CHAPTER 2

Keep It Simple and Give a WOW Experience

In this chapter, you will read:

Introduction

To guarantee future sales, numerous businesses rely on consistent branding over time. However, such results have been somersaulted by social media and search engines. Therefore, brands that understand the need for visibility, going viral, and finding potential customers, always win over their competitors. Currently, brand relevance has become more recognizable than differentiation with the competitors. Brand relevance refers to the proper alignment of the identity and strategy to illuminate a benefit, which addresses the needs, wants, or desires of any consumer. Thanks to brand relevance there is an increased focus on the needs of the consumer thereby enhancing the consumer’s experience. As a result, the consumer can count on a consistent experience from any media outlet online or otherwise.

Well, the need for branding for any business can’t be underestimated. Digital branding has become more prevalent in the last few years with more consumers turning online for their shopping preferences. If a business is properly branded, consumers can find it effortlessly online. On the other hand, consumers can recommend the business to their friends and numerous other connections thereby improving the brand’s identity.

As already explained, unlike traditional marketing, digital branding combines various techniques, such as digital marketing and Internet branding, to develop a strong brand identity over various online venues. Whether social media or third-party listing sites, a properly branded business has more visibility online. Basically, if a customer performs an online search of the business, the results will prove to be authoritative, especially if the website is leading in the search engine results.

There are some notable differences between traditional and digital brand ing. Here are some of the notable ones that every business should know.

Easy Comprehension: Currently, millennials are leading most of the consumer markets. That’s partly the reason why online markets have become more prevalent than traditional brick and mortar shops. Everything can be accessed online from any smart device. Therefore, millennials understand everything there is to do online. When it comes to traditional branding methods, it might be tough to teach the millennials the old ways. On the other hand, digital branding is easy, fast, and very comprehensible by everyone. It seems simple enough especially everything has become paperless.

Cost-Effective: Traditional methods include print media (magazine ads, newspaper ads, newsletters, or brochures), direct mail (catalogues, flyers, or post cards), broadcast media (radio and television ads), and also telemarketing. With these traditional branding methods, the business needs to actively go out and find the customers. Previously, these techniques have a high success rate but they are very costly. On the other hand, it’s tough to measure the consumer response. Of course, there are numerous companies that rely on traditional branding methods. However, digital branding has become popular for many reasons. For instance, it is less costly. Some of the common digital branding methods commonly in use include search engine optimization, social-media marketing, Google ads, websites, and also banner ads. Here, the customers are already in place waiting for the business to contact them.

In comparison, digital branding is considered less costly than traditional branding for all the reasons named previously. Of course, to achieve the best results, most companies rely on both methods. It’s guaranteed that both traditional and digital branding can guarantee a strong brand identity.

The bottom line, though, is to have a robust picture of how the customers behave and act in your market.

Who Are We Talking to?

Audience Targeting: Segmenting a Company’s Branding Efforts to an Audience That Falls within the Company’s Target Market

When it comes to the direct-response campaigns, objectives associated with audience targeting will often be based on reaching the ideal audience. In the way businesses are targeting these audiences, marketers attempt to achieve immediate sales and website visits. This audience-targeting method is also useful to grow brand recognition. In the way of capturing attention of the brand’s target market that have been identified, opposed to just the consumers who may have demonstrated an intention to purchase, the marketers are able to raise brand awareness with a qualified and larger audience. Audience targeting is easy to employ to match up to numerous branding objectives. Digital marketers are able to increase their reach in the way of serving their ads to a new audience or they can reinforce their branding initiatives within a current defined target segment.

This fine-tuned segmentation is possible in the way of leveraging data from the users’ browsing history and activity across various sites in order to develop sophisticated and professional user profiles. These profiles are further defined by contextual, demographic, and geographic variables, which empower the brand strategists with the opportunities to apply a budget to definitive audience groups such as “First-time parents from New York,” or “Recent, Female College-Grad.”

Search Retargeting: Involves Establishing Brand Recall with Users That Already Search for Specific Services or Products

Search retargeting is able to enable a brand to find or reach those users who happen to be already searching for specific services or products. This is achievable in a few different ways. One way is targeting interest-based keywords that emphasize the unique traits of a brand. Because of the fact that these consumers are recognized as in-market users, they often possess an increased level of receptiveness along with an increase with an intent to buy. In addition, brands are able to set parameters in order to serve their ads when the users are searching for their competitors.

