step where we're at least getting validation. So same thing with talkbox mom, like, when they actually, like, went out and surveyed their people and kind of put, you know, an Instagram poll or things like that. Like, they got pretty harsh feedback around the Talk Tribe concept because it was cultural appropriation. They didn't love the word tribe. So that's an example. But one of my favorite examples in the book of the Prove it is actually a woman named Nicole Wingard, who's affectionately known on the Internet streets, is Nicole the intern. She was literally a $15 an hour intern working at a mocktail beverage business with no funding and from Texas, and literally created an Instagram account from nothing called the best marketing strategy ever, and in less than 60 days, amassed 500,000 followers by empowering hashtag Smash Army. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. She literally, like, would go in her backyard with expired Smash it with a baseball bat film. It was like, zero production value. Put it on the Internet. Had this whole narrative of, like, I have 60 days to prove to my boss that this is a better marketing strategy than his. And, like, within the first, like, 10, 15 days, the people got behind this, like, fight narrative, and they wanted to help Nicole and they wanted to help her in her fight against, you know, this, you know, boss type of figure. Actually, Mike's very, very kind, but they're both on the podcast, really lovely people. But there was one time where she was trying these, like, funny Halloween costumes, and she found an old military hat. She puts it on camera and she treats the can no longer smashing it with a baseball bat. But she treats the can like a grenade. Like, throws it over the fence, it explodes.

[Michael Stelzner]

When you say the can, what are you talking about? Like, I'm trying to visualize what the heck you're talking about.

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah, so like pretend that the can is a grenade. So she pops the top open like.

[Michael Stelzner]

A can of soda or what are we talking about?

[Veronica Romney]

Yes, yes, Like a mocktail beverage. Right. So it's a. She throws it over the fence and then it like explodes. Like it's like, you know, this army grenade or whatever. And the reason I love this story so much beyond its crazy success is the fact that like, again, she's a 15 an hour intern, no marketing budget, expired product. And yet because of her putting herself out there and looking for early signals of adoption and feedback and like being on board with this concept, she started reading her the comments and the Instagram comments that people were in the fight with her. And so on day 15, she offers up her proactively on her own hashtag, Smash Army. It's adopted immediately. Everyone's like, hashtag Smash Army. This Smash army is born. It was so successful of a campaign that they literally renamed the entire company from Mixology to Smashed just because of this.

[Michael Stelzner]

So, just so I understand, because I don't think I'm completely tracking here, what exactly did she do? She had a bunch of expired drinks and she figured I'm going to smash them with. With, with different things just to see if I can get attention. Is that really what you're saying? So she'd smash it with everything you could imagine, like a baseball bat versus like a. I don't know, like anything. A lawnmower pinata. Okay.

[Veronica Romney]

Yep.

[Michael Stelzner]

And what was the hypothesis this, that she was trying to prove here? I guess that's the part I'm trying to grab my head.

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah, this is an underdog brand. They don't have. There's no venture funding. There's no one's poured any money into this company. The beverage space is so super saturated, wildly competitive, tons of money being funded into these organizations. They're the underdog of underdog stories. They don't have any type of like formal marketing budget, and yet they have a whole bunch of like expired cans about to expired cans. And so her and her boss Mike basically were like, how can we get evangelize or get people on board? How can we make the product and part of the narrative? Not necessarily because no one's going to push like a product down anybody's throat. So they came up with this idea and they used. The reason I bring this up is they use social media media very much like how comedians will work out their jokes in dirty clubs before we ever see the very polished Netflix special. They didn't even use the brand's Instagram account. They created a brand new Instagram account from zero called the best marketing strategy ever. Zero followers day one. And in 60 days grew it to 500, 000 followers. Because they brought people into an invitation to become the Smash army and fight with Nicole to, like, win this bet that she could outperform her boss's marketing strategies in 60 days.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so back to the prove it thing. Let's say we've got a concept, an idea that we want to prove. What I heard you saying is, like, do a survey, but what other things can we do, obviously, if we're not going to do something crazy like what Nicole did.

