Branding: Giving Digital Marketing a Voice
Branding and marketing of end products keep the sales department alive and helps businesses meet their potential buyers, attract target audiences and bring in more revenues and profits for their organisations. Branding acts as an anchor for digital marketing processes and gives a unique voice to brands, products and goods marketed by companies.
The advertising and promotion channels have taken a giant leap to digitised platforms in the last decade and, as such, the increase in demand for products, goods and services offered by organisations. Digital marketing has three inherent phases- advertising, branding and sales. These three components define the success of companies and play a titular role in keeping them relevant in an ever-changing market space.
Digital marketing has seen the sporadic rise of interactive screens, LED displays and other animations for widespread attention and can often be seen while commuting from work, nearby famous tourist spots, public transportation services and other places. Modern marketing techniques work on grabbing the subconscious mind with eye-catching colours, vivid animations and other gimmicks that create a sense of anticipation and hype for a particular brand.
A Deeper Look into Digital Marketing and Branding
Branding today involves lots of elements, spatial, non-spatial, communication and emotionally based strategies for attracting audiences and converting leads into prospective buyers. The core dynamics of branding and marketing revolve around augmenting products as per their targeted audience’s preferences and choices.
A respected and esteemed university’s branding and online marketing course can expose learners to unique perspectives and concepts that govern these domains. Amongst these, the online marketing course from MICA offers creative insights that executives can apply in corporate roles.
There are certain aspects of branding, advertising, marketing, and sales that give a much-needed direction to products and goods sent across to customers. Those aspiring for careers in digital marketing and branding sectors need to have a solid base regarding the critical components, principles, strategies and other vital areas.
Developing and implementing strategies is a big part of digital marketing since it involves regrouping different ideas, viewpoints and putting them across in front of senior executives.
Digital marketing is a teamwork department that relies on the cohesion between employees, stakeholders, marketers, and other personnel to make the process a success and launch products as per customer’s expectations.
This calls for the coinage of a new term, “digital branding”, a subset of digitally sound marketing that takes care of all the arenas associated with developing a consistent brand message across platforms.
Digital branding is a department that solely deals with rendering a unique and creative presence for brands and their interaction with customers and other onlookers. Branding in morn digital space comes with its challenges, and therefore, it’s balanced out by leveraging analytically driven and data-backed solutions.
The same goes for its close relative- digital marketing that focuses on deploying products as per market insights, statistics and other data-based intel.
Data and its Essence in Digital Branding and Marketing Processes
Several years ago, when the Internet was taking baby steps into the world of interconnectivity, communication and fast pace processing, the founder of the World Wide Web- Tim Berners Lee, mentioned this profound quote-
“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.”
The statement holds true even in the era of superfast computation, high-speed Internet, more excellent connectivity and utilisation of data in nearly all sectors. The element of eternity, continuity and longevity has shaped up systems, processes, procedures and other workflows following better-connected devices, regular tracking of how industries are performing and deploying technological advances that can further strengthen workable models.
The benefits of using data in sectors that undergo lots of fluctuations, such as branding and marketing, helps marketers in predicting upcoming trends and influences taking place in these domains, also assists in developing strategies that can sit well with their customer pool, bring in more cash-flows and numerous other advantages.
Data is a driving force behind influencing the launch of products, their campaigning dates, promotional strategies and other associated particulars. Leveraging data can make better performing, scalable and appealing products and can hugely impact their perception by customers, media and other sources.
The following list educates learners about the importance of utilising data in marketing sectors:-
Helps in Connecting Goals with KPIs
Every organisation operates through some goals and objectives and aims in achieving those as it launches and markets its products. These goals are set up as per its mission, vision and ethics system, and the message it delivers to its admirers and consumers.
Goals alone can’t lead to optimal results, and as a result, there’s a need for setting up key performance indicators (KPIs) in place. KPIs are a marketing strategy set up by marketing managers and leaders who need to up-sell their items and hand out bonuses to their outstanding employees.
Goal setting starts with establishing KPIs that reveal the success of a marketing agency in meeting its set objectives and giving a direction to inherent processes, set procedures and streamlining overall junctures for corporations.
Consider an example wherein the main objective of a company is to increase brand awareness across social media platforms- Facebook. In this case, marketing managers will have to set and deploy advertisements that lead to their product’s landing page for more lead conversions. Therefore, the KPI tracking for these ads would be increasing its reach.
These KPIs are the precise metrics deployed by organisations to check whether they are performing as per their expected levels and ensure that everyone stays on track while carrying out their duties. KPIs present the top points that convey signals which areas companies need to focus on for yielding better outputs, maintain consistent growth and bring in more revenues.
