We cover information about the benefits of brand positioning, such as increased email list growth, return traffic, and product sales and practical ways to create a memorable brand for food bloggers.

Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

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Guest Details

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Carrie Tyler is a brand positioning and brand marketing expert with over 20 years experience in Consumer Brand Management for large consumer goods companies. In 2018, Carrie launched her food blog, Talking Meals focusing on easy dinner recipes for busy families. In 2022, Carrie launched a second niche food blog and continues to run both blogs successfully today. Carrie has applied her brand positioning expertise to her own two food blogs and now helps other food bloggers to do the same. Through in-depth customer targeting and using a Food Blogger Brand House Model that she developed, Carrie helps food bloggers narrow in on their customers needs and how they uniquely solve those needs.

Takeaways

  • Brand positioning is crucial for food bloggers to stand out in a crowded market: Establishing a clear brand positioning can help food bloggers differentiate themselves, connect with their target audience, and grow their business.
  • Understanding the emotional needs of the target audience is key: Connecting with the audience on an emotional level, beyond just meeting their rational needs, is essential for building a loyal following.
  • Brand positioning can improve focus and motivation: Having a clear brand positioning can help food bloggers prioritize their tasks and stay motivated, even during challenging times.
  • Brand positioning can enhance website, email, and product/service offerings: Implementing brand positioning across various touch points can improve the user experience and help diversify income streams.
  • It’s never too late to establish brand positioning: Food bloggers at any stage of their business can benefit from defining their brand positioning, even if they’ve been blogging for years.
  • Small changes can make a big impact: Implementing small, incremental changes to align with the brand positioning can have a significant positive impact on a food blogger’s business.
  • The “brand house” model provides a visual framework: Carrie “brand house” model helps food bloggers understand the different elements of their brand and how they work together.

Resources Mentioned

Food Blog Brand Positioning by Carrie Tyler

Transcript

Click for full script.

EBT566 – Carrie Tyler

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported.

Megan Porta  00:38

In this time of kind of tumultuous waters. One thing that is really smart to keep at the top of our minds is how we are positioning ourselves as brands and remember that your food blog is a brand. And you should know how your brand is positioned. Carrie Tyler, she is the blogger at talking meals. She’s a good friend of mine. She’s so smart with marketing and brand positioning, and she helps food bloggers establish their brand positioning. In this episode, she talks through some key points such as how brand positioning can help your business. It can help with your email list. It can help get you return traffic, it can help with your page views and your product sales. She talks about what brand positioning is. It’s more than just meeting a need for your people. It’s creating that emotion creating a memory. And she has this food blogger brand house model that she has created. She talks through all of the elements of that and how you can implement this in your business. Also the fact that it’s not too late. If you are a seasoned blogger and you’ve never established your brand positioning, it’s okay. You can do it now. You can do it on your own or Carrie can help you. This interview absolutely flew by. So that is a sign that it’s really good and I hope you enjoy listening to it. It is episode number 566 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:09

Eat Blog Talk is thrilled to unveil the Eat Blog Talk Accountability group. An exclusive community made for food bloggers who crave accountability, focus and connection. We understand that not everyone is ready to dive into the Mini Minds Group or the Masterminds program. That is why we’ve crafted this special offering for bloggers like you who want that extra push toward their aspirations, but aren’t yet able to make the financial or time commitment. Here’s what the e Blog Talk Accountability Group has in store for you for this low introductory price of $34 a month. This ongoing membership has its own private Slack channel. You will gain access to a dedicated channel facilitated by the community manager at Eat Blog Talk, Taryn Soli for questions, insights, and collaboration. You will get weekly accountability check-ins so you can stay focused and motivated with those weekly check-ins in Slack to track and achieve your goals competently. You’ll have access to productivity focus sessions. Join these optional live Zoom sessions twice a week to boost your productivity by working alongside your peers and tapping into that collective energy. And you will get monthly group Zoom calls replacing the former clubhouse chats. Join these calls to connect, discuss current topics, share experiences, and celebrate achievements. Those calls will be hosted by me, Megan Porta, and I can’t wait to see some of you there. If this sounds intriguing, head over to eatblogtalk.com/focus to sign up today. Eatblogtalk.com/focus.