[Veronica Romney]

Well, yeah. So what I teach are, you know, literally on day one of the workshop, we have our attendees, like, start validating some of this. Because between customer survey templates, you have social media where A story lasts 24 hours. A post can be posted and then archived within seconds if you want to. We have at our disposal, in very affordable ways, channels that we can offer up or solicit feedback and find early signals of adoption that are free for us to use. And that's exactly what Nicole did in this effort using Instagram specifically. But we have surveys, we have other social media channels. There's many other ways that you can basically involve somebody to giving you validation.

[Michael Stelzner]

What are we looking for when we're trying to validate here?

[Veronica Romney]

There's different ways to do it. You can flat out ask them, like, hey, what do you think about fluency, family, this, this, or this? I've seen some of our participants just be that direct. I've had other participants put some of the identity naming on like swag mockups and then asking people if they would prefer to wear this shirt or this shirt or this shirt with different. Right. So like, there's different ways in which we're doing it, but you're basically having somebody endorse the fact that they would wear or proudly identify in this manner.

[Michael Stelzner]

Interesting. Okay. And I would imagine you could also create social posts that are themed around these things. What you're really watching for is high engagement, rich comments, that kind of stuff. Is that really what we're looking for?

[Veronica Romney]

Yep, you're all of the above. Especially in the repeating the language is really, really important. We've even had validation found in cold advertising because they really didn't want their existing customers to validate this. So they actually did like five different. Same exact ad creative. But the ad copy. The first line of the ad copy was like, hey, soul sister. Hey, dude. Like, name identity, name number two, Identity name three. And they actually use their cold ads to. And they stripped out. They excluded their existing customer. Right. Custom audience. It was through the cold advertising play and just changing the identity, the identification of hey, you. And then offering the name to see which ones was clicked on more. Yeah, yeah, we've seen it in all the different ways.

[Michael Stelzner]

I would imagine you could split test a landing page or something like that too, with headlines and stuff like that. Okay, so here's what we know so far, we've talked about. First of all, you gotta find it and it is some unique aspiration or identity that your best customer audience, prospective, future audience has and then figure out a way to, for lack of better words, come up with a name or a phrase and then prove out that those words are actually connecting with your audience through the examples that we just talked about. Once you feel like you have actually gotten enough data, what do we do next?

[Veronica Romney]

Okay, so third step is name it. But that seems obvious. Like, Veronica, I already have the name. No, no, no. I loathe. I loathe shallow marketing stuff. I loathe it deeply. And so I'm not helping you find a cutesy community name. Stop it right now. Right? What we're looking for is somebody who's willing to be buried in a name like that level of devotion. So the third step, when I say name it, it just means give it deep, profound contextual meaning to what it means to be this. And you have to provide that narrative, right? So it's no different than, like, I literally give birth in the hospital. I tell my family I've named this beautiful child Miles or James. And like, like, usually the very next question is like, well, why did you name him Miles? And why did you name him James? And why I named the dog what I named the dog. Like, we desperately desire and seek out contextual understanding behind things that should hold significance. It's just a psychological fact of human behavior, right? So if somebody were to stumble upon the Fluency family, the swifties, the hogs, the smash army, what does that mean? And that's really for the brand to define, to give it deep meaning. And we go through this fun exercise, the dojo casa house, meaning, where it has, like, an origin story, it has its non negotiables, it has a slogan. Very much like how politicians will like literally get 51% of the country to vote for them over like a slogan. Like you. There's so many different parts to this, but the essentially the concept is it has deep, profound meaning that we get to define so that somebody proudly knows what they stand for when they wear this.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so give us some tips on how to do the Dojo casa house, which sounds a little Japanese meets Spanish or something there, right?

[Veronica Romney]

It's a little nod, actually. It's a nod to Ken in the movie Barbie where he like takes over Barbie's house and he calls it the Dojo casa house of patriarchy. It's like one of my favorite movies. Yeah.

