Digital branding has evolved with the explosion of social media and the boom of online businesses. Earlier, digital branding was limited to only emails and websites. Today, it has come a long way. The digital world is vast and growing. Today’s customers are getting younger, more tech savvy, and informed with a better customer experience.
Media fragmentation emerged as the new reality. With so many social media platforms on the run we are putting out the message and trying to target a vast number of audience.
What is Digital Branding?
Digital Branding, is a brand communication strategy that is implemented with the use of the internet and digital marketing to enhance a brand’s attributes, establish their presence and promote the brand. It gets its roots from direct marketing and is done via certain digital channels such as the internet itself, mobile applications, social media and most importantly, digital media content. It also comprises all the elements such as the logo design, color palette, typography, brand guidelines, taglines, symbols, etc. The content is in reference to blogs, organic videos, e-mailers, website content, etc. with its overall appearance as well, that appeals to your target group.
Your brand should have utmost consistency on the types of social media, which increases your credibility and appeal, and also increases consumer loyalty. Everybody nowadays wants to consume good content so that they can talk about it with their friends, relatives, peers, colleagues. To make this type of funnel possible, brands are trying to poke the customer experience with their out of the box marketing plans so that they can be the topic to be talked about.
Consumers have everything with just a click
The consumers are often “spoilt for choice”, which essentially means that you have to make your brand stand out in terms of your product or service offerings as compared to your competition. The average consumer is smarter now, due to the information about all products and services through social networks. We have Google which is now our new mother, giving us all the information about everything just in one click. With so much information abundantly available, customers cannot be taken advantage of in any manner while giving out the advertising message to them. Customers are now watching, reading, learning & also are a part of the branding strategies. If they are happy about the quality, services & other aspects, they will help you fulfil the different p’s of marketing & will be loyal to your brand as well.
No Geographical Barriers
The digital age has eradicated all kinds of geographical barriers in the world today. Due to this, social trends change almost every day, which directly affects the consumer’s behavior as well. The average consumer will still desire new products and services, but their social circles, perception, psychology and research will change their decisions very quickly. That means your brand’s communication approach has to change with the trends as well, to maintain a strong branding hold amidst the competition. A consumer will definitely prefer a brand that “connects”. This requires the brands to socially engage and provide interactive content through various marketing mix that includes blogs, infographics, videos, etc. regularly, as it appeals to the consumer very well.
Content is the key source to develop a brand’s place in the market. Contextual Marketing is also coming to play. It is to deliver the right content or experience to the right person, in the right place, and at the right time based on the sum total of that person’s past brand interactions and current needs.
Defining your brand’s core values to connect with the customers is at the prime focus right now. Give your customers the value they think you have to sustain in the market. So that they can invest in the product they think, match their values, principles & morals. If your brand has been successfully positioned, especially on digital platforms like facebook, instagram, twitter will help you gain certain popularity through word of mouth and the most importantly — virality. Due to this, it becomes much easier to add new products to your offerings if the consumer already trusts your brand.
Omnichannel Marketing
Multichannel marketing starts within the organization. Stop thinking inside the box, and tear down the internal walls of the marketing communications department. Remember that the overall business goal is the focus, not the channel. Multichannel has become easier than ever before. It has not been like before that we are buying the space in different media platforms at a higher rate. Today, the media buying has been made easy by social media platforms. With just a click we can target a particular demographic in a particular geographic area with the interests they want. Subsequently, map out the desired content and create this content independent of any channels.
Impress your customers in 3 seconds
Analytics Research shows that for any content marketing to the customer, you have to be crystal clear & out of the box at the same time to impress your customer. The attention span has gone to 3 seconds of a human brain. If you don’t catch the attention of the viewer in the first 3 seconds, you can forget about it as engagement drops dramatically. Whether it’s humor, drama, or shock value – the premium for higher results is what happens in the first 3 seconds.
Brands have less control over what is said about them online. Users have access to the opinions of other users, which heavily influence their purchase decisions. The purchase decisions of other customers are nowadays also based on the reviews. If a consumer doesn’t like a particular product or service they can give positive as well as negative feedback which inturn can help the brands as well. They are getting the real time feedback so that they can improve their service/product. This can help them in the long run.
In the current environment, where the impact of digital media is felt in every sphere of a consumer’s journey, brands need to be managed in a way different from how it has always been handled in the traditional times. It is also seen that it has become easier for a new brand to evolve in this digital world, considering this new form of brand equity creation, while keeping in mind the contrasting reality of the risks in terms of getting wiped out also in no time if the digital footprints of a brand are not coherently and carefully managed.