Digital marketing opens many doors for businesses looking to increase exposure and sales. Platforms like GoogleAds, Facebook, and LinkedIn allow brands to target MILLIONS of local users based on various demographics and behavior metrics.
BUT... is your brand ready for this exposure? Ask yourself the following questions to determine if you're ready for digital marketing 👇👇
Do you understand your brand?
Your brand is so much more than colors and logos. Your brand is an identity, it's the experience you provide to your customers and prospects. Key elements of a solid brand are:
Target Audience - Who is your brand directed at? Are you business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C)? Online sales or retail sales? Your target audience is the main factor in determining your messaging, and the cornerstone of your marketing strategy.
Goals - What do you want to achieve with your marketing? Are you aiming for increased online sales? More subscribers or viewers? Setting goals helps you visualize what you want your brand to accomplish. They also help you measure your success and optimize your strategy.
Perception - How do customers view your brand? Do they see you as a no-nonsense service provider or a fun, exciting experience? Perception is most often determined by your target audience. One of the best ways to determine your perception is to ask your customers how they view your brand, oftentimes this will give you the most accurate answer!
Values - Even though you can't physically see your values, they play a huge role in steering your brand. It's more important than ever to infuse integrity and trust into your decision-making process. Customers and prospects can see poor values from a mile away, and in order to forge long-term client relationships, your brand should mirror positive values.
Promise - What are you committing to your clients? What can customers expect when they do business with your brand? Your brand promises help your audience visualize the experience they will receive when they buy your products or services.
Your brand is a complex matrix of values, promises, goals, targets, and identities. Before you begin any type of marketing you should perform a comprehensive brand analysis. Hiring a marketing agency to perform a brand analysis and help you develop a strategy allows you to take advantage of an outside perspective and additional marketing experience.
Is Your Brand Consistent?
Digital marketing has a HUGE reach. Many digital advertising campaigns we run for clients reach thousands of prospects every single day, making brand consistency even more important. You should always make sure that your brand's look, feel, and messaging is the same across all of your marketing platforms:
Print materials
Promotional items & branded apparel
Social media
Your website
Your retail locations / offices
By creating a seamless experience across platforms your customers will enjoy a smooth process from contact to sale. This increases the probability of repeat business and long-term customer relationships.
Is Your Website Ready?
Nothing kills a good digital marketing campaign faster than a poor website experience. Whether you like it or not, the vast majority of prospects will visit your website prior to doing any business with your brand. Think of your website as a digital doorstep, it's how you make a great first impression.
Your website should be a tool to achieve 3 main outcomes:
Reinforcing your brand - Customers visit your website to learn more about who you are, how you solve their needs, and how you provide value.
Building trust - A positive website experience is the first step in building trust with your visitors. Make sure your website is secure, customers should NEVER have to wonder if their information is safe when they're on your website.
Call-to-action - Do you want prospects to fill out a contact form? Purchase goods on your e-commerce store? Fill out a survey? Make sure you have plenty of call-to-action buttons to keep your customer moving towards your end goal... a sale! Your CTA's should contain action words/phrases like "Buy Now" or "Learn More".
Poor website execution is by far the most common issue our team comes across when working with new brands. You can have an awesome digital marketing campaign, but if your website is outdated, unsecured, or not mobile-friendly... you can kiss your results goodbye!
What About Your Sales Process?
So you've got your brand identity squared away, goals set, and a great digital marketing campaign directing prospects to your beautiful website... smooth sailing ahead, right!?
WRONG.
Perhaps the most commonly overlooked element of digital marketing is the sales process. What are you doing with the leads that come in? How are you tracking your success rate? Are you even getting good leads?
Our team invests A TON of time into optimizing digital marketing campaigns. In order to make the right strategic decisions, we rely heavily upon the client's sales process to tell us what changes we need to make to guide better prospects into your lead funnel. We choose to focus more on the QUALITY of the leads rather than the QUANTITY.
There is a very important distinction between the two...
High-quality leads will increase your sales whereas high quantities of bad leads only serve to burden your sales process and create a bottleneck in your lead funnel.
Key Takeaways
1. Understand your brand
2. Create consistency
3. Develop a strong website
4. Optimize your sales process
If you're interested in learning more about preparing your brand for digital marketing, please reach out to me and our team here. We have a passion for making marketing a personalized experience!
About the Author
Daniel Marr is the lead Marketing Strategist and Director of Business Development for NWPC Marketing Solutions, a team of marketing experts dedicated to helping you achieve your goals and BOOST your brand! Our awesome team strives to build effective marketing strategies by working side-by-side with businesses as advisors and consultants.