3 Things Every Brand Needs for a Great Digital Presence (and One to Skip)
#1 - Website Development
If you want your company to be successful in current times you’ve got to have a professional website design. Your website is the pillar that is supporting all of your digital marketing efforts. The appearance and functionality of your site can make or break your business’ online presence. Everything that we develop on or after this point is going to be a pathway back to it, so your site really is the most critical aspect of your brand identity.
During this stage, you can begin to think about what tools and technologies will benefit your organization. Not sure where to start? There are three important components here.
First, you should ensure that all the technology you implement relates to your goals. Second, focus on technology that will fit your organization’s environment. Don’t choose something that is too complex for the tasks at hand or for your users. Lastly, only adopt one technology at a time. Otherwise, this process can quickly become overwhelming.
#2 - Make it a Team Effort
Digital marketing is an on-going process and its extremely important that employees support their digital marketing strategy. Which means in order to create a seamless digital campaign, you need to nurture a culture that thrives on this. This needs to extend to everyone inside your organization.
According to a study by McKinsey, behavior and culture challenges are one of the most common barriers to digital effectiveness. You can adopt new technologies and create new values. However, if your employees don’t make these things a part of their day-to-day operations, digital transformation won’t be successful.
#3 - Analyze & Clear Direction
First off, you have to know where your business stands today. Start by asking a few questions:
What processes are working and what’s not working?
How comfortable is your team with technology?
Are there pain points that you can address with digital campaign?
Answering these few questions will help you determine what to prioritize as you begin your digital adventure. Remember, it’s important to think about this from two perspectives. You should consider the experiences that your employees have and the experience your customers have.
Once you understand where your organization is today, you can start a clear direction for digital marketing and advertising. This is the time to think about what your priorities are as you go through this process. Take the time to determine how the changes you plan to make will impact your organization, how to execute and how this connects to your goals.
Skip it –
Advertising seems like the way to get your business at the forefront of consumer’s minds. That is not the case if you don’t have anything substantial to advertise. It’s just going to be a waste of your money because if you don’t have your digital package in line, you don't have anything to promote.
Before social media channels are chosen and your website is yet to be fully operational, where will your advertisements take your customers? How are customers going to know if the business that pops up on Google is yours or you may be directing them to competitors instead. At best, they’ll be confused when they don’t find any trace of your presence and likely won’t come back. At worst, they’ll end up giving clicks to a brand with a similar name.
Without your digital identity being fully developed, spending money on advertising is seriously jumping the gun.
Think of your brand and your digital presence as one and the same — you need to force out your identity in every space available in order to gain the greatest momentum. By going through these steps in your digital package, you’ll position yourself to be fully responsive and able to handle an influx of business that will come as the result of your well-planned marketing campaign.
If you’re still feeling a bit overwhelmed or have questions, we have a team here to guide you. Feel free to send us an email or DM!
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