Many of you are dealing with online marketing strategy tacked together based on marketing trends and big industry blogs.
However, can you prove the efficiency with a high ROI (Rate of investment)?
No! You cannot.
No digital branding strategy is perfect. There is always room for improvement. Hence, if you stopped working on your digital branding, you have got a long way to go.
Before we move on, what is a digital branding strategy in one sentence?
Well! it is the deployment assets and budgets to achieve preset objectives.
Branding strategies are holistic; hence, a few tweaks here and there will give you substantial returns.
Let’s see how you can make some changes.
? Planning Your Digital Branding Strategy: Where to Start?
According to many strategists, planning your digital branding strategy is a fancy way of describing your development process.
Anyways, to help your brand grow digitally, it is critical that you refine your development process.
To maximize the efficiency of your branding strategy, the only thing you need to do is plan rigorously. Brainstorm with your team. Divide the tasks. Keep your goals and KPIs smart.
Before jumping the bandwagon, ask yourself what you want from your branding strategy? What are your intentions?
Usually, individual and business intentions to build a top-notch digital branding strategy fall in one of the three following categories… ?
- Keeping your market warm
- Aggressive pricing
- The reduction in customer loss
I am pretty sure, like most of the businesses out there, you have also been using the following platforms to roll out your mundane digital branding strategies… ?
- Social media Ads
- Online groups
- Marketing via YouTube
- Marketing via Bloggers
Even though these platforms and methods are being employed by a gazillion businesses out there, they don’t have an ever-increasing ROI. You could have so much more if you change the way you think.
? Digital Branding Strategies: How to Stand Out from the Crowd?
Unfortunately, most of the brands and organizations nowadays mix up marketing and branding.
The fact that you are using website user experience, SEO & content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and paid advertising (PPC) to get your brand out there does not mean you are branding it.
? This is pure marketing…
Branding is all about getting through to the consumers. Creating an impression on them and making a connection.
Proper branding results in loyal customers. Simple marketing will just get you some impressions and clicks.
Once you change your mindset, you will start understanding many concepts that you previously didn’t.
? Taking Your Digital Branding Strategy Up a Notch
It sounds pretty difficult, doesn’t it? Well, thankfully it is not.
Unfortunately! Most of the businesses in the market are afraid of experimenting with their digital strategies. They don’t understand how taking the branding out of the basics will plummet the ROI.
This fear has resulted in the slow adoption rate of new and successful branding strategies.
Do you remember how everyone was so slow with adopting websites as part of their digital branding? It’s the same thing.
This digital era is like a stampede, if you don’t match the pace or get ahead of the pace, you will be left behind.
Anyways, some of the things you can do to improve your digital branding strategies are… ?
#1. Find a Human Face
Yes! You heard me right. Finding a face is one of the most crucial steps to pump your game up.
Nobody likes talking to a robot. People like to know who the man behind the machine is. Faceless organizations seldom receive an acknowledgment from consumers.
Try adding glimpses from BTS on your website or your social media page. Add a few stories, introduce your staff members. Upload a picture of your CEO.
Once you are successfully making a proper representation of your organization, define the purpose of your branding.
#2. Fine-tune Your Value Proposition: What is Your Purpose?
Has any organization succeeded without defining a set of goals and objectives? Nada!
As basic as this seems, defining the purpose of your brand cannot be emphasized enough. Trying and trying without focusing and defining a purpose is running in rounds.
Another issue that arises with defining the purpose of your brand is that organizations go for something too simple or mundane.
Usually, strategists preach the following points when it comes to branding… ?
- Simplicity
- Relevance
- Rationality
- Emotional
- Easy to believe
As authentic as it sounds, these points give birth to pretty vanilla branding.
At this point, you need to employ new and more efficient methods. One of these is A/B testing or also known as Zuckerberg ‘Move fast and break things’ strategy.
For the unaware, A/B testing refers to the method where two versions of the same thing are compared to find the most efficient one.
Using this method will help you devise a branding that suits your organization and will give you the purpose you are looking for.
#3. Nail Your Targeting
Who are you providing your services for? Are you going to cold marketing or warm? Do you want to focus on cold clients or hot clients?
All this will be answered if yourself who exactly are you providing your services for?
Defining your target audience can be termed as one of the most crucial steps for your branding strategy.
If you cannot understand your consumer and what it needs. You, my friend, are in deep waters.
To have a positive impact and to build your brand, try to figure out your consumer’s buying habits, lifestyle preferences and behaviors. Of course! Without being too obvious.
#4. Competitor Analysis
How to give your brand that extra oomph? How can you set yourself apart from the competition?
The only way to do it is by analyzing your competition. Review the marketplace and find the gap. It will take some time, but it will be worth it.
Every industry and market has some key players. These brands are the ones you will directly compete with and they should be the ones you analyze.
Considering the ever-growing businesses, I am pretty sure you are not the only brand that provides the services that you do. Thus, you need to figure out what makes your business distinct and unique.
Once you have decided on your purpose, the features that make you unique and your target audience, your brand will automatically stand out.
#5. Bench the Barriers
Now, what does that mean? What barriers?
A barrier is anything that requires effort. Consumers don’t like putting in an effort. They want things easy. If your ads require more time and more attention span, you are most likely to get rejected.
Some of the simple but effective things you can do to remove barriers are… ?
- Clean, obvious, intuitive layout
- Simple and visible fonts
- One-pager design
- Less text
- Use bullet points
- Add high quality media
- Make your videos simple and short
- Strike the right balance between content and visuals
#6. Make Things Personal
The personality of the brand is one of the many things that intrigue consumers.
Injecting personality into your digital branding strategy is one of the few ways to make a difference outside of aggressive pricing and adding new features to your organization.
You want to get through to your audience. Some ways to do that are… ?
- Add a face to your organization (already mentioned)
- Share personal, real-life stories
- Don’t fake the way you talk. Talk naturally
- Flaunt your achievements
#7. Go for Mobile Commerce
Never heard about it? Thought so.
It’s just like the name suggests. Make your organization and its services smartphone friendly. Get an app if you don’t have one. Make your website smartphone friendly. Invest in mobile-ready landing pages.
All the above-mentioned points will lead you to a seamless digital branding process.
Anything that is developed with a mobile-first mindset will give you a high ROI and a high customer return. Who doesn’t like user-friendly experiences? Would you like to open your laptop or PC for every other task you need to do?
Nobody does!
? Trending Digital Marketing Strategies
Just like anything else, the digital marketing trends keep on changing. Hence, while devising a new strategy for your brand, make sure you are up to date with the trends.
For 2019, the most used digital marketing strategies being used are… ?
- Mobile optimization (same thing as mobile commerce)
- Social media (of course!)
- YouTube and other video-based platforms
- Use of artificial intelligence (chatbots)
- Designing dandy website content that consumers can relate to
- Streamlining online interactions with users
Apart from the above-mentioned methods, it is important to broadcast your authenticity. With time, consumer attitudes have also changed. They don’t want to be oohed and aahed, rather they want credibility and commitment.
Moreover, building a community where you can involve your customers will not improve your ranking but will also urge the customers to stay.
? The Bottom Line
Devising and employing proper digital branding strategies is vital for any successful business.
Even if you have a strategy and have invested in a digital consultant, I would advise you to take it up a notch by ditching the basics.
Don’t be scared to implement new strategies and new methods. Just keep your basis authentic and brainstorm.
Use and experiment with current and emerging digital branding and marketing strategies, and your brand will shine, and your business will thrive.
Go ahead, set yourself and brand apart from the competition!
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