Megan Porta  03:40

Carrie Tyler is a brand positioning and brand marketing expert with over 20 years experience in Consumer Brand Management for large consumer goods companies. In 2018, Carrie launched her food blog, Talking Meals focusing on easy dinner recipes for busy families. In 2022, Carrie launched a second niche food blog and continues to run both blogs successfully today. Carrie has applied her brand positioning expertise to her own two food blogs and now helps other food bloggers to do the same. Through in-depth customer targeting and using a Food Blogger Brand House Model that she developed, Carrie helps food bloggers narrow in on their customers needs and how they uniquely solve those needs. Good morning, Carrie. So good to have you on the podcast. How are you doing today?

Carrie Tyler  04:26

Hi, Megan. I’m doing awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. 

Megan Porta  04:33

Same. I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get you on the podcast by the way. Oh,

Carrie Tyler  04:39

I’m such a fan girl. I’ve loved to listen to all of your episodes. And and yeah, I’ve known you just through the masterminds and so it’s taken a while partly fear but I’m so happy to be here.

Megan Porta  04:53

Yeah, so glad you’re here. And today we’re going to talk about why food bloggers need brand positioning as a foundation for their business. This is super important. But before we get into this amazing topic, do you have a fun fact to share with us, Carrie?

Carrie Tyler  05:08

I do. It’s a two part fun fact when you know when I don’t think you know who the Part one is that I am actually living in Brazil, which you you know, but most people don’t. We have been living here for two years. But the part that I think that you’ll be so proud of me for is that I most recently here in Brazil, went hang gliding in Rio. Oh, yeah. 

Megan Porta  05:40

Can you tell us more I want to hear about it?

Carrie Tyler  05:43

So it was I mean, I we have that connection of skydiving. I know you love to skydive, and I’ve only been skydiving once in my life. But it was just such an amazing experience. And I always wanted to do it again. But hang gliding is it’s not something you come across every day. Yeah, very. I mean, it’s very unique to Rio. It’s one of these things, you literally jump off a mountain or you run off. And I just told myself that I wanted to do that before I left. And when we found out we’re actually going to be moving back to the United States earlier than anticipated. I said, Okay, well, I guess I’m going to do this. And I was hoping because we had family visiting that it would be more than just me doing this. But everybody else bailed.

Megan Porta  06:31

No way. You were the only one?

Carrie Tyler  06:34

It was just me. And it was but it was amazing. It was amazing. I was it was yeah, seriously, like flying like bird. 

Megan Porta  06:44

Oh my gosh, yeah, that’s on my list. And I’m so excited to hear that you did that. Oh, I can imagine that. It’s just the most freeing feeling. And okay, so the running and jumping off the mountain was that the scary?

Carrie Tyler  07:00

That was so scary. So, you know, in skydiving, you jump out of a plane and obviously that’s it’s really noisy for that first freefall part. Whereas in hang gliding once you make the jump off the cliff. Yeah, it’s just silence and it’s so peaceful. The whole entire thing is just peaceful. It’s it’s really surreal. I mean, I mean, it’s it’s just hard to explain, unless you do it. But yeah, it was just a very peaceful experience. And you’re just soaring through the sky. And but yeah, it’s that that first jumping off the mountain is kind of nerve wracking.

Megan Porta  07:42

Yeah. And the peaceful thing. It’s funny. People ask me all the time, like, what is skydiving, like? And when I say it’s so calming, it’s so peaceful. They almost like what that’s crazy that it can’t be peaceful. You must be just totally stressed. But it’s not. Yeah, I can’t speak for hang gliding, but it’s just like, once you’re out it is total peace. You’re just like, well, I did it. There’s no going back. We’re here in the air flying so.

Carrie Tyler  08:09

And so the Hang Gliding is really when it’s once your parachute opens. That’s the whole experience of the hang gliding. 

Megan Porta  08:19

Okay, well, good for you for doing that, that I’m sure it was.

Carrie Tyler  08:22

I figured you’d appreciate. 

Megan Porta  08:23

Yes, I do. Appreciate it. I’m so glad you’re sure you share that. Maybe we can do it together sometime. That will be 

Carrie Tyler  08:30

I would love it. 

Megan Porta  08:30

Okay. Well, you are here to talk about brand positioning Carrie to just frame our chat a little bit. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your blogging business?

