Tag Archive for: digital communication

Brand Trust: Why Disappointing Social Metrics May Be A Good Thing

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Key Takeaways

  • Brand Trust Definition and Measurement: Brand trust refers to the confidence consumers have in a brand, often assessed through metrics like net promoter scores or financial indicators. However, trust is more nuanced and can be influenced by subtle cues that affect emotional responses.
  • Emotional Responses vs. Trust-Building: While viral content often elicits strong emotional reactions (like anger or fear), these may not contribute positively to brand trust. Instead, low-emotion messaging that consistently reinforces trust over time can be more effective, as genuine trust develops gradually.
  • Consistency and Authenticity are Key: Building brand trust requires a consistent brand message and authentic customer experiences. Trust is easily shattered, so brands must ensure their actions align with their communicated values to maintain long-term loyalty and customer satisfaction.

What exactly IS brand trust and how do we measure it?

Brand trust is measured in many ways, sometimes we use a metric like a net promoter score. Sometimes the value of a brand is incorporated into EBITA, and we infer higher brand-value equals trust.

But really, what IS brand trust?  In a global environment where, according to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in institutions and media is at an all-time low, it’s more important than ever for brands of all sizes to keep ahead of the trust curve.

Neuroscientists have been researching the effects of our brains on trust with interesting results.  Neuroscientists have been researching the effects of our brains on trust with interesting results. In the book Brand Seduction-How Neuroscience Can Help Marketers Build Memorable Brands, Daryl Weber reveals how the unconscious mind is constantly picking up cues from our environment, including cues from brands, most of us don’t even realize our brain is doing this monitoring on our behalf. What this means though, is that every single subtle brand cue sends a message.

So how should we interpret trust in everyday execution and metrics analysis?

THE BRAIN ON FEAR

Think about the last time something you saw on social media enraged you. Chance are, just reliving that moment has your blood pressure spiking.  “Flight or fight” response, makes our brain neurons fire like mad. This, in turn, creates an emotional response. In contrast, our brain on trust is relaxed, open, I compare this state to homeostasis in the body. It’s the place our brain WANTS to be, but it’s also the place where triggers are not as emotional.

What this means is that emotional responses may NOT be positive for a brand trust. Take, for example, Facebook reactions. Content that triggers the most “viral” response is often content that creates anger, fear or other negative sentiments. But social media platforms (and their algorithms) aren’t yet evolved enough to understand that highly emotional reactions may not mean a piece of content is valuable for trust.The most viral content may do nothing to enhance trust. This does not mean that good never goes viral, but it DOES mean that computers don’t yet really grasp the difference,  even if humans (subconsciously) do.  But, humans are imperfect, and we’re often not even aware of our own reactions to messages.

This is to say, that in trust building, messages or ads that are viewed, but without huge emotional responses may actually be better for building trust. If you track reactions or sentiment on social, it might be disappointing at times to see that trust messages or messages built with trust intentions don’t get a lot of “lift.” But I would argue, that is exactly what you want from trust messaging.

LOW RESPONSE BUT MORE OF IT?

Imagine you’re making a special chocolate cake.
You create the first layer and ad the frosting.
It’s a good cake. It will taste good.
But it isn’t very impactful. So you add another layer. And another.
And before you know it, you have this impactful cake with layers of goodness inside. And when you finally EAT the cake, you enjoy it, even more, knowing there are multiple layers of goodness.  Trust is like that. The first layer of trust is good. It’s acceptable. But multiple layers of trust are better. Multiple layers of trust take time. The emotional response to trust is not “at the moment,” trust building is a front-loaded proposition. The payoff comes at the end. The payoff comes when the brand’s experience matches the anticipated trust. The brain remembers THAT satisfaction. Perhaps more subtly than an outraged response. But the brain DOES remember it at buying time. When you ate your beautiful chocolate cake, you enjoyed it. The next time you make a cake you’re more likely to make a chocolate cake over say, vanilla. This is how brand trust works.