The several examples for using KPIs can be reflected as:-
- Return of investment made on social media adverts and content
- Return of investment made towards leveraging online advertisements
- The expected and generated acquisition rates
- Analysing and figuring out cost made per acquisition
Helps in Tracking Useful Marketing Data
One of the best advantages of using data in marketing environments is that it helps in active and real-time tracking to avoid any hassles. It renders insights about several sources, understanding different strategies, setting up various plans and learning on the go.
Tracking data leads to better and result-oriented decisions that can help strengthen strategies and, therefore, succeed at the international markets. Marketing managers can pull out data from various sources to ensure they meet established objectives.
Given the amount of paid analytical tools, techniques and software available to marketing managers today, they can utilise them for attaining profitable outcomes. The modern marketing world consists of several aspects that need to be taken care of when embarking on media campaigns, promotions and launching dates for different marketed items.
Website analytics is entrusted with tracking data off websites and other landing pages for organisations. Numerous leading companies offer tremendous and intelligent analytical tools for collecting information from this online content.
There are some highly sought after marketing technicalities that can help in gathering insights by introducing data-based technologies. Some of them are discussed below:-
Analytical Tools
Google Analytics is one of the most better analysis tools that delves deeper into looking after demographics of users that access a particular website and draws conclusions based on those; it then shows the number of hits aka visits and clicks on links that are present on that web page, statistics about who navigated that website and other marketing procedures.
Those looking to get efficient at the usage of analytics software can look out for tutorials to draw insights from various analytical tools and better their return on investments. The tracking of data can also help differentiate between organic traffic and those that accessed websites by themselves.
Email-Based Marketing
Email based marketing is done for both new and old customers. At the same time, creating an account and signing up for online newsletters, website content, amongst others.
Moreover, those customers who have been using a product for ages and are associated with a brand for a while are sent information about discount vouchers, upcoming sales and other coupons to purchase items.
Email-based marketing acts as an excellent starting point for finding a customer’s attention and keeping them hooked with the company’s services.
Furthermore, to get expected results from emailers, one needs to conduct thorough and well-planned market research and establish the goals and aims of these marketing tools and their long-term impacts.
Doing so would help in raising the standards of goods and products offered to customers and make them come back to buy more merchandise of the same brand.
For example, consider a situation wherein the industry open rate could be 25%, but on close inspection with market trends and tracking, it concludes that the available newsletter rate is about 33%.
Therefore, establishing standards is a great way for data comparisons and overseeing different aspects of marketing.
Social Media
Social media is rightly the king of online engagement, interaction, communication and holds the key for taking marketing to newer heights. The inception of social media with digital marketing has been revolutionary for driving the success and growth of organisations.
It’s an intelligent and nuanced manner for gathering consumer’s attention without looking out for end-users. Social media acts as a great medium to interact and foster engagement with consumers and market products in a respectable way, appealing and sitting well with users.
For thriving in a social media space, it’s vital to look at native analytics that again works on the basic principle of data tracking. The power of social media is immense, and marketing managers have to utilise it as per their firm’s needs and objectives.
Moreover, since everyone using social media can view a product simultaneously, it’s easier to reach out to individual leads and look for conversions. Social media has engagement tools such as likes, shares and heart reactions that can increase interaction with posts. Also, those who comment can be sent a private message specifying a particular product they’re interested in and market goods accordingly.
Sets up Parameters for Marketing Funnel and Sales Cycle
Using data has another benefit; it can lead to a better and in depth understanding of people who travel via a marketing funnel and its sales cycle. Every business has it’s own unique and state of the art marketing funnels and sales cycle that incorporates different processes for meeting prospective buyers, tracking data, and other advantages.
A salient market funnel consists of different processes such as Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Trial, and Adoption and is repeated with the Loyalty Phase. The marketing aspects such as Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Trial are directly involved with setting up result-oriented and distinct marketing elements for strategies. In contrast, adoption and loyalty deal with the sales aspects of digital marketing.
A typical marketing strategy goes via trial phase for helping customers with top of the line and keeping them equipped with resources, information and other valuable data sets.
The marketing funnel is called so since it involves filtration of people through its process and companies zero in on these practices, the tunnel decreases in size. On the other hand, a marketing cycle refers to the advanced version of funnelling wherein it is conducted in a cyclic pattern with all phases going in unison.
Successful marketing analytics needs to figure out the people, resources and other parameters involved in the buying of products, the ones that drifted away and developing strategies for getting them back.