Carrie Tyler  08:40

Yes. So I started my food, my first food blog. It’s called Talking Meals. And it’s easy dinners for busy parents. And I started that in 2018. And I, I really did it from day one as a business. But I did it because I really, you know, I’d spent my years in the corporate world. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that. And I just felt like I wasn’t connected with people anymore. And I wanted to just, you know, help busy moms that were struggling getting dinners on the table and maybe even dreading it and feeling like they wanted to pull their hair out. And so I started my blog, and it, you know, was a lot harder than I thought. But it’s doing really well now and it’s grown quite a bit. And when I moved to Brazil, I started a second blog, which is very niche. It’s, as you know, it’s the Brazil blog, it’s easy, Brazilian food.com And that one just focuses on bringing Brazilian recipes to Americans. So it’s really targeting Americans who want to learn how to cook Brazilian food. Either they’ve married into a Brazilian family or they have resilient friends visited and they just love the food. And so that One has done very well to just because there’s this huge contingent of people who want to learn new cultures and cuisines, and specifically Brazilian food. And so yeah, it’s been it’s been a lot of fun. 

Megan Porta  10:13

Oh, awesome. And are you going to keep up with your Brazilian blog? I assume once you’re back in the States.

Carrie Tyler  10:19

Yeah. So I’m still figuring out kind of what my my strategy going forward is with it now that I won’t be here in Brazil. But I’m still married to Brazilian and I’ve had this amazing experience of living here in the country. And so yeah, I mean, and we’d love the food. And so I don’t plan to walk away from it. It might change slightly going forward. But yeah, I plan to keep it going and continue on posting recipes are for that blog as well. 

Megan Porta  10:52

Good. Okay, awesome to learn that about your blogs. So I know that you like ever since I met you first in the mastermind, you were an Eat Blog Talk mastermind group a few years ago. Yeah. I mean, I’ve known that you’ve been this amazing, just brand marketing person. I remember those questions used to ask people, like, right away, you’d be like, Okay, so, like, why do you want to do that? Like, you just get to the nitty gritty like, why, why is this project important to you? Or like things that we didn’t think to ask you, we’re just getting right to the bottom of like, tell me more kind of thing. So I’ve always known that you’ve been into this, like, what is your brand? How are you positioning yourself? How did you get into that?

Carrie Tyler  11:40

Yeah, so I after college, I knew I wanted to go into business and marketing. And so my, I ended up getting my MBA, and, you know, really specializing in brand management. And so I started working for large consumer goods companies. And the way I like to describe brand management is it’s kind of like owning your own business with the backing of a huge corporation with deep pockets. And so there’s a lot less risk, because it’s not your own money that you’re having to invest in, you do get these nice budgets. But it really is truly, it’s not just about the advertising. It’s really truly like owning your own business. And so you really have to learn the ins and outs of how to run a business. But it all starts with the brand. And so what I loved about that, and still love today, is that it’s this idea of developing a relationship with a customer with a consumer understanding what their need their unmet need is, and figuring out how your brand either uniquely solves that or does it in a better way or a different way, specifically for them. So that’s always been what has drawn me to brand management and marketing. And still does today.

Megan Porta  13:02

And that carries over into our food blogging businesses, right, because food blogs are brands? 

Megan Porta  13:10

They are brands. And it’s so funny, because when I started my food blog, it was almost as if not that I was running from my I have 20 plus years in the corporate world and brand management. And I wasn’t necessarily running from that. But I was definitely running to this new world of food blogging. And so it didn’t initially make this connection that food blogs are brands. And I knew that I was launching a website and a food blog. And that was a brand. But it wasn’t until that I started connecting with other food bloggers and through your mastermind too just, you know, being able to bring my experience and my background to the table that I recognized how important it was for us as food bloggers to establish ourselves as brands and really, you know, create a memory and set ourselves apart in consumers minds?

Carrie Tyler  14:08

And with so many food blogs out there, I mean, there are 1000s upon 1000s of food blogs, do you feel like it’s hard to do this? Or is it something that we can easily do?

Carrie Tyler  14:20

It’s hard to think about. So for us individually as food bloggers, we have so much on our plates, right? It’s just it’s overwhelming at times, and we get stuck in the weeds. So it’s what the difficult part is finding that opportunity to pull ourselves out of the forest and see the forest through the trees. We often just are so stuck in the weeds that we don’t have that opportunity to see the bigger picture and so that’s the difficult part. And then there’s also this difficulty that we feel like well, I’m no different than the other food blogs. There are 1000s of them out there. And we hear so many different mixed messages and food blogging, like, don’t be too unique find a voice, but not too big of a voice. And you know, nobody wants to hear your story. And everybody just wants the recipe and but the truth is, we are what sets our food blogs apart. And so finding a point of difference and finding a unique perspective, when we all are capable of like pulling ourselves out and finding that time, it’s not too difficult to do, it’s just hard to believe that we do have a point of difference, and then to find the time to sit down and figure it out. 

