After setting up your business from off the ground the next step you get into is marketing.  If your product or services is for consumers use, we need to know how to sell or reach your customers.  I am not referring to the old ways we normally do it, which is knocking on doors. This is the millennial age and everything goes digital these days or you do everything online, from shopping for clothes, getting movie tickets, groceries, booking a restaurant, driving location and everything you can think of is online. So we need to go where the majority of your customer base is getting new information, the internet.

What is digital branding? Digital branding is the process in which we use to create a positive and consistent appeal for our brand image and messages.  This is totally different than digital brand which means what people see, hear, feel about the image or message that represent your business or company.

There are many laws on brand building…Going digital on your brand is not as daunting as you think.  Here are 5 simple steps you can start with in order for you to get the ball rolling.

Understanding your customers

In order for you to get an in-depth understanding of who you need to reach. Understanding your customer well defines what you need to do to reach them and make them aware you exist and to be able to create a loyal following from them. Everything you need to find out here is about who, what, why and how of your customers.  Here are factors you need to consider;

• Investigate who your customers are
• What are their likes and dislikes
• Demographics (age, income, education, etc.)
• Purchasing power
• What makes them loyal to a brand

Image Credit: shutterstock

Create your goals

Understanding who your customers make it easier for you to produce the following

• Establish your mission/vision of your brand.
• Develop a brand name that is distinctly your own that is inherently focused on what or who you really are and shy away from generic terms that are commonly used this will not make an impact to your customers.
• Develop an eye-catching logo ( font, color)
• Color is important to make your brand stand out from your competitor such as; Adidas.
• Develop a slogan – make sure the focus is narrow to achieve a fast recall.
• Develop a tagline – e.g.; Nike “Just Do It”
• Develop your advertising campaign based on the brand you have created

For your brand to work, there are 3 important elements that you need to be doing is to be true to your brand, be distinct or unique and consistency in representing your product or services.

Choose your media

This time once you have set up your brand you need publicity.  The only way a brand works and becomes known to your customers is when they are advertised. Your brand should be able to generate a favorable publicity through media otherwise it won’t make it in the market. Choose the right platform where you can find the customers you are after.  In launching your brand you can choose any of these platforms below, either you choose to use one or all of them combined as long as you know your customers use these methods, the key here is to be seen and noticed by them.

• Print media ( newspaper, magazines, books)
• Television
• Movies
• Video Games
• Internet
• Social Media ( Facebook, Youtube, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)

There is a variety of choices that you can go for to plan your publicity campaign.  However, these days there are a lot of media platforms integration involved to take advantage of for your campaign.

Budget

This is normally the most feared subject on every business owners mind when talking about advertising budget.  How much would this cost me? In previous years, the higher your advertising budget would be, the better it is for your brand to generate the outcome of your campaign.  However, in this day and age, ever since the internet we have been bombarded with commercial messages daily.

If your worry is having a minimal budget there are media platforms available that you can sign up for free.  You can choose to integrate this with other mediums as well to maximize your visibility which is the key to a successful campaign.  The more response you get from customers the better you will know how your campaign is working or if it is converted to purchases, may it be good or bad, take note of this and try to fuse this with your current campaign, a word of advice don’t do it drastically, as long as modifications done are not going to affect the goal for your advertising campaign.

Take Action

Now with all the planning and brainstorming, you have done with your team for your company the bottom line is nothing will happen if action is taken to implement it.  Implementation is the key to see results and find out if your brand can generate conversion.

Difference between the standard branding and digital branding.

What is the difference between the standard branding and digital branding?  It should not be different however, since digital branding is the current trend in introducing your brand.

These days consumers have more power and they build the brand. With Digital media this allows more ways with digital branding Products and service of the companies are becoming digital.

Here are some common examples of  companies that are into digital branding;

• Nike – “ swoosh”
• Starbucks – “Siren”
• McDonald’s – “Golden Arches”

There are more companies that are getting into or incorporating their brands thru digital branding and marketing.

More information:

*  Al Ries, Laura Ries (1998) The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

*  Jean-Luc Ambrosi (2013) Branding to Differ

Autor Bio

This article has been written by Jabir Mohamed, he is the founder of Search Beast – Canadian SEO Agency. He is a Digital Marketer & specialized in Search Engine Optimization.

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