[Michael Stelzner]

So how in the world do we actually like name. Give us some tips on how to name this stuff because this sounds very crafty and some people need a little creative guidance here.

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah. And also, mind you, most of the people that we work with are not like these gifted copywriters. So obviously we're going to hand you a whole plethora of AI you want to talk about AI Wait, there's so many different prompts, there's so many different templates and things that you know that are tools that will aid you in this. But essentially, like you, we really like to start with the origin story. Like what is the birth story of this group? Why does it mean something? Why does it have place in the world? And why is it inviting others to understand in, to join this? Right. Like this is very important. This is an inclusive marketing angle and marketing messaging. It's beyond the shallow. So we definitely start with the origin story, which sometimes can tie directly to the identity of the visionary or the founder of the organization. Like very Walt Disney, where like the Disney magic lives on. Right. Other times it's more the origin of the people that this company was started for. Everybody has a little bit of a different origin. Then we go through a process of just like if you were to invite people to campaign for you, again, very similar to a political campaign, what slogan would you cry out in the streets to unite people in all walks of life? Because that's the other thing about identity. It's not demographic identity, it's soul identity. So it's not everybody who identifies as 32 year old female who has an interest in Volvo. It's deeper than that. And so like we go through these different exercises, but those are, I think the origin story is probably one of my favorite prompts in that one. One.

[Michael Stelzner]

You know, as a former professional copywriter, I've been, I've been saying, long live EM Dash. And. And I'm having. I'm having a lot of people resonate with that because in the AI, in the AI world, M dash is like, looked down upon because AI understands what humans have understood forever, that the M dash is this beautiful tool that gives us space in our writing. And you've got these people on the one side that are like, if it's EM Dash, it's AI. And I'm like, long, long live the EM Dash. Long live the EM Dash. You know, and. And it's almost become a little rallying call for the copywriting community that wants to, like, retain this thing.

[Veronica Romney]

And they should call themselves M dashers or whatever.

[Michael Stelzner]

Right.

[Veronica Romney]

Like, honestly. Right. Like, if that means something to them and the purity of great copywriting, then that's its own meaning and contextual understanding.

[Michael Stelzner]

Yeah. So back to something you said about the. That I wanted to really dig in on. You said. You said, start with the birth story of this group. Okay, So I think this is a distinction that we need to clarify. We're creating what you called a group of people, a subclass, a community, not just a message. That's an important distinction because through these threads that you've been talking about with Swifties, Hogs, talkbox, and Smash army, these are groups that have some sort of identity that transcends the business. And I feel like that's the missing piece we probably need to dig on a little bit here. We're not just creating a brand identity, we're creating a. A group identity. And I feel like we should pause for a second and help people understand because they're going to have to persuade their boss. How in the world, by identifying a group of people, is that going to help our brand? Does that make sense?

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah. No. And I appreciate you taking a pause, a beat to just let that land. Yeah. It is important. It is really, really important. And I think too, it's like, I mean, when trying to do revolutionary things or innovative marketing techniques or strategies that, like former organizations or employers or boardrooms have not yet, you know, accustomed to seeing, you have to start with their understanding. And then I love the improv rule of yes and yes, we will do the classic whatever has already worked. We're not throwing the baby out with the bath water, which is a terrible expression, but yes. And what would it be like if we took all of our best prospective customers, put them in a room, evangelize them, and then just, like, let them loose in the world? What magic could that create? Right. And having the science and the data to back that up. Yeah.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay. So I want you to keep going on that just a little bit longer, because what I think I heard you say is go to your boss for those of you that feel like this is going to be a hard sell, and explain to them that, hey, if we can label this group something that's never been labeled before, right? Like the. They've never heard that phrase before. And it just so happens that our company, our customers that we're trying to attract are in that group. Group. This is the unlock. Just connect those dots a little bit.