Carrie Tyler  15:38

Oh, that’s the key right there. It’s like, when we are sitting down to figure it out, we’re not working, right. We’re not doing the details, the daily things that we have to get done. So taking that time is kind of the key. Exactly. Yeah. And do you feel like it’s more important than ever, with kind of the, you know, Google’s stuff that’s going on, and some other external situations that are shaping our industry a little bit more important than ever to just sit down and do this?

Carrie Tyler  16:10

I think yes, it’s not that it’s more important than ever, it’s always been important. But I think now we’re just kind of being hit in the face with oh, gosh, yeah, like now I see the importance because my traffic is plummeting. And so it’s just become very tangible for us to recognize that, okay, I need to do something different. If I keep doing it the same way, you know, it’s never going to change. And so I think now, it’s, it’s absolutely the time for everybody to take that, that time and that space. And it doesn’t have to be a huge hold on your business or a pause on your business, it’s just finding the time to look at your business and in try to figure out what that point of difference is. So we can have all the traffic in the world coming to our site, but we’re not able to capture and engage with that traffic and understand that traffic, there are people and those people, you want to keep coming back to you. And you want them to not just come and go, you want them to become loyal and really engage with you and your blog. And so it’s it’s finding that that connection is going to be critical, I think going forward to see kind of who falls out and who really has that ability to push forward and connect with their audience and make you know, the biggest successes they can. 

Megan Porta  17:41

Yeah. So you talked a little bit ago about those bigger brands that you worked with? So do you have a way to kind of relate your experience there with us in our businesses? 

Carrie Tyler  17:55

Absolutely. So when I think about so my experience working with consumer brands, whether it was dishwashing, detergent, cosmetics, pet food, I worked across a lot of diverse categories. But at the end of the day, they all had one thing in common and that first thing is understanding who their consumer target is. And so when we think about our consumer target, think of it kind of like a funnel or a bullseye, right. And so you’ve got all these rings of the target. And in the center, you’ve got your bullseye, that’s your, that your customer target that we you really need to hone your message and speak directly to it’s not to say that we can’t go after all of the outer rings, or that we can’t start with a wide funnel to bring as much traffic as possible. But we have to then fine tune our messages, just like brands do to speak directly to your consumer target. And so the thing that food bloggers can learn from the big brands and the small brands is that the first thing we need to do is understand who is our customer target? And what is their unmet need? Or what is their need, that perhaps isn’t being fulfilled in the best way possible, or could be filled differently, or more uniquely by us. And so once we have that consumer target, then we’re able to create our brand positioning and so brand positioning is this, this key word and the branding world and the consumer products goods world where it’s really just a statement. It’s a statement of the who the what the how and the why for your brand. So who you’re targeting, what their need is how you’re going to solve that need and why you’re solving it better or more uniquely than anybody else. And that’s so true for food blogs today, too.

Megan Porta  19:58

Can you give us an example of Have a good brand positioning sentence or phrase?

Carrie Tyler  20:04

Yeah. So like from the food blogging world or? 

Megan Porta  20:08

Yeah, like a food blog, so maybe yours or someone you’ve worked with, just to give people an idea like, oh, that’s what she’s talking about. Because I get like everything you’re saying, like who, what, how, but how does that actually play out? Do you know what I mean?

Carrie Tyler  20:21

Yeah, absolutely. So for example, I just worked with a food blog. And she specializes in Southern and Tex Mex foods. And so she was being very, you know, in terms of her messaging, or really trying to put recipes out there, as we all do. We go after keywords and you know, just try to get as much traffic as possible. And so we really dug into the why behind what she was looking for. And so the brand positioning that we came up with for her, and I’ll keep the brand name out of it. But for moms that love Southern and Tex Mex foods, and want their friends and family to feel special every day, not just on the weekends. This brand delivers comforting and nostalgic, Southern and Tex Mex recipes with passion and love. Not only does this brand deliver classic and traditional, but also weeknight dinners and tips and tricks for saving times your families feel special every night. 

Carrie Tyler  20:25

Oh, that’s a good one. I like that a lot. Because it taps not only into, like the need, but also kind of the emotion of it too. 

Carrie Tyler  21:44

Exactly. I think we so there’s two different types of benefits that any brand can deliver, whether it’s a food blog, or you know, a soap, and those really straddled the rational benefits and the emotional benefits and so oftentimes, it’s very easy for us to figure out the rational benefits so for for my blog for talking meals while they’re easy recipes, that save busy mom’s time. So there’s a very rational tangible benefits right but the emotional is what’s going to connect to your audience and keep her coming back to you as a brand. And the emotional is the why behind it right so it’s why does that matter to her? Well, because she’s she’s stressed and she often feels like a failure and so having dinners on the table and being able to do that for her family gives her confidence and it helps her to connect with her family. It’s a means of showing love and so it’s fine that the emotion behind the rational benefits that are going to help us to connect with our with our audiences.

