How to Build your Business with Heart, with Aub Wallance

This week on the Healthy and Wealthy Podcast (formerly the Health Collective Podcast), Rita is joined by the co-founder of Dandelion Branding, Aub Wallace.

Join us as we explore holistic and values-aligned approaches to marketing and branding. Aub shares her insights into developing businesses and brands that put people and planet first, using data responsibly, and how storytelling can build community in an increasingly digital world.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aub-wallace/
https://www.instagram.com/dandelion_branding

Rita is a health and fitness coach who specialises in helping women over 40 to be healthy and wealthy, through weight loss and/or business coaching. Find out more here 👉 https://thehealthandfitnesscoach.com

New episodes of The Healthy and Wealthy podcast are released every Tuesday 🧡

Watch the full episodes on YouTube

Transcript

In today's episode of the health collective podcast, we're joined by orbx, the co founder of dandelion branding, a digital marketing agency dedicated to elevating the transition to a sustainable future, we get into the nitty gritty of what holistic marketing is about how data is used your personal data in terms of business, marketing and branding, but equally, how we can develop businesses in a more sustainable carbon zero footprint way, and how marketing actually has a huge role to play in detailing story and the future of generations to come. If you're interested in marketing, branding, sustainability, or how we can make everything in business, a more holistic, and climate friendly development as we move forward, then today's episode is definitely for you. If you need any help in your own health, body, or wellness from a holistic perspective, then make sure to check out our website, which is the health and fitness coach.com. And make sure you subscribe to the channel for more exclusive podcast episodes coming your way. Enjoy.
So as I said, we are welcomed to the show with all who has just told me to pronounce her name like Bob without the B which is now going to stick in my head for the rest of the day. But seeing as she is in marketing, that's probably her forte, getting things to stick in your head. As mentioned, orb is co founder of dandelion branding. So first of all, really massive Welcome to the show. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to be with us.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me here. And I really appreciate it. I'm excited to have a little chat. Absolutely.
So marketing is such a diverse, sort of arena. And there's probably so many different people competing within a marketing space to market to those that need it. So down the line branding is a very distinctive name. So where did it come from? What's the ethos behind what you do and how you bring your own unique style to marketing?
Absolutely. So dandelion has is one of both mine and my co founder Courtney's favourite flowers. It is the first be food in a year in a year, it they come up when they're needed, and they don't come when they are not needed. So the and they are extremely healthy for our bodies for the soil for the planet for animals. So all around their beautiful plant. They are also known throughout the entire world, which we want with as a marketing agency. And for our clients. They also want to be right so they represent something that's really recognisable, those flower, you know, their their seeds spread, you know, really clearly, you know, you see when you see a dandelion, you know what it is, right. So that's really what we pulled from is kind of all of those things. It's a really holistic name. And it matches really well with our focus, which is on holistic marketing. So we don't just post randomly on on Instagram or other social media, we don't just make blog articles, we really focus on what's happening internally for a business and what's going on in their sector. And we work with brands that are focused on the transition to a more sustainable future. So we're very focused on what is happening for the full business when we create our marketing strategies. And when we create our marketing content, and how we optimise websites and the work that we do, they're
amazing. So you use the phrase holistic marketing. Now holistic means some thing to me in terms of wellness and health and body and obviously is taking an overall view of the whole environment. So how does that apply to the branding and marketing? What does that mean? Right?
So it's, it's the same thing. We get that term because I'm a certified herbalist. So I come from a world of looking at root causes and holistic healing. And a business is kind of the same. You know, if the United States is going to go so far as to say that corporations equal people, we should also look at them as holistic, right? We should make sure I know big eyeroll but I And I'm with you there. But we're where it comes from their marketing into is to make sure that we're talking transparently, that we're looking at the depth of a company that we're when we're talking about what they're doing. We're talking about what they're doing not making marketing content. So we look at the root of a business, always we look at that deep taproot back to the dandelion of what they're connected with, what their values are. And we push out content and like focus almost solely on who they need to be speaking with, and what they should be saying around that content and what good they're putting into the world as well.
