Engaging in digital brand marketing is not an option if you want to succeed. The entire world is digitized. Your competitors have staked out prime real estate in the digital world. So, how do you elevate your brand in such a crowded digital ecosystem?
You need to
- strategize
- conduct market analysis
- create your brand voice
- publish engaging, informative, authentic content across all media channels
- analyze performance.
Let’s jump in and look at each of these five critical assets that will elevate your digital brand marketing.
#1 Strategize
Successful digital brand marketing requires strategic skills. Just as you have a business strategy, you need a branding strategy.
- Where do you see your business in the short, medium, and long term?
- What are your business goals and objectives?
Use the answers to create brand strategies that align with your business goals. Make them actionable and measurable.
Keep your eyes on trends in the consumer community. Many exciting brands folded because they refused to accept shifting customer behavior and make the appropriate pivot in their business model. One example is Blockbuster. When was the last time you saw a Blockbuster store?
#2 Analyze Your Market
To elevate your digital brand marketing, you need to know your industry.
Direct competitors: These brands offer essentially the same service, solution, or product as you. For example, Google, Yahoo!, and Bing are direct competitors in the search engine vertical.
Indirect competitors: These brands target the same market as you but offer a different product or solution. For example, if you operate an online pizza delivery business, your indirect competitor is a gourmet meal delivery brand. Both of you target hungry consumers who don’t want to go out to eat or cook at home.
Industry Trends
Tracking industry trends is critical to your survival. Your digital brand marketing strategy needs to be fluid and ready to pivot the moment before seeing changes in the industry. Keeping your eye on industry trends helps you stay ahead of your competitors and retain your customers. You can use tools to help you, including Google Trends, Buzzfeed, Feedly, Reddit, and Google Alerts. Other strategies are
- Routinely research your industry online
- Track your competitors
- Keep up with consumer conversations on social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook
- Follow industry thought leaders (articles, industry newsletters, webinars)
- Be involved in industry groups, on and offline.
Tracking industry trends also enables you to develop engaging content that resonates with your audience. Furthermore, by incorporating what you know in your blog articles and other digital content, you’ll establish yourself as an expert in your industry.
Opportunities
Let’s say you’re keeping a close eye on your industry as described above. In that case, you’ll be well-positioned to jump on opportunities that enable your business to grow.
Listen to your consumers. Are they talking about unmet needs? Perhaps they’re expressing disappointment or dissatisfaction with the solutions they’re using. Again, this could be an opportunity to expand your product or services.
Analyzing and evaluating opportunities to utilize emerging social channels could be a way to elevate your digital brand marketing to reach a wider audience.
#3 Brand Voice
It would not be a stretch to say that the internet suffers from content overload. 2020 data from Domo.com provides a small glimpse into the sheer numbers of digital content published and consumed every minute of each day:
- 479,000 Reddit users engaging with content
- 347,222 Instagram posts and stories
- 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube
- 138,889 Instagram business profile ads
- 41,666,667 WhatsApp messages
- 319 new Twitter users
- 150,000 shared messages on Facebook
Data shows that your customer audience forms an opinion of your brand within seconds. So clearly, creating a distinctive and authentic brand voice is critical to being recognized and heard in this crowded ecosystem.
Your brand voice reflects your purpose, values, and personality. Therefore, it should be consistent across all business collaterals (website, emails, social media posts, advertising).
Starting points for creating or optimizing your brand voice include,
- Who is your audience, what are their pain points, what are they lacking?
- Define your audience demographics
- What messages resonate with them?
- How do you want to be remembered?
Your brand voice is a critical asset to elevate your digital brand marketing.
65% of customers say that they form an emotional connection with a brand when its brand voice indicates that they care about their consumers.
81% of survey respondents said they prefer to purchase from brands that reflect their values.
#4 Content Creation
The next asset to elevate your digital brand marketing is content. A successful content marketing strategy includes many different types of content. The two most important determinants are your overall brand marketing goals and customer personas.
Additionally, suppose you’re a solopreneur or small business with limited resources. In that case, you’ll want to choose content types that fit your personality.
Finally, consistency is key to successful content marketing. If you don’t like to write, it will be challenging to create engaging, informative written content that will resonate with your consumer audience. Over time, you’ll relegate the task to the back burner.
Let’s take a brief look at the different types of content and their contribution to your digital brand marketing.
- Long-form evergreen pieces: articles published on your website that are not time-sensitive.
- Blog articles: articles published on your website or third-party blogs and websites; providing information, not time-sensitive, the goal is to establish yourself as knowledgeable about your industry.
- e-books: easy to create from a series of blog articles that cover a topic; industry or consumer surveys that you’ve conducted
- Case studies: in-depth dive into consumer behavior, industry trends, global markets
- User-generated content: USG is one of the most successful types of content; it builds authenticity and trust in your brand, also increases engagement
- Social media posts: which channels to use depends on your brand purpose, marketing goals, customer personas
- Infographics: your readers have different learning styles, infographics perform well on your website to help your customers better understand your products and services
- Video: Video is the most engaging and viewed type of content on the internet for B2C and B2B audiences; it includes social media posts, video podcasts, livestreams, webcasts; short-form video is on the rise—YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok
- Audio and Podcasts: Podcasts are a powerful way to connect with your customer audience; they provide opportunities for two-way conversations
- Memes/gifs: you might not think about these in your content marketing campaign, but with the short attention span of online readers today, memes and gifs are tools to engage and entertain, enhancing your connection to your customers
- Email newsletters and campaigns: Social media channels are rented property, your ability to reach your audience is influenced by algorithms, but your email list is yours; email is proactive and allows for two-way conversations
#5 Data Analytics
Using a robust data analytics platform is the only way to know if your digital brand marketing strategies are working. Social media channels provide you with analytics. In addition, tools such as Google Analytics deliver vital information about how your website connects with your consumer audience. You’ll be able to define your customer personas further, identify what channels are driving traffic to your website, and evaluate UX—user experience.
Conclusion
So, how do you elevate your brand in a crowded digital ecosystem?
- strategize
- conduct market analysis
- create your brand voice
- publish engaging, informative, authentic content across all media channels
- analyze your performance.
Please let us know what you’d like to hear more about and what branding strategies are working for you in the comment box below. And, don’t forget to subscribe and follow us on our social channels.