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Megan Porta  24:30

And it usually does come down to emotion right like the actual why? Because we’re all like feeling like failures or feeling like we need competence or feeling like we need something a little bit deeper. I feel like that ultimate reason always leads to something emotional. 

Carrie Tyler  24:49

Exactly. And it doesn’t have to be a negative emotion that you’re trying to turn positive it could just be that you want to do Help her continue to feel inspired and motivated. So but whatever that emotion is, you know, we all have a purpose and a reason for doing what we do. It’s just tapping into that and understanding what that is, is going to turn your food blog into a brand that feels more like a friend to her. And I like to think about it as kind of like, your blog as a house, right? You’re inviting people into your home? Do they feel like they’re at home? And they want to come back and visit? Or do they just, you know, take the recipe and run? And so yeah, it’s it’s, it’s engaging and connecting with them on that emotional level. So they want to come back and visit again. 

Carrie Tyler  25:39

Okay, I want to come back to your house, because I know you have this model for your brand house food blogger brand house model. But first I was going to ask, so getting to the bottom of this figuring out your brand positioning, do you believe that this can truly help a food blogging business right now? And how?

Carrie Tyler  25:56

Yeah, absolutely. So aside from understanding who your customer target is, I think a lot of food bloggers have successfully put together their avatars, right? We talk about avatars a lot. And so really, that’s just a description of who they’re talking to. But then it’s taking that avatar and figuring out, okay, so now how does my brand talk to them. And so once you figure that out, and come up with the brand positioning, there’s two kind of buckets of, of how I see this benefiting food bloggers. One is this intangible, which is, we spend so much time churning, right, we have so many things to do, and there’s always the next shiny object. And we have just this endless mile long list of to do’s that we need to tackle. And so having a clear brand positioning, it gives food bloggers first to give them clear focus. So they can then look at their to do list and figure out what are the things to prioritize that are actually going to speak to or drive growth towards that brand positioning. It also, when we’re faced with times like this one, our traffic might be down. And it’s circumstances that are out of our control. It helps give renewed purpose and motivation and inspiration. And so one of the food bloggers that I just worked with, she really just had a hard time articulating like, what does she… What like, what does her food blog mean to to people? And how does it stand out? And how is it different and just being able to come up with that gave her so much inspiration and motivation to you know, go back and just feel like she could tackle her workload again. And so there’s these intangible benefits for food bloggers, that helps give them clear focus, they can stop spinning their wheels, and churning and reinventing themselves all the time, they have it very clearly articulated. And so that gives them focus and motivation. But there’s also the tangible. So once you have that brand positioning, I work with food bloggers to help them figure out okay, so it’s great, you’ve got this, you can hang it on your wall. But let’s put it into action. So here’s how you then translate that into messaging. And so it could be the messaging on your website. So as soon as they get to your, your food blog, understanding what your food blog is all about, and connecting with them with that above the fold just before they they go anywhere else on your site, understanding what your site is about and how that connects to them. 

Carrie Tyler  28:45

There’s also your email list. It’s so important for us now to have something that we own as food bloggers, when traffic, it ebbs and flows. When social media algorithms change, there’s so many things that are outside of our control. But connecting and creating loyalty through our email lists is a place where brand positioning immediately can have an impact on how you’re connecting with your audience through emails. And then it also helps you to figure out what products or services that you can offer to your customers, whether that’s freebies to get them to opt in, or something that you want to start selling and monetizing to help diversify your income streams now that, you know, maybe the traffic certainty and ad revenue isn’t as stable as we thought it was. It’s not that it’s going away. But we’re now starting to realize, well, we might need to start diversifying and having other products and services that we’re selling and so having that brand positioning and understanding what your customers needs are helps you to figure out what to offer. 

Megan Porta  29:55

Yeah, and you talked earlier about just creating those people who come back over and out For and that’s going to increase your pageviews. Right? Because you’re going to have those repeat customers. 