The thing is, you need to reinforce that positive experience and positive response over and over. The subtle cues build up over time. But they can be replaced by constantly good experiences of vanilla cake too – because, you know, vanilla is equally yummy. Consistency is the key.

Have you ever known a brand one way than seen an ad that completely shifts the message? It’s jarring. Just today I was watching a conversation about a brand whose messaging, packing, product and ads were all luxury-level classy. Then they ran an ad showing a woman in panties with a pretty vulgar statement written on the panties. WOW! It got the attention of everyone, but overwhelmingly, their current customers were outraged, they thought they “knew” the brand, in some cases, people actually expressed betrayal.  These customers related to what they thought the brand was, a luxury-level classy product.  The brand’s trust has been shattered in the eyes of some. This particular ad may get high virality, but will the sentiment be overwhelmingly positive? And even it works, with what I call “a sugar spike” of sales, will those new customers be as loyal as the old ones? Will the old ones stick around?

Consistency is key. In branding trust, slow and steady wins the race. Look for consistently growing results, not “sugar spikes.” Sugar spikes mean you’re appealing to a specific audience over a short period of time, but not building any loyalty. That’s an even more expensive proposition than branding.

 

HOW DOES THE BRAIN BUILD TRUST?

We’re conditioned to trust our tribes.  Our brains attribute trust to brands who our tribe use. That’s why influencer marketing and customer reviews are so powerful. The person doesn’t even have to comment about using the product, they simply have to be seen using it.

One of the more brilliant examples of this is Jennifer Aniston’s water. This campaign works for two reasons: I KNOW Jennifer Aniston’s face already AND it’s consistent.  If you read any of the “celebrity” publications at all, you have seen Jennifer Aniston leaving the gym, getting out of her car or shopping with a bottle of water in her hand. SmartWater (and it’s parent company Coca-Cola) tapped into the inherent trust that Jennifer Aniston brings and then they gave her enough water to last a lifetime. Yes, Jennifer Aniston also appears in ads for this water, but the most memorable (to me, at least) are the pictures of her going throughout her daily life using the water. Every single time I open a magazine and there is a picture of Jennifer Aniston going about her daily life, she has SmartWater. This has been going on since 2015. Every single time I’m at the airport, I grab SmartWater, and I’m not even a particularly huge fan of hers, but somewhere in my brain I say “if it’s good enough for Jennifer Aniston, it’s good enough for me.” It’s not a conscious thought – it’s the brain operating and choosing based on those many layers. My hand just reaches for SmartWater, I don’t even really think about it. That’s what I mean by trust being a front-loaded proposition.

Zappos is another great example of brand trust. When Tony Hsieh started Zappos, he didn’t double down on ads, he doubled down on customer service. When the company was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion, 75% of its customers were returning customers.

 

BRAND ACTIONS OUTWEIGH ALL OTHER MESSAGES

If your water brand hires Jennifer Aniston and does all the same things as SmartWater did, but if it’s revealed that the water isn’t what it says it is, none of this will matter. Experience trumps all in trust. Worse, trust takes a long time to build, but it’s easily shattered. If you’re going to invest in trust, you must invest in an authentic way.

Above when I mentioned the jarring change of tone from classy to trashy, this also indicates that the brand isn’t clear on who it is and creates questions about the brand. “What other brand values are negotiable?” asks the brain. If this brand has built up trust with its existing customers, those customers now (even if subconsciously) question that trust.

An example of brand trust that does work is Red Bull. They’ve built their entire brand around adrenaline-fueled messaging. They went so far as to sponsor Felix Baumgartner when he jumped from space in 2012.  While this kind of stunt is absolutely designed to attract your attention, it’s also building brand trust – Red Bull’s customers know exactly what Red Bull stands for and they love it. Brand trust doesn’t have to be boring. 

IS BRAND TRUST WORTH THE INVESTMENT?

