Digital branding is often confused with digital marketing. Before we differentiate, let’s understand branding.
Branding is a creative process of conveying what your company is all about; your identity, the ethos, what you care about, why people should believe you, and why they should enter into a relationship with your brand. In that context, digital branding is how you build your brand in the digital world through websites, social media, mobile applications, etc. Digital branding consists of building an image and a relationship to maintain and establish a brand’s identity online.
For startups, digital branding plays a key role and is best understood at the early startup stage.
5 Digital branding techniques for SMEs
Invest in your logo, Your Brand Identity
Your brand’s identity, both digital and physical, will be defined by your brand’s logo. Customers often associate a business and its products with its logo. Therefore, making a recognizable logo that reflects your business vision is important. It takes customers less than 15 seconds to form an impression of your brand’s logo. However, it takes an average customer at least 5 impressions to remember your logo and associate your business with the logo.
Think Apple, think Amazon, and the image forms in our mind, isn’t it!.
As most startup consulting services will tell you, while your logo should be attractive and eye-catching, it should fulfill few other criteria; it should reflect the persona and values of your business.
Take control of your brand’s voice
Any business is incomplete without its unique voice. Your tone of voice should align with what you stand for and the services the company offers. Selling womenswear? Keep the tone playful and Trendy. If you have a restaurant? You need to sound professional. There are many ways to take charge of your brand’s digital tone and voice; two of the easier means are your blog and social media channels. Businesses with a well-maintained blog can generate up to 67% more leads every month than those that don’t.
Maintaining a blog has two-fold advantages: you can improve your website’s visibility and share relevant, insightful information, which drives trust and positions the brand as an authority. If you have a business consultant, then checking if they offer marketing and brand consulting in Dubai would be an ideal way forward.
Think Content Marketing
Advertising is not going to be enough to build your brand. A loyal, returning customer base calls for high levels of engagement, and that’s where content marketing comes into your brand-building plans. It’s about portraying the human side of your brand with content marketing strategies that focus on engagement through images, videos, podcasts, blogs, articles, etc. Content marketing is responsible for enhancing trust between the brand and the user. To put it in simpler words, digital marketing introduces a customer to your brand, and content marketing keeps them interested.
Strategically executed content marketing campaigns will stimulate interest in your brand and should get customers and prospects excited enough to engage.
Consistency
This aspect of branding is prone to debate in the digital world: consistency or lack thereof. As mentioned earlier, it takes an average customer at least 5 impressions to associate your logo with your business and products. What does this imply? Are 5 impressions all that’s required? The answer is no; the more, the merrier. Still, if your logo changes between the many exposures with your target audience, they will likely associate your brand with inconsistency, and your customer will be confused.
In the worst-case scenario, your customer may opt not to follow your brand anymore. Startups not only need to increase their customer base but need to (consistently) maintain a high customer retention ratio.
Brand consistency implies following the branding plan combined with a marketing strategy and a set of predetermined metrics which identify success with the short-term and long-term goals. Being consistent does not mean a single person should handle all branding. It means everyone involved should be part of the brand and become what the brand stands for. This consistency ensures a customer’s trust in your brand.
Decide your KPIs, ensure you meet them
It is essential to measure your business’ growth regularly. However, this growth cannot be determined using abstract parameters. It would be best to define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the start of your journey.
Brand KPIs will work together with your Marketing KPIs and sometimes there will be overlaps too. Measurable metrics are the way to go, as an increase in repeat sales, growth in cross-selling to existing customers, growth of social media followers or subscriptions, etc. This analysis can then help you evaluate your business’ progress with the brand in the lead.
Consider hiring a branding consultant
There are obvious advantages of hiring an experienced business consultant, and hiring a branding consultant will be just as beneficial for your brand and business. Brand consultants focus entirely on your business’ identity, and such focus allows the brand to gain a stronghold in the competitive UAE market. Branding requires conducting an in-depth analysis of your business vision, your products, your goals in the content of the competitive digital landscape.
Digital branding is of the utmost importance for any startup. As a business that is still in its initial phases, the brand voice and vision you create will follow you as your business grows and expands.
Are you looking for digital branding expertise in the UAE?
At Centurion Consulting LLC, we work with you and help you professionally manage and grow your business. Set up a 45 min free online or offline consultation with our experts to learn more!