Marketing tunnels and cycles help in giving clarity over the following aspects:-
- The time is taken to ideally close a lead
- The sources that generate a significant amount of leads
- The information that motivates customers and drives them to purchase marketed goods
Data and its Essence in Digital Branding Processes
The term data was always involved with numbers, information, retrieval and other aspects. However, the words excellent, trendsetting and other adjectives have been associated with data and its applications in recent years.
The primary reasons for the same include the vast utilisation of data practices in creative industries such as branding, marketing, and writing. Data has taken the meaning of free information into a new era wherein it can be used for deploying intelligent and powerful insights about different aspects of branding protocols.
Data analytics and its incorporation in digital branding phases help segment audiences, analyse content generated by websites and other online newsletters, deliver and launch web-based blogs, and cater better to end-user’s needs and concerns.
“When we have all the data online, it will be great for humanity. It is a prerequisite to solving many problems that humankind faces.”
The quote mentioned above by Robert Cailliau envisioned what the world is witnessing today- sporadic rise and growth of data in solving problems and offering innovative solutions in dealing with adversities.
Data possess the capability to transform branding processes and help align business and strategy goals together to ensure the growth of marketed goods, products, and services. Therefore, learning and understanding about data procedures can help in their worthiness in branding settings.
Branding as a career role is inclined towards maximising the opportunities made by marketing employees and focuses on highlighting a brand’s presence across different mediums and channels. It augments realistic scenarios for deploying strategies and achieving results as per the firm’s ethics and values.
Professionals new to the world of branding need to enrol for the right set of courses to build their theoretical and practical acumen as per industry standards. The branding and marketing online course through an esteemed university can help set up successful careers, and help executives understand the descriptive role of data in online branding.
Developing a Database for Successful Branding
The collection of data and other information together in a place allows for better clarity, targeting of customers, gives a structured view over different procedures and workflows, in a career that’s ever changing and coming up with innovations daily.
Developing a database is amongst the rudimentary practices of branding that allows learners to consider the details they want to chuck into their information sources. Databases can be used for surveying different analytical arrears such as demographics, audience, engagement, and sales.
Incorporating Data Mining
Data mining refers to the process of going above and beyond for collecting, evaluating and storing information for future references. It is then unearthed to find trends, patterns, influences, and notable changes in data reserves.
Consistency and collection of data from various sources allow branding managers to understand their core features, compete with their fellow competitors and launch products that bring in greater economic returns for companies.
Branding and data mining need to go hand in hand for drawing conclusions from data and ensuring that a particular brand can examine different features to generate more information. Before starting with data mining, the primary objective needs to be about things related to the brand to attract viewership and attention.
Leads to More Personalised Goods
Personalisation is a big part of the digital branding game, and it needs to be done in the right amounts for bringing prospective buyers on board for interacting and engaging with goods offered by brands. The summation of database development, mining of data and other forms of the collection is done in order to notice trends that are helping businesses grow their customer retention levels.
Additionally, the more well-equipped businesses are about their consumers, retailers can pitch in the better products. The art of garnering success in digital branding settings is by knowing what the customers want and giving them products that they prefer.
Segmentation of branding strategies as per consumers with similar interests, passions, income groups, and other aspects is a better way to make successful branding practices.
Summation of Data in Digital Marketing and Branding
The inception of digital marketing data highlights the need to get to the root of problems and fix them as per the requirements. The introduction of data in marketing helps analyse issues from different points of view and offers credible perspectives regarding the various elements that lead to better and more efficient plans.
With increasing technologies, evolutions and breakthroughs every day, it’s vital to develop the correct data backed principles that can highlight significant areas of marketing and their role in generating more leads. Data today means more than just raw information; it has become the most powerful weapon that is driving success and growth for organisations today.
Data leads to nuanced pathways that can help track data, incorporate data in different content and online marketing tools offers information about various aspects, and streamline and smoothen a company’s sales cycles and marketing funnels.
It gives a better grip over data trends and influences taking place in industries today.
The presence of data in several digital marketing processes allows in diving deep and understanding issues, externalities, intrinsic features and other attributes with clarity and more precision.
The sole purpose of data amalgamation in digital marketing is to add different technologies such as analytics, analysis, utilisation of nuanced algorithms and toolkits for taking decisions, overseeing business topographies and preparing well in advance for upcoming challenges and hazards.
Therefore, the massive number of digital marketing online courses offered by leading institutions across the country aim at widening student’s knowledge about core procedures that help in conducive strategies, generating insights that can be beneficial for companies and making a long term plan for reaping profits and revenue generation for marketing agencies.