I suppose that depends on whether you’re in it for the long haul or not. Brand trust makes it easier for your customer to buy, creates triggers at the exact buying moment and that’s huge. But what else? Brand trust actually adds value to your company, makes it easier to attract talent and decreases costs because the product is easier for salespeople to sell. In the long run, brand trust saves money by also retaining customers.

In the end, brand trust is accessible to businesses of all sizes, but it takes commitment and consistency and yes, authenticity. You don’t need to be the biggest player on the block, just the most trusted.

In a world where trust in organizations is diminishing, building trust can be your most valuable asset – and because suspicion is so high for known brands, smaller niche brands who really do what they say and are consistent about it, have lots of room to develop that trust.

So what can you expect when you invest in brand trust? You might not see “sugar spikes,” and huge social media shares, instead you should see brand value reflected by consistent sales, repeat customers and even a stronger valuation that you’d have without it.

If you’re ready to invest in your brand, we are here to help you develop and execute your vision with aggressive elegance, contact us today.

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5 Emotions For Your Marketing & When To Use Them

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Key Takeaways

  • Utilize Fear for Urgency: Fear, particularly “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO) and “Fear of Isolation,” can create a strong sense of urgency and deeper connections. Use fear in your marketing when you have actionable solutions, want to drive leads, and can simplify the purchasing process.
  • Leverage Happiness for Sharing and Loyalty: Happiness fosters sharing and builds trust. Employ happiness in your campaigns when you want others to share your message and commit to creating a positive brand image. It’s particularly effective for viral content.
  • Create Anticipation to Build Loyalty: Anticipation keeps customers engaged and can lead to repeat business. Use it by offering stimuli that lead to enjoyable outcomes, maintaining consistency in your branding, and exploring gamification strategies to heighten engagement.

Imagine your advertising and marketing becoming 2X more effective overnight. Using emotions in marketing and branding is the key to more effective campaigns

According to Roger Dooley, emotional ads work TWICE as well as rational ads. So it’s important your campaign incorporates emotion from the start. You can deploy these emotions through copy and creative in all formats, analog and digital.

Before you create your next campaign, check in with these powerful emotions in marketing and branding.  Be sure you’ve considered your strategy, both long and short term before deciding which emotion works best in your marketing.

Fear
Fear comes in many forms, and it creates a sense of urgency.

Fear also heightens any other emotion created alongside it and it drives us to make deeper connections with those we share the fear with-this is why scary movies create deepen relationships. 

There are several different kinds of fear, but two common types include:
“Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO): This particular fear tends to work well on younger people in social media. This works particularly well for items with time sensitivity.
“Fear of Isolation”: closely connected to FOMO, fear of isolation, used in connection with health products, deodorant for example: “use this so you don’t smell, because when you smell, you become a social pariah.”

When to Use Fear in Emotional Marketing/Branding:

  • To drive leads
  • You have a specific and actionable solution
  • You have an easy, no stress way to buy

Happiness/Joy
What happens when we feel happy? You might be surprised.

It’s a fine line because if we’re too happy, we might not be motivated to purchase. But happiness DOES make us want to share. It seems good news travels fast. According to a study by Fractl these are the Top 5 emotions which drive viral content:

  • Amusement
  • Interest
  • Surprise
  • Happiness
  • Delight

When to Use Happiness in

in Emotional Marketing/Branding:

  • You want others to share your message
  • You want to build trust and loyalty
  • You can commit to happy content as a brand

Inclusion

One of our oldest motivations is the need to be part of a tribe, included in a group. For our earliest ancestors, it was a requirement for survival, today, that need is still a powerful motivator and when we have it, we feel safe which leads to loyalty.

When to Use Inclusion in

in Emotional Marketing/Branding

  • To attract or retain customers
  • When you can also utilize the fear of missing out
  • When you have the processes and platforms to create and sustain community

Anticipation

We’re hardwired to anticipate outcomes. We’re not always right, but we are always anticipating. You can use anticipation in a couple of different ways, to attract and retain customers.