Carrie Tyler  30:06

Yes, absolutely. If you’ve ever looked at Google Analytics and you see your your user traffic, and then you you look at the new users versus the return users, there’s often a huge disparity. And so it helps you to increase those return users. So that and that, ultimately, if you’ve got those loyal users, those are the ones who are more likely to click on one recipe, and then continue to click through to another recipe and another recipe and to continue to open your emails, and to try new recipes from you. So those are the big going to be your your most loyal fans. And so that’s when I talked about at the beginning, this funnel at the top of the funnel, sure, we want to cast our nets wide, and we want to bring in as much traffic as possible. But you have to start honing your message so that as they move through the funnel, they’re not all falling outside of it, that you’re capturing them and moving them through your funnel into loyal users. 

Megan Porta  31:07

And those loyal users are going to share you with other people, right? And they could turn into loyal users as well?

Carrie Tyler  31:15

Exactly. The best part is creating those raving fans, those, you know, those people who are gonna go out and, and so if they know what your message is, and they know what you stand for, they’re more easily going to be able to tell their friends and family. Yeah, you know, that Talking Meals, oh, my gosh, saved me time. And I didn’t feel like I was gonna pull my hair out when my kids were staring at me at five o’clock. And, you know, just being able to clearly tell their friends and family, why that they should visit your blog.

Megan Porta  31:47

Oh, that’s all good. And I love that you talked about the intangibles too, because that’s, I feel like that can be so forgotten. Like, we want to focus on pageviews and, and the revenue and like those things that we can put our fingers on, but it’s the other things that matter to the focus, the clarity, the motivation, it gives you just to have the clarity, I think those are just as important. 

Carrie Tyler  32:14

They’re not just important, sometimes they’re more important, especially when we get we feel like what’s the point? You know, I, I look at the some of the Facebook pages and people are really distraught and feeling unmotivated. Now, when they when they see their traffic declining, and they’re not sure well, then what’s the point? So sometimes the intangible is what gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you going and being able to tackle the list. So without that you can’t even tackle the the tangible. 

Megan Porta  32:46

Oh, I love that. That was well said. So let’s go back to your house model. I know you did this with me. You went through Eat Blog Talk with me, it was such a powerful process. And then we you provided this food or like a brand house model for me. Yes. So talk through what that is.

Carrie Tyler  33:06

Yeah. So I love this. This was kind of a conglomeration of various things that I’ve done throughout my career. But it’s, I kind of talked a little bit about this earlier, when you think about inviting customers into your food blog, you’re inviting them into your home, right. So if you think about your food blog as a house, it’s how to create a strong foundation, with strong pillars and beautiful rooms that, that aren’t just trying to speak to everybody, but are trying to speak directly to your audience and really fit their needs. And so this brand house model has just been a nice, tangible way for me to put all this on paper in a very visual way for both food bloggers, as well as the people who work with them on their teams. And so it really starts with the foundation of the house. So every house needs a strong foundation, or it can just topple over. And so the foundation is the brand positioning, and then you’ve got your your mission statement. And then from there, once you have a foundation, then you’ve got the pillars of the house. And those are your brand benefits. And so they’re not necessarily your content pillars, they’re different. These are benefit pillars. So for everything as a food blogger that you do for every offering that you have, whether it’s recipes, or cookbooks or courses or newsletters, you want to make sure that you’re always delivering the benefits to your customer. And so maybe that’s easy recipes, maybe that’s approachability, maybe that’s tips and tricks. Whatever the benefits are, that are specific to your brand are going to be the pillars of the house. And then you’ve got the floors of the house. And those are your kind of your brand, your offerings, your products and your services. So the floors, and the rooms are the recipes, the newsletters, the cookbooks, the ebooks, the, you know, the stories and guides and tips that you put on social media of the things that we put out there in the world, no matter what the channel, no matter what the medium, no matter what the messaging, and the offer is, those are going to be the floors and they, they cross over all of your benefit pillars. And so it’s just a really clear visual way to make sure that you’re always delivering on your benefit pillars. And then you’ve got the ceiling of the house, which is what I call the brand attributes. And so that’s your personality, your your tone, your look. And again, this is the ceiling of the house. So it goes it’s the umbrella over everything. And then you’ve got the rooftop. And so this is what people see from a distance. And this is your brand, your logo, your taglines things that they can see for a distance. It’s not it’s not the the nuts and bolts, but it’s what will sometimes draw or attract them in to coming to your house. And then you’ve got to capture them once they get into your house. And so it’s just a really nice tangible visual model that I work with food bloggers that they can then take and always have to look at and remind them of what they need to focus on. But also then to give to anyone who’s working on their teams of people to make sure that everybody understands what your brand stands for, and how to deliver on it. 