I think that's a really interesting perspective to take the sort of the value, which I think in today's society has been lost somewhat, but we are now having a resurgence of everyone, especially since the pandemic I've seen is everyone's looking for tribe, for community, a brand is a story. And everyone wanting to listen, and I, you know, there are some fantastic books out there, I'm sure you've read all of them about why story creates such a phenomenal marketing piece. So I notice orb and Courtney, female lead, so marketing, branding, quite a masculine dominated industry or has been until now. So how have you found creating a more feminine? Even the sort of the dandelion? That's quite an image? So how have you found navigating that in a traditional masculine industry?
That's a really good question. And it's not something that we talk about very often, because we had a really hard go of it. In the beginning, honestly, we did want to bring femininity into marketing, we do want to bring holistic, you know, and targeting and audience care into, into the conversation. And you don't really get that from a masculine perspective. And in the start, not, and that's just like, generally Martin in marketing, but in the then there's the extra layer of where women starting a business. And five years ago, even though women in marketing were very much like, you have to be in everybody's face all the time, get it done. And the end, the men, you know, they would see that we're a marketing agency, and then they would just kind of like, show up in our DMS and be really strange. I don't know if you have this as like a female business owner, but you're like, I don't know, if you're trying to like, use my services, or going to a phone call to like, try to hook up like, why are we why are you talking to me like this? Like, would you? Would you contact a male lead agency, and treat them like it was a little project or like, you could just like show up in their lives and create a personal connection. And then I don't know what the goal is there, right, like, so we were having a lot of these strange conversations with people, mostly men, where we weren't taken seriously, at the same time trying to sort of bring change into an industry. And it was like that was tough. Moving forward, I think we just kind of buckled down and stayed to the path. And it has gotten easier. We have found our people, we have found other female lead agencies that we now mostly work with, actually, a lot of our I would would I say a lot of our clients? Well, I would say actually, they're pretty 5050, male, female. For a while we were specifically only working with women because of this issue. And then we were like, men have more access to investment and scale in reality, and our focus needs to be on changing the world and elevating the voices of solutions, tangible sustainability solutions. So we need to also be focusing on working with men and just finding the right clients. For us, that won't treat us like little girls.
Absolutely. And it's interesting because one of the things and I think we see it not just in gender, but across the board when it comes to segregations is that the more and I say this with air quotes for those listening, not watching the more than minority and in this case in this particular industry. Please don't send me you know, angry emails in this particular industry. When Meanwhile, the minority but the more we then only work with other members of the minority, the more we can continue and perpetuate the segregation, this sort of idea that men and women are different. But equally Do you find that when it comes to marketing and branding, so for instance, you know, where I related to in my industry, men and women's bodies are different, they need to be treated differently. They utilise, you know, fuel mindset, everything is is unique. Do you find the same when you're marketing or branding to specific genders Do you find that marketing to women or marketing to men is different.
While we take a different approach to that, in general, so we very rarely, we very rarely break our audiences down by gender. So typically, we break our audiences down by interest by care by value. And then we utilise the voice of the brand to speak to that. So sometimes our brands that we work with are more masculine. In that case, we're going to use a stronger, stronger statements more masculine voices chunkier, you know, font and bold and language and other cases when our client or the brand itself is feminine. You know, a really good example is we work with fearless farmers, they're a regenerative agriculture company that is women female led love them. They have a very feminine vibe, their female lead, they focus on working with women and girls in the regenerative agriculture space. But farming is notoriously like, not really gendered and notoriously is a bit more masculine. So we have to, like really connect this mix of language. And so we really don't push into gender there we push into like, what's the truth behind this? And what is the interest of the people coming to the brand?
is interesting, speaking about regenerative? What a fantastic word that I'm unable to say regenerative farming weekly, for those watching you, you're somebody's background, or home or office environment usually says something about them. And I'm seeing a lot of foliage, I'm seeing some flower, I'm seeing green, all of this leads to a sense of regeneration of sustainability. So do you? And if so, how do you incorporate that into your marketing and your company? Yeah.