[Veronica Romney]

I'll give you a technique that has worked really well for myself, but also for some of our other participants when trying to relay or trying to convey value in an intangible concept. Because what we're talking about is intangible, right? And so, like, presenting something intangible and pitching that into is really difficult oftentimes, but it's really not. If you think about how much companies are pouring into having their name on merch and swag. Please. Right? Like, how many times have we poured money into having our logo on the yeti or the Stanley or the candle or the. The pen or the. So what if, in addition to having our name be on a billboard, on a notepad, on a mouse track, on a. Whatever, it was also across the chest of our most beloved customers or prospective customers, and they were wearing it on a hat or in honestly, in some cases, they literally get it tattooed on their sk. You know, you've made it in identity marketing when somebody's tattooing your logo or your, you know, emblems on their skin, it's crazy. What value would that additionally provide for us beyond just the cheap swag at a conference?

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, so we started with find it. Then we. Then we went to prove it, which is the validating part. And then we went to name it, which we spent a lot of time on this. We went down a little rabbit, rabbit trail. Really? Just like, hey, this is really a group that we're identifying here. Not necessarily, you know, M Dashers. Yeah, the M Dashers. So what's next?

[Veronica Romney]

Last step. My favorite step is the dress. It. And we've. I mean, you can tell that we're already going in that direction because we were just talking about it. But, like, this is where. And Seth Godin says this too. Like, people want to wear their religion. We want to showcase externally what we believe internally. It's just something that we do. And so this is where we get to basically turn an intangible into a tangible. Regardless if you are literally in the physical products space or not. And one of my favorite stories of all time is a company called Red Ants Pants, which is started by a woman named Sarah Calhoun, who literally grew up in like hard labor, manual labor in the fields, the farms, right, the pastures. And 20 years ago, if you were a woman who prided herself on doing hard things, the clothing that would stand up to that task was actually men's clothing. Like, they didn't sell manual workwear for women 20 years ago. There wasn't a perceived marketplace for it. So she. This is like the story of every entrepreneur. No one's willing to solve a problem. I've identified a problem. I must solve problems, start a business. So she moves to Bozeman, Montana. Her first weekend in Bozeman, Montana, she's sitting in a local cafe, which is small. She's reading one of those, like neon yellow books, like, you know, small Business for Dummies. Do you remember those books? The Small Business for Crocheting for Dummies, like really obnoxious yellow. And she's sitting there in the cafe, she's reading this book, bright and bushy tail, like junior entrepreneur. And an older gentleman walks up to her because it's a small town, you know, kind of like strikes up a conversation, notices her book, says, hey, I see your book. What are you doing? Like, are you starting a business? Thinking about starting a business? She's like, yeah, I want, I think, you know, there's, there's need for workwear pants for women. Like, we, there's just nothing. We only can wear men's clothing to do what it is that we do. And this is where, like, whether you believe in the invisible hand, God, the universe, lo and behold, this individual that she meets randomly in her first weekend in a brand new town that she moves into had just finished like 10 years plus working at a company called Patagonia. And not only has he worked at Patagonia, he is like the guy who knows all the peoples, all the connections. And he validates her. He tells her, like, Sarah, not only do you have, you know, a good idea, you have a great idea and you should move on this extremely quickly and I want to help you. And so Red Ants Pants is born. Because in a red ant colony, the female red ant does all of the hard work, not the male ant. Now she makes a very, I think, controversial decision. She decides that she doesn't want to be B2B. She doesn't want to take her pants to retailers, and then retailers sell it to us. She Knows she wants to take the pants pants directly to the women. But the problem is where are these hard working women located? In the middle of freaking nowhere. They're in fields and pastures and like ranches. So her and her sister and their border collie puppy rent an Airstreamer and they take the pants on the road all through North America, going through like boom and bus town one at a time, sharing the good news of red ants pants. The swell, the word of mouth that starts to occur literally. You can follow their journey on the blog the Antidote. She's inviting people to join the ant hill. It's a whole movement. She starts doing these challenges where they would sew red ants into pants in different locations in the pants. So like if my aunt was on my left heel and your aunt was also on your left heel, then we would be connected. So they would do like red ants pants challenges.