Retargeting: Boosting Efforts for the Consumers Who Already Have Preliminary-Brand Awareness to Increase Further Consideration

Today there are several types of retargeting. This includes retargeting people who have previously visited a website, searched for a product or opened up an e-mail. Regardless of how the consumers arrived at their first engagement, the act of retargeting is very powerful in the way that it is able to convert the consumers with limited or little exposure to the brand into consumers with an increased interest in the way of continually delivering impressions that are meaningful and increases further consideration. According to a study by ValueClick Media and comScore, retargeting has been revealed as a type of display-ad strategy that has the “greatest impact” in relation to brand lift. The retargeted display ads resulted in 1,046 percent lift in association to brand-searchers within 30 days after exposure. Retargeting was also able to achieve the biggest lift in association to site visits within this same month of exposure by 726 percent. These figures suggest that retargeting, re-engagement strategies offer great advantages when in search of a way to increase engagement and brand awareness.

Programmatic Premium: Combines the Efficiency and Power of Real-Time Bidding with Brand Security of Premium Inventory

Retargeting, audience retargeting and search retargeting allow a company to engage effectively with all relevant users. This is possible no matter where they happen to be on the web. But many marketers want to know how to make sure their ads are present on the sites that guarantee brand security? Programmatic Premium offers a way to bridge the gaps between super-premium inventory and RTB (Real-Time Bidding) and then automates the various tedious steps, which advertisers were once tasked with. However, with the definite reduction in regard to “direct” buying of inventory, many marketers are apprehensive of where their advertisements will be displayed. Serving these ads on inappropriate, user-generated, or mature sites can result in disastrous effects to the image of a brand. For this reason, marketers should be choosing to serve their ads on the inventory, which is classified as “premium” and currently available. This “premium” is not overcrowded, well-lit inventory and brand-safe.

Creative Optimization: Tailoring the Creative of a Business to Match Up to Its Branding Objectives

Over and above reaching the correct consumers, branding that is strong needs the correct messaging. For example, the creation of brand recognition and long-lasting recall is not always achieved with the use of the very same creative approach that usually drives those immediate sales. The recipe to the creation of the correct impact when delivering messaging that is relevant is to use a creative that is able to resonate. This is possible by leveraging the various media options that are available as well as conducting A/B testing to arrive at long-term-based brand awareness, which goes further than the immediate click-throughs. With the growth of the display-ad formats, today there are more options available to convey the story of a brand as well as impart meaningful impressions. For example, rich media that is flash-enabled is able to create banner advertisements, which are dynamic that can include anything from a brief animation onto expandability, which allows for interaction with these ad units. These expandable ads can also include games, surveys, and product feeds that drives messaging and memorability.

The use of A/B tests around image, background, and color or the wording associated with the brand’s value proposition or the banner ads can assist marketers in avoiding speculation on the type of creative that will prove to be the most effective and rather focus on making data-driven decisions.

Evaluating Impact

In regard to branding campaigns, CTR (Click-Through Rate) along with the other commonly used metrics for direct responses often do not reveal the entire story. In fact, many Internet users will never click-on these advertisements, but this does not mean that they do not work. One of the valuable metrics known as view-through conversion is able to quantify impact related to these display ads as it accounts for that not all the display ads will trigger immediate actions, but can still have an influence on browsing behavior into the future. The goal behind branding campaigns today is not about driving sales but rather to create awareness around specific traits, needs, or a style that the brand meets, which in turn drives long-term customer loyalty.

The tasks associated with measuring that “long-term customer loyalty” and the other types of positive effects associated with branding campaigns are often regarded as more complex compared to the reliable CTR. However, for those marketers who avoid these branding objectives and choose the traditional types of direct-response campaigns often lose out on this opportunity that is increasingly lucrative. Currently, brand studies, branded search, and brand lift are all the reliable methods used to detect how efficient digital branding is, and can assist marketers in deciding on the best ways in which to design their own branding strategies.

Are the Customers Finding You?

With digital branding becoming very popular for online business owners, it’s important to identify the best strategies to guarantee the best results. Some of the most successful online branding techniques are summarized.

Unless the business is a renowned brand, the first branding strategy should be online visibility so that customers will eventually find you. The first step of the process is the consumer taking a smart device and starts learning about a service or product he or she is thinking about buying. Anything that the consumers find online about the business is the current brand relevance. The business owner needs to remember that at every stage of the process, consumers will be comparing that specific brand to any digital experience they have previously gone through. Well, because the business owner has enough control about this, then it’s good news. Of course, he or she needs to pay some extra attention to more things besides the look and feel of the brand to the audience.

To guarantee high brand loyalty, the search engine optimization strategies in place need to be buttoned up. The same goes for the social-media strategies as well as the website experience. Here are some useful tips that can nudge the branding experience ahead at this point.

In all, digital branding is considered the beta version of the whole process because everything is a test. There is no guaranteed certainty because the online world changes frequently and so do the target audience. It’s a very common mistake for most business owners to let digital branding strategies to run their course without any necessary adjustments. There is no way of getting the same results every time by repeating a similar campaign. Therefore, the strategies need to be constantly adjusted to meet the needs of the consumers. If any relevant content has been published and received well, the same procedure can be used to curate fresh content. A good measurement strategy should be in place to check whether everything is working as it should. Even better, the strategy can be used to correct anything that’s not working and find a new way to achieve the best results. As a matter of fact, there are numerous tools online that can be used to calculate the success rate of any digital branding strategy.