Well, my, my background has a lot of plants because there's the right light in here. For my plants, my whole house is sort of a little indoor garden. But essentially, it comes from us, right Courtney is is also plant focused and are focused, and we want to be true to our own values. So that's who we work with. But it's also how we work. So not only are we working holistically and working with folks that are dedicated to a sustainable, sustainable transition, but we also want to lower the digital carbon footprint of our clients. So that looks like making quality content, reusing their content, focusing on search engine optimization, so that they're not bringing bullshit, excuse me, they're not bringing like traffic that shouldn't be on their site there. We are not focused on these huge numbers that typical marketing agencies are focused on. We're focused on very high quality leads, and and like a focus on who is it that you want to speak to let speak only to them, you don't need to speak to everybody bring in who's going to be valuable for you. That makes a really big difference.
So how do you foresee marketing or branding developing over the next sort of 123 decades and what I mean by that is, as we become more and more, and we're seeing it across the globe, we have to understand that this is the way that we're moving is rather than a face to face, we're moving to an online society. As that happens, things like aI become more involved. So for instance, you know, posting a lot of people or just using chat GTP and various things like that. How do you foresee branding, developing and changing and what is the role of companies like yourself in shaping how we see the future? How we view each other how we relate to each other? As you know, this online world develops?
I think that's a great question. It's also a really tough question. Because it's changing all the time. Right? I think I'll tell you what's going on right now, is that AI isn't really, you can use chat GPT, you can use AI, I use AI to help write some of the work I do. It needs a lot of editing. People that are just throwing those pieces of content up, you're gonna start to see them being ranked lower, and not as not bringing in as much interest or it's going to start feeling like greenwashing red flags thrown around, because AI just like doesn't know, right now, about how we perceive what it's generating. You know, it doesn't know how to like, think through that it doesn't know how to think through, here's audience information. Here's what they want to see. And here's what I want you to write so that it's correct for this audience. At the same time, it's moving in that direction. So is it going to be there by the end of the decade? Hell yes, it is. Do I still think there will be a place for agencies like mine? Yeah. Because somebody has to know how to use those tools strategically to get into the face into the right pockets of people. I have a lot of learning to do, basically, because I have to keep up with that. But I don't think that, that folks that are operating solely on AI will ever really be like at the at the very top tip top, I think there really needs to be that human interaction. Because we care about human interaction. And going back to your point about story, we care about story, because in the beginning, it's all we had. And in the end, it's pretty much still all we have in in terms of how we relate to each other, an AI, for as human as it can get is still artificial. So we still are going to have to have something as a barrier for what's quality and what's not for the people we want to target. That makes sense. Absolutely
makes sense. And you're right, there is a constant continuing learning. I mean, in most industries there is but when it comes to technology, you know, we can just look at the last 30 years and see what's changed. And when it comes to marketing and branding, which I'm guessing the majority of what you do is in an online space, whether that's social media, or website, and obviously even that's developed because 30 years ago, most marketing and branding was print media, and print media itself, although it is becoming archaic. Can I say that is someone married to a printer, so please forgive me if you listen to this. Although that is now becoming archaic, there was a tangible nature, it lasted you could pick up a paper and whatever was printed in it was still there, it was still creating an impact online. Things almost seem to have such a minimal shelf life or half life in terms of that impact one that day, they're here one day they'd gone. And a lot of social media where marketing and branding is being done from a company perspective. And actually from a personal perspective, if you just use meta for personal purposes, how much of it really belongs to us. So for instance, if you are doing marketing, branding content on any of the meta platforms, how much does it really belong to the company and how much does it now belong to this big organisation, which is metaverse.