[Michael Stelzner]

But they weren't real red ants you were talking about. I like the emblem is where Stitch the little stitch.

[Veronica Romney]

Right. And so in the first year, they also believed in elevating the economics of these small towns in addition to selling product. So they hosted a music festival. And the first year 6,000 people showed up just because of word of mouth. They've had up to like 30,000, 40,000 attendees in recent years. And like famous country artists will come. My favorite story though in this success is that there was a woman who was going into surgery and she was obviously frightened and she requested from the OR team if she could please wear her red ants pants into the surgical room when she went in because it reminded her of her strength. Sarah and her company, they're not asking you to order now. They're inviting you to join the colony. You can literally go to the website. You're joining the colony. It's more than just pants.

[Michael Stelzner]

Fascinating. So do you have any tips on how in the world we can quote, unquote, dress it, especially for those of us that don't sell pants?

[Veronica Romney]

Yeah. Well, this is where again, this is going to be unique for every company and every person. Right? So like in the case of Talkbox mom, they're going to have pieces of clothing or pieces of items that would be very meaningful for a traveling family. Smash army, it's going to be military. You can literally go to their website and buy military stuff because it's the Smash army and it has that feeling. So I can't tell you what to do. It is directly tied to your people and what matters most to them. But this is where you, you literally get to dress Them and give them the same power that Harley Davidson has. When you think of Harley, you think of like black, shiny leather America. Like it's that same impact where you're dressing the identity of a hog, you're dressing the identity of your people.

[Michael Stelzner]

What I like about all these examples is they're tapping into something that people are familiar with. Like in the idea of the smash army, you know, the military theme. Right. In the case of the red ants pants, they're talking about ants, right. And they got. When you start thinking creatively about ants, like you mentioned colonies and, and you know, and workers and hard workers and all, all these different things that are metaphors carrying your weight and then some, you know, like all these things that go with that, that larger known theme. Right, but you don't have to do that. But it sounds like if you can tap into kind of a familiar already existing concept, then you can take this and like ride it further.

[Veronica Romney]

Oh, 100. I mean, yeah, I think everybody on the planet knows a swifty. Before they tell you they're a swifty, like you can tell you see them. I remember when I was running my rainmaker residency programs and I was helping marketers become master rainmakers. And so we would have so much fun with that. I remember like at one of our events we had like a money gun and it would shoot out bills with, with all of the attendees faces and they would take pictures of their face on these fake bills and like put it, you know, it just, it means something. And I love what you said, like taking it to something they already have an understanding or that an acceptance of and then elevating it and tying it to their identity. Yeah.

[Michael Stelzner]

Veronica Romney, if people want to connect with you on the socials, where do you want to send them? And if they want to consider working with you, where should they go?

[Veronica Romney]

I'm V. Romney on all socials. That's easy.

[Michael Stelzner]

V. The letter V. Yes, V. And.

[Veronica Romney]

Then Romney R, O, M, N, E, Y. Actually, my favorite social media channel right now is LinkedIn, but my second favorite is Instagram. So those are the two. Yeah.

[Michael Stelzner]

Okay, cool. And then if they want to work with you, where do you want to send them?

[Veronica Romney]

Veronicarami.com for all things book, all things, everything. Me. Yeah.

[Michael Stelzner]

Awesome. Veronica, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today.

[Veronica Romney]

Thank you.

[Michael Stelzner]

Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you [e-mail] 676 and if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a longtime listener. Would you give us a review and let your friends know about us? Also, do check out our other shows, the AI Explored Podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzer. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Just a quick reminder before you go. If you're ready to become indispensable in the age of AI, the AI Business Society is your solution. Join now and secure your discounted membership by visiting social mediaexaminer.com AI I can't wait to see you inside the AI Business Society.