Increase your Company Brand Value through Digital Marketing
A company always requires an effective impact on reputation for doing good business. This can be gained from the faith and confidence of the customers for its survival. To create a unique business, a company should undertake a strategy in acquiring potential customers and thereby the available tools to grow their interest for the company. The literature presented here depicts the current target approaches and strategies for rejuvenating digital marketing thereby highlighting utilisation of social media and online branding for creating a benchmark in business. Digital/online branding connects customers and audiences across different touch points, both online and offline, thereby following a process which recognises the available opportunities for the brand to become remarkable and appropriately applicable for customer utility and enhancing customer support and expanding their avenues.
Role of digital marketing
Advantage and Significance
A paradigm shift from analogue to digital has been revealed globally in the last few years. Digital marketing helps in reaching out to the customers and viewers who are in need of acquiring information regarding marketed products online. Other than marketers, consumers may also derive innovative information and benefits from digital marketing. Computers, tablets or mobiles are several modes available for accessing information by people throughout the world. Companies can highlight their brands by utilisation of digital marketing. Social Media and companies can be assured about the customer’s feedback being more reliable for others rather than the company’s own people.
The significance and advantages derived from digital marketing:
- Opens up growth options for small businesses
Importance of digital marketing for business lies in the option to select your method of marketing as per your budget and reach a wider audience at a lesser cost. The digital modes of marketing are customisable and hence much cheaper. If you are trying to make a foray into an already established market you can still make your presence felt by targeting a small base of customers.
- The conversion rate is higher
The businesses, that are using online as the preferred mode of marketing are able to measure the conversion rate through real-time using a simple method. That is identifying the percentage of viewers who get converted into leads and then subscribers and in the end finally purchasing the service or product. SEO, Social media marketing and Email marketing are methods which have a high conversion rate as they are able to generate a quick and effective communication channel with the consumer. Digital marketing lets you reach out to only those who have the need for your kind of service hence offering better lead conversions.
- Customer support is a priority
For any business to survive, the one thing that they really need to work upon is establishing a reputation which is impeccable. Importance of Digital marketing today lies in offering you multiple ways to establish a personal rapport with your customer base. Be it email, marketing or social media you can always offer the customer solutions to their problems and make them relate to your product by even providing live chat access. Your website and social media page can easily be converted into a place where the consumer can ask queries, give suggestions and hence take the association with you on a positive level.
- Get connected to the mobile customers
After Google mobile’s first update, nearly almost all the websites these days are made in a manner that they are easily viewable on the mobile as well. This is because that almost all customers have access to a smartphone and most of them even look for products on the same.
- Increase your brand’s trust
The presence of your brand and service on multiple platforms gives the option to customers to rate your services as per their level of experience. A positive and favorable review left by a satisfied customer causes the new ones to immediately convert thereby resulting in building up of strong image of the brand in the minds of the new consumers hence leading to more conversions.
- Better ROI for your investment
Being digital you have access to packages at different levels of costing hence ensuring that you can pick up one which suits your budget best. Using web analytics helps the business owners know whether your website is providing optimal ROI.
- Digital marketing is cost effective
A small business needs to save up on its resources before it finally goes into the green zone and starts making profits. Digital marketing gives you the scope to reach out to many customers at the same time and that too within your budget. You can plan your marketing strategy such that you only use modes which lie in your budget.
Benefits of social media for business
Social media like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Youtube etc. can be beneficial for business in the following ways:
- Gain valuable customer insights: Through daily active engagement and social listening, one can gather relevant customer data and use the information for making smarter business decision.
- Increase brand awareness and Loyalty: When you have a presence on social media, you make it easier for customers to locate and connect with you.
- Run targeted ads with real-time results: Social ads are an inexpensive way to promote business and distribute content thereby offering powerful target options to reach the right audience.
- Generate higher converting leads.
- Provide rich customer experiences.
- Increase website traffic and search ranking
- Helps in finding out what your competitors are doing.
- Share content about your business in a faster and easier way.
- Build relationships: Social media helps in enriching relationship with the customers.
The Difference between Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, YouTube, &Pinterest– Make its best use for business.
Facebook: With about 1.65 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most popular platforms, not only for personal use but business as well. For businesses and marketing, Facebook is a place to share photos, updates, and general news with those who follow or “like” you. Fans of your business come to your Facebook page to find out what’s going on with your company, see pictures of what’s going on, or explore events. Facebook Advertising is really picking up speed in the business world. It uses social graph and activities to pinpoint those who fall into your buyer demographics, making Facebook Ads incredibly effective. Facebook ads are more likely to bring in strong leads that are actually looking for your services.They help make sure your advertising budget isn’t wasted on those who aren’t really interested in what you’re offering and helping to put product or service put into the hands of the exact person who wants or needs it.