Carrie Tyler  36:43

It’s such a great visual carry, I love just the whole concept of the house. And the way you put that with like the ceiling and the roof. Like those are things that people see from afar, but aren’t, like you’ve said, the nuts and bolts of who you are, like what your foundation is and what your mission is, and all of that. And then as you were talking through the ceiling, your grant attributes, I thought of AI and how that can be something that distinguishes you from AI or other people, right? Like what like who you are, is coming through in your house?

Carrie Tyler  37:20

Yes, exactly. In all of this really, it’s the it’s the whole package, it’s once they come in the doors of your house, what’s going to distinguish us from AI is going to be the intimacy, you know, how we connect with the people who are coming in our house. And AI is not going to be able to do that. And so it’s finding a balance, for sure have, you know, where we put that messaging and how we use that messaging to connect with our audience. But we have to do, we have to do that if we’re not connecting with them. Once they get into the house, there’s no intimacy, there’s no relationship, there’s no reason for them to remember you and come back to you. 

Carrie Tyler  38:04

Okay, so once we figure all of this out, we get our house all built. We’re familiar with all of the little components, how do we actually implement that in our business and communicate that to our people? 

Carrie Tyler  38:17

Yeah, and so the that’s where the fun part starts is that it becomes very clear, where you’re maybe not giving any messaging at all, which a lot of us do, we put these food blogs together, and we immediately you know, at the top of the page, all we’re doing is showing them the trending recipes. But if those recipes aren’t what she’s looking for that particular day, she’s, you know, bye-bye, and so it helps to understand, Okay, well then, here’s what I need to be telling her right when she gets to my site. And whether that’s within every blog, recipe post, whether that’s on the front page of your website, whether that’s in your bio, your about page or your Start Here page, it’s got to come through somewhere. So she… So number one, you’ve got the confidence to say that messaging and number two, she understands what it’s all about. So there’s the website, it also helps you to figure out how you’re going to speak to her in your email strategy. So it helps us to figure out our email marketing plan and strategy, so that it has a purpose. And we understand what that messaging means to look through that. And then of course, like I talked about the products and services just as we go forward, and we’re figuring out how do I diversify our income? And how do we find other ways to monetize products and services, whether that’s, you know, something big or something as small as just a quick ebook, it’s still going to be a different way to To find a product to offer to your customers and knowing what your brand house is, and what it stands for is going to help you to figure out what those offerings are going to be. So there’s so many ways to then take this and put it into action for our businesses.

Megan Porta  40:17

The word purpose really carries weight for me, like, anything you think of whether it’s a new project to dive into, or a new strategy, it’s going back to this house, this messaging and just seeing if it aligns right with, with what you want to do, or what new thing pops up in our world.

Carrie Tyler  40:38

Exactly, exactly. Because we’re constantly getting these new shiny objects. And, you know, it’s very easy to be distracted and wanted to, you know, the fear of missing out FOMO. It’s a real thing and like wanting to jump on the bandwagon. And so this helps you to go back and say, Okay, well, does this fit in my house? Yeah, does it? Does it make sense for my house? Well, not today. And so I’m gonna put that aside.

Megan Porta  41:07

Yeah, I can’t tell you how many times I go back to the messaging, you helped me create for Eat Blog Talk all the time, carry like I will, something will come into my world, I don’t know, a new project idea or something. And I’m like, wait a second, I need to go back. And I need to read my messaging. And sometimes it aligns and sometimes it doesn’t. But it is so powerful to have that, like you said earlier, just giving you the clarity, and the focus and motivation, and all of that those intangible things, that it’s so powerful to have all of this built, so that you can just rely on it. 

Carrie Tyler  41:47

Yeah, and that’s what’s so important is like, you took the next step. So it’s great to have this house, it’s great to have this all on paper, but you took the next step and put it into action, you actually implemented it in a variety of ways in your business. And so, you know, any, anyone can go and do this work on their own, they can work with me, or they can work, you know, on their own to do this. But once you have it on paper, it’s then taking it and putting it into action. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s full, fully making that progression and implementation into your business,

Megan Porta  42:23

Right. And then I know, like, for me, I’ve been a food blogger for a lot of years. And I know a lot of other people are in the same boat. And I can kind of get into that place that mental place where it’s like, I don’t know, my business is so old, can I revive it? Can I actually do something like this and implement this in an old business? What are your thoughts on that?