Um, you don't I'm the shit you put on social media. You have to be very clear, that does not belong to you. i They can do whatever they want with it. They can not show anybody they often if you're a business, Metaverse does a very good job of not showing your content to people. That's another part of why holistic marketing is so important for us because when it does when they do show that content the idea is that it should drive people to have a website, it should drive people somewhere. So that you can use a retention strategy because you don't own what you post online. So if only are on social media, so if your only marketing is like, I'm going to make an Instagram post that can be gone. If Instagram goes down, you've lost all your content, you've lost all your followers, you don't have their data you don't you don't know who they are, you have to do. And if you want to know who they are, you have to do a tonne of manual work to find it. Where so we actually are, I'm a huge fan of email marketing, because it's super duper intimate. Like, how much attention do you pay to your inbox versus your scroll, you have one attention at a time, sometimes, you know, you go through and you say I don't want to read these right now. But eventually you're going to open one of those emails and and that business's email has your full attention. Right. And if you if someone gives you their email address, it means they expect to hear from you in a time when it's just you and their screen. So you can have a lot more personal interaction there. And you own the data. You can you own what you put, like we use clay VO and you have clay vo goes down, that would suck for us. But we could go in there we can download a CVS a CSV file super easily people are giving you that information, not meta, right. So I think that it's really important to be posting on social, I also think it's really important to have those calls to action where you're driving people somewhere where you can collect the information from the folks that are interested in continuing on a journey with you.
That's a really interesting point. And to wrap up, you know, before we finish and by the way, I could ask you questions for the next two hours, just so you're aware. But I know that we have a limited time. The word data is probably a word that fills people business or not with fear. From a business perspective, data is necessary. But it's also something for a lot of creatives in business, the artistic type is a very terrifying word. And I'm an artistic type. So I'm saying from personal, but equally as a consumer, the word data and the idea of what it's being used for is also quite an intimidating prospect. So what's your view? You know, you just said one of the goals is to collect data. So what's your view from a holistic and sustainable and moral and ethical perspective on how we collect data and what we use it for? That's
such a good question. I am a data nerd. I'm a big fan. I love it. I love looking at who, how people are responding to the posts we make to the emails we send the website traffic, all of that is I mean, look, you know, the there's medicine and poison are two sides of the same coin. Right is what you're looking at here. Data can go too far. Absolutely. And we've seen it used in a really horrible ways, especially like in politics, you know. That said, it is so useful when it's it's crucial when it comes to marketing, good marketing and holistic marketing. Because we're building strategies based off of real time, audience information. And that isn't like, you know, Rita Trotter, click to this link. I can see that for email marketing, but you you want me to have that information, because then I know what you like, right? But it's more it's larger than that. It's like, you know, 80% of people went to your website and then immediately left? Well, why, you know, we can look at that data, we can look at what pages people are landing on and how they're leaving, and kind of try to optimise that page for reducing that. So we can push them to another page or get them to do or not, yeah, optimise it so that their journey is a lot easier for the action you want them to take. Now, again, I work with companies that are putting good into the world. I can tell you that, you know, a lot of marketing agencies aren't and there are a lot of business businesses out there that are using your data that are using your data to get you to do things like over consume and buy shit you don't need. So it's really about trusting the businesses that you're putting your time and energy into and what you're what we're where you're spending your time where you're clicking and where you're spending your money. If you trust the companies that you're clicking on and buying from, you should trust that they're really actually using the information that you're offering them to make the experience better for you.
Absolutely. I think that's a fantastic note to wrap up on. And it is about finding your people, whether that's as a business, finding your consumer or as a consumer, finding your business, and creating relationships human to human, we're no longer b2c, or b2b, it's about human to human, and just giving each other the grace of kindness, trust and belief so that we can grow and develop together. So I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time. Like I said, I could ask you more questions, but I know you have a meeting. So that's just for me to say thank you so much to all of you at home for listening. If you want to get in contact with dandelion branding, the information will be in the podcast episode details, as per usual, so feel free to check them out. And thank you so much to Bob without the B. It's gonna stick in my head now or for joining us today. I really appreciate it and it's been fantastic talking with you. Thank
you so much, Rita. Hopefully talk to you soon. Absolutely.
All right. Bye, everyone.