Attracting customers with anticipation typically comes with a stimuli and an outcome. The faster the outcome, the more likely we are to repeat the stimuli. Once we’re hooked on the stimuli, the outcome frequency can become variable (you might have learned about Pavlov’s dog, this is the same theory). Gamification uses anticipation brilliantly.

Keeping customers with anticipation requires a product commitment (free sample with every order) or an anticipation experience connected to the product (why subscription boxes are so popular). You can create variables in the anticipation (products, frequency) that will actually heighten the anticipation.

Something else about anticipation: it DECREASES when we’re stressed and change can be stressful. This is why consistency in branding is so very important and why big changes for big brands are big-time risks. Can you think of a brand whose big change created major negative upheaval for them?

When to Use Anticipation in

in Emotional Marketing/Branding:

  • You have the willingness to keep the anticipation fresh
  • You want to build loyalty and repeat buyers
  • Your brand is elevated and/or lifestyle oriented

Expertise/Leadership

Making your customer feel like they’re the smartest/sexiest/most influential is a great way to get people’s attention. People love to be the most “something” of their friends and people will work to achieve this effect.

This marketing emotion is closely connected with our need for mastery and our innate value of time. Because of these two addition motivations, the harder you make it the more committed they will become to the process. It’s all about our emotional triggers again, we’re hardwired to commit more time to something we’ve already committed time to – this is the same theory behind the test drive and keeping you at the dealership during a car purchase.

Again, games do this quite well. Successful fitness trainers do this quite well.

When to Use Expertise and Leadership in your Marketing/Branding

  • When you have a unique process people can move through and see improvement
  • As a relationship builder, such as influencer marketing or tips and tricks your customers can use

Good luck and I look forward to hearing how you’re using emotion in your marketing and branding.

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I’m Just Not That Into You – Choosing Social Platforms in 2017

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Key Takeaways

  • Focus on Audience and Goals: Selecting the right social media platform hinges on understanding your specific audience and clearly defining your goals. It’s essential to align your chosen platforms with your objectives, whether that’s branding, engagement, or conversions, rather than simply following trends or competitors.
  • Quality Over Quantity in Audience Engagement: While active user numbers are important, the quality of engagement on a platform is crucial. Evaluate whether your target audience is genuinely present and engaged on the platform, rather than relying on broad assumptions about user demographics.
  • Content Matters: Tailor your content to resonate with your audience’s motivations and self-perceptions. Highly shareable content reflects how individuals want to portray themselves. Incorporating video and considering the type of content that engages your audience can significantly enhance your social media effectiveness.

What social media platforms are right for your business?

 

Choosing social media platforms. I get asked which social platform is right every single day. The answer is: “it depends.” It’s common today to launch on a platform because it’s “hot” or to question your presence on a platform because someone says the platform its “dying” but this isn’t a particularly effective strategy.

Here’s why- there is a (large) audience on many social media sites. Your goal is to get the right message in front of the right audience then engage with that audience through content and conversation.

Set the goals and strategies that work for YOU, don’t worry about what your competitor is doing. Choose your strategy and work it, work it, work it.

For the average business, it isn’t necessary to be on every single social platform, invest in a couple and do them well.

Let’s understand something: failures in social media are almost never the “platform’s fault.” The platform doesn’t “suck,” because it doesn’t work for you. Choosing your social media platforms is a balance between content, audience, and goals.  Regardless of social media platform, there are spectacular successes and flaming failures.

social media success happens for 3 reasons:

1) absolute audience clarity
2) commitment to goal and objective clarity
3) content creation that matches the audience’s motivations

That’s it. It’s that simple and it’s that complicated.

With that in mind, here are some considerations for choosing the right social platform for your business.

Objectives & Goals

You probably have numerous strategies for social media-now its up to you to decide which social media platforms are right for your business.  It’s not enough to say “we’re on social media,” because everything you do hinges on knowing what you’re trying to accomplish. It could

It’s not enough to say “we’re on social media,” because everything you do hinges on knowing what you’re trying to accomplish. It could eyeballs (branding), engagement (building community and fans) or it could be website click-thru’s (conversions), all those things are possible on social media, but they require a deep understanding of how and why your audience participates with the platform and what kind of content they engage with.

