Digital Branding: an Aggregate of Identity, Visibility & Credibility

In the era of consumerism, the concept and need for digital branding thrive on any and every omnichannel approach. It is the ability to consistently apply your brand's story to a consumer throughout the digital touch points (social media, web page, email, etc.) and drive your business's effectiveness. In addition, it helps to cement top of the mind recall and desire to consume more content across your entire marketing funnel. Designing a sure shot digital branding strategy in marketing is not a walk in the park as it takes a good amount of research and time. But if it is done correctly, then it pays for the long-term for you and your brand.  New buying behaviours, media and technologies provide more ways of delivering engaging, consumer-centric brand experiences. Here's how you can translate your brand's story and values to all digital channels while interacting with the customers and create a fertile ground to grow relationships on: 

WHAT IS DIGITAL BRANDING?

Digital branding is designing and building your brand with a combination of digital marketing and internet branding. It focuses on providing value to target customers, inspiring loyalty and brand recognition. Digital branding allows you to communicate a value offering, i.e., a promise of value that will be appealing to your target customers. It's much bigger than the classical view of unique selling points (USP's.) This concept aims to increase the likelihood of a visitor making favourable purchase decisions. When a visitor understands your business, the opportunity for conversion increases. It is ingrained within all marketing channels through elements such as logo use cases, animation style choices, image formats, content tonality, graphic selections, colour palette, typeface, etc. - each component must be cohesive in terms of defining your brand and its message, feeding it into the customer’s mind. 

WHY DO WE NEED IT?

Digital marketing can give you leads and one-time buyers, but to make them your long-lasting loyal customers entirely depends on a solid branding strategy of your company or business. It facilitates intensifying the user experience by serving customers with relevant content across all channels they engage in every day and invite prospects into your brand experience. Strong branding will provide you with a competitive edge in the market. Enhanced credibility, ease of conversion and earned media will happen naturally with a smaller cost-per-conversion if your brand holds its weight in the market. In addition, developing a powerful, recognisable and relatable offering — which holds strong through all channels — will solidify brand trust and inspire customers to re-engage with you. 

HOW TO OPTIMISE DIGITAL BRANDING?

An online presence for a business acts as a powerful marketing and communication means. Consider some practices to leverage the best of digital branding to boost your business while also driving traffic and converting visitors into leads. Streamlining designs and maintaining brand consistency with limited templates and colour schemes that match or complement your logo is essential. Consequently, tailoring each design element to establish brand identity and visibility. Build long term relationships, customer loyalty and eventual profitability by value co-creation. Involve customers at different levels of corporate activities such as product development, communication, distribution to increase the value offered and enhance their relationship with your brand. Successful content marketing should also stimulate positive interest in your brand. It helps achieve that first point of brand awareness and use it to build trust, transforming one-time users into diehard fans. 

POPULAR DIGITAL BRANDING EXAMPLES

The overall aim should be to deliver an authentic and consistent total brand experience aligned with the brand's strategy, positioning and purpose by using the correct segmentation to communicate with your target consumer.

• Build a brand proposition that differentiates the business in the eyes of the target consumer. For example, why do consumers increasingly prefer to buy from Amazon rather than other high street retailers?
• Emotional positioning in the minds of target customers. Emotion is known to be the first driver of decision-making on a consumer's purchase journey. E.g. Coca-Cola (open happiness), Cadbury (moments of joy with loved ones), etc. 
• Enhance digital capabilities by amplifying brand offerings to intrigue the target audience. E.g. Nike offers Nike+ Connect with a chip embedded in shoes that provides a record of activity and performance. 

HOW CAN WE LEVERAGE IT?

Every business can leverage digital branding to grow. You will need some tools to bring your customers to your website, engage them, convert them, and keep them happy along the way. You can achieve personalisation by creating a bond between brand & customer. Elevate the user experience to entice customers to come back time and time again. For example, 84% of Millennials report that UGC on brand websites influences what they purchase. You must cultivate conversations and create a user-brand relationship. Furthermore, run real-time dialogues by fulfilling customers' expectations of immediacy and connecting in ways that feel relevant to your audience. Finally, produce reflective content that utilises consistent and compelling visual language covering all channels, such as social media, emailers, etc., to establish a connection with target customers. It will improve your brand image by increasing transparency and obtain helpful information to enhance your products/services.

FINAL WORDS

There must always be a consistent and holistic approach in conveying your value to visitors across all marketing channels. Using the apt segmentation to communicate with your target consumer to build brand value and loyalty puts them at the centre of everything you do. Your overall intention should be to present a genuine, harmonious, and inclusive brand experience aligned with your brand's strategy, positioning and purpose. In addition, companies will benefit significantly if they choose to fine-tune their processes to respond to the ongoing changes caused by the internet and initiate changes that would be beneficial to their customers.