Tracking data and its acute application comes in handy while analysing customer online behaviours and collecting other informative data- their average time spent on websites, the products and goods they like to interact with, their preferences, demographics, and locations.
Furthermore, data also helps marketing managers in coming up with novel solutions for taking their businesses to newer heights and leading them towards market success.
The modern advancements described above in digital marketing demand setting up key performance indicators that assess a company’s success and failures. KPIs keeps a business grounded and allows them to monitor areas that are performing as per their expected levels.
The role of performance analytics is to ascertain that these KPIs are being looked after and branded products, goods and services are meeting their objectives in critical platforms like Facebook and Instagram and are able to convert the designated number of leads.
An online branding course rendered through a credible source can assist upcoming brand managers and designers to set up a strong foundation for their careers and garner success in their areas of specialisation. Data again acts as a pro player in outline branding strategies and processes. Professionals need to understand the titular role of data in brand domains.Branding acts as an anchor for digital marketing processes and gives a unique voice to brands, products and goods marketed by companies
However, the roles, responsibilities and other aspects of digital marketing and branding have taken a hit since the onset of Covid. As companies worldwide look to revive their economies, they need to start from scratch and look for means to plug the loopholes and gaps caused by Covid disruptions.
Disruptions Caused by Covid in the Branding and Marketing Domains
Covid has been the unforeseen event, natural calamity that has rocked businesses and has given a reality check for their existing practices, structures and other workflows. Given the nature of calamity and the extent of harm caused by the Covid-19 virus, industries need to look for alternative pathways leading to companies’ linear growth paradigms.
Covid today has hampered several organisations and many businesses that relied on daily leads for churning out their outputs have met a sudden jolt.
Therefore, for marketing and branding domains that are deeply impacted by international market trends, influences find themselves in hot water regarding managing their income sources and delivering products to end-users.
From changes in E-commerce to consumer behaviours, there have been significant changes in how businesses are carrying out their processing in a post-Covid era as its after-effects still continue to haunt the branding and marketing domains. Today Covid has changed the way humans commute, shop, eat out, buy, indulge in entertainment and interact with others.
The masks have become a necessity and a greater challenge lies in unmasking successful propositions in marketing goods and services as per regular times to end-users. Moreover, customers today have become more sceptical of buying and purchasing goods in shops or from malls since it involves large gatherings and acts as a breeding ground for the dangerous virus.
Therefore, the online branding and marketing practices have gained popularity and emerged as mainstream avenues for shopping goods from E-commerce websites.
However, there lies a catch, since now with increased demand for online goods, there is an imbalance with the supply of raw materials. Therefore, companies need to have enough stock in advance for avoiding such dire situations to happen.
Researchers have figured out the main disruptions caused by Covid on online digital marketing and branding phases.
Changes in Consumer Behaviour
Consumer behaviour depends on location, time, preferences and other dependencies. Scientists have revealed that consumption of information relies both on habits and context. With drastic changes and unpredictable patterns such as those of Covid, there needs to be a doctored and intelligent approach for developing future branding and marketing techniques.
There are several layers to consumer behaviour, these include- public policy, technology, and demographics. All these three play a dominant role in changing and influencing consumer behaviours.
Public policy focuses on changing and altering the shape and the ease of choosing and selecting products by consumers. Moreover, it also looks in seeking different alternatives for paving the way for customer’s purchasing patterns. For example, with Covid, the commute may be forced to look for alternative paths since air travel is banned across countries.
Changes in technology are formed as a result of the conversion of wants from needs. Hence, there are emerging innovations, evolutions, and new technicalities for online purchasing, gaming, paying bills online, and GPS navigation systems.
Lastly, changing demographics are another facet of consumer behaviour that lead to significant changes in how businesses move forward. They highly influence the nature of technologies, entertainment and other areas of human lifestyle. The new habits that develop amongst consumer diaspora lead to a change in buyer’s personas, characteristics, the culture as a whole, geographies and time periods.
Reshaping of Different Types of Advertising Practices
The practice of utilising various types of advertising boards, channels and other mechanisms for marketing procedures is an age old tradition. The primary objective of advertising practices is to create awareness, increase sales and maintain brand loyalty.
On the flip side, global brands focus on running multiple campaigns, including developing value-based marketing for establishing consumer’s identities.
The onset of Covid pandemic has caused advertisers of nearly all shapes and sizes to reconsider campaigns, branding protocols, marketing procedures and budgeting by incorporating risk and hazards mitigation plans in case strategies goes wrong or Hayward.
As a result of Covid implications, there has been a change in advertising practices and air travel along with small retailing companies that are worst hit by pandemic. Not only leading brands have been hurt by Coronavirus in terms of slowing economies, imbalances between demand and supply for organisations and challenges that follow.