Be sure your platforms, goals and metrics are all aligned.

One platform might be a better branding platform, another might be a better engagement platform. Engagement might vary by audience on the same platform. I’ll give you an example, in broad strokes,  millennials are ON Facebook, but not highly engaged, except millennials with kids, they’re pretty engaged with the right content. Yet, I just did a campaign where our content was so spot on, millennials (with and without kids) engaged on Facebook and the brand wasn’t even on Snapchat (we break rules over here sometimes).  My point is – whatever broad strokes we point to, based on the rest of the considerations, there’s always an exception to be made.

Set clear goals and expectations and use content and the right platforms to meet those goals.

 

Audiences:

Yes, the number of active users matters, but let me put it in context for you. The 2017 Superbowl drew 111 million viewers, making it the 5th most watched Superbowl in history. It cost approximately $5M-$5.5M to run an ad during the Superbowl, and that’s just for the airtime, not including commercial conceptualization, production, etc.

So with that in mind, may I present some of the ACTIVE USER NUMBERS for social media platforms as of January 2017:

Facebook: 1,871 Million 
WeChat: 846 Million
Instagram: 600 Million 
Twitter: 317 Million 
Snapchat: 300 Million 

Snapchat, the darling of the social media world has only slightly fewer daily users than Twitter, which is occasionally called a “dying social channel.” Neither of them comes close to the number of people on WeChat. What gives? Why do people say Twitter is dying and Snapchat is hopping and no one in the US is developing WeChat content?

There are some serious problems on Twitter (bots, trolls) which Snapchat isn’t suffering from, and as Snapchat gets some of the “new shiny toy” glow, but let’s put that aside for a moment. On BOTH platforms there is an audience of an extremely sizeable daily audience – 3X the size of the Superbowl. Facebook’s daily audience size is 100X the size of the Superbowl.

So when someone tells you “no one is on that platform,” go ahead and unleash your side-eye.

Audience size matters, but quality over quantity- let’s really consider whether the platform has YOUR audience, whether your audience is engaged there.

 

Content

First and foremost, you’ve got to consider what motivates your audience to engage with content. Do they want to be entertained or informed? Highly shareable content tends to be something that your audience feels reflects their self-story, so if you want your content to be shared, consider your audience’s self-perceptions of themselves. People share content because they feel it reflects the story they want others to know about them. Someone who considers themselves geeky interacts with different content than someone who considers themselves artistic.

Do they want to be entertained or informed? Highly shareable content tends to be something that your audience feels reflects their self-story, so if you want your content to be shared, consider your audience’s self-perceptions of themselves. People share content because they feel it reflects the story they want others to know about them. Someone who considers themselves geeky interacts with different content than someone who considers themselves artistic.

Highly shareable content tends to be something that your audience feels reflects their self-story, so if you want your content to be shared, consider your audience’s self-perceptions of themselves. People share content because they feel it reflects the story they want others to know about them. Someone who considers themselves geeky interacts with different content than someone who considers themselves artistic.

Almost all platforms are diving headfirst into video and livestreaming. In platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) where video is prioritized in the feed, you’ll see video almost always out-performs other types of content, so be sure you’re considering video in the mix – especially short video. Social media has made our attention spans so incredibly brief – you have about half of a second to engage the viewer and hook them.

Regardless of content type, the key is to create content that’s in the sweet spot of your brand story and your audience’s self-story.

In short, choosing the right platforms depends on your specific mix of objectives, audiences and content. Trust me, there’s a sweet spot for you on social media, whatever platforms you choose when you “get” your audience and create the right content.

Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

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The Secret To Captivating Content Strategy

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Did you know that we’re all ruled by a super-powerful hormone? It’s true. This hormone dominates decision-making, especially split-second choices like the ones digital users are making every day. Decisions like “click,” “like,” “retweet,” and more importantly, “buy” and “subscribe” are all significantly affected by this hormone. Savvy marketing strategists have been triggering this hormone for years, some knowingly, some stumbling upon it.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of this hormone. You’ve heard about it in the context of drugs, sex, and even food. But what does this hormone do for marketers? I’ll get to that in a minute.

First, a little more about this hormone: dopamine. See? I told you you’ve heard of it. Dopamine is best known as the “pleasure hormone.” It’s the hormone that creates the surge of euphoria that we feel after a particularly satisfying (insert pleasure here).

But the surge of satisfaction is not actually the most powerful tool in a communicator’s arsenal.

The most powerful tool for the content communicator is anticipation.

And it turns out that dopamine is actually more aptly described as the “wanting and seeking” hormone. Ah. Now you get it, right? It turns out that the “wanting and seeking” trigger is MORE powerful than satisfaction. This means we’re hard-wired to keep looking, keep seeking until we satisfy our wanting and seeking—and then we’re hard-wired to do it all again.

Think for just a moment about the advantage to your content and overall marketing strategy if you can trigger this motivation. Images can trigger our wanting and seeking. Ever seen a really great close-up shot of your favorite food and searched for how to have it delivered at lunch that very day?

Images of just about anything we want can trigger our “wanting and seeking” hormone. This means you really need to think about the images you’re using in marketing and advertising, because images are incredibly key to the top of the funnel.

While we see food and sex all the time in marketing, it might be that those images aren’t appropriate for your brand. Good news for you. Because there’s more.

Guess what else fuels our anticipation?

Just guess. This is super important because not all businesses and campaigns are suitable for triggering food, sex, and drug urges. Curiosity.

The brain experiences dopamine rushes when we’re curious for more information. Think about the last Google search you did. Ever been sucked down the rabbit hole of Google and found yourself coming out of the other side 45 minutes later? That’s your insatiable, hormone-driven seeking and wanting trigger.

Our quest for information is basically never-ending. We’re hard-wired that way, and from an evolutionary standpoint, this is a splendid thing. Now WHAT information triggers this is the key.

This is where we circle back around to audience identification and personalization. We’re inundated with information, so we have to be very clear on our audience so we understand WHAT kind of information or curiosity triggers them.

Motivational triggers work on all people, but what activates them is where your marketing research and strategy comes in.

Another thing that triggers our wanting and seeking hormone is unexpected prompts that are auditory or visual. You know what does this exceptionally well? Your phone.

It beeps, vibrates, or a message pops up—and you almost always stop what you are doing to look at it, don’t you? If you don’t, it takes an active and conscious effort on your part.

This is why my most hated and dreaded marketing tactic, pop-up messaging, is so powerful. I personally drop right out of a page when I get a pop-up because I feel like it’s insensitive to the reader, but the truth is, it works on the vast majority of people because the surprise triggers the wanting and seeking.

Novelty and unpredictability also trigger our seeking behavior. This is why “New and Improved” works.

The Counter Intuitive Path

You’ve probably heard over and over again to simplify. The message is too long. The funnel is too long. Overall, this is good advice.

However, once you really understand the “seeking and wanting” hormone, your path can actually be quite long—so long as it keeps triggering curiosity and gives information in small bits and pieces, even if it withholds the full solution until the end.

Ever seen an ugly landing page that was all text that you ended up reading despite yourself? Really awesome copywriters understand how to use this tactic to move you through the process.

Interestingly enough, the more time you spend on something, the more committed you are. So long copy and long funnels have a purpose—and in the right situation, with the right audience, they work.

In A Nutshell:

Here it is in a nutshell: trigger the wanting and seeking hormone. Make your audience curious. Lead them down a path that satisfies in bits and pieces.

Experiment with what triggers curiosity in your audience and test the strength of that curiosity with funnel length. Triggering the “wanting and seeking” hormone is the very premise behind free information in content marketing and the internet in general.

