Many small businesses and therefore also website owners are under the impression that digital marketing has nothing to do with their company brand, but only relates to creating sales, preferably as quickly as possible.
However, even though you can google digital marketing with spectacular results on how to engage with your audience online, be careful! It isn’t a tactic; it requires the same level of planning and strategic direction as any other communication in your company and should ultimately align with your business plan and goals.
Your brand, i.e. your vision, mission, values and unique positioning should define your online activities. It encompasses the promise you make to your customers, otherwise you are only competing with other companies on product specs and pricing.
Many entrepreneurs think that a brand is something that is created by a designer or marketing agency and only involves a logo and a tagline. Nothing could be further from the truth! Your brand is the emotional connection with your customer and represents everything about your product and service offering that your customer recalls when they think about you.
Your brand message helps to create an optimal environment where the customer would want to connect and engage with your business.
Some advantages of digital brand-building
- Without even spending money on an elaborate brand campaign you can build your brand by simply addressing the content, tone and user experience of your website and pay more attention to your engagement with your target audience through social media.
- You are able to target your audiences to ensure your message will resonate with them.
- You are able to respond quicker in a digital environment to ensure that your message stays relevant in response to your customer needs.
- A digital environment allows for both brand building and sales as you are able to meet the needs of your customers throughout the entire process.
- It is the only medium apart from face to face interaction where you are able to immediately obtain feedback from your customer and measure the interaction and return on investment of your campaigns.
An online business environment is not a static one – your sales can drop without notice, your customers can complain or a competitor can suddenly take away some of your market share.
If you have already defined what your brand stands for, it suddenly becomes much easier to make the decisions to be able to respond to these changes. Are you ready to meet your customer online?