The Users’ Journey

Providing excellent customer service through your online channels can also give your digital branding a huge boost, while at the same time this could create a unique experience for the customer. Instead of picking up the phone, consumers now extend their inquiries or complaints through online platforms. If you fail to respond, or if you do not even provide a way for customers to reach you, it reflects poorly on your digital brand. One bad experience of a single customer can cripple your entire business. You do not want to lose customers by not providing them a means to connect with you. To help sort this problem out, here are some customer service tools that make it quick and easy to respond to all inbound messages.

If you need a suite of tools to extend your customer service online, then ZenDesk is the tool you’re looking for. The platform streamlines all your communication channels in one location, and so it’s simpler and faster to respond to phone calls, chats, and e-mails.

A great thing about ZenDesk is that it not only provides a means for more effective communication with your customers, but also helps you glean insights into different metrics that affect your business. These can then be used to make necessary changes and offer your target audience the level of customer service they deserve. Responding to customer inquiries in the fastest way possible should always be a priority. This can be easily achieved with the help of LiveChat.

This tool allows you to place a “Chat Now” box right on your website. Customers who land on your site and want to ask something can instantly reach out to you or your support team. As you can imagine, chatting with customers in real-time provides a much better experience compared to making them wait for your e-mail response or call back. An instant response to a customer query can lead to a conversion. And when this adds up, expect to gain tons of additional revenue by simply improving your online customer service.

Keep It Simple and Give a WOW Experience

Each and every company leader who is seeking legitimacy will be aware of that the process of dispersing the brand across a variety of digital platforms is a necessity. Each of the digital platforms will have its own set of dedicated audience in regard to users who will prefer a particular method in interaction compared to others. When a company’s brand is able to establish a presence over multiple platforms, it is fundamentally meeting up with potential consumers within its neighborhood. When these companies show that they care enough to pay a visit to these neighborhoods, these consumers become more open to supporting these companies’ brands. The connection with customers on social-media platforms such as Google Plus, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook is the standard when it comes to social-media marketing but the other types of engaging digital platforms are free for use and can assist in catapulting a company’s prominence in regard to the search engine listings. According to research in regard to posting on these four channels, here is a bit of insight:

YouTube

The entrepreneurs who have not taken advantage of the YouTube platform are really doing themselves a great disservice. It is true that the required content may seem a bit more complex in order to create. However, if the company has already created its own content strategy, it is easy to make use of these same concepts and then just add a camera and a person. The content does not need to be a type of million dollar production, it just needs to be relatable. This can include an employee who sits in front of a curtain and discusses industry-related events or news or to share funny or interesting stories about events that have unfolded in the company that week. The point of this technique is based on being visible and present so that the users who enjoy taking in information through a medium such as videos will really appreciate that a company makes the effort to reach them.

BuzzFeed

Recognized in regard to its “signature listicles” that offer humorous snapshots associated with people’s lifestyles along with recaps based on news that is relevant on that day, BuzzFeed has become a popular household name. What many companies do not realize is that anyone is able to create his or her own BuzzFeed channels for free. Companies should aim to craft eye-catching “listicles,” which let a target audience understand and know what the company is about. These posts may not make the front-page placement on this platform, but supporters and fans won’t be aware of the differences when the company shares these posts on the other different social-media platforms. When a company creates its own BuzzFeed posts and channel, certain consumers are often happy to interact with a business through the type of format that they find appealing and trendy.

Playbuzz

Just about all the users on social-media platforms have at some point wasted a bit of their time in answering one of those personality quizzes, answering a question such as “What color is your personality?” These activities often add in a couple of moments of enjoyment and amusement to a person’s day. Companies can take advantage and join in on this fun. Any company is able to create its own free Playbuzz channel and then create a quiz that it can share with its followers. Including these quizzes in a company’s digital-content strategy can provide another way to inform and amuse consumers across all the different social-media platforms.

Udemy

Udemy happens to be a marketplace dedicated to online learning. Teachers use this site to set up courses that they sell and the students learn, buy, and browse. A company can also take advantage of brand presence on these platforms. Udemy is also free and consumers use this site to browse through the topics in search of any new ways to educate them. Companies can take advantage of promoting the consumers’ “intellectual growth” in the way of offering classes that are free through Udemy, which can teach these consumers more about the company’s field of interests. Companies that are able to establish themselves on Udemy in the form of an “instructor” set the company up as a type of authority within their field, while at the same time introducing the brand of the company to a brand-new subculture of individuals.

