Branding 101: 7 Important Elements of a Branding Strategy
A well-defined and executed brand strategy affects all aspects of a business and these elements of a Branding Strategy can pave your way to digital success!
Branding is intangible. Your branding is not just your logo, color palette and its elements. It’s the personality that comes through that should be hard to miss and truly remarkable.
We’ve put together 7 important elements that you must work on to create the perfect Digital Branding for your business.
Make your brand more memorable with these 7 important elements!
The Elements of a Digital Branding Strategy at a Glance:
Let’s dive deeper into each one of these to better understand how you can get more leads with out of the box branding.
#1 PURPOSE
Before learning what you want to sell as a business, you need to know your purpose which can help you define the value you can provide to the society that is different from your competitors, one that stands out in the market.
Your Business’s Purpose can be viewed in two ways:
Functional: This concept focuses on the evaluations of success in terms of immediate and commercial reasons—i.eThe sole purpose of the business is to make money and fame.
Intentional: This concept focuses on success as it relates to the ability to make money and do good in the world.
While making money is always essential to keep a business successful and growing, a brand that has an intentional purpose is well respected amongst the masses and has a much more loyal audience/ customer base. For example, H&M, although a fast fashion brand, has a lot of ongoing initiatives that reduce wastage and help in conserving the earth’s resources. This approach appeals to potential customers, demonstrating their commitment to providing value beyond the point of sale.
While thinking of your purpose, keep in mind that while making money is the ideal goal, having something to build on and connect with your audience on a long term basis is something to think about as well.
#2 CONSISTENCY
We’ve been one of the leading Branding Agency in Abu Dhabi for a while now and one thing that helps us keep up with the competition is our consistent approach towards Digital Branding, which we implement in all the businesses we work on.
The key to consistency is to avoid things that don’t relate with your brand at all. You don’t have to follow every social media trend, only the ones that connect with your business’ purpose and ideologies.
To give your brand a platform to stand on, you need to ensure your messaging is cohesive. Ultimately, consistency contributes to brand recognition, which fuels customer loyalty.
By taking out time and creating a style guide, you can ensure consistency through all your communications and make your brand recall a lot more memorable.
#3 EMOTION
Customers tend to let their emotions come in the way of their buying decisions. They aren’t always rational buyers.
Emotional branding is the process of forming a relationship between a consumer and a product or brand by provoking their emotions. You as a brand can achieve this by creating content that appeals to the consumer’s emotional state, ego, needs, and aspirations.
For example, Coca Cola increased customer engagement with their Share a Coke campaign. Instead of the Coca Cola logo, personalized bottle labels showed common names from different countries. Coca Cola encouraged customers to post pictures to social media with their own personal coke bottle.
This campaign was a major hit and it helped people not just connect with each other but with the brand as well, solely through emotion and good branding.
Emotional Branding makes experience an important factor in creating brand identity and you must never miss out on using it while implementing your branding strategy.
#4 FLEXIBILITY
In this fast changing world, it is important as a marketer to stay flexible in their approach, to keep their business relevant.
You may ask– How can a brand be both consistent and flexible?
Well, it’s simple. While consistency aims to set the standard for your brand, flexibility enables you to make adjustments that build interest and distinguish your approach from your competition
If your old tactics aren’t working anymore, don’t be afraid to change. Just because it worked in the past doesn’t mean it’s working now.
Always choose to take the opportunity of attracting old customers and new, by implementing strategic marketing techniques and staying on trend, without completely throwing off your branding.
#5 EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
The direct participation of staff to help an organization fulfill its mission and meet its objectives by applying their own ideas, expertise, and efforts towards solving problems and making decisions, can help keep your branding consistent and your communications up to date.
If your brand is playful and bubbly through Twitter engagements, it won’t make sense if a customer called in and they were connected to someone grumpy, right?
To avoid such mismanagement in communication, you must hire people with similar ideologies to that of your brand and provide them with relevant material to always keep them in the loop.
Employee Involvement should be a prominent part of your Digital Branding as they are the direct connection and point of communication between your brand and your audience.
#6 LOYALTY
Loyalty, if rewarded– reaps great results not just for your brand, but your customers as well.
If customers have gone out of their way to tell their friends about you, and act as your brand ambassadors through social media posts and/or reviews, it’s always nice to give them something back like a unique discount code or a freebie. This helps you gain more long term loyalty and customers.
You don’t always have to go all out, sometimes just a thank you is good enough too. Or you can choose to feature them on your website/ social media channels to show them that you care and you appreciate their engagement.
Highlighting a positive relationship between you and your existing customers sets the tone for what potential customers can expect if they choose to do business with you. So go big on appreciating loyalty, or go home!
#7 COMPETITIVE AWARENESS
Being competitive does not always have to be bad. Take the competition as a challenge to improve your own strategy and create greater value in your overall brand. You are in the same business and going after the same customers, right? So watch what they do and improvise.
While staying in tune with your competitor’s strategies is essential if you want to enhance your brand, don’t let them dictate every move you make. Your unique identity is just as important and will eventually help you stand out from the sea of competitors out there.
Let the experts elevate your branding for you. Click here to connect with us and know more about our Branding Services.