Digital Branding: Bring some strategy to your digital presence
Digital branding has a bigger impact on your business than you realize. Colors, fonts, language, and imagery, on the surface, seem soft. Can it really increase your audience and lead to more revenue?
According to Forbes, color improves brand recognition by up to 80%, and brand consistency across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%. The impact of a consistent digital brand affects the bottom line. So, how do you get started on building your business’ brand, resulting in more sales?
What is digital branding?
Lidia of Lidia Varesco Design defines branding as “a person’s perception of your organization” and “the overall experience your [customers] have.”
So what is digital branding? It’s the perception that you create through your digital channels. It’s the overall experience customers have when using your website, viewing your social media posts, reading your email marketing, and watching your webinars. If your social media posts are bright and colorful, you tell your customers that your brand is vibrant and fun. When your email copy empathizes with your customers’ struggles, you tell them that your brand is understanding.
Is branding the same thing as marketing?
Although related to marketing, what separates branding from marketing is that branding doesn’t call on your audience to take action. Instead, branding is the way that you create a personality for your brand.
That personality appeals to your ideal customers. It makes them want a relationship with your brand. It can also repel the wrong customer. If your branding is fun and light, it’ll appeal to fun-loving people. It won’t appeal to everyone. Some people will look for a business with a more serious and buttoned-up brand. If this seems scary, remember that customers who are a good fit will be happier with your work.
Let’s take the example of a website. You have a strong call to action throughout: Book an Appointment. That’s marketing.
Branding covers the elements that evoke an emotion with your audience.
Your branding defines the tone of your messaging: for example, understanding and friendly. Branding also defines the visuals: for example, a palette of soft pastels and stock photography of calming landscapes.
An effective digital branding strategy helps people to recognize, trust, and love your brand.
What makes an effective digital branding strategy?
Effective branding is consistent. It brings all of your separate digital marketing channels together. It ensures that those channels tell the same story, create the same mood, and support your brand’s values.
To be effective, your branding also needs to be specific to your target audience. A brand that appeals to everyone won’t inspire anyone. Think about Nike. Nike’s branding is all about action in the face of adversity. Campaigns like “You Can’t Stop Us'' speak to people who are struggling, telling them they’re “never alone.” Nike takes stances that won’t resonate with everyone, but create strong emotional responses for their ideal customer and inspires them.
Do you really need a digital branding strategy?
Yes! You could operate without one, but getting clear about your digital brand makes your marketing more powerful and efficient. Tiny Marketing is all about making the most of your limited time. Starting from a defined brand simplifies content creation and helps that content resonate with your audience. By having a strong digital brand, it streamlines processes, making it easier to reach your ideal audience.
How can you keep a team on-brand?
Defining your brand is important, but it only works if your digital assets reflect the brand. When you’re working with a team, everyone needs to be aligned. A brand guide is the way to do this.
A minimalist approach to brand guides
In a large company, the brand guide might be 60 pages. A robust brand guide might cover not just what, but explanations for why. Large guides cover iconography and illustration styles. They provide direction on when to use stock photos versus iconography. They go into detail on how much space to leave between headings. Google Marketing Platforms, for example, provides a 66-page Visual Guidelines document.
There’s no limit to how in-depth a brand guide can be, but it can be much simpler.
A minimalist brand guide might be one page and include:
Your company values
A description of your brand’s tone and mood
A color palette
2-3 fonts
A link to assets like logos and templates
A link to your mood board
Make it easy to follow the brand guide
Whether you’re working with 2 teammates or 200, you will want to make it simpler for everyone to follow the guide than to go off-script.
Keep everything related to branding in a shared folder on Dropbox or Google Drive
Make it easy for everyone to find the logo files
Create templates for social media posts, email signatures, etc.
What about a team of one?
Brand guides are critical for teams, but what if you’re working alone?
A minimalist brand guide can still make your work easier. Imagine knowing exactly which fonts, colors, and graphics to use, rather than searching for the best one for each social media post or email campaign.
By having a simple brand strategy, you can systematize your processes. Creating new graphics or designing a landing page won’t take as much time because you already know exactly what colors, fonts, styles, and imagery you need to use.
Investing time in a brand guide simplifies the work you do later. When you’re not sure about messaging or visuals, revisit your brand guide.
And if you find yourself needing outside help later? You already have an essential asset that helps others understand your brand. Working with contractors becomes easy. It costs less and requires fewer revisions when you have guidelines to follow.
How do you start creating your digital branding strategy?
Digital branding should start with defining who your brand is and who your audience is.
Get clear about your brand identity
To start describing who your brand is, ask yourself these questions:
What are my company’s values?
What is our mission?
Who is my ideal customer?
How do I want customers to feel when they interact with my company?
What’s my unique value proposition?
Find keywords to define your brand
Next, brainstorm some adjectives to describe your brand.
Not sure where to start? Are you more:
Playful or Sincere
Established or Upstart
Trendy or Traditional
Fun or Reliable
Relaxed or Serious
As you find keywords, think about how they appeal (or don’t) to that ideal customer you defined. Branding and marketing has to refer back to the customer, so keep your audience in mind.
Use a mood board to visualize your brand identity
Branding covers visual aspects (colors, fonts, images) as well as messaging. Translating a brand into visuals isn’t always obvious.
What color is sincerity?
What font says “we take our work seriously”?
Using mood boards helps to make that leap. Pinterest makes this easy: create a board for “Branding” and add images that speak to you. Later, go back with a critical eye. Find the images that truly represent your brand and remove the ones that don’t.
Bonus tip: Coolors.co is a useful tool for creating color palettes. You can start from an image, or generate random (coordinated) palettes. Once you’ve settled on a palette, Coolors.co can export a PDF to use with your brand guide.
Digital branding helps you reach customers
Effective digital branding brings all of your digital assets together with a consistent identity and message. It develops audience recognition. It helps people to build a relationship with your brand.
Do you already have a strong digital brand or is it still undefined? Are you trying to appeal to everyone, or taking a strong stance to attract the best customers for your business?
Take the time to document your digital brand now and save yourself hours of time later.