Today, even digital new publishers are also struggling with generating online content, newsletters, blog posts and other targeted social media posts.
Analysis have shown that Covid-related content is in such copious amounts that it has resulted in withdrawing expenditures on different marketing aspects and blocking keywords across a nexus of programmatic channels on several news portals and websites.
- As per a study conducted by The New York Times, there has been a fall of about 15% and reduction in advertisement revenues during first quarters and worst hit are small-scale providers are worst hit by Covid compulsions.
- Another glaring statistic revealed by the UK’s Press Gazette could result in shutting down of 75% local providers as a result of drop rates in branding incomes.
Changing Mobility Patterns for Motor Insurance Companies
Restricted mobility across different parts of the world has led to stagnant growth for car insurance companies, and they’re coping with massive amounts in debts and loans.
To accitiimilise with these changes, insurance firms have introduced new practices such as pay-as-you-go products that come with customisable plans for movement. These are structured for stipulated distances and the future could see more of these innovations.
Leaders across the country need to seek out answers for central sources for uncertainties that are causing trouble to insurance sectors.
Both in the private and public sectors, there needs to be a system in place that can oversee challenges and offer insurance covers to their clients. There lies a complex interplay of government and businesses with their set of activities for leading these sectors.
This calls for a change in priorities, actions and behaviours in both segments and to create cohesive practices that lead to successful revival of economies. Now, the game changers at the top level are entrusted with the duty to envision success and growth opportunities for their companies.
Priorities need to change, and there needs to be more system wide and individual outcomes for coming up with a tactful solution for dealing with Covid changes. Leaders and company owners need to manage mobility as per individual consumer’s freedom, flexibility, and diversity of choice, or should their behaviors and outcomes be taken care of by shaping up the entire network topography. In metropolitan cities, industries can take care of policies and regulatory tools to encourage and facilitate better and profitable systems via reduced congestion.
Next up arises the dilemma of structuring future markets for mobility sectors, whether they need to be government regulated or led by market trends and influences. The introduction of new services and technologies are taking forward this domain towards sustained success and growth patterns.
Impact on Supply Chains dependent on Chinese Reserves
Supply chains are the bedrock for organisational success since they incorporate different activities from procurement of raw materials, their assimilation, delivery, distribution, warehousing and other aspects.
However, Covid has forced many companies to re-evaluate and redesign their supply chains from scratch. This comes with an immediate effect to deal with pandemic and its negative implications to businesses.
Companies have suffered heavily from vulnerabilities exposed from Covid, and as such, they are looking to strengthen their supply chains and look to develop products globally by using their raw materials.
Moreover, organisations that relied significantly on China for delivering raw materials have met with extreme repercussions and have been put at risk. Zeroing on the issue has provided glaring insights; nearly more than 200 firms out of those listed in 500 Fortune Global have originated from Wuhan; the initiating point of Coronavirus.
Chinese suppliers, manufacturers, procurement officers and other stakeholders that have a huge contribution in supply chains are more likely to experience severe disruptions from Coronavirus.
In order to successfully negotiate with these challenges and overcome them, businesses need to set up accurate and practical risk management plans, be prepared for increased absenteeism for employees undergoing quarantine, restricting non-essential travel, alignment of IT systems with evolving working environments etc for dealing with Covid’s negative implications.
Companies that get their raw materials, suppliers and manufacturers from China need to establish alternative sources for their procurement of goods, regularly update their inventory policies, be prepared well in advance for plant closures, focus on production scheduling, agility planning and others.
Getting Accustomed to the New Normal and Life Beyond in Branding and Marketing Domains
As seen from the article above, Covid has severely and negatively impacted online businesses with branding and marketing sectors being hit hard by pandemic. Now, as the world prepares and moves forward with Covid implications, companies too need to carve out pathways that help them successfully negotiate with its changes and foster strategies that help in sustained growth.
A branding and marketing online course can educate learners about different procedures that can lead to better policies and better management of risks and hazards. Businesses can move their customers online and offer them various options for products, goods and services. Going for a specialised program such as a marketing online course by MICA can assist upcoming managers to broaden their horizons with innovative techniques for attracting buyers.
Limiting physical contact, maintaining social distance and shifting business on online websites, newsletters, blog posts and developing an active interaction channel between companies and customers can lead to a win-win situation for both parties.
The entire cyclic process of digital marketing with branding and sales needs to be in line with each other and cater to the needs and demands of their end-users. However, in doing so, professionals need to reach out to their loyal customer base for maintaining consistent revenues.
