Important Considerations For Digital Branding

Making your mark as a business is largely about creating a defined sensibility. Building an identity that your customers can easily identify and resonate with, ensuring you stay at the top of their minds when your industry is discussed.

However, piecing together a clear image and voice can be a little harder if you operate primarily online or without a physical product to sell, meaning digital branding requires a unique, considerate approach. 

Defining Your Brand Identity

Think about the world’s most iconic brands and what they have in common. Clear visual messaging, a consistent voice and a product or service that aligns with the superficial.

Now, consider the biggest competitors in your industry, and what about their branding seems to connect with your target audience (which you can also properly define at this point). Finally, consider what your business is going to do differently, and how you’re going to stand out while existing in the same ecosystem. 

Core practices include defining: 

• Mission: What are you going to do?
• Vision: Where do you want to be?
• Values: Why are you doing it?
• Unique value proposition: Why are you better?

With this foundation, you can move smoothly into the practical. 

How To Create Visual And Voice Consistency

Your visuals and voice are going to be what customers interact with long before they put money down, so they need to be consistent across materials to create trust, loyalty and recognition. 

Core visual identity facets can include: 

• Your logo, variations of it, and how they’ll be used
• Primary and secondary colour palettes
• Typography
• Photography/graphic design style

They need to be cohesive and easy to recognise. 

In terms of your voice, you need to determine if you’re going to be authoritative, professional, casual, humorous, empowering or a combination. Find this tone and apply it across the board, from your first landing page to your social media presence. 

How To Apply Digital Branding Practically

With the base of your digital brand strategy in place, it’s time to construct and optimise the touch points that potential customers will connect with. 

• Your website: The website is king in terms of digital brand protection. It needs to be fast, mobile-friendly and reflective of who you are
• SEO: Your website, brand name and key offerings need to be easy to find on search engines, from a keyword-focused, backlink-based and technical standpoint
• Social media presence: Millions of people make purchases through social media, so guarantee everything from your Instagram to LinkedIn is engaging and consistent. You can also use these channels to inspire user-generated content
• Content: You can create content like articles, blog posts, guides and digital PR to be published elsewhere, along with video content and visual pieces. It should be used to tell stories and offer real value to your audience

Any performance digital marketing agency will tell you that these actions are essential for creating a strong digital brand. 

Measuring And Improving Performance 

You’re never going to do your best work straight away, which is why you need to monitor your efforts for improvement continuously. Make sure to track KPIs like: 

• Website traffic 
• Social media reach
• Search volume
• Engagement
• Sentiment/feedback

Alongside this, any good digital branding agency would also track competitor performance continually. Then, you take this data and use it to improve your performance going forward.

These are the fundamentals of digital branding, which should be followed to build a company that your target audience can recognise for years to come. If you need guidance, don’t be afraid to contact an agency for some support or advice. You’ll be a force to be reckoned with soon enough.