Carrie Tyler  42:48

The great thing is, no matter where you are at in your business, whether you’re brand spanking new, your year in, or your 5-10 years you’re in, you can always go back. And so you can go back and fix the foundation or create that foundation. And it’s okay to admit you don’t know who your your target audience is. It’s okay. Most of us… most people don’t until you actually sit down and do the work. And that’s okay. So no matter what stage you’re at, you can still go back and refine things. And it’s not to say that you have to completely change your website or completely change what you’re doing. It’s small, small changes that can make a huge difference. And so at any stage of the game, whether you’ve been doing it for a very long time or a short time, you can absolutely take advantage of this. 

Megan Porta  43:44

Yeah, I think for me, it’s almost embarrassing, because I went a lot of years not knowing who I was serving. Honestly, the people who came to my blog were never repeat customers. It was like a just a ton of Pinterest traffic. And once I realized that it was really embarrassing, like, oh my gosh, there’s no fixing this. But what you’re saying is it’s never too late. Don’t be embarrassed. We all have been there. Most of us have been there. So build that house and move forward.

Carrie Tyler  44:16

Yeah, and I think for a lot of years, we were kind of in a bubble, right? Like things were great traffic was moving, you know, the Pinterest bubble popped, and we had to figure it out again. And so everybody realized, oh, go SEO, this is where I need to go. And I’m not saying that this is necessarily but it’s definitely evolving and it’s changing. And we’re we’re gonna come out on a new plateau wherever that is. And so it just makes you recognize that it is very important to go back and figure out who you what your brand stands for, and not to let it overwhelm you because you don’t have to start over you absolutely don’t have to start over. In fact, you don’t have to do anything over it’s just small changes can make such a huge impact. 

Carrie Tyler  45:03

All right, it’s carry this has been amazing. I feel reinspired as always, after talking to you, so thank you for all of this. Is there anything we missed before we start saying goodbye?

Carrie Tyler  45:14

No, I don’t think so just that anyone can do this. And it might feel scary, and it might feel hard. And I remember one of the first things working with you, you know, do scary things is what we can do for my kind of mission. And so you know, just don’t let it scare you off. Anyone can do this?

Megan Porta  45:38

Yes, yes. You’ve got this. Be like Carrie jump off that mountain. Yeah, it feels scary. But you’ve got this. Well, thank you, Carrie. So so appreciate your value that you shared today. Thank you for joining us here on the podcast. I’m so glad you finally joined me on an episode.

Carrie Tyler  45:57

Thank you so much. 

Carrie Tyler  45:58

Yes. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with?

Carrie Tyler  46:02

I do actually have two. So one is kind of going along this, this? This the lines of, you know, conquering your fears. And, and I don’t know who to attribute this to. So I apologize. But it’s the courage is not the absence of fear, but rather acting in spite of fear. And I really love that. Because, yeah, it’s it’s acknowledging that the fears there and saying, I’m gonna move through it anyway.

Megan Porta  46:32

Yeah, yeah. Right. I think a lot of people think that it’s yeah, like, fear shouldn’t exist. But that’s not the case. It does exist. You just do it anyway. 

Megan Porta  46:43

And the other one daily, I think about is progress, not perfection. So just don’t let anything hold you back. Just try it. Small changes can have a big impact. 

Megan Porta  46:57

Oh, amazing. Thank you, Carrie. We’ll put together a show notes for you. So if anyone wants to go look at those head over to eatblogtalk.com/talkingmeals. Okay, Carrie, tell everyone where they can find you. But also, if they need help with getting their brand positioning together for their food blog, what do they need to do to get started?

Carrie Tyler  47:18

Yeah, so they can find me at talkingmeals.com. And that’s probably the best place I’m on social media as well. Instagram, @carrietalkingmeals. But if they want to get started with looking at brand positioning and how that can help their business, they can certainly take a look at I have a page on my site, they can start to look at so talkingmeals.com/foodbloggers. And they can take a peek at that and set up a free 15 minute chat with me. And we can talk about if there’s, you know, a way I can help. Or they can just get inspired and start doing some of this work on their own.

Megan Porta  48:01

Oh, I hope that so many people take you up on that. And I can tell you firsthand, Carrie definitely knows what she’s doing. And she takes it took it very seriously when you helped me it was like, I felt so just I don’t know in this circle of like, I’ve got you we’re gonna figure this out. And we did. You helped me now my brand positioning so thank you Carrie so much. You’re amazing. 

Carrie Tyler  48:28

Oh, thank you. 

Outro  48:30

Yes, so everyone go check that out. And thank you so much for listening to food bloggers. I will see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Don’t forget to rate and review Eat Blog Talk on your favorite podcast player. Thank you and I will see you next time.


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