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What IS Digital Marketing Strategy?

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Key Takeaways

  • Importance of a Thought-Out Strategy: Simply being present on social media is insufficient; a well-defined digital marketing strategy is crucial to navigate a crowded marketplace and enhance brand effectiveness, ultimately saving time and money.
  • Three Core Components: A solid digital strategy should focus on:
    1. Audience Identification: Understanding customer pain points and preferences through research to ensure messaging resonates.
    2. Voice Clarity: Establishing a consistent communication style that aligns with audience expectations and brand identity.
    3. Digital Distinguishers: Identifying unique selling points by analyzing competitors and recognizing what your brand can offer differently.
  • Flexibility through Strategy: A well-conceived strategy allows for adaptability in the fast-paced digital landscape, enabling brands to pivot with intention rather than react impulsively to changes.

Why do you need a digital strategy and what is it?

Since digital and social media are so accessible, it’s easy to think the results are just as accessible.
But the truth is, simply BEING on social media isn’t a strategy any more (if it ever was enough).
The digital world has brought us many, many advances, but it’s also brought a much more distracted and diluted market place.

The average person is exposed to over 5,000 messages a day.

Perhaps even more, especially if they are heavy social media users.
We used to tell brands that every person needed exposure to a message 7 times before it sunk in.
With today’s clutter and fast-paced media world, I put that number at closer to 12 today.

But having a digital marketing strategy saves you time and money and can even possibly reduce the number of exposures required.

A lot of people are reluctant to spend the time on a digital strategy thinking that the digital world is so fast moving that the minute you settle on a strategy, things will change.
Actually, it’s the opposite, the more thought out your marketing strategy, the more you’ll be able to roll with the punches.
Strategy allows you to be more fluid, not less.
And even if you DO change your strategy, at least you’ll do so with intent.

So what IS a digital strategy?
A good digital marketing strategy answers ALL you’re “Why’s”
If you can’t defend a piece of content, a post or an answer of how that benefits your company and it’s customers, then you don’t have a strategy.

A good digital strategy has three components:

Outstanding audience identification.

Start with the customer. Always.
Your digital audience may be a sub-segment of your larger audience or it may be your entire audience. It doesn’t matter, really.
What’s most important is that your extremely clear on your audience’s pain points, interests and emotional triggers.
If you’re clear on who you’re speaking to, everything in your digital strategy will improve.
This will require some research, because no matter what you THINK you know about you’re customers, if you do some research on them, you’ll learn something about what resonates, what’s memorable and what matters to them.
The customer research will help you stay on message and consistent regardless of platform choices. You’ll know you’re on the right track because you have the research to back it up.

Product and Service Voice Clarity

How will you communicate with your community in the digital space?
Sometimes, the tone of voice in digital is different from the tone of voice in other mediums.
In fact, most of the time it is.
Once you know your audience, you can start to blend in their preferences with how they like to be communicated WITH along side the brand consistency you’re trying to accomplish. Voice consistency takes time and intention to develop and implement, but once you do it, you’ll be well on your way to executing a great digital strategy.

Digital Distinguishers

Chances are, you have some competition in the digital world.
Take a careful look at your competitors. What’s missing?
What can you do better than anyone else?
This takes brutal honesty because you’ve got to be incredibly clear on who you are, who you want to be and how that meshes with how your community sees you and what you’re willing to do or not do.
The digital user is quick to point out the inauthentic, so be honest with yourself here, so you can be honest with your customers.
Your digital distinguishers should include your product and service differentiation while integrating with what makes your customers unique.
This is the place where it all comes together.

Once you’ve put all these pieces in place, a real digital marketing strategy can emerge.
Now you can start to identify content types, frequency, messaging, and platforms that support your strategy.

With the inundation of messages today, the ONLY way to be in the digital space is to do so with a strategy, otherwise, you’re actually doing damage to your brand and you’re seriously missing out on opportunity, relationships, and dollars.

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