Post Summary: A comprehensive high level outline of the key elements in creating an effective brand strategy for either taking an offline brand online, or for rebranding an existing online offering.
[For further reference try Pete Laver’s “Building a Brand in a Week”. Some of this methodology is adapted from his approach.] To make this process easier to take in at a glance, I've also added a spider diagram of the process at http://blogs.conchango.com/photos/conchango_bloggers/The-Digital-Branding-Process.aspx
You should find it fairly easy to find out more detail on the various components by searching the web, so I’ve kept the explanations very brief. The aim is to give you a high level overview of what’s involved in the digital branding process.
The success of any branding or marketing strategy is primarily down to exploiting the medium to your advantage. The net has transformed the nature of communication - with a multitude of options just a click away, branding needs to be designed to capture those 'sticky eyeballs' and focus them on your product or service. As with offline marketing strategies around positioning, brand building and target marketing apply to the virtual market place. Corporations extending products and services to the virtual world must adopt a well-integrated online branding strategy in sync with their terrestrial banding strategies, not only to ensure higher brand equity, but also to achieve the necessary differentiation of their products and services, which is a key factor in eMarketing.
The key however, is to think differently and not simply replicate terrestrial branding models. The online audience is different and interactive, and has greater choice coupled with a lower threshold of patience. Online branding is therefore about an experience rather than the traditional one-way bombardment of messages.
Offline, branding is about crafting careful visual and textual images that potential buyers passively consume. Branding on the Web is entirely different, because it needs to be active and not simply about associating a colour, phrase or character with a service. Everything you do online becomes part of the brand building experience, with people forming an image of brand based on their experience and the messages they perceive. The point to note is that a brand will acquire an identity through association and interaction, whether it is proactively planned or not; so it makes sense to develop branding strategies that allow you take control of this process.
The following is a general overview of a process to develop a successful digital brand, outlined as follows:
· Brand building and re-evaluation
· Brand tracking
· Designing Value
· Messaging (Building equity through communication)
· eMarketing Techniques
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**Explanatory notes are shaded grey**
- Brand building and re-evaluation process
- Situational Report (4C analysis)
- Offline Company / Brand audit
- Brand identity map
Difference between identity and image comprises the strategic gap concentric map of **attributes only** in order of categories with essence in the centre - Brand essence
Core values: What does your business do? What does it value? What would you like people to say about it?
How do you clearly and compellingly state the mission and benefit of the organization in less than seven words?
What are the organization's values and ethics?
What are the most important services (or purchase factors) that the organization provides?
What are the tangible benefits and emotional benefits of those services? - Brand needs
Identify whether customer needs are primarily functional, social or psychological. Each set of needs requires a marketing solution. - Functional
- Social
- Psychological
- Brand benefits
needs are met by benefits and not features - Brand personality and associations
If your brand was a person who would it be?
If your brand had a hobby what would it be etc?
What associations does it bring to mind? - Brand attributes
- Brand behaviour
consistency is key
- Brand Identity Statement
- Business purpose
- Core values
- Benefit statement
- Personality
- Audio visual identity
attributes - Knowledge base/operational zone
skills, products, brand extensions - Development
- Tone of voice
- Portfolio position
- Image gap analysis
- Behaviour
- Categories and main competitors
- Numerical
sales and profitability budgets and forecasts market share - ROI
- Customer analysis
- Customer map
typically 20% of customers account for 60% of sales and 50% of customers account for 10% of sales. in industries like banking where loyalty is a major factor, key is to identify, retain and enthuse this 20% rather than ignoring them and focusing on new prospects or winning business customer map to identify existing and potential customers - Segmentation
adapt offline segmentation for web - Online
New variants / opportunities - Offline
Review to identify whether the demographic of this audience changes online, and whether or not those who don't use online channels could be convinced to do so.
- Online Competitor analysis
- Competitor map
- Differentiators / USPs
- Competitive advantage matrix
relational analysis - Organisational
- Advisory / Support / Content
- Products / Applications
- Design and usability
- Soul
this cause of competitive advantage is branding
- Industry map
Threats from new entrants and changing trends
- Multi-Channel strategy
- Consider Factors
- Environmental
socio-economic, technical and political changes that could affect the brand or industry. identify who the winners and losers could be - Power structure
- Economic
- Identity
- Identify existing Marketing channels
- Group channels by audience segmentation
- Create multi-channel strategy for supporting the digital brand
eg. Tie in other marketing channels to promote the online brand through launches, print, mail, email, newsletters, or even eCards (great for promotion as well as increasing traffic to the website)
- Positioning Statement
- Refine brand map to identify what you want to say
- To whom
- Why?
i.e. what’s the proof
- Refine competitor map to identify who you can establish a clear point of difference against
- Define the brand essence/core values
- Growth Vector Analysis
- Increasing usage
among existing users - target high worth customers alternatively create warning systems to monitor this group and respond quickly to their problems - Extending range
- Growing the market
- Alliances
- Directly targeting rivals
- Innovating to create new markets
- Growth Driver Analysis
- Identify success drivers
- Create track-backs to track/measure performance
- Feedback into improvement cycle
- Action Plan
- Brand tracking
Find out what key customers think of your key drivers - Exploration
- Omnibus research
- Dipsticks
- Usage Surveys
- Focus Groups
- Development
experiment with technique, message and approach changes - Focus groups
- Interviews
- Workshops
- Observations
- Evaluation
Track results and implement change
- Designing brand value
- Put maximum resources to areas of high value return
- Develop great customer service
- Leverage real world brand equity
build sites that fit your offline image - Involve customers and listen and react to their feedback – use it to offer utility and functionality;
people want online interfaces to be useful and easy to use - Break away from the pack and do your own thing
unique is memorable - Harness digital word of mouth by creating a buzz
leverage hive marketing by inspiring or motivating users to tell their friends - Establish brand icons
in a visual society, icons communicate in a way that ads and words can't - Present a consistent organisational identity to each audience
inconsistencies inherent in communicating different messages to different audiences can significantly damage credibility and reputation
- Messaging (Building equity through communication)
Position for context and content - what do you want to say, with what and to whom - Communication Goals
- Persuade customers to take up service/product
- Widen or Increase frequency of use or purchase
- Build brand loyalty
- Create interest in the brand
- Develop awareness of, and preference for the brand
- Define user differences to increase range
- Messaging Techniques
- Metaphors
- Metanymy
- Memorability
- Positivity
- Wordplay
- Copy Strategy
- Brand Characteristics
- Background logic
- Brand Positioning
- Advertising Goals
- Target markets and positioning strategy
- Proof /Offering
- Tone of voice
- eMarketing Techniques
- Push and Pull
- Drip and Fire
- Direct Response
- Relationship Marketing
- Viral marketing
self-perpetuation mechanisms to increase the user base. Email referral - look for content and ways of encouraging users to advertise for you via email - Buzz marketing
Word-of-mouth referral - look for content and reasons that could encourage users to advertise for you via word of mouth