Turn Increased Value in Cold Hard Cash

For the companies that are involved in building brands or brand portfolios, there are common types of branding challenges that they may face in their effort to capitalize their digital presence. These businesses can benefit in the way of appraising how they are able to face each of these challenges:

Treating a Brand as an Asset

Ongoing pressure associated with delivering short-term financial based results combined with fragmentation of the media often tempts organizations into focusing on measurable results and tactics and then neglects the objectives associated with building assets.

Retaining a Compelling Vision

The vision of a brand has to be able to “differentiate” itself, inspire employees, and resonate with consumers or customers. It also has to be worthwhile to implement and work well overtime in dynamic marketplaces. The visions that usually work are typically multidimensional and are able to adapt to various contexts. They will also employ concepts like organizational values, brand personality, as well as typically move beyond their functional benefits.

The Creation of New Subcategories

The sole way to grow with very rare exceptions is to do with developing “must have” innovations, which define the new subcategories as well as build up barriers, which stop the competitors from obtaining relevance. This necessitates transformational or substantial innovation along with new abilities in order to manage perceptions of these subcategories so that they win.

The Generation of Breakthrough Brand Building

Exceptional ideas along with executions that manage to break free from the clutter are important to bring the vision of a brand to life. These particular ideas along with how they are executed should be seen as more vital compared to the actual size of a company’s budget. Today “good” is no longer good enough. What this means is that a company should focus on obtaining ideas from additional sources and to ensure that the correct mechanisms are present in order to distinguish brilliance as well as bring these ideas onto the markets quickly.

Achieving Integrated-Marketing Communication

Integrated-marketing communication (IMC) happens to be more difficult and elusive today in association with the different methods a company is forced to choose from. These can include social media, mobile, digital, sponsorships, advertising, and more. These techniques often compete with one another rather than reinforcing as the media options and scene has become so intricate, dynamic, and complex. In addition, country silos and product reflect isolation and competition opposed to communication and cooperation.

Building Digital Strategies

This particular arena is dynamic and complex and requires a different kind of mindset. The truth of the matter is that audiences are the one in control in this area. This means creative initiatives, new capabilities, and a different approach to working with other types of marketing modalities are needed. This also means the adjustment of the focus of digital marketing from offerings as well as the brand to consumer’s sweet spots. These include opinions and activities that they are passionate about or interested in. It also means developing programs around these sweet spots whereby the brand is seen as one of the active partners. An example of this is what Pampers did with the Pampers Village or what the company Avon did in regard to their Walk for Breast Cancer.

Building Brands Internally

It becomes very hard or impossible to achieve integrated-marketing communications that are successful or the type of breakthrough marketing without the employees of a business knowing about this vision or caring about the vision. Brand visions that lack higher purpose often find inspirational challenges close to impossible.

The Maintenance of Brand Relevance

Brands today face three “relevance” threats: less customers purchasing what their brand offers, the emergence of reasons not to buy, and a decrease or lack of energy. Locating as well as responding to each of these threats necessitates an in-depth knowledge and experience of the markets as well as a willingness and need to invest and then change.

Creating Brand Portfolio Strategies That Will Yield Clarity and Synergy

Brands require a well-defined role as well as visions that support these roles. A strategic brand should be able to be resourced and identified along with branded energizers and differentiators need to be created as well as managed.

The Leveraging of Brand Assets to Enable Growth

Brand portfolios need to foster growth in the way of providing new offerings, extending this brand into other product classes or extending a brand vertically. The goal should be based on applying a brand into new contexts where this brand will simultaneously enhance itself and add value. Those businesses engaged in leveraging and building their brand should examine every one of these prevalent challenges and make a decision on which of these are the most vital in order to achieve success. This should be followed by evaluating the degree in which this company’s brand is in a deficit in regard to meeting up to one or more of these challenges.

Summary

If there are any businesses that have not initiated their digital branding strategies yet, here are some of the reasons why they should get started immediately. Online shopping has completely transformed everything. People are always on their mobile devices looking for the next thing they are going to buy. If any business is looking to breach the online marketplace, digital branding is the way to do it right. Customers are already in place waiting, the business owner just needs to find the right way to tap into it. Digital branding is almost free, especially with most of the techniques such as social media. Therefore, rather than using traditional methods such as print media that can be quite costly, digital is the way to do it. By constantly engaging people on social media, it’s easy to create a trend for your business and get the branding needed. Mixing up both digital and traditional branding might create a good blend that might produce extraordinary results. Trying out the cost-effective branding methods might work perfectly for any new online business looking to beat the competitors.

Digital branding is the best way to reveal a new business into the online world. It needs to be done right to achieve the best results. Any branding strategy that has been put in place needs to cater to the customers at all times. The customer is the center of every business objective. The days of a business pushing their products down the throats of all customers are gone. With a digital branding strategy, the business can cater to the customer’s needs and at the same time count on high profits.

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