Digital Branding Fever

Athanasios Poulis, Ioannis Rizomyliotis, Kleopatra Konstantoulaki

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781947098824
• eBook ISBN: 9781947098831
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Development
• Index: Business

Your first step in a business is the most important one! When crafting a digital branding strategy, you want longevity. That's the only way to succeed! In order to develop an effective digital marketing mix, it is important to understand the value of your brand for each target market. Of course, the value of a brand in a web-based company may have heightened importance due to the intangible nature of the web. Bottom line is that you always need to keep it simple and give a WOW experience. The game is changing and you need to step up! Digital branding is the creation and development of communications strategies specifically for brands to have a meaningful context on the web. Branding is not what you say but what you do! In this book, we will create together step by step your digital branding strategy and give your consumers an unforgettable experience.

CHAPTER 1

The Digital Fever

In this chapter, you will read:

1. It’s all digital

2. Who is watching you?

3. Basic rules of digital brand engagement

4. Can digital brand engagement replace advertising?

5. Popular brand-engagement misconceptions

6. Effective digital brand engagement

Introduction

The ideas associated with the way businesses used to market a service, brand, or product, are today somehow not sufficient. Consumers enjoy buying, but do not enjoy being “sold to,” which now means the overall approach requires changes. The act of reaching consumers now involves engaging with them as well as being able to show these consumers that a company really cares about matching up with their requirements with what it has to offer.

For many marketers, one of their largest learning curves is associated with understanding the actual value and concept of a specific brand along with the importance associated with brand building in regard to digital marketing. Today, the industry in which businesses operate moves at a lightning speed with technologies that are constantly evolving, viral videos, algorithm updates, the emergence of social-media platforms, streams associated with memes, the increase in mobile adoption, and so much more. With all these going on, it becomes easy for many businesses to forget that one thing that remains a constant through all these changes and this has to do with the brand. As companies continue to push new boundaries in association to marketing activities with this fast-paced digital environment, it is important to still maintain fundamentals in association with brand building based on long-term success.

The digital landscape continues to grow in the form of an active and living environment whereby consumers can be reached instantly, but the way this will be achieved also needs to evolve. In some cases, ideas of disrupting a person in order to display what a company is about can have undesirable effects, which can drive these consumers away from digital landscapes altogether. An example of this would be when video advertisements based on something that is totally unrelated interrupts what the person is watching on a medium such as YouTube in the middle of the video. It is far better for businesses to gain an understanding of where and who their audience is and then proceed in creating approaches that are more organic in order to reach them, which won’t take the viewer out of an experience, but rather add to it.

The principles associated with digital brand engagement explain the approaches that augment or replace the traditional type of “one-way” advertising messages that are aimed at an audience with the strategies that are able to build up a connection in the way of two-way conversations with audiences. These conversations should be aimed at truly engaging with consumers as well as assist them in building up relationships with that brand. The CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) will continue to require more sophisticated approaches in order to maintain the attentions of audiences, which have become ever more demanding. Digital brand engagement involves disciplined principles that when they are applied in the correct manner are able to reinvent, grow, and connect brands with audiences in an intimate way.

Basically put, digital brand engagement is based on redefining marketing in association with the “modern” digital era, in the way of creating meaningful connections with audiences in the way of leveraging the online tools and ecosystems. Tom Gallego from forbes.com states that the use of apps monitoring social buzz as well as the creation and launching of influence-based marketing campaigns, can form an important part of brand-engagement strategies. The brand of a company has a service or product that can assist consumers; how they are able to communicate this with their audiences is what will result in the defining difference.

It’s All Digital

The traditional-based marketing is associated with a one-to-many approach. This means that the business is able to reach larger audiences; however, the message will be solely between a brand and a person who views this advertising. In the social world, marketing is often labeled as a one-to-many approach and is able to achieve that the initial responders of this marketing can now have relationships with a brand as well as the marketplace. This opens possibilities related to far richer experiences, involving consumption between the digital networks that allows for a mass participation that stretches across hours or day opposed to a few minutes. These types of experiences are reliant on engagement which provides a way for the brands to collect real-time and accurate information that are associated with reactions of these fans.

Branding is the type of tool used to develop as well as maintain competitive advantages. In the somewhat noisy digital media world, staying competitive is even more challenging. There is a big difference between a brand and the brand name. Brand names are tangible and consumers can view them. The actual brand exists only in the minds of consumers in regard to what they will be thinking when hearing this name. The building of strong brands in this age of digital is crucial. Even though branding was always of importance, when considering the current online environment and the constant changing behaviors of users, here are some of the obvious benefits associated with branding:

• The online users have become more and more autonomous. With instant information on demand, the users have become spoiled for choice in regard to services and products. Brands that are well defined are vital for a business to distinguish their services or products from their competitors.

• Brands now have a decreased control when it comes to what consumers are saying about their business online. This is because the users now have complete access to what other users have to say, which makes heavy influences on their decisions on a purchase.