Twitter: Twitter is fast-paced, concise, and easy way to connect with your audience. With over 310 million registered users (and growing), Twitter is a sea of information of 140 character or less content waiting to be read, clicked, followed, and re-tweeted. Twitter generates over 175 million tweets daily and allows you to share quick pieces of information and photos in an effort to drive people back to your site or landing pages. When marketing on Twitter, you need to have content that is enticing enough for people to stop and click through. Hashtags (#) are your key tool on Twitter. These tags allow you to reach a wider audience than just your followers by getting involved in existing conversations. People searching for specific information will often check hashtags to see what’s out there.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is different from the rest of the social media outlets because it is specifically designed for business and professionals. Users mainly go to LinkedIn to showcase their job experience and professional thoughts, making it one of the more important platforms to use for those in B2B. Between features like LinkedIn Pulse, Company Pages, InMail, Groups, and “Get Introduced” and the ability to see who’s viewed your personal profile, LinkedIn is a valuable tool for not only driving traffic, but prospecting, establishing thought leadership as well as recruiting.
Google+: Google+ is Google’s answer to social networking. Similar to Facebook pages, Google+ allows you to share updates, videos (linked directly to your YouTube account), be followed, and get reviewed, but with the addition of creating “circles.” Circles are segmented lists you can create of your contacts and followers to pick and choose which content they see, but more on that later. While not the most popular social platform, Google+ is nevertheless crucial to getting found online. With Circles, you can separate your followers into different groups. So when you're making an announcement or just posting your latest press release, you can choose who you want to share this information with. No other social media marketing tools can really do that and it is a very important feature in the fight for personalisation.
YouTube: YouTube is the leading video-sharing platform in the world. On your channel, your brand can share and edit its own videos, create playlists, and prompt discussions. Since it was bought over by Google in 2006, YouTube is another platform that the search gives priority to in its search results .So take advantage of it. YouTube for your business is a great way to get your face out there. Videos are a lot more engaging and shareable than text content and they also aid your search rank in Google. YouTube gives you a gateway to be an educator in your industry. Upload webinars or videos speaking on important topics that further the education of your audience.
Pinterest: Pinterest is one of the more unique marketing platform on this list. Instead of posting content for your audience to read, on Pinterest, you’re posting just a clickable picture and a short caption. This is a very popular platform for brands with a tangible product, i.e. clothing and food brands, restaurants, those in eCommerce, etc.Pinterest is a superficial platform, so every image you post has to be high-quality and striking to stand out in your feed. Pinterest added a tool for businesses to better track exactly which pins are working and which aren’t. This way you’re able to collect data on what images people are clicking on. Once you know what your audience is interested in you can make sure to use more images that are along those same lines.
Social Network Facts and Statistics India
- India has world’s largest number of Facebook Users with over 195 million users, overtaking US by over 4 million subscribers.
- There are 155 Million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) in India, of which 147 million MAUs access Facebook via Mobile Phones and 73 Million users are active daily on Mobiles.
- There are over 30 Million LinkedIn Users in India, while 467 million users globally.
YouTube
- YouTube, the video-sharing site has more than 60 million unique users in India with users spending over 48 hours a monthly viewing video content.
- More than half of YouTube viewers watch YouTube Videos on their Smartphone or tablet.
- There are 16 Million Instagram users in India.
Online branding is an effective digital centric approach for brand development. Let’s know it…
A current update on digital branding
A business or organisation categorises a brand as an integral part for its upliftment. Branding refers to the perception with which a consumer recognizes a company’s service, product or name. It induces a thought process for the consumers indicating significance of a particular company.
Digital branding
The emergence of digital marketing as a specialty has been established with its fundamentals associated to direct marketing over the last 10 years. Brand marketers have several ways for directly communicating with their customers in an interactive method which is revealed through a growth in quantity of personal devices and their utility. This therefore highlights the development of interactive sessions with the customers on their digital devices through branding concepts applied via technology and media.
A brand’s position can be extended to the consumers through digital channels and assets. It may be represented as a section for “engagement programmes” or “multichannel brand communication”.
Digital centric
The central process by which a brand imparts its promises is through development of mobile content, websites, social media, search marketing, email marketing, rich media and e-commerce. All these needs considerable attention for constructing and shaping a brand.
Chief factors involved in branding
- Customer
- Identity
- Competitors
- Messaging
- Location
- Product
- People
Linking marketing strategy with brand planning
Growth priorities, segmentation and opportunity assessment are the areas to be approached. To become a winner and be the lead, there should be innovation strategy, concepts and positioning as well as a brand vision. Finally, the gateway to win a market shall emphasize on learning, execution, evaluation and integrated planning for an activity.
Role of Digital Communications in Building Brands
Digital interventions have several advantages for building brands and are considered to be a strong tool for branding. The benefits of digital communications include:
- Laser Targeting
- Engages and crucially leverages "word of mouth"
- More trustworthy
- A medium great for rich and deep content
Four roles played by digital in brand-building:
- Create a brand building platform
- Amplify a brand building platform
- Support the offering
- Amplify the offering
Objectives of a good digital brand
- Emotionally connects your target prospects with your product and or service
- Confirms your credibility
- Clearly, delivers the message
- Creates user loyalty
- Motivates the buyer to buy
Make the best use of social media and online branding to build up a platform in digital marketing and for your company’s business to flourish prospectively….