• Online customer relationships today rarely end after a sale. This means that brand building within this digital environment must take advantage of this in order to convert those “one-time customers” into a coveted brand loyalist.

• The funnel model is obsolete, and today there are a number of touch points whereby users will engage with different brands. However, branding guarantees the consolidated message.

• Over and above owned and paid media, strong digital branding will have advantages over earned media such as brand advocates and communities.

• It is important to know that branding will not only be about a service or product, it is also about customer services, sales process, social engagement, the companies’ employees, and everything else in between.

• Branding was always based on connectedness, and digital is able to heighten this connectedness of people, brands and things.

Most marketers are aware that integrated marketing is one of the factors related to success within digital environments. Strong brands will support all these channels indirectly and directly so that both resources and time will need to be set aside for brand building through the process of digital marketing. Because of the fact that branding is based on the development of emotional connections, strong brands always have influencers, advocates, followers, and fans who will actively promote these brands. To achieve the most from integrated digital marketing, it is important that businesses do not overlook how important brand building really is. Companies should define their brands and what they stand for, give thought to what drives this brand, and focus on how consumers perceive these brands in each aspect of a business.

Who Is Watching You?

Any relevant brand understands the importance of the customer in the decision-making process. If that golden rule isn’t followed, there is always the risk of getting low-quality leads that might not guarantee 100 percent loyalty. It’s important to understand that customers go through various stages with the brand. They might not be ready to purchase anything the first time round. The most important thing is providing relevant content for the consumers at every purchasing stage. Thereafter, leveraging the content properly moving the customers from one stage to the next should be the logical next move. Understanding the customer life cycle and meeting the needs of the customers, the brand should enjoy increased conversions as well as engagement. It’s also a good way to develop brand loyalty to allow viral sharing of the relevant information to potential customers.

The first step to successful online branding involves the business owner understanding what the business stands for and the goals that should be accomplished. The business owner needs to understand how the consumers perceive the business as well as both the short and long-term objectives. With these objectives, it’s easy to find a good foundation to build the brand identity of any business. It’s ideal for any business to have a branding team in place to handle the entire project. Such a team should have the objectives and standards in existence. If they are not available, they can always be developed to meet the company’s branding needs. To achieve these strategies, there are some branding assets that should already be in place. Basically, it is a branding checklist that contains assets such as internal messages, core messages, targeted messages, the look and feel, and also the identity of the business. With these assets, it’s easy for the business owner to understand what the business needs to reveal to the consumers.

Over the years, consumers have become incredibly complex, especially with various advancements in technology and the Internet. Consumers expect a certain level of treatment as well as relevant but controlled experiences. A business owner needs to find a way to meet the consumer’s expectations by delivering the right offers through the right channels and in the right time frame. The first thought would be to find the existing consumer information and throw everything at it until something comes up. Of course, such data is necessary and excellent in the right situation; it might not exactly address the problem the audience might be facing. Consumers will definitely tune out if they are not getting what they want from any business. Every business needs to know what the target audience needs to hear. If possible, creating profiles that identify the needs of the consumers can allow the business to find customized strategies that satisfy these needs. Such profiles can be used over various platforms to achieve the best results with regard to digital branding.

Because the business has already identified the audience as well as the demographics, the next step is finding out the problems the audience might be facing. Next, the business needs to identify the products or services that solve the audience problems. Such solutions can be achieved by using various tools. For instance, the business needs to find out the specific keywords used by audience when searching for specific products. With the right keywords, the business can optimize content on its sites, allowing consumers to find the best content to satisfy their problems. With such a direct approach, it’s easy for any business to cater to the needs of the audience and satisfy them without fail.

Once the business owner understands the business brand and also identifies the problems the audience might be facing, the next step is determining the middle ground. In simple words, the business owner needs to find the intersection that determines what he or she wants to reveal about the business and what the audience need to hear. Here, it’s mostly a discovery phase that should be based on information. One good thing about this stage is the fact that there is no need for costly focus groups or surveys to help the business owner identify the middle ground. Currently, there are numerous of social-media tools and search techniques that can provide the relevant consumer behavioral information for the best results.

If a proper analysis of the data is conducted, it’s easy to find out a few important things about the business such as the following:

• Are the marketing and business goals currently in use by the business still relevant?

• Compared to the competition, is the brand still relevant?

• Are there any available positioning opportunities in the current marketplace?

• What’s the best way to prioritize services and products to serve the audience better?

• Are there any gaps in the search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that are not being utilized?

Basic Rules of Digital Brand Engagement

Can Digital Brand Engagement Be an Alternative to Advertising?

The word “brand” is a unique identity that is given to a product line or product, and “branding” is the process of creation for this unique identity that creates impressions in the mind of the consumers. It is very important to create brands because of the fact that every day more and even more products are emerging onto...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1 The Digital Fever
• Chapter 2 Keep It Simple and Give a WOW Experience
• Chapter 3 Focus to Users
• Chapter 4 How Can I Build My Digital Brand?
• Chapter 5 Become a New Top Digital Brand
• Chapter 6 New Frontiers to a Digital Revolution
• Index